by Natalie Ward
God, I have missed him.
I’m never letting him go.
“Mia,” he says and his voice sounds so full of sorrow that I start crying all over again.
Neither of us says anything for what feels like forever. Jared doesn’t let me go though and the longer he holds me, the more I slowly start to calm down. He hasn’t let me go, despite everything I’ve told him, and that means more than anything.
I hear myself speak. “I was coming back, coming back to tell you, but then…then he showed up.”
I’m crying again and it’s making me angry now, because all I want to do is get it all out. For the first time in my life I actually want to talk, want to explain it to him. And these fucking tears, that just won’t stop falling, aren’t letting me.
“You got pregnant?” Jared whispers and I can hear the anguish, literally feel the fear or the pain or whatever it is that he’s feeling right now.
“I was,” I say, knowing it’s obvious I no longer am, that I didn’t stay that way.
“What…what happened?” he asks, and I know he deserves to know. He deserved to know back when it all happened. He was going to be a father. We were going to be parents, have a family of our own and I went and took all of that away from him. I feel unbearably sad right now, at everything I’ve done to him, everything I did and still continue to do. I bury my face in his neck, breathing in his scent, which right now seems to be the only thing calming me down. I feel Jared’s arms tighten around me.
“After I quit my job, I found out,” I say. “I only wanted to come and tell you, be with you.” I have to stop, catch my breath so I don’t rush this. He deserves to know, he deserves to know everything, no matter how hard it is to tell him. “I wanted to be with you, to have our baby, to have you back. But I…”
I suddenly stop, not even sure if Jared would have wanted a baby. Shit, I didn’t even think about that, not then, not now.
“What happened Mia?” he asks, his hand running up and down my back, soothing me.
I pull back; force myself to look at him. Jared’s eyes are looking back at me, his face a mixture of pain and fear.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out.
“What?” he asks, confused again.
I take a deep breath, not knowing if I should say this, think this or anything. “I don’t even know… if…if you would have wanted to have a baby with me.”
“Mia,” Jared says, pulling me against him. “I wanted everything baby, everything, you know that.” His words wrap around me like a warm blanket as I bury my face in his neck, having my answer. I can’t believe I could have doubted it, could’ve ever doubted him.
“But what happened,” he says, his chin resting on the top of my head now. “Just tell me, please.”
His skin is against my lips; his scent is flooding through my senses. I am surrounded by him as he holds me in his arms. A place I never thought I’d get to be, ever again. And now, now that I’m finally here, I’m about to destroy it all over again. And the thought literally breaks my heart in two. Again.
“Mia?”
But he deserves to know the truth. I came in here to tell him the truth. About everything. I have to tell him, he deserves to know, he needs to know. I need to tell him.
“I lost it Jared,” I blurt out, my tears back again. “After he came to see me, I lost it… I wanted so badly to tell you… but…”
Fuck…this is killing me; I can’t do this to him, not now, not today.
I feel his arms tighten again; pulling me closer and it forces me to continue. “But I was so ashamed. At the awful way I’d treated you, the things I’d said…the text… not coming back to Boston…” God, I can’t breathe anymore, I need to say this, but I don’t want to. My chest is aching, my broken heart shattering all over again as I start to feel Jared’s body shaking beneath mine. “…I felt like it was a sign, a sign that this is what I deserved…”
I’m sorry Jared, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.
I swallow, forcing the air into my lungs. “…That I’d pushed you away, I’d hurt you, so badly…” Fuck this is harder than I ever imagined it would be. “…And because I couldn’t have you, I couldn’t have our baby either… I couldn’t have any of it.”
I have to stop now because there is no way I can speak anymore. I’m clinging to Jared like he is my lifeline, and truth be told, he is. He has always been there for me, through everything, everything imaginable. He put up with all of my shit, all of my secrets and especially my stubbornness. He begged me to talk, to open up to him and even when I didn’t, when I still shut him out, he chose me.
He chose me.
And how did I reward him? By pushing him away. By pushing away the one person who had done nothing but be there for me. God, I don’t fucking deserve him, not at all, not anymore, not after all of this.
He’s saying my name, over and over again, asking me why. I don’t know, I have no idea…I don’t know what he wants from me and all I can do right now is apologise, is tell him everything, and finally come clean.
All I can do is tell him.
“I just didn’t know what to do Jared…” I choke out, the tears making everything harder. “So, so…I did the worst, the worst fucking thing possible…” I force a breath into my lungs as I finally admit my biggest mistake.
“I did nothing.”
And then I turn and hide. I turn and bury myself against him, hoping he’ll forgive me, but knowing this is probably the last time I’ll ever be here, in his arms. Somewhere, deep down, I know I have to savour this moment, because it will probably be our last.
Today, 3:22pm – Jared
I don’t know how long we hold each other for, but at some point, we end up lying down on my bed, wrapped in each other’s arms. We are both crying and holding on to each other. I can feel shaking and at this point I can no longer tell if it is Mia, or me, or both of us. Mia’s lips are still pressed against my neck and my face is buried in her hair.
I don’t know what to say to everything she has told me. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel or what I’m supposed to do. But somehow, for whatever reason, all of my anger, every single bit of it, has now gone. Somehow, it’s just disappeared and it’s no longer a part of me. Maybe it never really was. All I know, is that all of my frustration at not understanding, at not being with Mia, it’s all just…gone.
It’s like, now I know the truth, now that I understand it wasn’t something I did…
Fuck, I don’t know what it is really.
I have no fucking clue.
But I do know that I no longer feel pissed off. Right now, all I feel is regret. Regret that we never talked, that we didn’t force this conversation to happen earlier. Regret that I didn’t fight harder, find some other way to fix this. Regret that Mia is so fucking stubborn that I let her get away with this.
But most of all, the one thing I feel more than anything else, the one thing I can no longer deny, because it’s right here, in my arms, slamming me in the chest with how big it is.
I feel whole again.
Because I have Mia in my arms, because I now know the truth, and even because I sort of understand it.
I feel whole again, because Mia is here and I can have her back if I want to. She wants me back and I know I have never stopped wanting her at all.
I never stopped loving her. I never will stop loving her.
And now, she can be mine again and there is nothing else that compares, or matters.
Today, 3:31pm – Mia
We lie wrapped in each other’s arms, neither of us saying anything. We are both holding each other tightly, as though neither of us can bear to let the other one go.
My crying has finally stopped, all of my tears have fallen, drenching Jared’s shirt, which lies beneath my cheek. His arms are wrapped so tightly around me that I can barely breathe, but right now it feels as though it’s the only thing holding me together. He is the only thing holding me together.
“Tell me about our ba
by, Mia…” he eventually whispers. “…Please…”
I take a deep breath, as the tears I thought were all dried up threaten to start falling again. “What do you want to know?” I ask having no idea where to even begin.
“When did you find out?” he asks me, his voice sounding broken.
I tighten my arms around him, wondering if he needs to be held together too. “About five weeks after,” I tell him, the memory of that day still crystal clear in my head.
“After what?”
I bite my lip, wondering how to say it. “After that weekend in Chicago, when you came to visit,” is what I eventually get out, pressing my lips against his neck to soften the blow. “I didn’t even know you could find out that early.”
“And…” he starts, his voice breaking this time.
I glance up at his face now and see tears falling silently down his cheeks. Without thinking, I lift my hand and slowly, gently, wipe them away. Jared’s eyes close as I do and I risk leaning in and pressing a soft kiss against his temple, desperately wanting to make this okay for him. A low moan falls from his throat and I can’t tell if it’s from pain or longing. I pull back.
“And?” I prompt.
His eyes open. “And…what happened Mia?”
I take a deep breath and rest my head on my hand, propped up beside his face. I want him to be able to look me as I tell him all of this. So he knows how sorry I am, knows how much I feel his pain.
“At first I thought it was all because of the show, quitting my job, getting ready to come back home.”
“What?” he says quickly.
“The nausea, the tiredness,” I say, brushing the hair back from his face again. “When I started to feel sick, I assumed it was just because I’d barely eaten. When I was tired, I thought it was because I hadn’t been sleeping.”
I stop for a second, trying to work out exactly when I’d realised what it could be.
“We’d always been so careful,” Jared says, as though he is reading my mind.
I almost smile, remembering Jared’s face when I told him I’d gone on the pill. How amazingly good that first time had been. “I know,” I say, my fingers brushing his hair again. “But apparently these things can happen when you forget to take the pill a few times.”
Jared finally looks at me and his eyes are full of sadness. I try smiling at him, but it’s weak, pathetic, a poor excuse for a smile. What have I got to smile about anyway; I’m slowly destroying this man.
“You forgot?” he asks. He’s not accusing me or laying blame, he just sounds genuinely surprised.
“I wasn’t really thinking about much except the show and then getting back home to you.”
I watch as he blinks slowly. When his eyes open again, I can see a tiny bit of sadness has been replaced with what looks like understanding. Maybe he never realised just how much all of this had hurt me. How could he, when I was the one who did it all to him.
“I was just done throwing up in the toilet for the fourth day in a row, when I noticed the packet in the bathroom cabinet,” I continue, trying to clear it up. “I realised then, I hadn’t taken any for weeks. I couldn’t even remember when I’d last had one. And…” I say, trailing off. “I was late too.”
“What did you do?” he asks.
“Well,” I say. “I dragged myself out to get a pregnancy test.”
“And?” he asks.
I exhale loudly. “It was positive,” I tell him. “And I couldn’t wait to tell you when I got home in two days.”
I can remember as soon as I saw those two pink lines, I actually felt two completely different and opposite emotions, right at the same time. I had no idea if I was ready for a baby, if Jared even wanted one at all. But at the same time, seeing those two lines, side by side, changed something. I was carrying a piece of him, a piece of us, and there was a part of me that was unbelievably happy about that.
“You knew before we broke up?” he whispers, as if he’s afraid to hear the answer.
“I did,” I tell him sadly. “I was coming home to tell you.” I smile at him. “And now I understood why I’d been feeling like shit for the past couple of weeks.”
“And…” he asks, his voice a little stronger now. “The baby…were you…when I came to Chicago?”
“Well…” I continue, trying to just get it all out. “I had no idea how you’d feel about the idea, hell, I had no idea how I felt about it all. But I did know I had to tell you. You deserved to know Jared, and I knew whatever we did, it would be a decision we made together.”
“Yes,” he whispers, his eyes back on the ceiling.
“And I also knew, even if you didn’t want to have it…”
“I would have wanted to,” he says, interrupting me.
“Really,” I ask, smiling as I brush his hair back from his face. “There was a part of me that hoped you did. But at the same time, I would have understood if you didn’t. Hell, even I didn’t know what I wanted to do.”
Jared exhales loudly. “Why didn’t you call Mia, just call me? I would have come to you.”
“I know you would have,” I tell him, my fingers smoothing the worry lines between his eyes. “But I was coming home in two days and it just seemed so much more important to tell you to your face.”
“I wish I’d known,” he whispers, breaking my heart as his eyes briefly close. “So what happened then, what happened Mia?” he eventually asks. “You never came home, you didn’t have our...”
“No,” I say, my heart beating a little faster now. “He showed up and the things he said, the threats. I knew I couldn’t come back, but I knew I couldn’t let you come to Chicago either. And then…then after everything, I…I just wasn’t pregnant anymore…” My words are a rush and I know they make no sense.
Jared rolls over a little now, so he’s lying on his side, facing me. “Tell me what happened, please?”
“My father,” I start, a shudder running through me as the memory comes flooding back. “I was packing and about to leave and there was a knock at the door…” I tell him, wishing even now, that I had never answered it. “Even though it was stupid, a small part of me was hoping it was you,” I say, trying to smile at him.
“It was him?” Jared asks. “He did this?”
“Well…”
“What did he do?” Jared asks, anger in his voice. “What the fuck was he doing there, did he hurt you Mia, did he do something to you, something to the baby?” Jared is trying to sit up now, but I gently push him back on to the bed. I don’t want him to let me go, not while I tell him all of this.
“Shhh, no, he didn’t hurt me, Jared,” I say. “Not physically anyway.”
“Tell me what he did Mia.” Jared’s voice is like steel now.
“My father never liked us being together,” I say, the ache in my chest deepening at having to say these words.
“He didn’t?” Jared asks, his voice a little softer now.
I shake my head, not taking my eyes off of his. “No, he didn’t.”
“He told you this?”
I nod this time, my heart breaking at what I have to say, at just how fucked up my own father really is. “He called me once, after I’d moved in with you, when we’d told everyone about us.”
“What?” Jared asks. “He knew we were together, how could he possibly have known that?”
I bite my bottom lip, trying to work out how I am supposed to tell him this. “He’s powerful, Jared, well connected. He used people in his company to find Luke, and I suspect he did the same to keep an eye on me,” I say. “And there were photos,” I add on, nervously.
“Photos?” Jared asks surprised. “Your dad had photos of you?”
“Yes. Photos of me and photos of us, together.”
“What the fuck?” Jared asks, angry. “Someone was fucking watching us?”
“You don’t know my father,” I tell him. “He’s a powerful man and he’s very controlling and if someone does something he doesn’t like, he’ll stop at no
thing to fix it.”
Jared slides his hands into his hair and grips it tight. I can see how angry he is, how frustrated and confused. And I know why. He might have thought he knew my dad when he saw what happened to Luke, but that is only one side of him. His anger is one thing, but it’s the non-physical side, the emotional manipulations that he uses, which is so much worse. I think that’s why him hitting Luke surprised me so much. Because he would see that type of behaviour as beneath him, as a loss of control. I guess somehow Luke just provoked him too hard that day and as a result, paid the price.
“I don’t get it, he didn’t want you and me to be together,” Jared says, his eyes still on the ceiling. “But this was only a problem in Chicago?”
“Because of what I was giving up,” I say quietly.
“What?”
I take a deep breath. “In Boston, he let it go, I guess because it didn’t interfere with school and my future or whatever…”
“But you moved here from LA,” Jared says, interrupting me. “How come that wasn’t an issue?”
“RISD has a much better program, better reputation,” I tell him, remembering even now how that still didn’t soften the blow of me moving to the same city as Luke. God my father was pissed the day I told him about that transfer.
“And Chicago?”
“The best of them all,” I say. “So me giving that up…it was like a black mark against our name. Against him.” I stop and take a deep breath. “Image is all my father cares about. It’s why Luke leaving school pissed him off so much. It’s why me giving up that opportunity in Chicago pissed him off. We aren’t children to him, we’re not even family. We’re just…I don’t know… assets,” I say, not really knowing how to describe it. “We always have been and we always will I guess. Anything we do, reflects on him, and that’s all he cares about.”
Jared turns to look at me. “So…I couldn’t come to Chicago because of Luke, but you couldn’t come to Boston because of me, because of an image?”
I can feel the tears coming back because I know he won’t understand. He doesn’t know how much I was trying to protect him. How it wasn’t just a matter of me telling my dad to fuck off and mind his own business. It was never going to be as easy as that.