Flawed

by Claudia Burgoa

  “Pregnant?” I gasp in surprise.

  “Scared, thinking I might be pregnant, feeling alone.” Her voice stays calm. “I had just moved here from Santa Cruz. Elliot and I were careless during our last night together.”

  Thinking about the eighteen-year-old Hazel breaks my heart. She had just moved to New York. I wasn’t very attentive to her in those days. Poor kid, scared and lonely.

  “What happened?”

  “For days, I thought about the outcome.” She traces lines on the carpet. “Elliot had lost his scholarship, and he was working a lot to help his family. His dad had just died. It was up to me to handle what I had done.”

  “You should’ve come to me.”

  She laughs. “You warned me so many times. How could I come to you? You’d think I was as stupid as Elliot’s older sister.” Hazel shakes her head. “Those days were the longest, most excruciating days of my life.”

  “What happened?”

  “Stress,” she responds. “A week after, I got my period.”

  “Do you think it’s stress?”

  She shakes her head and smiles. I feel so stupid, but also safe. Hazel gets it, and I’m not alone. “I don’t know. Maybe you were sick because of my cooking. Fitz texted me last night that he was sick. Maybe he’s right, and I don’t know how to cook.”

  “But you look fine.”

  “I didn’t eat here last night,” she reminds me. “Scott and I had that dinner with some potential clients.”

  Hazel squeezes my hand. “What I know is that you’re not alone, and the sooner you find out, the better.”

  “What would you have done?” I ask her.

  She angles her head, shrugging. “I was going to talk to Gramps. Ask him to help me.”

  “Elliot?”

  “He had his own problems. In my crazy scenario, I raised our child by myself. Then when he was settled, he’d come for us. I read too many romance novels.” She smiles. “My advice to you is that you find out soon, and talk to Hunter. Communicate.” She winks at me. “Try that with Hunter, talk everything through. Don’t assume.”

  “Can you get me a test?” I reach for my purse to grab my wallet. She shakes her head and leaves.

  Hunter arrived only minutes after Hazel left my side. His face pale, his breathing shallow.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Hi.”

  “Willow, you texted me that we need to talk,” he says, his mouth set on a grim line.

  Just say it, Willow. Let it out and face the consequences. “I might be pregnant.”

  His shoulders slump, he exhales loud and says, “Thank fuck.”

  “What?” I shriek.

  “I thought you were going to break up with me.” His voice filled with honesty and some worry.

  “Expecting a baby is better than breaking up with you?”

  He nods.

  His reaction is the fire that ignites my rant. Blaming myself for letting things go too far between us when I don’t think I’m ready for anything. I haven’t learned to love myself enough. How can he expect me to love him? He thinks he can handle me, but it’s almost impossible. I don’t have a disease. I have a disorder. It won’t be cured, only managed. If we have children, they will probably face the same fate we did. Not once does he stop me. He listens without changing his calm facial expression. And I hate that he won’t react. I hate that I feel better after unloading everything. I hate that for two seconds, I want him to hug me and tell me that everything will be fine.

  “I hate that for the rest of my life I’ll be wondering if you are with me because of a baby or because of me.”

  He shoves his hands in his pockets and nods.

  “You never read those birthday cards, did you?”

  “Which ones?”

  “Last year, when I decided to send you flowers every hour. The day that . . .” his gaze lingers around my room.

  I shake my head.

  He bobs his head once, closing the distance between us.

  “I love you, Willow. Simple. I love you. With or without a baby, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” He takes my hands. “Your flaws are your best feature. The way you wear those scars like battle wounds from a war that will never end. My love for you grows daily. Will I propose to you if you are pregnant?” He pauses, looking around my room. “No. I wouldn’t. If and when I propose to you, it will be because you love me. Which I’m starting to think isn’t the case.”

  He releases my hands, looking out the window. “If you are expecting a baby, I will love him or her with all my heart. Because it’s ours. I won’t stop loving you. I don’t blame you at all. It was my responsibility to use a condom. For that, I apologize. I should be careful with you. Our relationship is too fragile to behave recklessly.”

  “I bought a dozen tests.” Hazel saunters into my room, halting when she sees Hunter. “Oh, you’re here.”

  “Sorry about my cooking,” she apologizes to him. “I think it was bad.”

  “Ya, think?”

  Hazel hands me the bag. “I guess I’ll leave you two to it?” She doesn’t wait for me to beg her to stay.

  I take out one of the boxes inside the bag and look at Hunter. “I’ll call you after I find out.”

  “No, I’m here to support you. Willow, I adore you. This isn’t easy for you—I know that.” He closes his eyes for a moment. “If you are pregnant, I’ll respect your decision and support you.”

  That last sentence is reassuring. Unlike Hazel, I have Hunter’s support. God, I feel like I’m taking two steps behind after pouring all my insecurities on him. Don’t think about that, concentrate on finding out what’s happening with you. Peeing on the damn stick doesn’t take long. I place it on top of the box, wash my hands, and lean against the wall to wait. Hunter enters and takes my hand.

  “Honestly, what do you want to happen?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  We wait the longest sixty seconds in the history of the world. Hunter is the one who takes the stick and reads it.

  “I would suggest a blood test, but so far the result is negative.” His voice is guarded, shaky. He sounds like he’s telling me about his last case, but hiding the shattering news. “If you make an appointment, I’ll go with you.”

  No baby, I repeat to myself, staring down at my flat stomach. That’s good, that’s okay. Then why the fuck do I think my world is falling apart?

  “Okay.” My chin quivers and I feel the threatening tears pushing their way out of my eyes, but I don’t allow them.

  “You were right,” he says, leaving the bathroom. I follow, hoping he’ll tell me what he means by I’m right. “We shouldn’t be together.”

  “Oh.” I fight the pricking tears. He’s leaving me. The words I said were, let me get my fucking act together, please. I never said . . . my knees buckle, but I reach out to the nightstand to steady myself. “I’m almost sure I said give me time,” I mumbled, looking at the carpet.

  He gives me a sharp nod. “The point is that there’s no use in being next to you,” he says with a definite tone.

  I hear the glass shattering noise inside my chest. If I am quiet enough, I’ll hear the shards hitting the floor.

  “I love you,” he declares, and the words feel like a punch in the gut.

  Sorry, I love you, but not enough. How many times have I heard that before?

  “But I’m enough,” I respond. “I might not be enough for you, but I’m enough for myself.”

  He gives me a loving look, and I want to hate him so badly. “Look, Willow, I know you have feelings for me, too,” he says. He exhales heavily, placing his hands on his waist while looking up to the ceiling.

  “What I’m getting at is that we can’t be together until you recognize those feelings for yourself and you’re ready to voice them to the entire world.” He walks to the door. “You are enough. You are everything to me. I understand that you have a disorder. It’s a complicated illness and part of who you are. The storm you talk
about, that’s you. You have a powerful personality. Things are so intense when you are around that you tilt my entire world.”

  He smiles. “And I fucking love it. I want to be the man who can observe you silently from afar, learn every flaw, every quirk, and at the end of the day, love you even more.”

  Then he sobers up, shaking his head. “My biggest wish is to be your exception. Because you are my exception. I want to be the lucky bastard who won your heart because you own mine. But I’m definitely not your father.” His voice is low, determined. “I choose you, but I also choose myself. I promise to validate your feelings, but you have to learn to validate mine. I will be by your side, only if you are willing to see me as your partner. You are not in this alone, but you have to recognize everyone who stands next to you.”

  He runs a hand through his hair. “As I told you, I’ll give you time. Come back to me when you are sure about us, your feelings, and what you want for our future.” He sighs heavily. “Stop being scared of the what ifs, and be ready to live in the now,” he says, walking out of the door and my life.

  Thirty-Seven

  Love doesn’t need permission

  No matter how hard you try, that feeling just never goes away. ~ Nicholas Spark

  This week represents another big cathartic episode. According to my therapist, I was trying too hard to control my emotions instead of working through them. I blamed the pregnancy scare for it. Two nights and plenty of flash cards proved me wrong. Working through each emotion meant backtracking all my steps. It had been my encounter with my parents. I put the encounter to rest. The anger against my mother remained hidden, waiting for just the right moment to pounce and start one of the biggest storms I had been through. I chided myself at first. Once I worked through each emotion I experienced, from the moment I saw my parents until Hunter left me, I patted myself instead as I repeated, “everything will be okay. you’ve got this under control.”

  It had been too much at once. I didn’t give myself enough time to think. It’s another lesson I have to learn. Another experience that is helping me live with myself and with others. I can’t deny that I’m afraid of the future. After identifying the fear, I wrote it in my journal. It has become a reminder. Every time I try to push my loved ones away, I will remind myself of what will happen if I let my insecurities win. They are there, but I have to understand that most of them are just the remnants of what happened more than twenty years ago.

  It’s an old problem that opened me up from the core. Working for my future implies working with my past. That’s why I had to deal with my parents. I emailed them a letter that I hope Laila reads.

  Laila and Grant,

  Being an adult is hard. I can imagine that being a parent is even harder. The thing is that when you decide to become a parent, you assume the responsibility of another person. A small little human who is fragile and needs love and protection. There’s never a timeline for when a child no longer needs that unconditional love from the people who created them. Not every child is lucky to have parents to support them from early childhood until adulthood. I’m one of those cases.

  You had reasons to create a wall between your children and you. I have gone back and forth, trying to comprehend your reasoning. It’s impossible to wrap my head around the fact that neither one of you chose to love your daughters more than you love who you are as a couple.

  All these years, I have resented your absence. I hated that you abandoned me. Still, I have that love for the two of you that’s bigger than many comprehend. Love you rejected. Love you wasted or took for granted. The decision to visit you was out of desperation to win back what I had lost. I expected that you would receive us with open arms and a real apology. That wasn’t the case. As of today, I still feel we have a lot of unfinished business. But, I’m not ready to deal with that part of my life. Not when I have a lot more to learn about myself and my family. The family I created with the people that I love and who love me back.

  Still, I feel like I have to apologize if you don’t hear from me. There’s no timeline or plan set on when I will be open to send you an email or call you. Just know it’s not because I don’t love you, but because I have to validate my own feelings before I can understand yours.

  All my love,

  Willow.

  They didn’t respond back. Hazel who I had copied on the email came barging into my room. I thought she was going to lecture me or something. Instead, she hugged me and let me cry on her shoulder.

  “I wish you had a big sister like I did,” she whispered. “That’s who saved me, you.”

  We both cried hard, laughed harder, and decided our parents were taking the backseat for as long as we both needed.

  Maybe I don’t have a big sister, but my little sister is who kept me going through those years. And now, she’s old enough to be one of my biggest supporters and advocates. She has learned how to support me without trying to give me an entire guide on how to solve my problems. She accompanied me to the doctor. There was a one-percent chance that all those pregnancy tests were wrong. However, that wasn’t the case.

  My doctor confirmed I wasn’t pregnant. She suggested that my episode was caused by dehydration and stress. Her only recommendation was water and exercise.

  If there’s something that I learned from this experience, it’s that I have to validate my own feelings and prioritize. Like my feelings for the most loving, most caring, and most wonderful man I’ve ever met. Before contacting Hunter, I search for the manila envelope. The one he had prepared for my birthday. The message he wrote stopped me many, many times.

  Don’t read until you’re ready.

  Ready is a fickle word. I can be ready for the next marathon. I can stall my life and say, I’ll start a relationship once I’m ready. Ready for what? He’s right. I don’t want to voice my feelings for him out loud. But I can’t continue living my life based on what happened to me years ago. My parents didn’t know how to love when I was a child. They don’t know how to love now.

  More than a year ago, Hunter terminated our relationship because he wanted me to find a man who could be strong enough to handle a passionate person like me. He left to work on himself to become that man. That’s how much he loves me. He slayed his own demons because if he can let go of the past, he might be worthy of my heart. That is the love I want to experience for the rest of my life. Opening the envelope, I take out the contents. Ten smaller, numbered envelopes.

  The first is a birthday card, wishing me a happy birthday.

  The second envelope contains a platinum bracelet with one single charm hanging. A heart.

  The third envelope contains a lock charm.

  The fourth envelope contains a key charm.

  The fifth envelope contains the statue of liberty charm.

  The sixth envelope contains a theatrical charm.

  The seventh envelope contains a scale of justice charm.

  The eighth envelope contains a flower charm.

  The ninth envelope contains a baseball hat.

  The tenth envelope is a letter.

  Happy birthday, gorgeous,

  By now your desk must look like a flower shop, and you will be confused about the charms. Well, as I thought about this day and how to make it special, I kept thinking about the fantasy we lived last week. The couple that married because there was something special between them. Something so strong they couldn’t deny it. They had to be together for the rest of their lives.

  To be honest, before you, I never believed in love at first sight. But I believe the night we met was whimsical. A serendipitous moment when we let go of a piece of ourselves and gave it to each other. You’re that piece of me that I didn’t know I was missing.

  The bracelet is a symbol of what our intertwined lives can be, each charm I gifted you represents a part of us. It’s the beginning of us, and I hope that throughout the years we keep adding more charms that will tell our story. It’ll be so rich that we will buy more and more bracelets. All filled w
ith the memories of who we are, who we become, and our family.

  Call me crazy, but I hope that after tonight our life as we know it ends, and we begin an entirely new one. Together.

  Please, Willow Renee Beesley, walk along with me. We can get to know each other while we start our life together.

  With all my love,

  HNE

  At the bottom, I found a small note.

  Willow,

  The night of your birthday marked the end of a fantasy.

  I’m sorry that I have to leave you. I wish you the best, and also, I wish that when I come back, we are ready for what I feel in my heart can be the most epic love.

  Be well and be ready. I can’t wait to love you,

  Hunter Nicholson Everhart

  Hunter

  We won a big settlement. I hired three new associates. We finalized the details to purchase a law firm in London, and I landed two new clients. My life is fucking awesome. I should be out celebrating with Fitz, Scott, and Hazel. Instead, I’m home holding my phone. Staring at it like a sick puppy waiting for his owner to pick him up from boarding. It’s been four days since I saw Willow. Three hours since she texted me the confirmation from her doctor. She went to the fucking doctor without me.

  Willow: The blood work results are back. I’m not pregnant.

  Fuck, any man would celebrate this day. It couldn’t get better than knowing you didn’t knock up your ex-girlfriend, and you just made a bunch of money. I’m not anyone. I’m a pathetic man who is waiting for more from life. Until the text, I had no idea I was still hopeful that she was pregnant. I wished that her text had said something along the lines of “the stick was wrong, we are going to be parents.”

  In any case, I have to answer her text, and as of yet, I have no fucking idea how to respond to it. Which adds another twenty minutes of my staring at the phone and most likely Willow waiting for something. Maybe she’s with my brothers getting drunk and flirting with assholes. Nah, she’s not like that. Well, how is she, she won’t show anything.