We Were Forever

by Brandi Aga

  Lucy turns the screen away from me where I can’t see anything and inserts the wand. It’s uncomfortable and I’m irritated, and I just want to go home. This shitshow of a day just keeps stretching on and on. I can’t believe this is happening right now. I should have stayed longer at work. Not bothered with my stupid Bluetooth. Anything to put me in a different time and place than those cars that collided with mine.

  After a minute of studying the computer, she swivels the computer screen in our direction and describes what she sees. I don’t need her to, though, because I can see it plain as day.

  There is definitely a baby in there.

  All I can think about is Ryan and our past. What he’s thinking. I feel like he’s judging me and secretly wondering if this baby is even his. Of course it is, I know that. But he doesn’t know that and I’m just being irrational, but this is me. Irrational and dramatic and always in need of reassurance.

  Lucy points out what is where and that the baby has a healthy heartbeat of 109 BPM and that I’m about eleven weeks along. Eleven weeks. How could I not have noticed this? I have so many questions and things I need to say and hear Ryan say, but they aren’t appropriate in front of strangers. So, to save myself embarrassment, I wait until we get home. She informs me that all my test results from the day will be sent over to my primary doctor and writes down my estimated due date and prints out a picture and sends us on our way.

  The Foxworth household is about to get very real and real interesting when we walk through that door.

  Ryan paid the babysitter for the week and showing up on short notice and excused her for the night as soon as we got home. I came straight to the bathroom without a word and locked the door. I’m taking the longest bath I’ve ever taken. Mostly to avoid that look he gave me at the hospital, and also because it feels so amazing after this day I don’t want to get out.

  “Why’d you lock the door?” The doorknob turns but resistance keeps it from opening. I feel guilty, knowing I never lock the door and choosing this moment to do so, but I just needed a minute. I picture him standing there, leaning against the darkened wood with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and worry etched on his face. Worry that I seem to not be able to stop putting there in the first place. “Damnit, Leylah. Don’t shut me out. It’s not fucking fair.”

  His voice breaks during his outburst and a part of that sound breaks another piece of me. I know he’s right. It’s beyond unfair. I sink lower down into the tub and blow the bubbles that touch my lips around in the water. “I’ll be out in a minute.” I hear nothing, so I assume he’s going to stand there and wait. I look down at my pruning fingers and rub them together. I pull the plug with my toes and drain the water, and rinse what’s left of the soap off before I get out. I take my sweet time because I’m the queen of procrastination. At all the things.

  I dry off and open the door while I towel dry the ends of my hair that got wet. Ryan sits on the end of the bed, a few feet away from the bathroom door. His face is in his hands, resting on his knees, waiting for me just as I suspected. “So, you really didn’t know?”

  “No, Ryan. I didn’t know.” I’m already exhausted from my day, then the accident. I’m really in no mood to be interrogated, especially when I haven’t done anything wrong. Not this time. His delivery in his questioning is all wrong and doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe it’s the fact that I know he’s hiding something from me that has me bitter about the whole situation. He has no right to be mad at me when he’s got his own shit to worry about.

  I crawl up the bed into my spot on my side and fluff my pillows. If we’re going to duke it out, I at least want to be comfortable.

  “Do you need anything?” He’s asking because of the trauma from the accident. Not the other…thing. I narrow my eyes at the way he looks at me. Just knowing what I know, what his mother said, pisses me off that he isn’t telling me. That’s got to be why he’s being so weird. He is hiding it from me and freaked the fuck out. Is this what I was like when I was doing the same thing and lying, sneaking around every day?

  “I can’t believe this is how you’re reacting.” I fluff my pillows up around my neck to prop myself up. If I lay down, I may just fall right to sleep. That’s how tired I am after this lame ass day.

  “How am I reacting? I feel the same way about you. I can’t tell if you’re happy or sad or what’s running through that head of yours. You’re happy one minute and sad the next. Or crying over something he said or did and now that we finally find out something like this that I always thought you wanted, you won’t fucking look at me!”

  “How can I be pregnant, Ryan?” I say each word slowly, so that he can maybe connect those ugly little dots that he can’t seem to find the words to tell me himself.

  “What?” He has the most confused look on his face and for a minute, I almost feel sorry that I’m putting him through this, but then I think about the look on Janice’s face when she told me, and all those feelings immediately disappear.

  “Your mother told me. About your vasectomy.” He stands up abruptly, like the bed just burned him and looks at me like I have three heads or something. As if I’m the only one that can lie in this relationship. How dare I accuse him of such things? I’m supposed to be the only liar here.

  “When did you talk to my mom?”

  “That’s what you ask me right now?”

  “Yes, Leylah. Because she’s full of shit and just out to hurt you. Drive a wedge between us. You know that. And I’d say it’s working, wouldn’t you?”

  “So, you didn’t have a vasectomy and not tell me, then?”

  He runs his hand down his face and paces toward the door. He leans against it, arms stretched out and palms flat against the doorframe. He’s tired. He can’t be tired. Not yet. If he doesn’t fight, I don’t fight. Not anymore. Not after everything.

  “Leylah.”

  The lack of denial tells me everything I need to know without saying it.

  “Oh my God. You did.”

  “I didn’t. Listen to me. I had a vasectomy. Right before I got divorced the first time. Parker’s mom conned me into it, thinking it was the right decision and then shit went sideways. That’s on me. I shouldn’t have done it because I didn’t truly want to. I let her convince me that I did. I was young and so stupid. After she left, I had it reversed. It was before we ever even got together.”

  “And you never told your mother that you had it reversed?”

  “No, I didn’t tell her any of the details. Despite what she thinks, she doesn’t know everything and none of it is her business to know.” Part of me wonders if he’s telling the truth. But then I remember I have his kid in me, so he has to be. My fight is slowly losing its last leg to stand on.

  “And you didn’t think to tell me this bit of information all those years we tried and tried to have a baby, and nothing was working? We went to the fucking doctor! I thought that it was all my fault and I felt so guilty all those years every single time I got my period for not being able to have that with you.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. I just hoped like hell that didn’t have anything to do with it and eventually I’d get you pregnant, and everything would work out. And I did…”

  I flop my arms out on the bed, exasperated, but lacking the energy to show it. “We’re a hot mess, Ryan. I don’t know how to fix this.”

  “Leylah, I fucked up. I’m sorry. I should have told you long before now. Before we got married. Or even after, all those times. But I didn’t. Then we separated and I sure as hell didn’t want to tell you after you were with him and risk losing you again.”

  The ice queen in me melts a tiny bit at the admission of his fears. The very same fears that are going to haunt me for the rest of my life. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “As soon as that doctor said I was pregnant, I thought to myself “Wow, Ryan’s going to think I cheated on him again because me and him can’t have a baby”. And I know how long we’ve t
ried and tried to be parents together and you had to find out in some sick crowded hallway. I always dreamt of telling you in some special way, and all of that was ruined. Then add to that what I knew, or thought I knew that you weren’t telling me, I was angry and hurt.”

  Ryan blows out a long breath and sits back down silently for a good long while. I don’t say anything incase he’s thinking something good and me speaking will ruin it. I don’t want to interrupt his thought process, whatever that may be.

  “We’ve been through a lot, you and me. It’s not going to fix itself overnight. I told you I forgive you for what happened, and we can’t move forward if you can’t let it go like I’m trying to do.” He lays back on the bed with his legs dangling off and rubs my thigh absentmindedly. “What you said didn’t once cross my mind. I don’t think you were with him, and I don’t ever want to imagine it again. I told you that. When will you start believing it?” I want to believe it. God, do I want to. More than anything.

  “I’ll do a DNA test. I’ll do whatever you want, I just have to know that you trust me. It drives me crazy on a daily basis wondering what you’re thinking about me, us, Maddy. Sometimes, I just wish I wasn’t me, so that I didn’t have to go through the pain that I inflict on myself for that very reason.”

  “That’s not healthy. I don’t think anything bad about any of us. I wouldn’t be here if I did. You’re the only thing that keeps making me think about what happened by bringing it up all the time. And as far as Maddy goes, well I know you know how much I love that little girl. This shit has to stop, now.”

  He’s right, I know. He’s never once thrown the past in my face or used it against me. I’m always the one worrying and accusing and casting my fears of what I did on to him. I flat out told my therapist this myself. I clearly know what I need to. I need to learn to stop projecting and just live. Doing it and believing it are two whole separate issues.

  “Thank you. I’m sorry for not coming to you first about your mother.”

  “I’ll deal with her. Just talk to me, okay. We’re the only ones in this thing. Not him or her or anyone else outside of these walls. Get some sleep. I’m going to go get a workout in before I come to bed.”

  I got a hotel room since V and I flew in together. It didn’t feel right bringing my attorney- is that all she is? -to stay at Leylah’s best friend’s house and I couldn’t just leave her high and dry. Blaze keeps telling me I’m fucking stupid for spending money on a hotel when he has a perfectly good bed for me. He doesn’t know everything, though. And honestly, I can’t find it in me to tell him anything like that right now. I’m not in the right headspace and neither is he. His erratic behavior is the last thing I want to deal with right now. I plan to avoid him at all costs this trip.

  Veronica insisted on getting her own room, but I talked her down to conjoining rooms. Separate but still questionable. She’s still partly giving me the cold shoulder. Why? I don’t know. Jealousy, maybe. She hasn’t completely written me off though, from the looks she’d give me when she thought I wasn’t looking on the plane. And the way her fingers brushed mine when our arms bumped together on the armrest from sitting so close.

  Also, the fact that I have my dick shoved all the way down her throat, might temporarily cloud my thoughts.

  I barged into her room an hour ago and she didn’t turn me away. She’s currently laid out on her back with her head hanging off the end of the bed. I reach across her body and rub her clit while I thrust my dick in her face repeatedly. She gurgles on it and the overflow of spit runs down her cheeks and into her hair. I thrust one last time and hold it there till she can’t breathe any longer and pull it out all at once.

  “Turn over,” I growl at her but flip her over myself before she even has the chance to register that I told her to do so. She squeals and the sounds makes my dick bob in excitement. “Don’t move.” I pad back to my room and grab the lube out of my bag. Yes, I always travel with lube. I’m always ready.

  I walk back over to her room and flip the lid open on the bottle and squirt it all over her ass cheeks. She moans at my touch, massaging it over the globes of her ass. I give her one more good squirt right between her cheeks and toss the bottle to the side. I climb up on the bed hovering over her and slide my dick between her ass cheeks a couple times before it sucks it right in.

  I don’t go slow. I’m rough and I’m brutal. I know I hurt her even though she’d never admit it, and I’ll regret it later, but right now I see nothing but the blackness in my soul.

  “Roman…” She chokes out my name on a sob and I feel her shuddering beneath me. Her voice hits my ears and I slap her ass until I come.

  She flattens her body out across the bed once I get off and makes no move to get up. My hand is forever imprinted into her ass from the looks of it. I wipe the sweat off my body and flop down on the mattress next to her to catch my breath. Her pretty brown eyes flutter open and stare into mine. I wipe the sweaty hair out of her face so I can see her better.

  “I’m not her.”

  Fuck me. Am I that pathetic? That obvious? “I never said you were.”

  “I thought we might have something again, you know?” She’s quiet for a long time and I think that’s the end of the conversation. I don’t really know what to say and really, I don’t want to say anything. I just want to go to sleep after that.

  I was going to stay over here in her room after I roughed her up so much but now it just seems stupid. I’m not going to try to be the good guy that I’m not, when she clearly doesn’t want me to be.

  I ease off the bed and just as I step to the threshold connecting our two rooms she says out from her pillow, “I can’t compete with something that will never be.”

  Instead of telling her I’ll never be with Leylah again and that I don’t love her, I turn around and slam the door putting a barrier back between us.

  I can hear her faint cries through the walls, and like the asshole I am, I turn the tv up louder so I don’t have to hear it.

  The next morning, I hear Veronica’s shower water running through my bathroom wall. I debate going over there and joining her but after last night, I’m blurring lines of what’s wrong and right and up and down. Just need to get through today, then I can decide if I’m going to deal with that shit or not.

  She texts me while I’m in the shower and tells me she’ll meet me in the lobby with coffee in thirty minutes. Silver linings and all. I also get a text from B, asking if I need moral support for the day. I think I’m good there. I thought we’d already established he’s the last person I’d ask for this but he doesn’t pick up on my subtle hints. Isn’t it funny how your people change at different moments in your life?

  I get dressed in my normal attire. A flannel, jeans, and boots. Veronica’s going to love that. I smirk despite myself. I brush though my beard and head downstairs to get this whole thing over with.

  She stands up from the lobby seating when I step off the elevator double fisting two large coffees. I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. Once she finally stopped crying, I turned the tv off and stared at the ceiling till the sun came up.

  “I hope they’re both for me,” I joke, pointing to the coffees.

  “Really?” She ignores my comment, eyeing my body from head to toe and makes a face. Knew she’d love it.

  I shrug. “I change for no one.”

  “Yeah, you can tell the court that. They’d have a field day with you.”

  “You saying I look bad, V?” I try to make light of the tension between us. It’s the last thing I need today, and I was stupid for upsetting her last night before something so important. She looks both strictly professional and beautiful despite crying half the night after I left. She’s got the whole schoolgirl meets librarian meets teacher thing going on. She’s just as hot in her business attire as she is naked in the sheets.

  “I’m saying in the grand scheme of things, your appearance always matters in this world.” ‘This’ world being lawyers and fancy courtrooms
and judges. Her world. “Let’s go, I’m not in the mood for games this morning.”

  “Hey,” I call out louder than I intended to before she reaches the lobby doors. Eyes from passersby watch me curiously. “I know today’s important. You don’t have to remind me of that. I’m here for my daughter.”

  “Is that all?”

  Our eyes dance with unspoken threats and promises. She hits me good and hard. Always back to Leylah with this one. She turns and climbs into the Uber waiting at the curb before I can sink my teeth into her. She’s still running away from me like she did all those years ago.

  I’m used to people always running. It’s probably why I’m so good at it myself.

  Our Uber driver comes to a stop downtown, outside the place we were instructed to meet.

  “Listen, no matter what, we’re here for Maddilyn today. Stick with what you know, and I’ll be there to help you, okay?” I nod and that’s all she’s getting from me. Just being here outside this place knowing what I’m doing here is making me physically ill. V tips our driver and everything else is a blur as soon as I step into that room.

  Today’s the day.

  “Is he here?” I ask Shane, my lawyer. The closer this day got the more that I’ve been freaking out and now that it’s here, I just want it to be over with. I feel like a giant ball of nerves wrapped in explosives. I’ve only been to the bathroom twenty-eight times since we left the house.

  “He is. Him and his lawyer just walked into the conference room. We can go on up if you like. Where’s Ryan?”

  “He’s coming. There,” I point out across the parking lot and wave him over in our direction. He dropped me off and went to park the car so I wouldn’t be late. Traffic was god awful and there is no parking whatsoever. Shane was already here waiting for me when I got out of the car.

  “Awesome, let’s do this. Remember, today is nothing fancy. Just a meeting, but still an important meeting. Keep it calm and keep it professional. I’ll be right there with you guys if you have any concerns or questions, don’t be afraid to speak up.”