by Jane Anthony
Old feelings came flooding back as I rummaged around the tool bench chucking things out of my way. Mine was a disturbing situation I couldn’t even begin to wrap my brain around. There wasn’t a day that goes by that I didn’t regret my decision, but I was just so angry. I was a stupid kid, and I believed all her lies.
I thought of my father and his bullshit speech about responsibilities. What a joke. The chip on my shoulder started to weigh me down the more I thought of him and his smug face when I told him Marie was pregnant. He put his arm around me and told me he’d support me. I promised I’d take care of her, but I couldn’t even be in the same room as her anymore after I found out the truth.
My anger was spiraling like a tornado, intent on destroying everything in its path. My work was sloppy. I jammed a screwdriver between the cylinder and the back plate to pop the gasket off a brake drum. The screwdriver slipped and stabbed into the meaty part of my hand. I cursed and the tool in my hand clattered onto the ground.
The shop did not have anything to sop up the blood that started collecting in my palm. I closed my fist and ran into the office. Jillian was on the phone. Blood trailed down my forearm leaving a row of tiny red drops from the door of the office to the bathroom. I kicked the door closed and ran cold water over my aching hand as I began to wash the cut out in the sink.
“Jameson? There’s blood everywhere. What the hell happened?” The knob on the bathroom door rattled as she opened it.
“I cut myself in the shop. It’s pretty bad, you don’t wanna see it.”
“Don’t be a baby, give it here.” She lifted my hand out of the sink and looked. The skin on my palm was torn wide open. Blood seeped out from the dark red gash in the center. “Yeah, you got yourself good. You’re going to need a hospital. Let me grab the first-aid kit from the house to bandage this up.”
She ran out the door while I wadded toilet paper in my fist and sat on the lid of the toilet, hoping like hell the bleeding stopped on its own and I didn’t need stitches. Blood soaked the paper as I watched it turn from white to red before my very eyes. I chucked the wad in the trash bin and grabbed another one. A square of paper caught my eye as I looked around the floor to make sure I hadn’t left any drops of red on the light tile. It was lying on the floor face up between the trashcan and the toilet where I sat. A drug store receipt with that day’s date.
I slid the paper along the ground with my foot until I was able to comfortably bend down to pick it up. The pain in my hand became a memory as I read the contents of the receipt. Goose bumps broke out on my skin.
Hungover my ass.
Jillian was pregnant.
My arm dropped to my lap and the receipt drifted to the floor. My hands were shaking. The tiny bathroom felt claustrophobic.
I was going to be a dad.
I had a little money put away, but it wasn’t enough to start a family with. The only thing I owned that had any value at all was my car, and the backseat didn’t even have seat belts. I didn’t even know if I’d still have a job when AJ returned to the shop, but I knew one thing for sure. If I had to work like a dog for the rest of my life to ensure Jillian and our kid had the best lives possible, then that was what I intended to do.
A thought wrapped its hands around my throat and squeezed. She didn’t tell me. I stood on the other side of the door while she was in here alone. Dampness filled my eyes. I wondered if she planned to tell me at all.
She doesn’t trust me.
I had to find some way to prove to her that I was in this for life. We would raise the baby together. That girl was everything to me, and our kid would be too.
The front door buzzed, and I swiped the receipt off the floor and shoved it into my pocket. Confronting her about it now would only be a waste of time. I knew what I had to do.
“How’s it looking?” A tiny white box marked with a red cross on the front dangled from her fingertips as she held out her hand to take a look at my wound. She appeared different to me now. She was always beautiful, but there was something about knowing she was growing a piece of me inside her that took my breath away. We were in no way ready for this, but when I looked at her, any residual fear I had about the future vanished. Jillian was my future.
“It’s bleeding pretty badly still.” I held up the blood soaked toilet paper wad in my hand and she scrunched her nose.
She lifted the wad with her thumb and forefinger and dropped it into the trash with the other one. She padded the wound with a thick layer of gauze and wrapped it with an ace bandage. “Let’s go, I’ll drive.”
“No, we can’t leave the shop unattended. I’ll go, don’t worry about it.” I stood to leave but she stopped me.
“Jameson, you can’t drive with your hand like that!”
“It’s my left hand, I’ll be fine.”
“Oh, yeah? How are you going to steer and work the stick shift, brainiac?” She blinked her long lashes at me as if she’d backed me into a corner.
“My hands are magic, baby. I can do things you can’t even begin to imagine.” I waggled my brows at her and the corner of her mouth turned up.
“You’re a dork. Okay, have at it. Good luck.” She moved to the side and let me by.
“Thanks.” Our bodies touched as I passed through the door and my good hand absentmindedly grazed her stomach. I got in my car and drove to Crestmere Hospital.
It was time AJ knew the truth.
Chapter Twenty-Two
JAMESON
My knee bounced up and down as the doctor stitched me up, but it wasn’t because of my hand. As soon as I was finished, I was going to head up and see AJ. The timing was terrible, but I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the right moment. We needed to get our shit squared away now.
I left the E.R. with a brand new bandage and a nervous stomach as I punched the button on the elevator to go up to his room. It was ridiculous how nervous I was. I felt like I was meeting the girl’s father for the first time. This was AJ. He was my best friend and the most logical guy I knew. I was just going to walk in there and lay it all on the line for him.
I took a deep breath as I walked off the elevator. It was now or never. A couple nurses recognized me and waved as I passed, but I kept moving toward the door. It was open and he was sitting in Jillian’s chair watching television.
I knocked on the door frame. “Hey man, how’s it going?”
He turned and saw me, then stared straight ahead at the television again. “Jameson.” His tone was cold. He was definitely not happy to see me.
I walked in anyway, intent to have the conversation I went there to have. “Glad to see you up and about, man. You scared us there for a while.” I leaned against the wall in front of him hoping to melt his icy facade.
“Us?”
“Yeah, Jillian and me.”
He snorted out a nasty noise when I lumped her name in with mine. Jillian and I were destined to be an “us.” He better get used to it.
“Listen dude, we gotta talk.”
His lids narrowed and his eyes rolled. “Pretty sure I said everything I needed to say.”
“Yeah, well I didn’t. You destroyed me that day, dude. There’s so much you don’t know, and it’s time you heard the truth.”
“Why should I give a shit about anything you have to say?”
“Because I’m in love with your sister. Hearing that probably pisses you off, but it’s the truth.” I tapped my fist on my chest to drive my point home. “I love her, man. You came in there and blew up my past without knowing the whole story and she rung me out to dry.”
AJ sat there quiet for a moment. His eyes glared in my direction and I could see the wheels turning in his head. His face was unreadable. I wasn’t sure if he was going to allow me to continue or tell me to go fuck myself. My heart was beating out of my chest as I waited for his response to my admission.
“You love her huh? All right lover boy, you have the floor. Tell me what it is you love so much about her.” He leaned back in his chair an
d crossed an ankle over his knee. He was testing me. AJ was as stubborn as his sister.
I blew out an exasperated breath. He wanted to see me grovel? Hell with it, I’ll grovel.
I thought about it for a minute before opening my mouth. There were so many things to love about her, how could I choose just one? “I love how her eyes sparkle when she’s happy and how her tiny body can create such an enormous presence. She feels with her entire being. Her laugh is like music. Her heart is so full that sometimes I can see it boiling over.”
Once I started, it all just tumbled out like dominoes. I pushed myself off the wall and paced the room as I bared my soul.
“I love how she can rock out hard as concrete, but still be soft as cotton. She doesn’t need dresses or makeup or any of that other shit to be beautiful. She is gorgeous just the way she is. She’s a wise ass, a pain in the ass and doesn’t hesitate to kick ass.”
I stopped pacing and stood in front of AJ. “I’m amazed by the way she loves you, dude. It’s unconditional. She’s wholesome and she’s pure.”
His eyes softened. My pacing continued as I started counting off more items on my fingers.
“She’s smart, she’s strong, she’s funny, she’s sexy…..”
“All right all right. Stop, I get it.” He put his hand up ending my rant and exhaled hard through his nose. “She know how you feel about her?”
“Sort of. But she won’t give me the time of day because of you. Your approval means more to her than anything.” I sat on the corner of the bed, my lips turned down at the edges. My knee continued to bounce, and I leaned forward on my elbows to stop it.
He rubbed his eye with his knuckle. I could see how tired he was, but this couldn’t wait. “So, what do you want from me, dude? My blessing? You’re just not good enough for her.”
I pulled my lips into a thin line contemplating what he said. He was right. Jillian was better than me in every way imaginable. “I know, man. But I’m willing to spend the rest of my life trying to be.”
His head moved up and down in a slow nod as he eyed me warily, probably trying to see if I’m full of shit or not. “You got my attention. Tell me what you came here to say.”
I stood up from my spot on the bed and walked over to the wall where I was standing earlier. I picked at the bandage on my hand then ran my fingers through my hair. Complicated emotions began to drown me as I brought myself back to the day when my entire life changed.
“Marie was pregnant, that part is the truth. The part you don’t know is, she was already pregnant when we slept together.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
JAMESON
Broken shards of the memory crashed down on me like glass. Each time I thought about it, a new wound opened until I was stripped bare of my skin lying vulnerable to the elements.
I met her in the mall. She approached me loitering in front of Jamba Juice without a care in the world. You could see in her face she was about my age, but that was where the similarities stopped. She was tall with bleached hair and the tiniest skirt I’d ever seen. “You wanna buy me a smoothie, handsome?”
White blond hair twirled around her fingers as she smiled at me. I was young, but this wasn’t my first trip to the rodeo. By the time I was sixteen, I was already bigger than most of the guys in my class and the girls had started to respond.
She sat in the food court, sipping her Banana Berry smoothie giggling at my stupid jokes. I poured on the charm, hoping like hell she would let me kiss her. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have bothered trying so hard. Marie was a sure thing.
By the time we hit the bus, her fingers were already inching up my thigh. Once inside, her hands roamed my chest then slipped down my pants before we’d even turned on the television. I’d banged a few girls already by that point, but Marie was different. They were usually demure and just laid there. She came at me like it was her job. This girl was aggressive, and it was hot.
When my dad got home, she was still there. “Hi, Mr. Tate. It’s nice to meet you.” Her voice purred like a kitten as she held her hand out for my father to shake. The look on his face was one I’d never seen before. It eluded me at the time, but now I know it was a mixture of fear and guilt.
A few weeks later, she showed up on my doorstep. A duffel bag was slung over her shoulder and her face was emotionless. “I’m pregnant.” She blurted it out like she was talking about the weather. As if it was no big deal that my life had come to an abrupt halt.
There had to be some mistake. We’d only slept together once, but she claimed I was her first. She held up the grainy photo and I saw it: a tiny white bean in a sea of blackness. The beginnings of a life inside the cavern of her body. A life I put there.
“She’s your responsibility now, son. You gotta take care of it.” My dad was so calm when I told him. His teenage son had knocked up some random chick he met at the mall, and he wasn’t even angry about it. “She’ll stay here and you’ll be a man.”
Thoughts swam through my head as I made a plan for the new future ahead of me. A future that included a girl I didn't want and a baby I wasn't prepared for. I would quit school, get a job, leave the band and all that childish shit behind me. Eventually, I would marry her. It was the right thing to do.
I called AJ and asked if he thought his dad would hire me. He sat silent on the other end as I told him about Marie and the trouble I’d gotten myself into. “It’s gonna work out, bro. We’ll sit down with my dad and figure it out.” That was the last conversation AJ and I had until I showed up at the shop five years later.
Marie settled into our house easily, she in my bed and me on the couch. She, much like my father, didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about my presence. Our relationship wasn’t romantic. When I looked at her a second time, the initial excitement was gone. I didn’t even think she was that pretty. The only thing I felt for her now was regret.
I woke in the night, stumbling to the bathroom in the dark, the urge to pee outweighing my need for sleep. The light shining from the cracked open door of my dad’s room caught my eye. “... come on, baby, don’t be mad …”
Marie’s raspy voice came through the door. I walked closer, confused about why she was in his room in the first place.
“You fucked my son. What would possess you to do such a thing?”
“I was desperate, baby. But look; now, we can all be together.” I peeked in through the crack and saw them in the room. My father was sitting on the edge of his bed, and Marie was walking toward him. She lifted his hand with hers, put his finger in her mouth down to the knuckle, then drew it out and licked her lips. “That cheap imitation was nothing like the real thing.”
My heart jackhammered in my chest. What the hell was going on? Marie and my dad?
He yanked his hand out of her grasp. “You’re a crazy bitch, you know that?”
Her face twisted into a pissed off knot and her hands landed protectively over her stomach. “I’m the crazy bitch carrying your kid. Whether he calls you Daddy or Grandpa doesn’t make a difference to me, but my ass is here to stay. Get used to it.”
My hands shook at my side. My vision blurred with a rage I’d never felt before. If I had gone into that room, I would be telling this story from a jail cell serving life in prison for murder. My own father was going to allow me to destroy my life cleaning up a mess he’d made with a girl who was younger than I was.
All the tumblers fell into place. Marie didn’t randomly see me in the mall, she sought me out. My father had cast her aside, so she latched onto me knowing it would put her back into his life. She really was a crazy bitch.
My mind was so full of fury that I wasn’t thinking straight. The violent thoughts in my head were terrifying me beyond belief. Visions of wrapping my hands around his windpipe played through my mind on a loop. He should be the one dead, not my mother.
If I didn't get away from this situation, I’d only make matters worse and do something I couldn’t undo. Backing away from the door, numb with shock and r
esentment, I grabbed a change of clothes, my wallet, and my bank book. I walked to the bus station and got on the very first bus. I didn’t care where it was going; all I knew at that moment was that I was never coming back.
“A few days later, I was calm enough to call home. I needed to hear it myself from the bastard’s mouth. Instead, my father told me Marie killed herself and that it was all my fault. He said he never wanted to see me again and that was fine with me. He’d never wanted me anyway.”
I finished my story and waited for AJ to say something. The blood had drained from his face, and he sat there staring at me in disbelief.
“My father was a bad man. The things he did were so vile and disturbing that I never wanted anyone to know about them. I would rather be remembered as a loser who ran out on his pregnant girlfriend than the son of a fucking pedophile.” Averting my gaze, I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand embarrassed about the wetness on my face
“Damn, man,” AJ said after a while. “So why did you come back?”
“My mom had set up a trust fund for me when I was born. It wasn’t much, but it was old family money she didn’t want my father to take. I couldn’t touch it until I was twenty-one. My plan was to get what was mine and hit the road again, but the second I saw you and Jill, my plans changed. I knew I was never leaving.”
AJ stood from his chair. He walked over to the end of his bed and leaned against the footboard in front of where I was against the wall. He looked me directly in the eye. “You telling me the truth, bro?”
“Every word, AJ. I’d never bullshit you.”
He pursed his lips, and his eyes narrowed. The silence was killing me. “You’re a good man, Tate. It took guts for you to come here and admit this shit to me. I’m impressed.” He put his hand out, and I shook it.
Relief washed over me. Telling the story I vowed never to utter was painful, but I had to do it to get back on AJ’s good side.