by Brona Mills
‘He even bought a separate laptop.’
I nod, not really listening. All I can focus on is the fact that Liam is preparing for the inevitable. If Liam and Ethan are so sure about what’s going to happen in the future, could they possibly know about my future? Did DD mention it in the letter Ethan read?
David opens the bathroom door and leads me in with him. I crouch down on the toilet and he unwraps the stick for me.
‘You want to hold it as well?’ I mock.
‘Sure, if you want me to.’ He grins.
I swipe the stick from his hand.
‘Are you excited?’ he asks.
I can’t help but smile. His enthusiasm is infectious. ‘Yes.’
David stands in front of me, reading the instructions as I place the cap on top of the stick.
‘We need to wait at least two minutes,’ he tells me.
‘No, we don’t.’ I stare at the blue lines.
‘What?’
‘I’m pregnant.’ I show him the test and vomit rises at the back of my throat.
He grabs the stick out of my hand, staring at the lines.
‘When you’re pregnant, the lines show up pretty quickly.’
‘Oh my god,’ he whispers. ‘We’re having a baby.’
I wish I could get excited along with him. But his future is playing out exactly as it always did.
He picks me up and squeezes me tight. He rubs his face in the crook of my neck and inhales. ‘You’re having my baby.’
‘I’m having your baby.’ I hope.
One month later
Tuesday, February 6, 2001
It’s late the next day when I arrive home and I drop my overnight bag by the kitchen door. My mom’s cooking dinner, and Max is colouring at the kitchen table.
‘Where’s David?’ I ask, making my way over to hug Max.
‘Upstairs,’ Mom answers. ‘How was the conference? I didn’t know you had a trip until David told me you were gone.’
‘It was last minute.’ I keep my arms around Max until he squirms out of them complaining.
‘Everything okay?’ she asks.
‘I need you to take Max over to the guest house with you, if that’s okay?’
She nods with concern in her eyes. ‘Dinner’s ready. We can eat over there, Max.’
Each step up the attic stairs is heavy and takes the breath from me, knowing that I’m about to destroy the man I love. It’s killing me that I won’t be able to confide in him. That I have to lie to him.
In all the scenarios I ever imagined, I never imagined this. I pause at the top of the stairs. He probably heard me climbing the steps. Do I knock or do I open the door and drop the bomb on his life? I turn the knob and he swivels in his chair to greet me.
‘Hello,’ he draws out with that unbelievable smile on his face.
I stare at it, trying to commit it to memory in case he never smiles like that for me again.
‘What’s wrong?’ His face slips into concern as he walks towards me.
I didn’t realise the tears had already fallen. My life has already crumbled.
I put my hand up to stop him from taking me in his arms. It will be worse when he lets me go.
‘You have to know that I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’ His face pales.
My lips tremble, and I know I have to find the strength to keep the tears under control to speak. I have to tell him before I fall apart. I stare at the floor. I can’t look him in the eye or see his face when I end our marriage. When my voice comes out, it doesn’t break like I thought it would. ‘I had an abortion.’
Monday, February 26, 2001
Mike paces my office, pinching the bridge of his nose as he barks orders at me and Caitlyn. ‘I want a view of the Eiffel Tower, Stella. Not a lean over the edge of the balcony and squint type either. I want to be able to have the doors open and for it to be the first thing I see.’
‘It’s Paris,’ Caitlyn scolds. ‘Every fucker with money wants that view. And I can’t get you anywhere.’
‘Do your job and get me the room,’ Mike tells her.
‘I don’t understand why you go to so much trouble for your birthday. You’re going to be on your own.’ Caitlyn scoffs. ‘It’s stupid. I swear you’re losing your mind.’
‘Stupid was last year and ordering an eight-foot Christmas tree for his cabin and full decorations at the end of February.’ David drums his fingers on the arm of his seat. ‘And phoning the hotel ten times to check they got the international shipment of sausages. That was celebrity scandal right there.’
Mike rolls his eyes at David. ‘Get on the phone, Caitlyn, and work it out.’
‘Fine.’ Caitlyn drops her stack of papers in Mike’s lap, and he flips her off on her way out.
If it were anyone else, I’d tell him to check his “fuckin’” attitude and get the hell out of my office, but I understand Mike. He’s setting this up for Audrey, and when you’re madly in love with someone from a different world, you’d do anything for them—anything they ask you to do—without questioning the ramifications.
David sits calmly in the chair on the other side of my desk, staring at me. He does that a lot now. He stares, like he’s broken, like he can’t figure me out. He’s run out of words, out of questions, and now he’s just trying to understand me inside his own mental torment. I don’t think it’s working. I’m losing him already.
It’s been almost three weeks and although we haven’t separated, he’s detached from me. He’s still in my bed, but he won’t talk to me. Not like we used to talk. Everything is strained, and being that close to him at night, knowing we’re a million miles away from each other is worse than if he’d stayed in the spare room.
At least then I could hope he might forgive me and one day come back. Instead, we’re headed down the path of separation like DD told me. Every night I’m terrified it’ll be the last time I get to sleep near him, to smell him on the sheets. I don’t think I can survive waiting another fifteen years like I’m supposed to.
I run my hands over my face, pinching my cheeks. Pain will stop the tears. Mike mistakes the frustration for his behaviour and apologises.
‘I just want it to be perfect.’ He practically drools.
‘I know you do, Mike. We’re trying our best,’ I tell him.
‘Did you order the things from the pastry shop we were recommended?’
‘I sent it yesterday.’ I check my emails for their reply and point to the screen. ‘It’s here.’
‘And they’ll be open earlier than usual? You know what? I’m going to call them myself.’ He grabs the phone off the console on my desk, and I have to lunge over the desk to pull it from his hands.
‘No, you won’t. You’re completely irrational right now and I don’t need some employee leaking a story to the press about how you chewed them out over mis-ordering some goddamn croissants. Now get the hell out and let me handle it.’
Mike relaxes. ‘Thank you. I have to go. Dave, I need you to come with me to buy a ring box for Audrey.’
‘That doesn’t sound like a two-man job,’ David says.
‘It’s freaking me out. I managed to track down and buy back her wedding rings and I don’t want to give her the box the guy in the pawn shop had. I want to at least get her my own box. You know, something that she knows is from me and not just her husband’s old rings back. I went to Rodeo Drive this morning and there’s every colour and shape and material. It’s kind of ridiculous.’
‘What’s ridiculous is that you have a smoking-hot girlfriend who you’ve sent away for the weekend while you go buy wedding ring boxes for someone else’s wife.’ David thinks Jessica, his ex-college crush, is totally-smoking-hot? Gee, that helps.
‘Shut up, man, you know it’s not like that. And that’s why you have to come. So I don’t accidently pick up some red-velvet heart-shaped thing.’
‘Why can’t Stella go with you?’ David rises out of his seat as he speaks. It hurts him to say my name. Every
time he says it, he needs to move, like the action will make the pain less.
‘Because you have experience in this,’ Mike tells him.
‘Do I?’ He raises his eyebrows and turns his gaze from Mike to me. His guarded expression has slipped, and he looks like he wants to smile or laugh. He must remember himself too soon, as the playfulness leaves him, and the strain is back. Oh, I get it. He doesn’t want to do anything that would signify he’s moved on. To move on would mean accepting that it’s happened. I want to take his hand and tell him I wasn’t okay with it either.
David looks me in the eye when he answers Mike. ‘I just took the one the sales guy said came free with the rings.’ His voice is flat, like he’s trying to slide a knife into my heart. Like he’s trying to pretend that our marriage was perhaps a sham from the start.
David crosses the room and opens the office door. Mike smiles timidly at me as he follows him out.
‘Call Cici and tell her I’m on the way over to pick up the winter coat and clothes I ordered,’ Mike tells Caitlyn in the outer office.
‘Mike,’ I shout loud enough for everyone to hear.
They stop, and David stares at me as I speak. Just stares right through me.
‘Get her a white leather one. It’s simple and elegant, and David’s right. It’s not about the box or even the rings themselves. When the man you love asks you to marry him, it’s all about the marriage, not about what he’s holding in front of you.’
Mike’s great at reading a room and responding appropriately. It’s part of what makes him that extra bit more successful than most—his ability to put people at ease. ‘That’s great advice, only it’s another man’s rings and another man’s wife.’
I chuckle as they leave, and know that as soon as I’m finished here, I’ll run across town to help them out. Audrey gave us those rings to help save me and Max. The least I can do is make sure those two don’t screw up something as simple as a ring box.
Mike has accustomed to the grander things in life and for Audrey—he’s searching for the perfect fucking ring box in a Beverly Hills jewellers. Which suits me fine—I can visit Cici while I’m here. David stands at the corner of the jewellery store, leaning against the window, chatting with Jessica as I drive by and search for a parking spot.
Oh Christ, this is not going to go down well if Jessica realises Mike is buying something for another woman. Despite Audrey and Mike’s relationship never stepping over the boundaries of friendship, even I quickly figured out that Mike’s heart belonged to someone else. I’m sure Jessica must feel it too. I throw the car into the first spot I find. I’m practically jogging in heels to the corner of the store. I freeze when I hear David’s voice talking to Jessica. He sounds relaxed. Happy even. It’s been so long since I’ve heard anything but a stoic tone from him. I stay around the corner out of sight, desperate to hear the old David that used to flirt with me in that voice. Fuck. He’s flirting with her.
‘You can’t say things like that, David.’ Jessica keeps laughter in her perfectly cute English accent, but I can hear the flattery there. That little bitch is enjoying this.
Who wouldn’t? David and Mike are two of the hottest up-and-coming guys in Hollywood. And here she has a piece of them both snapping at her vagina.
‘Hey, don’t take that the wrong way, Jess. Mike’s practically my brother, but all I’m saying is, remember that I was chatting you up first.’
‘Oh, you so were not. You were dating Amy, and I was there to meet Mike. You were just being friendly.’
‘If you remember correctly, Amy dumped me that night, ’cause I spent most of the evening chatting very closely to you. And you can’t deny it—you were flirting back.’
Jessica stays quiet for the briefest of seconds. ‘Maybe, but then I came to my senses.’
‘You mean Mike finally showed up for the date.’
‘And the rest is history.’
‘So it would seem,’ he says. ‘Do you ever wonder what would have happened if he never interrupted us that night?’
‘No, David.’ She laughs. ‘That’s the kind of thing you can’t say.’
‘My life would be a hell of a lot different, I’ll tell you that.’
‘David,’ she says in warning this time.
Thank god, at least she has some decency in her.
‘That’s not what I meant. Well not totally.’ He laughs, but the humour he had a moment ago is gone. His pain is back. I can feel it. ‘Something happened to Mike that night. A friend of his showed up and gave him some . . . news.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s nothing. It’s just something that freaked him out at the time. He’s over it now, so no need to bring it up. It was just the thing that made him take me away from you in the kitchen, remember?’
‘I remember. When he got there, he pulled on your arm and took you downstairs to talk to you.’ Jessica chuckled. ‘I thought he was mad at you. We were getting a little close at that party.’
‘That’s what I mean. Mike’s not normally that forceful. I honestly think, if he hadn’t been freaked out by her visiting that night, when he showed up to the party, he would have seen us, and left us to it. He’s not the sort to intervene. And hell, Amy and I were breaking up anyway. I think you and I might have hooked up that night. And without anyone showing up to give Mike a push into acting, we would have stayed in England, and my life wouldn’t be currently falling apart here.’
I always knew Audrey had interfered with Mike’s life path, but by default, Mike interfered with David’s. Mike told me that if people aren’t supposed to be together, then the universe will make sure they’re ripped apart.
Well, David and I have been well and truly ripped apart. I take the final step around the corner, sealing my fate. There’s no way David will want to come back from this. It’s his perfect excuse to finally leave. He’s admitted that Audrey’s very existence in our time line has screwed with his life, beyond what he ever wanted. That it took the girl he wanted away from him—and left him with me instead.
Jessica’s face ashes. I feel sorry for her. She has no idea what’s happened between me and David these last few weeks, or with Mike and David and Audrey all these years.
‘Stella,’ she chokes. ‘This is so not what it looks like.’
David doesn’t even flinch. He doesn’t care what I think it is.
‘I know, Jessica. I just needed David to know that I heard his regret about our relationship. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to keep this between us. The last thing I need right now is to be working out how to handle a leak like this with the press. It could turn to scandal very quickly, and I know that’s not something you want for your own relationship either. If you would mind not telling anyone, not even Mike. I’d appreciate it.’
Jessica nods. ‘Mike doesn’t even know I’m here. I was shopping in Cici’s and saw David standing on the street and stopped to say hi,’ she says as she backs away.
David doesn’t say anything. Why would he? He’s done nothing wrong. Only voiced some thoughts and opinions, some time travel theories, perhaps, someone might argue. Someone might argue if they had feelings left inside of them. But I wore him down. He doesn’t have any anger, or jealously, or infidelity he needs to cover up.
‘I always felt like I’d stolen you,’ I tell him.
His eyes snap to mine and for the first time in seventeen days, I see some fire there. Seventeen. I’ve been counting.
‘Stole me from what?’
‘From whom? Was always my question. I thought I was so lucky to have met you first.’
‘First?’
‘Before someone else. Before someone better came along that you might have wanted to marry.’
‘Stella, no.’
The tears run down my face before I realise he’s fighting for me. Those two words were the most honest-to-god gut reactions he’s shown me for a while. Panic at the idea of losing this.
‘I never thought the person might have
been stolen from you before you guys even realised the implications of what Audrey being here might be doing.’
David scoffs and steps toward me. ‘No.’ He takes a moment for the finality of the word to sink in. ‘Stella, I was mouthing off.’
‘I can’t do this anymore, David. I can’t do us this broken.’
He places his hand on my arm, his voice raw. ‘Then let’s try to fix us, okay?’
My heart doubles in speed and gets lodged in my throat. The tears blur and form stars in my sight. He wants to fix us? I’d been so prepared for the inevitable, I never thought there might be another way. ‘I want to fix us too.’
Mike walks out of the store, a small jewellery bag in hand, and lets out a breath, mirroring the tension I’ve been holding inside since the day I lost my baby.
‘You guys screwed up,’ he says.
We both turn to look at him. He unties the black ribbon holding the bag closed, dips his hand inside, and pulls out a red velvet, heart-shaped box. ‘This is all wrong, right?’
The knock on my front door is punctual, 9:00 a.m. sharp. What did I expect from a professor who specialises in time?
I straighten my pencil skirt on the walk from the office and open the double doors to not only Ethan, but Liam too. ‘I thought you would have been on your own,’ I say in greeting.
‘It’s not a problem, is it?’ Liam asks.
I shake my head.
‘I figured it was important enough to bring Liam along,’ Ethan replies. ‘Why else would you summon me to your home?’
I open the doors to invite them in. ‘Summon is a little harsh, don’t you think?’
‘What would you call it?’ Ethan asks as they follow me to the office off the foyer area.
I ignore his question and sit behind my desk. The two of them fall into the chairs opposite.
‘I wanted to talk to you in person, to tell you that I was screwing with the inevitable.’
Liam sits forward, but Ethan remains laid back.
‘What do you mean?’ Liam asks.