“You look like you’re going to break your brain with all that concentrating,” Will said, making me jump.
“Sorry, just thinking.”
“I can tell. What are you thinking about?” He closed his book and gave me his full attention. Just for now, I wished he wouldn’t do that.
“Oh, just this assignment. I’m trying to figure out how I want to approach it. What I want to say in my paper. How to start.”
“Well, they say the beginning is a good place to start.” He smirked at me and got up from the bed to come and give me a kiss. I quickly clicked out of the blank email and pulled up a paper I’d been working on earlier.
“Will Anders, did you just quote The Sound of Music?”
“No. Absolutely not. I would never do such a thing.” He leaned his chin on my shoulder. “Are you done yet?”
“I told you, I’m having trouble starting.”
He sighed and then kissed the top of my head and went back to his book.
It was another week before I got the results of the cheek swab.
I wasn’t a match.
In the time between taking the test and getting the results, I’d done some research and found that only about 30 percent of family members were a match. You wouldn’t think that, but it was true.
I had to call my mom and tell her I wasn’t a match. She hung up on me.
The draft of the email to Eddie was still blank. I knew time was off the essence and I had to get in contact with him ASAP. For my daughter’s sake.
“Still working on that paper?” Will and I were doing homework at the library again, but this time a few members of the group had joined us. We’d claimed a corner of the third floor of the library and were all spread out, each working on our respective tasks. The only absent members were Trish and Brady, who were both working.
“Yeah. It’s going to kill me,” I said, laughing a little.
“Let me know if you need any help. I’m pretty good at writing papers.” Lottie snorted from across the table.
“Yeah, you’re great at writing papers, as long as you can copy everything from Wikipedia.” He tore a piece of notebook paper, balled it up and threw it at her. Or he tried to. Zan caught it before it hit Lottie in the face.
“Come on. Have some respect for the library,” he said, his face dead serious. Will just rolled his eyes.
“You don’t have to tell me to respect the library. I’ve gotten enough of that from our mother to last a lifetime. She used to lecture us over and over about how much damage human touch did to books, and so on and so forth. I get it.”
“Will you shut up? I’m trying to work here,” Simon said, giving us all a glare that shut everyone up.
We all went back to work for a while and I finally started typing the email to Eddie. I agonized about each word, even though it was one of the shortest emails I’d ever written. I just said that I’d lost his number, but found his email on Facebook and wondered if we could meet somewhere and talk.
I clicked Send before I could change my mind and then went back to my other homework.
Aud was being really weird. She claimed to be working on a paper, but then she’d sit there and stare at her computer for ages, fingers not doing any typing. I caught a glimpse of her screen and it was blank. I’d never seen her struggle so much with anything before, especially not a stupid paper. She never shied away from academics. That was her wheelhouse.
She also seemed to drift off more than usual, but I blamed that on having to see her parents last weekend. They’d really done a number on her. It was probably a good thing that I hadn’t gone to her house, because I might have lost it and given them a piece of my mind.
It made me almost shake with anger every time I thought about it.
Valentine’s Day was coming up. Holy shit. I had to do something amazing for Aud, but I had no idea what. My best idea had been the tickets to Universal and those had nearly bankrupted me.
I asked Lottie one night while she and I cleaned up after dinner and Aud tried to play the banjo with Stryker and Zan. They were working on “Stand By Your Man” followed by “Crazy” by Patsy Cline.
“You’d better do something good. She deserves something awesome,” she said.
“No shit. That’s why I’m asking you,” I said, taking one of the dishes she handed me and putting it in the dishwasher.
“Well, I’m trying to figure out what to do for Zan. I know he’s going to do something amazing, and he’s kind of hard to shop for. He hates most everything except Rumi poetry, me, running, records and that old lighter from his grandfather. And he already has all of those things. I’m screwed.” She sighed and leaned on the counter.
“You could just wrap yourself in a bow.”
She gave me a look.
“Now back to my problem. What do I get Aud?”
Lottie thought about it for a second.
“Well, she loves Harry Potter, so definitely something to do with that. Or something that only you two share or know about. Don’t you dare go to the drugstore and get her a crappy card and box of chocolates.”
“Like I would ever do something like that,” I said, taking another dish from the sink. “Okay, so I might have done it with Kandy, but this is different. You know this is different.”
“Yeah, I do,” she said, smiling at Zan as he placed Aud’s fingers in the right places on the fret of the banjo.
“What about a joint gift? Then we could pool our resources.” I suggested.
“I don’t know. That might work. Let me think about it.” I put the rest of the dishes in the dishwasher, then put in the detergent and turned it on.
“How are the lessons going?” I said, sitting down next to Aud. Who knew the banjo could be a sexy instrument? Not I, until this moment.
“Not very well. I’m apparently the only one in this group with no musical talent,” Aud said, almost pouting. “Of course I’m the odd one out.”
“That’s not true, I’m sure. This is only your first lesson. You’ll get it,” I said, putting my arm around her. I wasn’t a musical prodigy by any means, but I’d picked up a few things on the guitar and banjo. And I could kind of sing.
“I give up and my fingers are sore,” she said, handing the banjo back to Zan, who put the strap around himself and started playing “Get Up Get Down” by Phillip Phillips.
“Your fingers are supposed to be sore. That means you’re learning,” Stryker said. “If you haven’t bled while learning, you will never learn.”
“That sounds awful,” Aud said.
Stryker shrugged.
“You gotta bleed sometimes.”
“Lunch tomorrow?” I said as Aud and I lay in her bed, “Sweater Weather” playing softly in the background. We hadn’t technically moved in, but a lot of my stuff was here and I barely slept at my own place now. Well, I barely did any sleeping, period. Sex was so much better than sleep.
“I can’t, I’ve got a meeting.” She stuck her tongue out at me.
“Psh, what meeting is more important than lunch with your extremely handsome boyfriend?”
“If I ever meet this extremely handsome boyfriend, I’ll let you know,” she said, which made me leap on top of her and tickle her until she begged me for mercy.
“Okay, fine. Have a meeting. But I’ll be thinking about you,” I said, pushing my hips into hers.
“You’d better be.”
Eddie had emailed me back immediately, and we set up a lunch date for Thursday. I shouldn’t call it a date. It wasn’t a date.
Wednesday night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept going over and over what I was going to say to Eddie.
“Hey, Eddie. Remember that time we had sex? Um, so I got pregnant, never told you about it and then gave the baby to my aunt to raise and now she needs a bone marrow transplant and I’m not a match, but might be, so could you go get tested? Thanks!” No, I shouldn’t throw all of this on him at once, but we didn’t have time. She didn’t have time.
I woke on Thu
rsday with my stomach in knots. So much so that I had to crawl out from under Will’s arm and run to the bathroom so I could throw up. There was nothing in my stomach, but that didn’t stop it from trying to expel something.
I gripped onto the bowl and gasped, trying not to cry.
I couldn’t do this. There was no way I could do this.
I got sick again and told Will that I had a stomach bug. It was the easiest excuse. There was no way I was going to make it through class, so I just stayed in bed, running through all the possible scenarios in my head.
Time seemed at once to move both faster and slower. Each minute felt like an hour and each hour felt like a minute.
I took my time getting dressed, and doing my hair. Not that it would matter what I looked like, but I needed something to do.
The walk down to the little café on campus where I was meeting Eddie was cold and I’d forgotten my jacket, but I didn’t shiver.
He was there waiting for me, and smiled as soon as he saw me walking toward him. I tried to make my face neutral, so he wouldn’t suspect that I was here to drop a bomb on him.
“It’s so good to see you,” he said. “What can I get for you?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” My stomach couldn’t take anything right now. Not until long after this was over.
“Are you sure?” He leaned closer and his arm brushed mine. I moved away.
“Yeah. Listen. I didn’t ask to meet with you so we could catch up. There’s something I need to tell you and I thought I should do it in person. I’m so sorry about this. I should have done this a different way, but I fucked everything up.” I didn’t normally curse, but being around Will had rubbed off on me. And this seemed like an appropriate cursing situation.
Eddie’s face fell and he looked into his coffee cup.
“Um, okay. What’s up?” He slid his chair back a bit and I took a deep breath.
“Do you remember that party when we . . .” I didn’t want to finish that sentence.
“Yeah. I do. Sort of. I know we had sex. I’m sorry I don’t remember it better. It must have been amazing.” He grinned and I wanted to slap it off his face.
“Well, we didn’t use protection and I got pregnant.” The grin froze on his mouth and then faded away.
“You got pregnant? That’s not possible.”
“How is it not possible? We had sex without a condom. I wasn’t on the pill.” I was starting to have less and less sympathy for him.
“No, no, that’s not possible.” He shook his head and pushed his chair back so hard it rattled against the table. “You got pregnant?”
“I did.”
“What . . . what happened?”
Here we go.
“I had her and then I gave her up. My aunt’s raising her now. But that’s not the end of it.”
Eddie made a choking noise and his eyes were so wide they looked like they were going to fall out of his head. His expression would be funny if this weren’t so serious.
“She’s sick. She needs a bone marrow transplant and nobody in my family is a match. I’m so, so sorry for putting this on you, but you need to get tested. I never planned on telling you. I left the birth certificate blank. I don’t want any money, or anything else from you, but if you could please do this for her, I’d be so grateful.”
There. The words were out. How he reacted was up to him now. I wanted to leave. I wanted to run. Or to rewind to a time before this conversation.
“This isn’t possible. You had a baby and you didn’t tell me?”
“My parents weren’t . . . they didn’t want me to tell anyone. They weren’t supportive and I was with Bryan and they wanted me to marry him instead and pretend the baby was his. He would have done it, but I couldn’t go through with it. I didn’t want that life for me, and I didn’t want it for her. She’s in a good place. My aunt has two other small children and she lives out in the country in New Hampshire. She’s happy. She’s safe.”
“You didn’t tell me.” His shock had turned to anger, which I’d expected. “You never told me.”
“I know. I’ve made so many mistakes and I’m so sorry.” Tears fell from my eyes. I couldn’t hold them back anymore. “I’m so sorry, Eddie. You don’t deserve this. You didn’t deserve this.” He didn’t. He wasn’t a bad guy. He’d had sex with me, but I hadn’t stopped him. I’d wanted it as much as he had. And I didn’t tell him to wear a condom. I didn’t take a precaution and get the morning after pill. I didn’t have an abortion. I thought about it, but I couldn’t go through with it. And then my parents found out and Maria came to me and said she wanted the baby and would take care of her.
I didn’t realize I was speaking out loud until Eddie said something else.
“How could you hide this from me?”
My mother had said the same thing.
“I’m so sorry, Eddie. I understand if you don’t want to see me, but please. Call the hospital and get tested. You could save her life. I wish I was a match, but I’m not. Please do this for her.” I’d written the name of the hospital down, and the number for him to call to set up the test.
I stood up to leave him with his thoughts.
“What’s her name?” His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been yelling.
“Emily. Her name is Emily.”
Audrey was grim on Thursday night. That was the best word for it. She was definitely a million miles away and I couldn’t seem to get her back. Not even when we were having sex.
“Where are you?” I said, stopping. Her eyes snapped up to mine.
“What?”
“Where are you? It’s like you’re somewhere else.” It was a bit of an ego blow that she was thinking about something else while we were having sex. Had the spark gone out already?
“I’m here. I’m right here.” She pushed up to kiss me, but I could still feel distance between us. I rolled off her and closed my eyes.
“Something’s wrong. You need to talk to me. I thought that we’d be okay now that I knew about your deep, dark secret. But you’re still far away.” I almost wanted to cry.
“I’m sorry,” she said, the words hollow. “I’m just thinking about other things, Will. Maybe you shouldn’t have stayed over. It’s my fault.” I didn’t want her to do that. I didn’t want her to blame herself. I just wanted to know what was going on so I could fix it.
“Talk to me.” I rolled onto my side to face her.
“About what?”
“About what you’re worried about. Tell me everything. Everyone needs someone who will listen to all the stupid thoughts they have. I’ve got Lottie, and I hope I can be that person for you. I don’t just want to be your boyfriend. I want to be your best friend.”
She sniffed, and a tear ran down her cheek.
“I want that, too.”
I brushed the tear away and she ducked her head.
“Why are you crying?”
“Because I love you. Sometimes it’s too much for me to stand.” I knew exactly how she felt.
“I love you, too. Now talk.”
She opened her mouth and stuttered for a moment.
“I can’t remember my mother telling me she loved me more than three times. I didn’t know parents were supposed to tell their kids they loved them until I went to other people’s houses. It seemed so odd, people saying they loved each other all the time. It made me uncomfortable, honestly. It seemed weird, to show so much affection.”
Her words made my heart break a little bit. Every time she talked about her family, I wanted to go back and time and rescue her from her family. It made me angry. Her parents might not have hit her, or denied her food, or shelter or anything like that, but they might as well have. They’d denied her love. What kind of parents did that?
“That’s probably why I had such a hard time when you told me you loved me. I’ve only heard it a few times in my life. I never really had close friends. Except for my friends from books.” The last part was said with a smile. Oh, I knew all about her book fr
iends. I had to share her with a teenage wizard. If Harry Potter were real, I’d probably have to beat the shit out of him.
I didn’t say anything, just listened. I could do that.
“I always felt so distant from other people and I never knew why. I thought I was broken, or something. So I started trying to find what I was missing. I went with a few boys, had some sex, but it didn’t work. Then I tried going with Bryan, because my parents approved of him. I thought a good boy who didn’t pressure me for sex would love me. But he didn’t. And then I tried with Eddie, and that didn’t work, either.” Her voice shook a little when she talked about Eddie.
“Nothing worked. Until you. But I realized that all those other times, I was trying to force something that wasn’t there. And with you, I tried to fight it, but it happened anyway.”
That made me smile. I loved when she talked about me as if I’d somehow had anything to do with this. As if I’d had some special power to make her fall in love with me. I wasn’t the instigator here. It was definitely her.
“Love happens when you don’t expect it. It sneaks up on you and latches on.”
I couldn’t help but comment.
“That’s so romantic, Aud.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I never said I was a poet, Will.”
“I never said you had to be. I don’t want one of those girls who goes on and on about my many perfections.” This time she pulled her pillow out from under her head and hit me with it.
“You’re such an ass sometimes.”
“But you love my ass,” he said.
“It’s not bad.”
She took the pillow back and put it under her head again.
“I don’t know what else to say. No one’s ever listened to me like this. It’s kind of intimidating.”
“It shouldn’t be. It’s just me.”
She sighed and started telling another story about a birthday party. It was a little bit sweet and a little bit sad and ended with her not getting the present she’d so desperately wanted.
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