by Amy Faye
“You going to be alright?”
“I’ll be fine,” she says, sourly. Sadly.
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
She shifts uncomfortably. I pull my phone back out. In a little while, the pizza guy will get here. We’ll pay him. I’ll set it down, turn on a movie or something.
I could figure out a way to pass the time. We spend our time doing pretty consistent things. Well, one thing, pretty consistently. But the mood is all wrong. I wish it wasn’t, because it’s another hint that I’m taking this too seriously.
Her mood isn’t really supposed to enter into it. Oh, sure. I take it into account. But since her mood is usually randy, I don’t have to worry too much about making sure that I’ve considered her feelings all that much.
And of course, even then, it’s just a matter of formality. She’s nothing to me, except a ten thousand dollar check. I wouldn’t think twice about cashing the check and using the money.
But using her makes me feel queasy. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing but in either case, I don’t want to think about what it means.
Eventually, I’m going to get my money, and she’s going to go off to whatever her life is without me in it. I’m never going to have to see Bill again, hopefully, and there’s not going to be any trouble whatsoever.
I lay my head back, close my eyes, and make a concerted effort not to notice Kate’s mood. The doorbell rings, I get up.
Kate doesn’t. That’s a little bit unusual, too. What’s wrong? I force myself to stop before I say it. It feels like that’s been my whole day since I got home. Not talking about whatever is on her mind.
That’s a problem for me. If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t bother to give it a second thought. But now for some reason I’m getting all emotional about it? Horse shit.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. A movie will do me a world of good. Pay the guy more tip than he likely deserves. It’s not worth waiting for him to make change, and I’m not in the mood to do mental math today.
A movie will do us both a world of good. It’ll give me something to get my mind off her, and it’ll give her something to stop sighing about. At least, I won’t be able to hear her sighing over the noise, and that’s a step up, at least.
Because I can’t let myself think or feel a damn thing about what’s actually upsetting her. The minute I do that is the minute I lose.
Ten
Kate
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’m not stupid enough to think that the answer is ‘nothing.’ Something’s setting me off. I just don’t know what it is. Something that’s been making me tired, making me moody, making me feel sick.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that I was about to start my period. The trouble being… well… I frown at the thought. The trouble being that it’s still not here. The trouble being that I’m not about to start my period. I’m about to have just come off it. But I’m not.
Deep breath. What the fuck did I get myself into with this? There are about a hundred things I should have done better. Ways I should’ve been smarter. And instead, I’m sitting here realizing that I’m probably…
I don’t even think the word. It’s something else. Maybe it’s the steady diet of pizza and not drinking enough water. It’s thrown my hormones off so much that my body’s just thrown up its hands and refused to accept it.
Maybe it was just exceptionally light, and I missed it. I mean… it would have to be real light to even come close to being able to not notice, even for a couple of hours.
But it’s possible, right?
I lay my head back. I need to go to the store. I need to get a test, so I can prove, once and for all, that I’ve got nothing to worry about. But I don’t.
Because I need to get the hell out of here altogether. That’s the real answer.
Once I’m away from here, I can stop worrying so darn much about whether or not I’ve got anything to worry about. I can deal with all that stuff. What I can’t deal with is trying to raise a little child in a house like this, where I’m living like a slave.
There’s just no way. That’s not how I’m going to live my life.
Deep breath. Okay, so maybe it is. I don’t know. But I know that I’m not going to give a whole lot of thought to it any more. Because there’s a thousand other things that I’m not interested in thinking about.
I’m not interested in thinking about what does and doesn’t please Luke. Of course, it’s only half of what runs through my mind these days. Every other thought, it’s Luke this, or Luke that. I have half a mind to take a cold shower and give a hard think to how I can get myself straightened out.
But first, the first step, no matter how much I don’t want it to be, is to go to the pharmacy, pick up a few tests, and make sure that I’ve got nothing to worry about.
I push myself out of bed. Pad over to the phone. I’m not sure whether I should feel better or worse about the fact that I’m not annoyed by having to cross the room for it any more. It’s the new normal, as if I’d never kept it by the side of my bed for easy access before.
It’s earlier than I thought. Only two o’clock, and I’ve been moping for the better part of an hour. There’s something to be said for that. One day, I might just wake up before lunchtime.
The walk to the pharmacy isn’t short. A half-mile, and I don’t have any walking shoes. Why would I need any? By the time I finally walk through the sliding doors, I’m desperate for a seat. None in ready, convenient access. I frown and go to the back.
The pharmacy proper is surrounded by seats. An old woman sits in one of them, looking sternly into nothing. Like she’s wrapped so tight that she doesn’t even know what calm is any more.
Is that how I’m going to be? Is that what I’m going to be like as a mother? Panicky? Restrained? Angry?
I rub my feet. Is that what I’m like now? I’m nervous all the time. Tired in the extreme, always wanting to sleep and then when I wake up from sleep, I’m as tired as when I went to bed. Just want to have a lie down, but I’ve got to make another half-mile.
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
I look up. “Yes? Me?”
“Can we help you with anything?”
“Oh, uh…” I look at the old woman, and suddenly I realize that I’m not in any sort of mood to explain myself to these people. I can’t, even if I wanted to. I’m not going to talk to anyone about whether or not I’m pregnant. I’m not going to talk to anyone about worrying whether or not I’m pregnant.
Because then the next question is, ‘Good news?’ and I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.
Yeah, it’s good news. I’ve always wanted to be a mother. I’ve always wanted to bring a child into the world and treat it with all the love and care that I can muster, to show that child every ounce of care that my parents never showed me.
But instead, I’m going to be bringing it into a world where Dad is always away, and Mom is essentially his chattel. I’m not sure which one is worse.
Even worse would be if the test was negative. What would that even mean? I don’t think I’m really ready to even think about it. I’ve been fucking him for almost a month now, and he’s never been too keen on finishing outside.
What are the odds, really, that he’s been cumming inside me almost every day, and I’ve never once had a slip? One in three? Two? But that means that even in the best case, it’s one in three chance that he did plant a seed. And considering my missed period…
The woman smiles at me professionally, but she’s watching me. Like I’m some kind of vagrant. Then again, I haven’t changed my shirt in two days, and I’m just sitting here covered in sweat and rubbing my feet, so I guess that’s not a totally inaccurate picture, if you don’t know any better. And how, exactly, would she know better?
That’s right. She wouldn’t.
I let out a long breath. “Thanks,” I say, as if she’d done something for me. She hadn’t. I go through t
he aisles until I find the pregnancy tests. I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to have the questioning stares, but I also knew it wouldn’t be hard to find.
Two of them. One that looks like a good choice, and a second from a different brand, just in case there was some kind of manufacturing defect in the first. I’ve got an allowance in my pocket that I’ve never spent a penny of, and never really asked for again, but now it’s going to come in handy.
The trip home is easier than the trip out. My feet hurt more, of course; I’m going to have pancake-sized blisters in the morning, if I’m not careful.
But on the other hand, it’s the way home. The way to finding out once and for all how much worrying I ought to be doing.
None, I hope. It’s just a false alarm. A couple weeks late isn’t anything to really freak out over. I’ll be right as rain, in a little bit. No problem.
It’s not until I’m sitting on the toilet waiting for my strips to dry off, and the test results to come in, that it really starts to hit me how serious this all is. I had been nervous before, but…
Damn. What am I doing here? How did I get myself into this mess?
I know better than to get involved with the kind of men my father gets himself in trouble with. I know better than to let Dad talk over me, to let him make decisions, because his decisions are always terrible.
It was my decision, though, that was going to have real, lasting consequences this time. It was my fault that I was in this mess.
I could blame whoever I wanted. That was the easy way out. That was what my Dad would have done. He’d blame every single person but himself.
But if there’s one ounce of strength of character left in me, I’m at least not going to let myself sit around and cry over spilled milk when I could have stopped any time.
But I didn’t. I liked it. I wanted it. And some part of me still wants it, even now that I’m starting to really understand the consequences, and that’s the most terrifying part of it all. The fact that no matter how bad things get, I’m never going to want to be done with it.
Because I’m addicted to him, and I might be able to walk away, but I’m never going to kick the habit, not ever again. And with a baby, maybe even the option to walk away is disappearing.
The electronic test on the counter beeps and I jump. I’m not going to look at it. Because the minute that I do, the minute that I read the results, it’s either all real, or I’ve been an idiot for the past hour, worrying over nothing.
I don’t know which is worse.
Eleven
Luke
It’s another long day. Every day seems to be longer now that Kate’s around than it had been before. Maybe there’s something I’m getting out of this. After all, it’s not as if I don’t really enjoy her company. And of course, there are the other benefits, as well. Those are ‘company’ too, I suppose, in their own way.
The real problem has been, and continues to be, that I’m perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop.
At some point, I’m going to come home, and my entire house is going to be entirely devoid of anything of value. It’s not my favorite place in the world; I don’t keep much at the house, because I don’t need much. I’ve never had a reason to spend any great deal of time there, after all.
But now, I’ve got someone there, waiting for me, and I don’t know what the hell for except that I know that eventually, she’s going to want some sort of explanation of what our relationship’s going to be long term.
That is, of course, if she doesn’t, as I already suggested, run off with all of my stuff because this has all been an elaborate con. Still, if that’s what this is, then I’m not going to be all that sour about it.
So she gets a few kitchen knives and a television. That’s hardly a big deal. I got to do whatever the fuck I wanted to a woman, and while I won’t claim she couldn’t do anything to argue, she certainly didn’t make any effort to do so.
Then, at the end of the day, I head home like any other day. Once, I had imagined that I would come home to a clean house, with all the chores that needed to get done finished up. Which was a nice fantasy, but that’s all it was, I guess. A fantasy.
Today, something feels different. Something feels off. I don’t know what it is, the whole time driving home. Just a strange feeling in my gut that things might not go the way I wanted. It ought to be a feeling that I’m used to. It isn’t.
“What the hell,” I say to the empty car. “Worst case, the house is burning down.”
But it isn’t. I can tell that by the time I get within three miles of the place. A house fire, you can see from a long, long way off. It billows thick, black smoke in a massive chimney, and then it spreads out like those photos of tornadoes you see on television.
So as much as it might have been interesting, and might have fit my prophetic mood, I didn’t come home to anything burning down. That was the first one down. I started painting pictures of what could have happened to set me on edge, but I couldn’t check any of those until I got home.
No, the place hadn’t been smashed into. At least, the front door is closed, the light in Kate’s room is on like it always was, and there’s no sign that anyone’s been in or out of the place all day.
There’s no way of knowing that until I get inside. The cops aren’t here to arrest me. There’s no indication that anyone takes any notice at all of my car pulling into the garage.
I step out of the car. Nothing in the garage has been moved. I don’t know why they would move something from the garage, but I have to figure out what’s going on at some point, or I have to accept that I’m just going nuts and that I should give up and call it a day.
My predictive abilities are hardly incredible, but I can’t ignore them. Too many of my genuinely good ideas have been the result of what, at first, seemed like nothing more than a gut reaction. Now I trust them even when they look like they’re probably wrong, and I generally prefer it that way.
Step through the door. Nothing missing in the living room. A sixty-inch screen still hangs on the wall. The wiring still comes out through the drywall a little below knee-high and plugs into my home theater system. I still have two couches and an easy chair. I still have all my windows intact. If anything, they’re even cleaner than I remember them.
“Kate?”
The thought had occurred to me that there was something wrong with her. That whatever it was that might have been setting me off was a feeling that she’d been hurt somehow, or that things were going poorly for her. But I don’t know if I’m ready to gamble on that, just yet. At least, I don’t know yet whether or not it’s worth the gamble.
I take a deep breath. It’s probably nothing. I’m letting my nerves get to me. The fact that she isn’t answering isn’t brand new, either. She’s a brat half the time, and the other half, I have no idea what’s going through her mind. The closest thing she’s ever gotten to affectionate was trying to tell me to go fuck myself with all the passion she could muster, and I think that was a struggle for her. But I appreciated it all the same, because I’m pretty sure that she means it sweetly, or at least not cruelly.
“Kate?”
I start up the steps without waiting for an answer. She’s always in the same place. There are always hints that she’s been around when I’m not here. Less milk in the jug than when I left it, for example, or the note that she left me a few weeks ago. She likes to leave ‘love notes’ like that, when she’s feeling frisky.
Oh, she’d never call it that, of course. Kate would die before she was forced to admit that she was feeling anything other than the firmest contempt for me. But I know the truth, even if she wants to hide it.
“Kate?” My voice is lower this time. I touch the door to her room, and it swings open. She’s laying in bed staring at the ceiling. For a moment, I’m afraid that she’s dead. Then she blinks, takes a deep breath, and lets it out in a sigh.
My blood continues to pump at a thousand miles a minute in my ears, even once I know
that she’s okay. The feeling of panic doesn’t just go away, not right after anyways.
“Kate?”
“What?”
She doesn’t look at me. Just answers simply.
I don’t want to ask what’s wrong, because if I did, then I’d be admitting that I care what’s wrong with her. Admitting it to her means admitting it to myself, and admitting it to myself means that I have to actually put a good deal of thought and concern into what I’m going to do about her being here.
And maybe I do care. But I’m not ready to admit it to either of us, because eventually she’s going to be gone, and we both had better accept that now before it starts to really hurt down the line. She doesn’t look at me when I step inside, even though I know she must have seen it out of the corner of her eye.
“You feeling sick?”
It’s a good compromise between asking her what’s wrong and ignoring it, right? She looks a little green, and her hands clasped over her stomach do help the look a little bit. Maybe she was throwing up earlier, and now she’s trying to cool off before she starts spitting up again. It paints a good picture in my mind.
“No,” she says. No elaboration. He’d hoped that it was a sufficiently open-ended question that she might tell him what the answer actually is, if the answer wasn’t ‘yes I feel sick.’ Apparently he’d hoped for too much.
“Are you going to be alright?”
Instead of answering, either way, she just shrugs. I wait for more. “Probably,” she says finally. “I just have stuff on my mind.”
I want to know what it is. “Okay. Well, I’ll be downstairs. I think we’re going out tonight. Nothing fancy, you can wear what you’ve got on now.”
“I wore these yesterday,” she says absently. “I need to change.”
“Whatever you say,” I halfway agree.
I don’t know what’s happened, but she looks like her dog just died, and the truth is that even if I were willing to admit that I was worried about her, admit that I cared about her as more than a lukewarm roommate, I don’t know if I can fix that kind of upset.