by S R Savell
I didn’t really believe what was real. I didn’t believe in anything, not right then.
They’ll call it shock or trauma or denial. I don’t give a baboon’s bright ass what they say. I know that while I lay there with Nathaniel in our own safe haven, nothing else seemed to be. It didn’t matter because it wasn’t there. Period.
You can only run for so long before you run out of time or space or both. And my time and space, my little happy world, were soon to come falling in.
Hands on my face wake me. He’s turned now, reading the instructions on the back of the thermometer box. “It goes in the front end,” I say, pushing myself up.
He sits next to me like a man in a meat suit would approach a tiger. “How’re you feeling?”
“Better.” I’m sitting all the way up now, looking around the bedroom like I haven’t seen it dozens of times before.
“Can I do anything?” He holds a hand out.
I take it. “This is all I need,” I say, kissing his inner wrist.
“I love you,” he murmurs, thumb kneading circles in the back of my palm.
“Yeah, yeah, you too.” I squeeze his hand, trying for a smile. “Would you stay with me a bit?”
He nods and climbs into bed. No one talks until I ask where Wolf is.
“On the side of the bed.”
“Would you get him up here?”
Wolfie sticks his nose in my back and then curls up there. I rest against Nate’s chest, right arm wrapped around his waist.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for work?”
“I called in today.”
“No, you didn’t.” I sit up.
Wolf grumbles and starts to chew on my hand.
“You need me here.”
“Nate, I’m serious. Go.”
“Don’t argue with me on this, please?” He sits up too, hands in lap.
“Damn right I’ll argue with you. Go to work.”
“No.”
We have a glare down. Even my attempt at The Look fails.
“Well, I have to work today.”
“I called in for you too.”
I’m so tired. I just want everything to be normal again, whatever normal is. My groin hurts, my head hurts, everything hurts, but I bet if I think it three times, I’ll be better.
Michelle, get better. Michelle, get better. Michelle, get better.
It doesn’t work.
I take Wolfie in my lap and play with him, rubbing his belly until his leg thumps.
“You need to rest.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“How the hell do you know what I am?”
Wolfie stretches out and rubs his face into my calf.
I don’t get an answer, except his gaze meeting mine, not letting go.
It’s hard to argue when he’s just sitting there, letting me pelt him with bullets. I’d much rather hit someone who’s firing back. “Fine. When we can’t pay the rent, we can be homeless together.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. Is that all you ever say? Okay? Okeydokey, Michelle. Well, you know what—?” I take a deep breath, grab the pillow, and stick my face in it. “I didn’t want to go to work anyway.”
He tries to stroke my hair.
“Don’t touch me.”
He stills.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” My knuckles crack from being squeezed so hard.
“No, I’m sorry.” He scoots away and puts Wolfie on the ground. He takes off into the hall, and I hear the squeaky duck being honked. “Tell me what I can do.”
The pillow smells like him. My face goes in it before pulling up long enough for me to ask for pen and paper.
When he returns with it, I make the hardest list I’ve ever had to make.
Vaginal cream for yeast infections, pills for the bladder, and the morning-after pill in case my birth control decided to be faulty. Self-medication for the soul.
He looks at it. His expression goes blank for a second, the wiping of a slate. “I’ll be right back.”
I find my phone in the covers. Thirteen missed messages and seven missed calls.
Bless her little heart.
I swallow the venom I want to spit and dial.
“Michelle, what happened?”
“Hi, Mom.”
“What’s wrong? Did that boy—?”
The venom rises again. “No, we’re all fine. I was feeling sick, and he got worried.”
Silence.
“You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure?”
“How could I not be sure?”
The squeaking in the hall stops.
My heart does too.
“Baby, you had me worried. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
Wolfie barks.
I slip out of bed, choking on my lungs.
“Michelle? Hello?”
“Give me a second.” I take the phone from my ear and edge into the hallway.
Wolfie’s at the door, growling.
There’s a knock, and I almost scream. The knocking gets louder, followed by someone else’s screams, and I grab up Wolfie before running into the bedroom.
“Michelle, what—?”
“Hey, someone’s at the door. I gotta go, okay?”
“Wh—?”
“Love you, bye.”
I hang up and hold Wolfie tight.
He’s squirming, trying to get to the door.
I lock him in.
“Trent, you best get your ass out here. I know you’re in there with that slut!”
The banging gets louder.
I peer through the peephole. It’s some nutso, stomping and yowling into her cell phone.
“Get out here,” she brays, punting the door now.
“Bitch, there ain’t no Trent in here,” I holler, whacking the door in retaliation.
She screams incoherently. I hear another thud.
I swing the door inward.
Wolfie howls from the bedroom.
The crazy lady is screeching at about a hundred decibels. She half pushes inside.
I body block her out. “Lady, I said there isn’t any Trent here.”
“What apartment is this?” she snaps, head bouncing like it’s topping a spring.
“One eleven.”
“Wait. One eleven, you say?”
“Yeah.” I dial the cops.
“Oh, damn.” She laughs, then talks into her cell. “Girl, I’m over here screamin’ at this girl in one eleven, and you said one oh seven.”
“Yeah, there’s some lady at my apartment losing her mind.” I start to read out the address.
She leaves real quick then, not even bothering with room 107.
Bitch.
I don’t leave the house. I stay either in bed or in the bathroom, counting ceiling bumps and floor tiles, forcing myself into not thinking at all. My iPod is either on the charger or blaring in my ears, playing the only music that keeps me from breaking altogether. I spend hours on repeat, the words rolling into one stream of music that keeps my ears ringing and my thoughts away long after the battery has died.
I don’t sleep much anymore, not nights. They’re filled with too many waking horrors.
The trick to staving off your thoughts is filling the space with other noise. My brain is too tired from its all-day battle to blur out the thoughts the shadows bring. Every sigh, every whir, every howl and crunch, imagined or heard—they leave me choking in the darkness, drowning in a wave of memories and sensations I force away during the daytime.
I don’t know what’s worse, the emptiness of my days or the void of my nights, nothingness or everything you fear harnessed and attached, dragging you into the pit.
I still don’t know.
We keep the bedroom light on now. And I check the locks twice, three times, four or five, even six times before I get in bed. I go check the windows and locks and rooms too, just to make sure. And when Nate falls asleep, I convince Wolfie to go check with me one last
time. Or two. Or three.
I’m perfectly aware of how paranoid I’ve become. It’s not a choice. I mean it is, but it isn’t. Like someone who takes the first snort of cocaine; that’s a choice then.
The tile squelches against my damp palms, moisture gathering at my spine from trapped steam. Drops slide from my temples, leaving a ticklish trail in their wake.
“Truth is a whisper, only a choice. Nobody hears above this noise. There’s always a risk when you try to believe—”
A hand waves in front of my eyes.
A scream slips out, but when I see it’s Nate, I catch my lower lip in my teeth.
His hands are now in the harmless position, palms up and trembling.
I rub my eyes, the music in my green earbuds audible from the floor. When he doesn’t speak, I do. “What?”
“I wanted to talk about something.”
I motion to the floor, click my iPod off.
He sits, already wearing his work clothes. Before he starts, I know it’s bad; there’s a pink hue simmering under his cheeks.
I say, “Did you know the world’s largest insect is called the giant weta and it eats carrots?”
“Uh. No, I didn’t.”
“Well, you do now. Your turn.”
He’s scratching at his shoes, prying dirt off, making a small flake pile. “I talked to someone.”
“About?”
His eyes shift.
My spine frosts over. “About what?”
“About getting you help—”
The world dissolves. All I see is him, and the frigid touch starts to sizzle.
“She said—”
“You told? You told someone?”
He winces.
I hit him in the face with the towel, and he winces again.
“How could you do that? How could you tell someone about—?”
“I didn’t,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “I just found, you know, one of those clinic places. That’s where I got that morning pill thing. And she said whoever needed medicine or, or therapy—”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.”
He shrivels at the look, runs his hair back. “I know. But if you need—”
“I don’t need anything!”
He looks up at me, eyes piercing through mine, prying where they aren’t wanted.
I could be pregnant. I could have some nasty STD that could rot out my brains.
I could have anything.
And we both know it.
I leave through the door, Wolfie at my side, before they uncover every last secret I’ve left to hide.
I’m sure it’s nothing at first. Waking up to vomit before the alarm’s gone off, scrubbing the puke up with Lysol, still smelling it, which makes me puke more.
Nothing.
So I don’t tell Nate.
And it starts to be a pretty regular thing. And my head hurts all the time, and I pee a lot and I could swear I’m starting to balloon outward.
Nothing. At. All.
One morning, I can’t get to the bathroom in time, and we wake up in a slosh of last night’s spaghetti.
It takes a bit, but he catches me scrubbing it off the sheets and floor, eyes stinging not entirely from vomit burn.
I’m covered in puke and tears. He must take my grief as shame, and he doesn’t talk, choosing instead to carry the sheet and mess away.
“Here,” he says, sleepy smile almost making me smile back.
I wipe my face, then my hands, with the washcloth. He helps me to the bathroom, gross and everything. I scrub my face and arms while he yawns against the wall, his knotted hair a comb’s nightmare.
He hands me a towel. “You okay?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper, pushing my hair back.
Arms wrap me in a hug from behind. His face presses into my neck, lips tickling. “I’m sorry.” His hands rub my stomach soothingly, and I flinch, insides curdling.
“S-sorry,” he says, arms slipping away.
“Don’t.” I hold them to me, leaning back into him. “Please.”
I get lost in that embrace like so many times before.
When I tell him, he can’t quite process it at first. He quits blinking and keeps doing this thing with his head, like it’s a jammed drawer that won’t open right and his mouth keeps twitching.
“Are you sure?”
I shake my head.
He stares at the wall, rubs his stubble. Looks to me.
“If you are—”
“I’ll get rid of it,” I reply, sitting on the toilet.
He goes pale.
“Don’t—” He stops. Smiles weakly.
“You don’t want me to?”
I don’t want to. But then I do.
If I let myself ponder the fact that it’s a human soul inside me, molding and shaping a human body for it to reside in, I won’t be able to get rid of . . . it.
“It’s not my choice. But if you’re asking me”—he kneels in front of me, déjà vu slinking over my skin—“I say don’t. It’s our baby.”
Baby.
He holds my hand between both of his. “Our baby,” he repeats, kissing my forehead.
Our baby.
I pee on the stick, wait two minutes, and usher him in. We stare at it like it’ll levitate from our mind force.
“Negative,” I breathe. I hand him the test and go sit on the bathtub, rubbing my hands over my knees.
“Negative,” he echoes, staring at the minus sign.
And the panic starts.
I don’t want to be one of those reality TV women, the ones who don’t find out they’re preggers until they’re pushing out a cantaloupe-sized mass into the toilet.
What if the test is faulty? What if it’s too early to tell?
“What if it’s wrong?” I ask.
Maybe I screwed it up. I mean, I held it downward the whole time, peed on it as soon as I woke up, didn’t drink a whole bunch of water the night before, all that jazz.
He comes, sits at my side, pulls me close.
One little piss stick has so much of my life to dictate. I’m not giving it all the glory.
We end up going to the health clinic down the street, the one Nate told me about. They assure me on the phone that the tests are simple, just some blood work and a tissue sample from my lady area. Then, in a few weeks, I’ll have some follow-up tests just to be certain.
The place is pretty crowded, pregnant ladies and half-awake fathers strewn like beer cans after a Sunday night football game. A few rug rats are running around, squealing and yelling like the little monsters they are.
I feel wrong. Like this is a brothel and my father’s a preacher. And he’s just shown up for his afternoon delight. With me.
We wait, hands entwined, like an expectant couple.
As soon as I think it, I realize how unfunny it is.
Nate says a few words and I nod, not hearing him but trying to. It’s the blue door. It’s the reason I can’t concentrate on anything living. Because my life as it is now depends on what happens behind that blue door.
Getting raped wasn’t a choice. Coming here was. And maybe that will count for something for the big guy upstairs.
When they call for me, when the blue door creaks open, I can’t go. Nate has to stand, pull me up with him, walk me to the room, and leave me with a warm hug.
A nurse leaves me a hospital gown and a smile, telling me they’ll be in shortly.
The place is freezing, and my chest is peeking through the paper. My nails are halfway gone, a few bleeding, so I wipe them on the underside of the dress thingy. The room tastes like metal and alcohol and baby wipes. It gets me to remembering an article about how some recovering alcoholic drank down a whole bottle of Germ-X and died.
It’s looking pretty appetizing right now.
The door opens, and I sit up, hugging myself tight.
“Candace West?”
“No.”
The nurse checks his chart. “Oh, sorry.” He leave
s.
I know the chances of getting an STD are high, especially in women. And if Peter’s homosexual, like I think, what are the chances? Gonorrhea, syphilis, AIDS, chlamydia—I could have one or none or all of them because some pathetic, disgusting drunk bashed my head in and did me in.
Then there’s the b—
The it. The thing.
The egg-plus-sperm mix that may be attached to my uterine wall, eating my blood like a tiny leech, draining me dry.
The it. The . . . thing.
I tried to get it gone. Make it go away.
That night, for the short span of time I let myself believe what happened, I lost any morals or ethics or reason I’d ever had about weak, stupid women aborting their babies.
I knew all the old wives’ tales from a report my sophomore year, all the tricks of the murder trade. That and the power of hysterics made me do the stupid shit that wasn’t even meant to be done until you knew you were pregnant. I did most of them regardless. The ones I couldn’t do, I half-assed. Drank a gallon of orange juice, topped that off with cheap vitamin C tablets to make it stick, trying to induce contractions. I even hit myself over and over and over, attempting to jar the union loose, to break my insides so they could never make anything so terribly beautiful.
As long as it was an it, it would all be okay. If it got any further, any more un-it, shit would get real. I’d have to admit the little egg/spermie combo wasn’t a label on a nonreturnable package but the name of a true, living being.
I know. I’m sick and horrible, a depraved scumbag who lost it when she should’ve kept it together.
“You were scared. You didn’t know what to do. It doesn’t make you a bad person,” Nathaniel had said.
Then why do I feel like Judas at the cross?
“Ms. Pearce?”
I wipe my mouth, then my hand. “Yeah?”
“I’m Dr. Hopkins. If you’ll take a seat, we can get started.”
He runs through the logistics of it. He also decides, since he’s down there, he might as well do a Pap smear.
Five minutes later, there’s a strange man peering between my legs, scraping out my cervix.
Picture someone filing at the roof of your mouth, right where the hard palate ends and the soft spot begins. And either he can’t see or this is his first one, because he’s knocking around like a hobbled horse headed for water, and I have to bite the inside of my lips to keep from screaming.