by Alisa Mullen
“Come inside, Lizzie. You’re all wet. God, you’re fucking soaked through. What the hell happened?” he asked.
“I…I just came here to tell you something then I’ll leave,” I said, shaking uncontrollably.
“Jesus, Lizzie. You have to come inside.” He pulled me up from underneath my arms. He pressed my body to his as he fished out his keys and unlocked the door then pushed through the slightly opened door to the apartment. I immediately noticed how clean it was and smiled on the inside, thankful that I had a distraction from myself for an instant.
“It… It… looks really… good in here,” I said, still chattering.
Teagan pulled me into his room. Cian was packing a duffel bag and he turned around to see us. When he actually looked at me, he cleared his throat and said, “I have a phone call to make.”
Teagan locked the door behind him and immediately started to strip me of my clothes. I furiously shook my head as I tightened my arms around my trench coat. I didn’t want him to touch me before he knew what I knew. I was dripping rain into his carpet but I didn’t care.
He closed his eyes in frustration, and when he opened them, he gave me a firm look.
I whispered, hardly audible to my own ears. “Teagan, I’m pregnant.”
Twenty-Three
Defeated
I took a step back from Teagan and leaned on the wall, sliding down to the floor. I looked at him through my wet hair and watched him struggle with several different emotions. Shock was the most apparent on his face. Then he scrubbed his hand through his hair and down the back of his neck. He repeated this over and over again. Finally, after what felt like forever in silence, he got down on his knees in front of me and kissed my forehead.
“Lizzie, I have to go talk to Cian. I’m not leaving you right now. I can’t go away. I won’t leave now. I can’t…” he rambled.
“No, you don’t have to stay. I’ll still be here when you get home. One of us might as well have a good weekend.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Teag...”
“Enough. I’m staying. No more discussion,” he said with finality.
I looked up to him and just whispered, “Okay.” No New York City. No Statue of Liberty. No American dream. This was the most monumental American girl disaster.
Teagan left the room and all the wetness from my body finally shocked me enough that I began to remove all my clothing. By the time I was taking my underwear off, I was sobbing and throwing all my wet items against the walls. I went into the walk-in closet, closed the door, and crumbled in a fetal position in the corner.
The walk-in closet became my respite from the outside world for the following hours. Teagan came in and sat with me, not saying anything other than he was not leaving. He hadn’t undressed and he hadn’t moved from my side. His hand finally lifted and he put it on top of mine. He didn’t look at me and I didn’t look at him. We just sat there silently.
“Teagan,” I whispered.
He glanced at me like he didn’t even realize I was there. He looked pained and pale. His face was drawn down and I didn’t know what to say. What was I supposed to say? Hey, I’m going to have your fucking baby but you’re leaving next month forever. Have a nice fucking trip.
“Teagan, I went to the doctor because of the flu. It…it wasn’t the flu.”
“Lizzie, I’m certain you’re telling me the truth. For fuck’s sake, you were soaking wet when I found you. You can’t stop shaking. Tonight, let’s just take it easy. We need to eat something and you should take a hot shower,” he said rigidly. “We can talk this weekend.”
“Okay,” I said, pretending not to hear the detachment in his voice.
After picking at my take out chicken parmesan, I looked up to see Teagan sitting across from me at the dinner table. It hit me that he and I never sat there to have dinner, and the automatic sense of foreboding made me feel small. The scene was so domestic. He didn’t want me tucked away in his room to feed each other, like we had so many times before. He didn’t want to put on music and sit on the couch while we gorged on food. He actually sat me in the chair and pulled the aluminum away from my steaming meal then took his seat across from me, never saying a word.
When he looked up at me, he smiled but it never hit his eyes. I darted my eyes back down at my meal and shook off the feeling that I was ruined. I was broken. I had a baby, his baby, inside of me and I couldn’t feel comfort. I couldn’t feel anything but hollow. Hollow like a pitch black corridor leading to nowhere and never ending.
He pulled our meals away and sat right next to me. He brushed the now dried hair from my eyes and made a small, unintelligible sound, something between a moan and a cry. My eyes shot up to him.
“I’m not sure how you feel right now. I wish I did. I wish I could know,” he said.
“No, Teagan, you don’t know how I fucking feel. Do you think I’ve ever been pregnant before? Do you think I’ve ever waited so long for one person to give me one fucking word of comfort? You’re so quiet. You won’t even look at me, and when you do, it’s fucking fake. You pity me. You wreck me with the silence. You fucking wrecked me. I wrecked me. I never should have…” He broke off my rage with a firm, passionate kiss. He pressed his hands on my shoulders like he wanted me to stay planted where I was forever. He kissed me deep and solid like only one other time I could remember. I broke the kiss and my trembling hand went to my mouth. I could feel the burn, the understanding, the final fucking epiphany.
“You remember when the condom broke,” I asked.
He nodded.
“But I keep thinking that’s impossible. I am so regular and I know my cycle. It broke only a couple weeks ago. I counted my fertile times. We weren’t even in the proximity. I cleaned everything out of me that night. I willed it away and you… You… told me everything would be okay,” I said with a pounding heart that I knew he could feel radiate between us.
He nodded again.
I shot out of my chair and headed to his bedroom to collect my things. All the things I had ever left there. I not only ruined myself, my future, but I ruined him. What kind of girl did he think I was? I was a knocked up American slut and I had no business being in that foreign place. That place meant nothing anymore. It was a trap of lies and deceit. It was a trap and I could feel the tightness in my chest before I started to sob once more. I never cried so hard or so loud, wailing out to the world that I needed relief. I needed something. New hope. Some kind of promise that I was a good person. I was a good person.
I looked up to see Teagan leaning against the doorjamb. His hands were in the pockets of his khaki cargo shorts and he looked at me with reverence.
“You’re not going anywhere. You always flee. You always leave. We’re not even close to talking, and already, you want to run away,” he said.
“Yes,” I whispered through my now silent sobs, hiccupping on the breath caught in my throat.
He came in the room, slammed the door, and yelled, “Fuck that, Lizzie. Not this fucking time. You stay here with me. You stay until we decide what to do. You stay until there are no more words to say. You are not the only one in this and I will not let you carry this burden on your shoulders. Not this time. You’ve had plenty of them in the past and this time, we’ll not leave this room until we both decide what to do.”
I was scared. I had never heard anyone, other than my father when I was repeatedly grounded in high school, ever talk to me that way.
“Bastard,” I said.
He crooked up a smile and came to close the distance between us.
“I care about you,” he said as he laid his hand on my stomach. “This is a lot to take in and decisions need to be made. Not now. But soon.”
He grabbed me in a hug and we sank onto the bed. He lay over me, kissing my eyes that still held pools of tears. He kissed my mouth, he kissed my neck, and as he slowly started to lift my shirt, I realized that he was taking the most care, gentle and light, to make love to me. I lost myself in
his intimate touch, his need to be inside me. Every caught breath between us, every gasp, assured me I wasn’t a bad person. I was a decent person who made a mistake. And he was, too. We moved together, skin on skin, for the first time all summer, while he looked into my eyes with a promise that everything would be okay, even if it was only in that moment.
My vulnerability and his strength balanced into a passion that grew more and more intense. When he finally came inside me, all I could feel was relieved. I was comforted but still so hollow. No matter how many times we made love, it would never be enough to fill the emptiness in my soul.
Teagan cuddled up behind me, and after kissing my sweaty brow, he whispered, “I’m so sorry, Lizzie.”
We never slept that night. The pounding of our hearts and the rain pelting against the window kept us wide awake. The storm was between us.
Twenty-Four
Morals and Traditions
I must have fallen asleep after the sun came up because I don’t remember watching it through the window. It wasn’t raining anymore, and Teagan wasn’t in the bed with me. I propped up on my elbows to see him sitting on Cian’s bed, clothed and looking perfect. Delicious. Then, I remembered why I was there and why he had his head down in his hands.
“Teag?” I asked.
His head came up wearily, and his eyes were bloodshot and empty. He looked like he didn’t get any sleep at all. His hands started to move over the rough stubble on his face and he wouldn’t look at me.
I knew I had my answer to what was to come.
“Liz, I’ve thought and thought about this all night,” he started. “Jesus, my mother just called not an hour ago to ask how I was doing. She thinks I’m working and doing the right thing here. Do you know how hard it is to not to be able to tell her that I got a girl pregnant?”
“I’m sorry.” I said in anger. “You’re worried about what your mother is going to think about you knocking someone up? Can you be anymore insensitive about this? I just found out yesterday afternoon. My own family doesn’t even know. I came right to you,” I said, flailing my arm towards him across the room.
“Okay, so we’re both freaking out,” he said calmly.
“Ya think?” I asked.
We stayed like that, just staring at each other for several minutes. I got up and put on my shirt and underwear and immediately felt the nausea. I bolted out the door to the bathroom. I closed and locked the door before I threw up what looked like the chicken parmesan I had the night before. A gentle knock came to the door and I stayed silent. Besides my intermittent vomiting, I sat there next to the toilet and said nothing. I looked at my toes, totally dazed. Freaking out wasn’t even close to what I was feeling. Teagan could kick me out and ask me never to come back. I could leave and never come back. But the insistent knocking made me believe that he wouldn’t leave me alone until this situation was completely resolved. I didn’t move from the floor until well after I was done throwing up. When I turned on the water, the knocking came louder and Teagan’s voice came through.
“Lizzie. You can’t hide in there. We need to talk. We need to talk until we can’t talk anymore. I’m sorry I freaked out. I just didn’t want to talk to my mother this morning, of all mornings. Please come out and let’s do this, okay?” he pleaded.
I unlocked the door and he immediately opened it, grabbing me in a hug and taking me back down to his room. He closed the door and we sat on his bed at the same time. We both started talking at once then immediately stopped. I nodded towards him and he began the speech that will forever haunt my dreams, my fears, my soul, my heart and my life.
“My mom and dad grew up in a very traditional catholic Irish family. The value of marriage and children is very important to my family. They don’t know that I’ve even had sex,” he said.
I snorted and looked at him, thinking he was joking. He was certainly not.
“So, when you find an Irish girl, you date her then you ask for her father’s blessing before you marry her. Before you have children.”
I quietly sat there, feeling like I was suddenly transported back into a Jane Austen book and I was the stupid whore. Which sister was I in Pride and Prejudice? Why was I even thinking about books? I didn’t want to feel the denial. I wanted to feel a part of something that I could relate to but I couldn’t. The whole situation was so foreign to me. I was a colossal mistake and we both knew it at that moment. But fucking all hell, I was in love with Teagan. It was so crystal clear to me then. I went to him and hugged him with reverence and the tears started to stream down my face. It was all a waste. I started to hyperventilate. I tried to stop the sobs. I didn’t know this me. I didn’t know how to fix it. I wanted to punch him and I wanted to kiss him, to make him love me back. I wanted him to give up everything to be with me. I wanted him forever. My sobs wouldn’t stop. I tried so hard not to let anyone see the raw in me, but now that I did, it didn’t make any difference. He held me back at arm’s length.
“I know I did this with you, to you. We made a baby. I understand the depth of this. You are pregnant and I’m the father but Lizzie, I’m not staying in America. I’m not going to be here if you want to keep the baby. I’m not going to know the child, and my family will never know that you and the baby exist,” he said with sadness. He started to tear up and I began to sway my head back and forth. The harsh words of complete rejection did me in. Something died in that moment. Shot in the heart, stomped on, drowned, bludgeoned, ripped away, exploded, and imploded. I had nothing left.
“Do you want me to get an abortion?” I asked.
He shook his head slowly. “I want the choice to be yours. I can’t be a part of your decision but I will be there if you do decide to have an abortion. If you don’t, then I can’t be a part of this. Ever,” he said. He knew that the words were blunt. I could see it in his face. I was never his. If I had been, he would welcome a part of both of us.
“I knew I never belonged to you,” I said as I started to wring my hands together.
Teagan didn’t want to purposely hurt me but he did, nonetheless. He couldn’t be a father because it wasn’t in the Irish traditional way. He couldn’t date me, meet my father, ask for my hand in marriage or have babies with me because I was American. I never knew him. Never like that. David Gray’s song rang in my head, “Say hello, wave goodbye.”
We both remained silent. I felt the weight of loneliness. It was all on me and the burden of it was unbearable. My choice. Pro-choice. Pro-Life. I didn’t have a job, I lived with my parents, I drank like a fish, and the man I believed I was in love with and the father of the person growing inside me just dismissed me. Dismissed.
The phone rang and Teagan went to answer it. He came back a minute later and held it out to me.
“It’s your mum,” he said blankly.
I took it gingerly from his hands.
“Hi, Mom,” I said with a quiver in my voice.
“Elizabeth. How did the doctor’s appointment go? Is everything alright? Conner went through the caller ID and I didn’t know where you went to last night. I’ve been worried,” she said in a rush.
“I’m fine. The doctor just said it was the flu and everyone was getting it.” I looked pointedly at Teagan as I answered her.
“Oh, good,” she said.
“Mom, we’re heading out to the park for Teagan’s hurling match. Talk later, okay?”
“Sure, come home soon.”
We said our goodbyes and I let the phone fall to the floor. I just lied to my mother and that felt like a knife through the remainder of the heart I had left. I started to sob again and Teagan came towards me. I held up my hands and he backed off.
“Don’t. Touch. Me,” I said.
I knew if he touched me, I would beg, and I was not going to beg for his love. I would never, ever beg another man to love me. First, it was Chase, and now the father of my child. If he’s putting this decision in my hands alone, then he doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want a future with me. That was never in questio
n. I finally knew that all along, he didn’t want to say he loved me. He didn’t want me to go to Ireland. I wasn’t his American girl. I was absolutely nothing. I was his American burden.
Teagan and I spent the day together as two mindless zombies wandering the world in search of something to fill the ache. We didn’t hold hands or laugh at anything. We wandered around downtown Boston on a Saturday, taking in the tourists and their zoom lenses. At one point, he put his hand on the small of my back to lead me underground to the T, but it felt as if he had burned me. I knew it was standard for him to touch me because our hands were always all over each other no matter where we were, but I felt like everything he told me that morning scathed my soul. He knew I withdrew from him the minute I warned him off from trying to hug me. I needed to accept that he was already the ghost standing next to me, the transparent being not talking to me any longer, and the past shadow that drew me into the deep, darkest thoughts of devastation.
We headed back to his apartment in silence, and I sat down on his bed. He put his hand on my leg and put his head on my shoulder. I made no move and I couldn’t. I was all alone. He tried to comfort me but inside I was full of grief and guilt. I couldn’t blame anyone but myself. I had my eyes wide open going into this and his aloofness was palpable.
“Do you want to spend the night with me again?” Teagan asked.
I stared at his closed door and because I didn’t know where else to go or who else to be, I nodded. I was in way too deep. I was cut in so many places that I felt like I was bleeding out from every part of my body. Being outside and watching people live their normal lives took me out of my head, but the minute I stepped back into the apartment, I was muted inside. No words, no actions, no me. I had a mantra running through my head the entire day. I was pro-choice. I was pro-choice.
I was pro-choice. I’d always believed a woman had the right to choose, but at that moment, my political standings didn’t make me feel empowered or any closer to an action. I wanted, no needed, someone else to choose for me. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do and Teagan sure as fuck made it clear that he wasn’t going to be anything of influential substance.