by Lia Lee
Hartford’s entire body froze in confusion and rejection of the reality of the moment. It was as if someone had dumped iced water on her head, and it was slowly flowing down her body, freezing every inch that it met. Slowly, her shaking legs managed to carry her weight and she stood up. “What are you talking about?”
“I have plans, Hartford. I can’t have the responsibility of a baby.”
Hartford’s brows furrowed. “Gerard, I didn’t make myself pregnant on my own.”
He shook his head. “No. No way. I have plans.”
“Well, news flash, Gerard, so do I!” she cried.
“Don’t worry. I can help. I’ll pay for everything.”
The words hung in the air. He said them casually and calmly, his crazy-person tone not so crazy anymore. One moment he’d been comforting her, and the next he’d snapped. I have plans. Why was he not concerned with her life and what she was going through? Why had it all turned into something about him?
“You’ll pay for everything?” She couldn’t believe her ears. “A termination?”
“No.” He paused and his mind trampled over itself to come up with an explanation. “I can’t be a dad right now, Hart.” He choked back a laugh that was anything but gleeful. “It’s preposterous. I’ll help you pay for… whatever it is that you decide.”
Right. Termination. An abortion. That is what he meant. Her heart shut down completely, and she’d never felt such livid, liquid fury in her life.
“Hart…” He reached forward to clutch her shoulders. “I can help pay for whatever you need… abortion—anything you want. I don’t even know what your options are... and honestly, I can hardly think straight right now. But can you blame me? My life plans don’t consist of any children. I can’t deal with this right now. I have so much to do. I have so much to work toward.”
“My life. My life. My life. Mine. What had gotten into you?” she cried.
Gerard swallowed and pushed his hands through his hair, panic settling. Hartford’s fearful expression did nothing to calm the calamity that was brewing. “I don’t know what else to say. I’m trying to help.”
“Are you?”
His fury flared. The shock, the fear, the look on her face was too much to handle and process. “Hartford, how exactly does a baby fit into your life?” Then his expression faltered. “You’re actually considering… having it?”
Hartford hadn’t got that far. She’d come to him to sort out her own sordid thoughts. “I don’t know.”
He stepped back, wanting to be done with it, putting a distance between them and somehow hoping it would all dissipate when he did. “Just… I’m just going to pros.”
“And I’m going to start my M.D. You think I wanted this to happen? I can’t even believe we’re having this discussion.”
“You can stop it and it won’t change anything in your life.”
She was reeling. “Why is suddenly everything your life and my life? Why about our life? Have you always been this selfish and self-centered and I didn’t see it?”
Gerard drew back from the insult. “I’m not being selfish. I’m worried about you. As you said, you have your studies…” He was breathless as if he’d been running, but it was just the adrenaline, the flight response. He wanted this chat to be over. “Okay, let’s talk about you.”
“Wow, thanks, Gerard. You’re so kind. I’m surprised you finally got the chance to get off your high horse, and the high of your incredibly insane paycheck, and decide to look my way again.”
His face lost all color. “For Christ’s sake—”
“I came here for your support.” She shook her head and turned away, back to the door, regretting ever coming there in the first place.
He clenched his eyes shut. “I can’t even…” He tried to sort the words jumbling in his mind. “I can’t even feel like it’s relevant to me right now.”
Hartford’s heart skipped a beat, and she turned back around. It was a sadistic, self-tormenting move. She was watching a side of him she’d never seen before. “Oh.” Technically, she wasn’t relevant to his life right now.
“Yes.” He saw her expression close up. She looked detached and cold, and he suddenly felt like a beast for being so upfront about it. He ignored the expressions on her face. She was not the least bit teary, but looked furious. “This isn’t just about me. It’s about the both of us.”
Hartford gaped at him, anger, helplessness, and pain swirling together. She shoved the helplessness away. It wasn’t an emotion she identified with herself. She wasn’t helpless. She wasn’t going to beg him. She didn’t even recognize him in that moment. She turned to the bedroom door wordlessly.
“Hartford…”
She didn’t stop. She was at the front door when he caught her wrist and spun her around.
“At least let me pay for it.”
Her face blank, her insides screaming in agony of his betrayal, she spoke woodenly. “Pay for what?”
“The procedure. The abortion thing… whatever it is.”
Hartford’s face devoid of any emotion, she wondered how she’d ever missed the fact that he was completely incapable of feeling. She didn’t want his money. She didn’t want anything from him if something that she’d assumed was her right—his support—was so hard for him to give. It was free too. That’s all she’d come for. To help her sort out the mess they were in. The mess she was in. He felt no responsibility for the consequences of his sexual gratification. He only wanted it gone. She’d be the one to deal with it. Alone. And she didn’t give a fuck at that point.
Without a word, she freed her wrist and left, feeling his eyes on her back as she walked down the corridor to the elevators. She was glad she was alone on the elevator, because she looked like a zombie, a pale zombie that didn’t utter a word until she reached her apartment. Ignoring the worried glances of Christy, she shut her bedroom door and paused as she stepped on the pregnancy test. The two lines were still dark and bright, reminding her of the life growing inside her. Slowly kicking the test sideways, she spent the next three hours crying into the pillow, unable to stop the wrenching pain in her chest. In that moment, she knew she’d lost Gerard. She’d never see him the same way again. They were over.
***
Hartford had always been a strong woman. She’d always managed to make the most out of any situation, and she was an easygoing, happy person all year long. Sometime in her teens, she had perfected the art of seeing the silver lining to every cloud. She was positive, and she believed that everything happened for a reason, and it was always the best thing to happen.
As a result, her positivity toward her studies had given her the best rewards. She had been top of her class in both high school and college, and if she ever faltered, she’d always taken it in stride and believed it was for the best. She cherished that faith of hers, but today it was faltering.
Gerard was leaving for Seattle. It had been a month since she’d last seen him. He was packing and busy as he planned to head out to his new life as a pro football player for the Seattle Seahawks. When he’d called her to ask her to come see him, she’d found an excuse to avoid it. She was still trying to heal from the last encounter she had with him. She didn’t want to see him and be reminded of what had been. He still acted like nothing was out of the ordinary. She had spent a good two weeks recovering from the way he’d simply extracted himself out of the situation. Or maybe, he just didn’t have the time to call or drop by to inquire how she was doing. He was just gone. He hadn’t even left for Seattle and he was already gone.
She left for the airport with him, his twenty friends, and his parents. It was loud and everyone laughed and Gerard was beaming in excitement. She stayed away from the group, not really mingling with anyone. She was only there to see him one last time before he headed off. She wasn’t sure when she’d see him again. There had been no talk of how they would communicate, how they would continue being together, and Hartford felt like Gerard had simply caved to the same impulse she had�
��to quit.
She had her reasons. She was disappointed and heartbroken by Gerard’s reaction to her pregnancy, but of course, he had his reasons too. He was not equipped to deal with the child that he’d helped create. He reserved the right to choose, but so did she.
As the good-byes and hugs started, Hartford felt her heart bursting with love and admiration for Gerard. She was certainly proud of him. Being a star college quarterback’s longtime girlfriend had never really overshadowed her promise as a premed student. It certainly did not define how she viewed herself. Or she’d thought it hadn’t.
Gerard had been a part of her identity for too long. Now that she had lost him, she was trying hard not to feel like she was losing half her identity.
When he finally came toward her, his smile was wide and his heart was in his eyes. “God, I’ll miss you.” He wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug and clenched her tight.
Hartford melted into him but automatically released him after a few seconds. He didn’t. He held on, his breath hot against her ear, and his arms seemed to be getting tighter around her.
Hartford’s resistance evaporated. She buried her face into his shoulder to hide her face, her heart thrashing and twisting in agony. But they weren’t the feelings she’d thought she’d have when she’d cried on the night of the party.
Today, she knew she wasn’t going to see him again. She knew she wasn’t going to pursue him. She wasn’t just seeing him off; she was letting him go in the truest sense of the word.
She loved him. But she’d underestimated his ambitiousness and determination. She couldn’t blame him for wanting all the things he did. But she’d also assumed she meant something to him. Clearly, she hadn’t.
When he’d so casually told her to get rid of the baby, she’d been hit with the true intensity of her expectations from him, her feelings for him. They’d been a unit for so long. He was as much a part of her existence as her medical journals and volunteer awards.
When she pulled back, he wiped her tears off her cheeks. “I love you, Hart.”
Hartford didn’t say anything. She looked away. She wasn’t going to allow herself to be vulnerable to him again. She kept her mouth shut.
He clenched his jaws when she refused to reply. “Are you mad at me?”
“Not really,” she said truthfully. She was simply broken, and she was terrified that the damage was past repair.
“I’m sorry you had to go through the termination all alone. I knew I should’ve been with you, but it was so hectic.”
Hartford pursed her lips and slowly looked at him. She was crumbling, and she didn’t want to crumble in front of him. The last time she had, he’d abandoned her and left her all alone to fend for herself. For as long as she lived, she’d never expect anything from any man.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
He was about to say something when his father called him away, and then it was rush and hustle as he was surrounded by his friends and heralded toward the gates. She clutched a pillar, her legs giving way as she saw him leave. The moment was symbolic. It was her meek attempt at vindictiveness. She wasn’t going to tell him she wasn’t with him anymore. She was just going to disappear from his life. Just like he’d disappeared from hers when she most needed her.
She knew it was petty and it wouldn’t matter to him as much as it had shattered her, but she was only glad. She’d loved him, and she’d assumed they’d always be together. But as he looked back at her one last time and waved, she lifted her chin, suppressed the scream of pain bottled up inside of her, and forced herself to smile one last time, then turned around and walked away.
Chapter Three
Four Years Later
Hartford was just about to take the second bite out of her sandwich when she was paged. Knowing this would be the last chance to get food in her system for the next two hours, she quickly took two big bites before checking her pager. She dropped the sandwich into the disposable box it came in, snatched it up, and stalked quickly back out.
Her strides swift, she made her way to the emergency room. Her stomach rumbled for more food, but she wasn’t paying it any heed. She was used to skipping meals. She was used to putting her patients first. That had been her life for the past four years. It had only gotten way more hectic since she began her residency two months ago, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. She was ecstatic for all she had accomplished. Her patients counted on her for more than their life. They counted on her for their livelihood, for their passion, for the ability to do what they loved.
She spotted the patient she was paged for. It was easy to spot the sports jersey in the ER. There was only one, but her throat went dry at the sight of it. A Nittany Lions uniform. Her steps slowed for only for a moment, and she shoved the memory away. She did not have time for it.
The football player was writhing in pain, and Hartford went to work, snapping instructions, asking questions, and all the time she refused to let the familiar Nittany Lions shirt remind her of the man she’d thought was the love of her life.
An hour later, she found her crumpled-up sandwich box on the counter. She flipped it open, but her appetite was dead. The football player hadn’t even been injured on the field; he’d merely twisted his foot very badly while getting off a bus near Baltimore.
Just my luck. She forced herself to take a bite out of the sandwich anyway. She needed food; she couldn’t survive without it, and she was stuffed by the time she had finished every bite. Throwing the box in the bin, she walked slowly back up to the wards, where Carmen and Nathan, her two—if only—good friends at the hospital, called her over.
They were nurses, and the three of them went out together whenever they got the chance. She still spent most of her free time at home, because of course her priorities were different now, but Hartford like to see Carmen flirting with Nathan. She’d had a crush on him for ages, but Nathan wasn’t reciprocating. Maybe he simply liked being friends and didn’t want to complicate the friendship with lovey-dovey relationship stuff. Hartford was living proof that that didn’t work out in the end.
Should’ve watched less movies growing up. She chastised herself. Fairy tales did not happen in real life. In real life, it was more straightforward, and harder, and it sucked the breath out of you when you tried to keep up.
The Nittany Lions shirt flashed before her eyes again, and she wondered if she was hallucinating. The player was being taken along the corridor on a wheelchair. Someone get him out of my sight. But she drew in a deep breath and was proud of herself for not yelling that out loud. She was stronger now. She was over it; the Nittany Lions were in her past.
It was embarrassing that she had to still try and make herself believe that. The irony was that she had chosen sports medicine as her area of interest, and due to that, she now spent a major portion of her time attending to professional football players.
She tried not to view it as a coping mechanism. An unhealthy one. She really, really wanted to be a sports physical therapist. But of course, she couldn’t deny that the urge to be close to sports had a lot to do with one particular sportsman she had loved and lost.
She intentionally put herself in a situation where she was reminded of the man—an unforgettable Seahawks player that had broken her heart—on the other side of the country. It was tormenting, and the pain felt good. It made her feel real, and it made her feel like he was still a part of her life in some irrational way.
She shook her head to clear it. The Nittany Lions shirt had reminded her about more than she would have liked to be reminded of. “Stop it,” she hissed to herself loudly without realizing it.
Carmen stopped talking, and Nathan swiftly turned to her. “What?”
Hartford blew a fuse. “Why is that guy constantly right there in front of my eyes?”
“Who?” Both of them leaned forward on the nurses’ station, and Hartford shook her head, embarrassed.
“Nothing. I’m going to go call Trent.”
She fish
ed her phone out of her pocket as she walked away from her friends and waited. A friendly, feminine voice answered.
“Hello, Christine.” Hartford clutched her phone tighter. She was so grateful to the woman; she would forever be indebted to her. “How’s Trent?”
“He’s great. Mark and I were just talking about you. You know what Trent did today?”
Hartford was already grinning ear to ear. “What?”
“We borrowed his friend Madeline’s Hula-Hoop and Trent is already a pro hula-hooper.”
Hartford chuckled as she envisioned her little blond-haired, blue-eyed, three-year-old son, and her heart twisted in agony to hold him. “God, I miss him. Please tell him I’ll be there soon.”
“It’s fine, dear. Don’t worry about Trent.”
Hartford bit the inside of her cheek. “I’m so… Thank you, Christine. I’m so grateful for all that you do for Trent and me.”
“Don’t worry about it. We wouldn’t have it any other way. We really appreciate you letting us be a part of Gerard’s son’s life. Even if Gerard is—”
Hartford jerked to somehow make that discussion stop. “We don’t have to discuss that. I’m simply glad Trent has you both in his life. I’d hate to have him in daycare with people who don’t love him.”
She hung up soon after and stood for long seconds at the same post, a smile on her face as she tried to picture Trent playing with the hoop. Gerard. Her face fell. Of course, leaving her son with his paternal grandparents—Gerard’s parents, Christine and Mark—came with its own set of challenges. Gerard’s name came up often, and she wanted to be okay with it, but the burst of disappointment in her chest refused to subside. Even though it had been almost four years since she’d last seen Gerard.
He had been in her life way too much, and then he had been nothing. Yet a part of him lived in her and with her to this day.
Trent was so much like Gerard that it was frustrating at times. She was only human, and to be reminded of all the man’s quirks by her own son made her feel a little cheated. She had loved Gerard. She’d hoped to put Gerard in the past and move on with her life. But fate hadn’t been so kind.