A Little Bit of Guilt: Little Bits #5

by Murphy, A. E.

  I don’t have the gift.

  “Mind your business,” I grumble, turning away from him to defend my badly shaped torch that looks more like a corn dog that is now drooping over what should be a hand but looks more like a penis extended from a snowman.

  “I told you to get a hobby and you wouldn’t tire of your marriage. I said that.”

  “I remember, Dad, it was the night before my wedding.”

  He nods once, his lips a passive line. “It was. Glad you heard me; shame you didn’t listen.”

  I pull a face at him and he pulls one back. That makes me smile though only slightly.

  “Mom’s worried about you, kid,” Dad mumbles so Mom can’t hear. She’s in the kitchen which is only a few steps away.

  “Are you?”

  “Maybe a little. You’ve lost your love for life. Haven’t seen you really smile since you came back.”

  “I’m sleeping on a cot in a room full of fabrics and essential oils,” I respond. “I’m living out of a suitcase. I broke my husband’s heart. My new job pays little. My friends all hate me. Should I keep listing the things wrong with my life?”

  “You haven’t tried to talk to your friends or your husband, so how do you know what they’re feeling?”

  I cross my eyes and look at my phone that is sitting void of notifications, on charge, by the door. “Dad, don’t. No number of apologies is fixing this. I’m just going to save up all the money I can and run away to China.”

  “Why China? They have terrible pollution over there,” Mom puts in, smiling at me. “How is your model coming along?”

  I throw the wet clay onto the table cover and it splats. “That good, Mom. That’s how it’s coming along. Like my life. And my happiness for life. It’s all the same as that clay.”

  “Have you called Chris?”

  I let out a frustrated groan. “We’re over. You understand what I did is unforgivable?”

  “I’ve seen couples fix worse.”

  I look at my dad who butts in, “Go on into the kitchen, Sal. She’s not interested in your positivity.”

  “You’re both crazy people.” I stand and move to the sink in the kitchen to wash my hands. “Insane, even. Mental. Psychopaths.”

  “And you’re a little harlot but whatever,” Mom replies, her tone sweet as pie.

  I laugh lightly, I love her humor. Nobody pulls off the deadpan like Mom. Her sense of humor just doesn’t fit her sweet exterior, always smiling, never-mad Mom.

  She’s right, I guess I am a little harlot.

  “What’s that funny smell?” I ask when Mom hugs me. I sniff at her collar. “It smells like bacon or something?”

  “It’s cupcake.”

  “More like asscake,” Dad whispers, cupping a gray, clay-covered hand to his mouth, leaving clay residue in his bristly beard.

  I snort and then laugh when Mom hits him around the head.

  “I tell you what, if you’re so upset by your living arrangements, what if we loan you the money you need to get yourself set up in your own place, and you just pay us back?”

  “As tempting as that offer is, the only place I want to live is the city and I couldn’t afford that on the pay I’m getting now.”

  “I tell you what then, you find a job in your field in the city and we’ll help you get settled.”

  I kiss my dad’s head. “Thank you. But I’ll figure it out.”

  “Surely Chris will help you out a little bit?” Mom scoffs.

  “I cheated on him, Mom, he doesn’t owe me anything.”

  “That’s bullshit, you worked on that life together!”

  I shrug. “Just leave it. I’m not asking him for anything.”

  She stomps away while grumbling, “I will then, because no daughter of mine is being ripped off by a man.”

  “Leave Chris alone, Mom.”

  Mom doubles back and looks at my dad. “I need to go to the grocery store. We’ve run out of eggs.”

  “Why you telling me? You’ve got legs, woman.”

  I snort and grab my bag. “I’m coming with. That cool?”

  “Oh how lovely.” Mom pats my shoulder. “Let me get my shoes on.”

  “Didn’t they just build that new Walmart on Beaver Ave?”

  Mom nods and zips up her long, brown jacket.

  “Are we going there?”

  “If you like.” She grabs her fabric, foldable grocery bags and stuffs them into her handbag.

  I love it here in Ramblewood, New Jersey. It’s where I grew up. But I miss Manhattan more. I miss Harlem and the Upper East Side. I miss Maya’s apartment and my friends.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty cutting my sim in half, but I was just desperate for the calls to stop. I’m a coward, I’ve never been good at conflict. That much is proven by the way I left Chris.

  It’s something that will forever plague me, knowing I might have hurt him badly. Was he really waiting for me to return to him? To beg for him back?

  And I just left. I didn’t consider how he was feeling at all.

  But then I also didn’t want to lead him on. I think the moment he told me to leave was the moment I got the courage to go. I was done then and I’m unfortunately done now. The best thing I could have done for him is leave him alone like I did. He can find happiness elsewhere with someone else.

  I just wished I’d planned it better, saved money and had somewhere to go.

  Maybe Mom is right? Sure, what I did was vile, but I did help build that home, a lot of my own money went into it too, a lot of my time.

  I sigh heavily and Mom looks at me. “What is it?”

  “I’m just stressed, my life is not turning out how I thought it would.” I look at the trees on the grassy verges that separate both sides of the road. I remember walking down this street when I was just a child, imagining my future, imagining being a famous actress with a line of men at my beck and call. Imagining being a world-renowned surgeon. Somebody important, somebody who makes an impact on the world.

  I studied for years in college to get my degree in bullshit.

  The only way I’d be able to make a career out of what I have is if I go to med school and become a nurse or something. I’m not sure I’m smart enough and I certainly don’t have the funds for it.

  Maybe I can consider it. What other choices do I have?

  “I might go to med school,” I tell Mom whose eyes light up. “It’s a possibility, right?”

  “Baby, you can do anything you set your mind to.”

  “Moms are supposed to say that.”

  She grins wryly. “It’s that or work sixty-hour weeks until you die from lack of health insurance.”

  She has a point. “But then I’ll have even more student loans to pay off.”

  “But you’ll have a better paying career.”

  “True, as opposed to living for tips at a diner. Not that it’s a bad job, just that it won’t pay the bills and buy the shoes I want.”

  She shakes her head and sighs grimly. “You just had to go and screw things up with Chris, didn’t you?”

  I don’t get into it with her as much as I want to. Instead I ask, “What did he say when you called him?”

  She considers me a moment, likely assessing my mental health. “He said that if Summer wanted me back, she’d have come back weeks ago.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “He also said but tell her not to bother, I’m taking a leaf from her book and moving on.”

  The thought of him with another woman in our marital bed makes my heart ache with a brutal agony. I want to cry.

  “He said that?”

  “What did you expect?”

  I fold my arms over my chest. “I expected to not know about it. I didn’t want to know that.”

  “Better to know it now and get over it than later.” She pats my back. “Just keep moving forward, baby. It’s all you can do. Med school is a great idea to keep your mind on track.”

  “Here’s hoping.”

 
We finally reach the superstore and grab a shopping cart. I help Mom navigate the aisles wondering how we’re going to get all this home. Knowing Mom, she’ll charm a stranger into giving us a ride, or one of her churchgoing buddies. Christians love being asked to do things like this, it makes them feel as though they’re doing something meaningful to get into heaven.

  I wonder how they’d feel knowing they’re gonna be riding in a car with an adulterer.

  “Do you need some of these?” Mom asks, pointing to the shelves full of sanitary pads and tampons.

  My body chills, my mind freezes, my blood runs cold. I can’t breathe.

  “Umm, yeah,” I lie because I just realized I haven’t had my period since the week I left Chris. I slept with Mason a month ago without protection, but he didn’t orgasm inside of me. I can’t be that unfortunate. I haven’t had sex with anybody else. Just him and the second time we were protected.

  It’s just the stress.

  I sit on the toilet in Walmart. It’s been a week since my shopping excursion with Mom. I’ve been praying for my period to come and it hasn’t. The last week has been hell waiting for my first paycheck. It has been hell.

  The desperation I felt every night before going to bed is indescribable. I did squats, I went jogging, I danced and jumped, I did everything to bring on my period and it didn’t come.

  I got a new number and I’ve wanted more than anything to call my girls to talk about this, but I don’t have them anymore. They don’t want to hear from me.

  So here I am, in a stall in a supermarket, holding a stick in my hands, my panties still around my ankles.

  “Please, God… don’t be so unkind. Please. Please.”

  I watch the white windows of the stick absorb the pee slowly. The white becomes gray and hits the first indication marker before slowly seeping to the next. The first line is to say the test has worked. The second line is to say…

  “No,” I yell, banging the side of my fist against the stall wall.

  “What the fuck?” a woman curses. I think I startled her.

  I drop the pee stick into the trash by the toilet and bury my face in my hands.

  “Are umm… are you okay in there?” the same woman who swore before asks, tapping lightly on the door.

  “No.” I sniffle and yank up my panties before flushing.

  My light blue skirt floats in waves to my knees. Not the kind of skirt you wear on a windy day. I thought the colors would make me feel happier. They haven’t.

  “You wanna talk about it?”

  “I just took a pregnancy test,” I admit to the complete stranger because who else better to tell it to?

  She curses again. “Not good news I’m guessing?”

  “Nope,” I cry and bury my face in my hands again, leaning my back against the same stall side that I hit a moment ago.

  “I wish I could tell you it’ll be okay, but I don’t know your circumstances.” She lightly knocks on the door again. “Do you want to get coffee? Talk about it?”

  There are some good people left in the world it seems. “Not right now. I just want to run home and drink bleach.” I hear her breath catch and quickly add, “Kidding. I feel like it but I wouldn’t.”

  “Right.” She laughs as lightly as she knocked. “Well, I’m going to scribble my number on a piece of paper and leave it out here by the sink for you. If you want to talk, you call me. I don’t mind.”

  “Thank you,” I mutter, wondering if this is what my life has been reduced to. Taking kindness from strangers because I have no friends left.

  “Good luck, sister, you got this.”

  Somehow, I don’t believe that.

  When I hear the door to the store creak open and shut, I open the stall door and peek out, praying nobody in here heard that. When I see that it’s safe and sound, I wash my hands and flick them dry, sending water droplets across my body and floor. Then I snatch the little scrap of takeout menu with a number scribbled across the shiny yellow with what looks to be silver sharpie. The woman’s name is Lottie. She’s written it on the paper. A little love heart dots the I.

  I stick it in my bag and look at my reflection in the mirror. I’ve never looked so bad in my life.

  I don’t know what to do.

  I leave the store quickly, likely looking like a shoplifter, and keep my head down so nobody sees the puffiness of my eyes.

  I have such a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. This is not a problem I can just walk away from. I have nothing right now. My parents will be so ashamed. I have no friends to tell about this despite the fact I’m dying to call Maya or Marie. Maya hates me so I can’t tell her. Marie is Mason’s twin so I definitely can’t tell her. Loryn is trying for a baby and struggling with infertility, crying to her about a pregnancy I don’t want would just be cruel.

  What am I going to do?

  I can’t go through with the pregnancy, but I don’t have health insurance. I suppose I could go to planned parenthood, do they fund abortions for women over twenty or is it just a teen thing?

  But then… do I tell Mason?

  What will he say?

  Even if I do tell Mason, I can’t take care of a baby! I don’t have my own place, I won’t get maternity leave, there are food stamps and things I can apply for I think. I don’t know the system. What I do know is that people on welfare struggle so bad. I don’t want to struggle.

  Is that selfish?

  I’m in no way financially capable of looking after a child and I can’t just expect Mason to provide for me and the kid. He’s a player, he’ll get bored and end up resenting me for saddling him with a child out of wedlock.

  I feel sick. So sick.

  I run home, silently praying the thing ejects itself from my body. I stop a few blocks later, totally out of breath and dying for a sip of water. As I walk the rest of the way I Google how to start a miscarriage. I’m desperate. There must be something to make this go away.

  When I make it home, I’m covered in sweat, tears, and I’m fighting the urge to vomit. I’ve made such a mess of my life.

  “Summer?” Mom calls but I can’t see her right now.

  “Getting in the shower,” I call and run up the stairs. When I reach the top I contemplate throwing myself down them.

  I should tell Mason, but then what if he takes the choice from me? Could I still abort if he said he wanted the baby?

  My hand rests over my stomach when the word baby flashes through my brain with memories of Evelyn as a gorgeous little newborn, and Amelia running around my legs.

  I’ve always wanted to be a mom. I was so excited to start a family with Chris and here I am, considering destroying my first chance at it.

  I push open the bathroom door and slam it shut behind me before sliding down it and wrapping my arms around my knees.

  I am terrified. I don’t know what to do.

  “Summer?” Mom says gently and knocks on the door. It reminds me of the woman in Walmart. “Summer, sweetie, what’s wrong?”

  “Go away,” I cry, still sobbing.

  “Please open the door,” she begs and pulls on the handle. “Please? You don’t have to talk about it, but at least let me hug you.”

  That does sound nice. I stand and yank it open. The second I do she pulls me into her arms and we fall onto the floor together, my face buried in her red hair and hers in mine.

  “Oh, sweetie, it’ll get better. You’ll see.”

  “No, it really won’t. Mom… everyone hates me. I feel so alone.”

  “You’re making it that way, honey. You don’t have to be alone. You just have to say sorry. Reach out. Tell them you love them. Tell them you’re sorry.”

  She leans away from me and grabs a wad of toilet paper to wipe my face with. “A girl needs her friends and I can’t imagine that they’ll hate you forever. We all make mistakes.”

  “I don’t know.” Maybe she’s right. Maybe I just need to call them. Will they have calmed down by now?

  “Let’s drin
k some herbal tea, hmm?” She kisses my damp cheek and hugs me sideways. “You shower, you smell a bit funky.”

  I laugh genuinely and start to peel my V-neck shirt over my head. She closes the door behind her.

  No, before I tell anybody I need to speak to Mason about this.

  I can’t be a coward. I don’t think he leaves for a couple of weeks, or at least I hope he doesn’t. Otherwise I might not be able to contact him for three months, that’s the end of November. It’ll be way too late by then.

  I’ve got to do this.

  As soon as I step out of the shower, before my bravado leaves town as swiftly as I did, I pick up my phone and find Mason’s number in my contacts.

  Part of me doesn’t want him to answer so I don’t have to deal with him. Unfortunately, I don’t get that lucky.

  He arrives three hours later at a steakhouse only a five-minute walk from where I live. I got us a table outside, far away from everyone else. I’m shaking I’m so nervous.

  In my life, I can honestly say I have never met a man more attractive than Mason. He’s stunning, his eyes so vivid and slightly narrowed in that naturally seductive way, his lips are full but not so much that they swallow mine, his nose is crooked at the bridge from past breaks, he has a scar in the stubble of his jaw on the right side of his chin. He’s masculine in a way men just don’t seem to be anymore.

  He has strong arms, the kind that hold you tight when they wrap around your body and make you feel like they could stop bullets.

  “Where you been, Summer?” he asks and I hope he doesn’t think I look like shit.

  “Thank you for coming to meet me,” I say, stepping into his body. “I know it’s a really long way.”

  He holds me with his strong arms. Gods, he feels amazing and smells so good. “No worries, it sounded important.”

  Now I’m petrified to say it but I know I have to. “It really is.”

  He rocks us as I keep my eyes closed, my cheek against his pec. “Is it about the girls? Because I’ve been asking Marie about you but she said—”

  “It’s not about the girls. It’s about us.”

  His sparkling gray eyes become concerned. “Is this about Cammy, because I swear I can explain that if you let me. It wasn’t… I wasn’t going to have sex with her. I couldn’t if I’d tried anyway, you wore me out that morning. It was—”