Unlike Any Other (Unexpected #1)

by Claudia Burgoa

  “Yes, I hung up on her and after letting it sink in, I realized, I had let her down.”

  Well, then it didn’t sink in deep enough with him because after that, he went from jerk to asshole.

  “The fear of a child carrying my genes hit me hard one night,” Porter looks down. “My learning disability, the worst male role models in the world… I stayed away for almost a month. You know what was the worst? When she welcomed me back with that bright smile and crinkling eyes… hopeful, I was high.”

  I did, I was that stupid and naïve.

  Porter rubs his face and takes several deep breaths.

  2012

  “I realized this isn’t how we planned things,” I try to explain when Porter entered the house.

  “This was never part of my plan, Ainsley.” His bloodshot eyes stared down at me. “You can’t just get pregnant to force me to… what are you trying to accomplish with this?”

  “Me?” I had trouble maintaining eye contact, he made me feel like a liar… He was this strange person I’d never met before. Yet, I tried harder to get through to him. “It was both of us, this baby is ours.”

  “I have to practice, work, and have shit to do, Ainse.” He was already grabbing his luggage and pivoting around. “We’ll talk about this shit later.”

  “It’s a baby, not shit.” I touched my tummy. “Are you leaving?” The desperation in my voice made me want to slap myself as I sounded like a defenseless idiot. “We have an appointment later today… the sonogram of the baby.”

  In my mind, when he saw the baby, he’d care.

  “Do I get any say about this shit you threw at me, AJ?” He didn’t even turn around to look at me. “Half of that is mine, what if I don’t want it?”

  His question slapped me right on the face, I hugged my shoulders as I rested my chin on my chest, wondering what I would do next. Then I remembered that I could take of myself and the baby.

  “Walk away and leave us alone.” I gave up and ran to our room not wanting to think about it, but he followed behind.

  “Baby, I can’t live without you. You’re my support, my music, the air I breathe, all I need to survive.”

  “Please, Porter, don’t make me choose,” I begged.

  “Think about what you’re doing to us.” The warning in his voice took all the air away from my lungs, and I couldn’t breathe. “We’re an epic story, don’t crush it, babe.”

  I called after him, but he left without another word. He was gone for weeks, he went on the lam.

  During those days only two things mattered, the baby and trying to work things out with Porter. Both changed with a blink of an eye.

  I went to the doctor for my scheduled checkup where they’d do a sonogram to hear the heartbeat of the baby and measure him.

  “You’re having a boy,” the doctor said as he glided the wand of the sonogram machine around my belly taking pictures and measuring him.

  He threw the good news only seconds before he discovered that there wasn’t a heartbeat. His gestational age sixteen weeks and one day. I asked him to verify several times, to make sure it wasn’t a mistake. But it wasn’t.

  They spoke technical words I couldn’t assimilate. The only things I understood were that my baby wasn’t alive anymore, and that he had to be taken out of his mommy’s belly.

  I tried to call Porter before the procedure, but he never answered. I needed him with me because I was dying inside. Also, they needed another adult to be with me after the anesthesia wore off .

  At the lack of Porter, once again I called Mason.

  He arrived within an hour, asking questions and trying to convince the doctors to do something for the little pea as we called him.

  “He deserves a name,” I blurted on our way home, after everything was over.

  “You’re right.” He squeezed my hand. “Our little pea deserves more than being named after a vegetable…”

  My throat tightened. I wished with all my heat that Porter had been with me and not Mason.

  “James,” I blurted. “That’s my grandfather’s name, Dad’s and Matthew’s middle name too. MJ will be proud.”

  Mason stayed for five days with me, and then left with a heavy heart because he had to work.

  Two days later, Porter arrived. I lay in bed sobbing, completely destroyed, and in need of him. I believed things would change between us when he learned about our loss.

  “AJ?” I heard his cold voice.

  “You won,” I sniffed, “James is gone.”

  “Who the fuck is James?” he growled like a jealous animal.

  “My baby,” my whisper barely making it out. “I left you a message, a week ago—when he died.”

  “Can you hug me? I need you, Porter.” I begged him.

  He left me without taking a second glance at me.

  2015

  “Yes, I disappeared for a few weeks,” Porter adds, his chocolate eyes staring at the floor, his hands inside his pockets, and his shoulders slumped. “Trying to decide what to do with the baby. But I talked too much when I was drunk and Chris heard that I had a thing for her.”

  “Code word,” Chris says. “A thing… Fuck, if I had known, Porter. I would’ve pounded you, after taking care of my child.”

  Porter ignores him and continues.

  “Before you two talked to the publicist and set up the fake relationship, I went home.” Porter looks up at me. “One last time, one last kiss before you hated me… instead, I found you curled up in a fetal position crying as you held a small picture.”

  I take a long breath realizing I’m close to the finish-line and everything is about to be out in the open.

  “I turned on the cell phone that had been dead for an entire month,” Porter takes over, his eyes absent. “A wave of texts appeared at once, voicemails, grainy pictures of my child, possible names, and begging me to come home. Telling me she wasn’t feeling well, telling me she needed me home.”

  ‘“He’s dead.” The tiniest voice I’ve ever heard announced.” Porter doesn’t look up. “It destroyed me. What I did to her killed me.”

  “Is there more to this story?” Chris’s brows crease waiting for a response.

  The sad-slumped posture changes, Porter straightens his body, his nostrils flair, and he tries to pin me down with that intense glare.

  Not again. I ignore it and nod once to Chris, who keeps his attention on me and maintains to keep his anger at bay.

  “Care to share?” Chris’s eyes soften as I gulp the mass of tears draining in the back of my throat. “Take your time, sweetie.”

  Gabe rubs my back.

  “Three days after he left… I went to see you.” I drop my head.

  Once I had been strong enough to drive, I packed most of my belongings and shoved them the best I could inside of Eleanor.

  I set my GPS and headed home with my parents. There was hope that they’d be there for me while I licked my wounds.

  Throughout the entire journey, I imagined how I’d break the news to them. After two long days, I had no idea how I’d tell them, how much I had lied to them, and how broken I was.

  “Wait, you drove the thirty-two hours straight?” Gabriel gives me that fatherly look.

  “No, I stopped twice, Dad.”

  2012

  I took breaks, stopped in New Mexico, and then again in Idaho to sleep for a few hours. When I arrived home, my body could barely stay awake, my legs were giving up, and my eyes had to be taped open.

  Porter was there, in my house, with my parents. While I cried about the loss of my child, the loss of him, the loss of my world. I was confused, scared, and lonely.

  And he was in my house.

  I quivered in anger as he said the most outrageous thing, “are you here to hurt me again?”

  Hurt him? He thought I had hurt him? As
tonished by what he spoke, I ran through the house looking for my parents. They were in the dining room along with the magazines on top of the table.

  “She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Gabe asked.

  “It’s always the pretty ones who get to be on the magazine cover,” I remembered saying. “Then there’s the truth that you hide, or is it what’s behind the truth that is, in fact, a lie.”

  “Ainse, are you okay?” Chris asked, and I shrugged. “Because the shit you said makes zero sense, baby girl.”

  “It doesn’t matter, I can throw myself in front of a train, and you wouldn’t care.”

  I said that because I wanted it. I wanted a train to take away the pain or throw myself over a cliff and lose the hurt I harbored.

  “Ainsley,” Christian glared at me, then at Gabe. “What does lying have to do with Porter’s girlfriend?”

  “Everyone lies, you two are the epitome of facades.” I let it out of my chest for the first time. “Burying the ugly truth behind. The stories or people who don’t work with the image. The one you don’t love. You know, making up that you’re dating a twenty-some year old girl is kind of gross, Gabriel.”

  I tried to enrage him—the bad cop of the two while hurting the good cop.

  “I’m your father and you know why we do that.”

  “No I don’t.” I banged the table. “I don’t know why you continue hiding the man who adores you, and the father of your children while waltzing around with the pretty arm-candy.”

  “My career matters,” Gabriel reminded me, the usual crap.

  “You two are a couple of fucking liars who only care about themselves,” my voice rose. “Be proud of who you are.”

  “Ainsley Janine, stop whatever you’re doing right now.” Christian banged the table harder than I did. Not a good sign, good cop never raised his voice. Or the best sign, I was getting to them. “This isn’t you.”

  “You should stop feeding the tabloid with lies about your lives,” I yelled pointing at both of them while holding the magazine where Porter was cozying up with a model. “He’s ashamed of you, Christian. That isn’t love, is it?”

  His long-time girlfriend read Entertainment and Life. The headline fueled the need to claw my parents.

  “The two of you should stop playing with other people’s feelings. Cease pretending that you give a shit about us—me. It’s not like I care about either one of you.” I was trying to hurt them the way I hurt.

  Of course Porter didn’t want the baby, he had another life. In the picture, Porter grinned as he whispered something in her ear—some love words? Because that’s the way he used to look at me when we whispered sweet nothings or sang to each other.

  My parents didn’t want me either; they only wanted their career.

  “Be fucking honest for once.” I cleared the table with one quick swoosh. “I don’t need to be in the front of a magazine, but at least being recognized as your child wouldn’t hurt. Cowards, liars… I hate you.”

  Coincidentally, a month earlier Chris had recognized JC and MJ as their children.

  The media called them ‘The Decker Twins.’

  Twins.

  We were three.

  “AJ, stop and apologize right now,” Gabriel ordered. “You’re being a heartless, selfish brat.”

  “No, I won’t stop yelling the truth,” I screamed louder. “Never. I’m done with this farce. You two are dead to me.”

  “Apologize,” Gabriel repeated firmly. I shook my head and tossed the magazine I held to the floor, next to the others. “Then don’t come back until you can act like a grown-u and ask for forgiveness.”

  My life, my world… everything disintegrated with each step I took.

  I couldn’t believe it. When I made the decision to ask my parents for direction, when I needed my parents the most, they bashed me with nonsense. Instead of speaking out, I lashed back creating a terrible situation for myself.

  Shutting off the freaking tears took a toll on me. For the past few weeks they’d been pouring down nonstop, and when I sought support from my family, they shut me down.

  Parents were supposed to be there for you, to love you, cuddle you, and make the boo-boos go away.

  Apparently not, they said, “Apologize to us or never come back.” Those words seemed too… catalytic.

  I can be on my own, I sniffed. Yes, yes, I can. Repeating it twice made it true.

  Yes, I can. I voiced once more, because the third time was a charm.

  I banged the steering wheel determined to make this work; that’d teach them.

  “Dad,” I cried out no more than a mile from my parents’ home and pulled over waiting for the wave of sadness to succumb, with fear that it wouldn’t happen. “Papi!”

  I picked up my phone and called.

  “I…” the tears and sobs wouldn’t allow me to speak clearly. “I had a fight with my parents.”

  “Stay where you are, Nine. I got you.”

  He arrived within the hour, took me out of the car, and wrapped my body with his strong arms. Mason knew about Porter, the baby… I didn’t have to speak while he let me sob for everything that had happened.

  “Where to?” he softly asked when I quieted down.

  “I… don’t know. I need a new home. There’s no way I’m heading back to the one I shared with Porter.”

  “Let’s drive Eleanor then.” He kissed the top of my head. “Another fun road trip with Nine as my co-pilot.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “A friend gave me a lift.” He winked at me. “Shall we stay in Portland and go from there? We can always stop at the Grand Canyon and throw a dummy representing Porter.”

  He dragged a chuckle-sniff combination out of me.

  “There, those green eyes are coming back to life.”

  Mason helped me move out from Porter’s house. We found a cozy two bedroom apartment… but it didn’t work out quite well.

  2012

  The intense June sun blasted through the windows, taking away the option to sleep late. A yawn followed my mental rant, I should’ve stayed at a hotel while the blind company came to install the window treatments for the apartment.

  It was the desire to start my new life immediately and staying at a hotel—again—was getting too old.

  Sunglasses, please.

  Hesitant, I pushed the covers aside and kissed my pillow goodbye.

  “I’ll see you my love.” I waved at my new bed and pillow, which must be made out of clouds and cotton.

  With a sigh I staggered outside my sanctuary—or it would be when the plantation blinds were in place and not one ounce of light can slip through them. Ounce? How did one measure light?

  I definitely need coffee.

  I must prepare that sweet elixir that makes all coherent thoughts flow through my head. Or as coherent as they can be.

  Six fifty-three read the microwave clock of my new apartment. I rented a two bedroom apartment close to the university—in a new development.

  It included a parking space and had enough square footage to place Constantine—my baby grand piano—inside.

  “Ugh, four hours of sleep,” I whined. Thankfully the kitchen was the first room we unpacked yesterday and that Mason had set up my fancy coffee maker. His housewarming gift.

  My plans to finish unpacking yesterday almost worked perfectly. First, I unpacked the kitchen, my room, then I tuned the piano, and set my books in the bookcases. Yes, I could’ve gone to bed or finished unpacking, but I became absorbed by one of the novels I put aside as we unpacked. One of those books I buy because I have to have it, and either forget to read it or I misplace it in the sea of other ‘To Be Read’ books.

  Whatever black magic this machine had going on was much better than what baristas did at a coffee shop. There were so many buttons that prepared differe
nt beverages. Latte, cappuccino, tea, hot water, decaf, half-caf…

  No need to write it down with a marker.

  This machine knew how to do everything—except clean itself. I hooded my eyes at it, but didn’t apologize for that defect.

  “Sweet, sweet, coffee, marry me and keep me awake forever,” I said after my first sip of the dark potion.

  Looking at the clock and remembering everything I had to do today, I realized there was plenty of time for a few laps in the swimming pool. The phone guy was scheduled to arrive at eleven, the cable man at nine, and the internet guy at noon along with the window treatment installers. All of them had a two-hour window. Based on the famous Murphy’s Law, I guessed all of them will arrive together—at eleven.

  Lucky me!

  Mason planned to arrive around eight thirty to help me finish unpacking. Definitely time for a cup of fruit, a bowl of oats, and some milk before heading to the gym for a twenty-minute walk and swimming a few laps.

  Swimming calmed me, it made me forget for a few minutes that my life shifted and I no longer had a family, I never had a boyfriend, and my baby had died.

  The baby, James.

  I forced myself not to think about him or anything else negative that had happened.

  Stay strong.

  I did stay strong for a couple of months. I only cried at nights, I was able to go to school and work.

  Every day I thought less and less about them. Instead of twenty-four hours during each day, it was an average of twenty weeks.

  The new development I moved into was nice, quiet, and I had the advantage of not having neighbors next to me. Until…

  One night after a late class, I arrived home, prepared myself a sandwich, and changed into a pair of lounging pants and a comfortable t-shirt. I grabbed Breezy and my phone and headed to the balcony where I turned on the fake fireplace to illuminate me and called my brothers. Conference calls were fun with those two.

  The twins, who considered themselves Switzerland, decided to keep me in their lives. The three of us agreed not to talk about my parents—at all.

  “Whatup, princess?” JC answered.