The Trouble With Before (5 page)

“I’ve been seeing someone else.” I bite my lip, trying to maintain the hardest stare I can.

He steps away from me. It’s a small step, but I feel as if he’s moved a million miles away. He chuckles, but it’s hard and cold and sounds foreign. He shakes his head in mild disbelief, searching my expression. “You’re lying.”

“His name is . . . Jake, and he works at this bar I’ve been going to, and yeah . . .” My eyes are locked on his shoes. I hear him let out a frustrated breath, and from the corner of my eyes, I see his hands wring together.

The silence stretches for almost a millennium. I’m afraid to look at him, and when I do, I wish I saw anger. Instead, I see hurt and disappointment from the curve of his lip to the ocean-deep color of his eyes. It slices through me. I’ve seen that look before, but this time, it’s due to a lie.

“Listen, I never meant . . .”

I stop when he shakes his head before leaving the room. He doesn’t even slam the door. Shit! Why did I do that? Why the hell did I just do that?

Because you don’t know what you’re going to do.

Because you always make rash decisions.

Because you’re an idiot.

Out of every way I could have made this better, I chose to do the one thing to make things worse. What if I decide to keep the baby? If I don’t, he’ll probably still never speak to me again. Why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut?

I race out of the door, hoping he hasn’t made it out of the house yet, but he isn’t anywhere in sight. I check the rooms on the ground floor, and he’s not in any of them. I look outside and see that his car is gone. I head back upstairs, grab the phone, and call him, but it rings twice before going to voicemail.

My night continues like that, except that my calls to him go straight to voicemail now. Hours pass without a call or text from him. I’m tempted to call Stephanie, but what will I tell her? Will she even listen to me? She and Brett are friends, but would he run to her with something this personal?

These thoughts run through my head until I hear the little electronic lady’s voice announce the front door opening. I sit straight up. My thoughts are running a million miles an hour about how to fix this, how to make it right. I get up from the bed since he’s probably not going to come upstairs. Brett has never slept on the couch, but I imagine after a girl tells you she’s having a baby but it’s probably another guy’s, that’s one time you’d sleep on the couch. Even if I’m the one who deserves to sleep on the couch.

I’m heading for the door when it opens. His eyes fall on mine, and I can see that his eyes are red and sort of puffy. I can smell the alcohol on him. In college and the past year we’ve been together, he’s never had more than a shot of tequila and a few beers. Today, it seems as though he’s had the opposite.

“Are you okay?” I ask worriedly. His gaze cuts through me. “Did you drive like this?”

He lets out a bitter chuckle and clears his throat. “It’s not like you care.” His tone is foreign. He doesn’t sound like himself at all.

“Of course I care.”

“Really? That’s a shocker.” His words are angry and wobbling into each other.

I’m not used to him being like this, and I hate myself for pushing him to this point, for turning a good person into this. Tears seem to be my best friend now. “I’m so sorry, Brett.”

He scoffs at me. “No, you’re not.” His disdain for me is tangible enough to hold in my hand. “When you told me you were pregnant, it threw me off. It was just so unexpected. I wasn’t mad. To be honest, a part of me was happy.” He sits on the bed with his back toward me. “I never know how to read you. Sometimes I look at you and I see this person with all of this love to give, someone so full of warmth and passion. Being with you made me feel like one day, the wall you have up would come down and you’d let me feel a flicker of that warmth.”

I crawl over near him and wrap my arms around his neck. I expect him to push me away, but he doesn’t. He’s slack in my arms, and it’s worse than him pushing me away.

“I knew when you came here that something happened to you. The light in your eyes was so faint. Not gone but barely there. I wanted to help you get the fire back. I wanted you to see in yourself what I saw when I looked at you. Someone who’s beautiful and amazing and deserved the world,” he says.

I can hear his voice breaking, and I start to cry harder.

“When I brought you here, I promised myself I wouldn’t fall in love with you unless I saw you felt the same way, because whether you know it or not, a girl like you could break a man.” He softly cups my arms and detangles me from around his neck. He turns toward me and looks me in the eye. “You’re not in love with me, Lisa, and I need you to leave.”

His words are colder than the chill that shoots down my spine. His face is harder than I’ve ever seen.

“What?” I ask, a little confused. I knew he’d be hurt and disappointed, but I didn’t expect him to ask me to leave.

“If the baby is mine, I will do whatever I can to help you, but if it’s not, I can’t keep doing this with you. It doesn’t take a genius to see that you don’t feel about me the way you claim to, and now it’s completely clear that you didn’t even care about me as a friend. If you’ve been sleeping with some other guy who could possibly be your kid’s father, that means you’ve been sleeping with him without protection. I wish I could say that didn’t hurt me, that I expected it, but you pulled one over on me.” He laughs with tears in his eyes.

“No, I lied! I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to say. I haven’t been with anyone except you since I’ve been here. I swear to God,” I tell him frantically, but I can see in his eyes he doesn’t believe me.

“Are you kidding?” he asks with sharp irritation.

“I promise, I just didn’t know what else to say. I was angry and confused,” I say desperately.

“I don’t know how to read you! Why would you say something like that? What type of person makes up a lie like that?” he asks, completely appalled.

I’m breathing so fast now that I can see my chest heaving, but he just looks confused.

“Are you even really pregnant?” he asks.

“I am; I promise I am. I-I-I’m sorry, Brett, I’m messed up. That’s all that I can say. I don’t know why I said what I did. I’m just scared. I can’t go through another pregnancy alone. Please don’t do this,” I plead with desperation seeping from every pore in my body.

He only shakes his head. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a paper then hands it to me. I open it and see it’s a check for three thousand dollars.

“This is for whatever you decide to do . . .”

I look at him questioningly. “You want me to get an abortion?” I ask quietly.

“That’s not really for me to decide. I don’t even know if I’m the father,” he says bitterly.

“I told you,” I cry. My chin is trembling, my entire body is.

“I need you to leave. When you have the baby, we can do a paternity test. If it’s mine, I’ll be there in every way I can,” he says quietly.

I shake my head. “I’m not going anywhere. Brett, I’m telling you the truth. Please don’t do this!”

“I need you to go. If you’ve ever really cared about me, you’ll leave!” he shouts, his face red and tears in his eyes.

I take a deep breath and nod.

He heads to the door but stops dead in his tracks. He looks back at me, confusion and frustration written all over him. “What do you mean another one?”

My skin goes cold, and I drop my head in guilt and embarrassment.

He laughs icily. “Wow, just wow.”

“I’ll be out before you wake up tomorrow,” I promise.

He only glares at me before turning and leaving the room. When he does, I crumble onto the floor.

I
T’S BEEN TWO
days since Brett kicked me out of his life. Since I lost my friend/boyfriend, my apartment, and my job. It’s only fitting. How dare I presume that my life could be better, normal, without drama or conflict. I’ve obviously been cast as the villain in this screwed up story of my life, and I obviously don’t get a happy ending. To think I’m in the exact same situation I was almost ten years ago: pregnant, alone, and without a clue.

I can’t believe that I was excited about getting pregnant. How stupid was I to not be on birth control? I look at the picture of Brett and me on my cell phone, and tears cloud my eyes again. I’ve called and left him over thirty messages.

The first one was something like, “I know you’re probably worried, but don’t be, I’m fine. I’m at the hotel on Raine Street and not chopped into little pieces. I thought you’d want to know that . . .”

Then another was sort of like, “I’m really not lying about that other guy. I don’t even remember what his name was, what I said his name was. Please just talk to me about this.”

Then the last one was, “I never, ever thought you’d abandon me like this. I’m pregnant with your child, and you just throw me out? I can’t do this on my own . . . I’m just going to have the fucking abortion . . .”

That one was left in the midst of tears. The messages in between were all me telling him how sorry I am, then how angry I am at him and asking how he could do this to me, and after hanging up thinking how could I do this to myself.

I look at the bottle of Jack Daniels in my hand and think back to the days I’d down it and it would drown out all reason. In my mind, I’m on my third shot and trying to work up the courage to walk into oncoming traffic. But even in my daydreams, I’m afraid to kill myself. In real life, I’ve replaced Jack Daniels with cheap wine from the grocery store. I worked at a bar for three years after college and my alcohol tolerance skyrocketed, so it takes almost an entire bottle of wine for me to even get a buzz. But drinking is easier than facing the reality of my life. I look down at my belly and think of what’s resting there, growing inside me, and I get queasy.

There’s a knock at the door, and my heart jumps. A really big part of me wishes that it’s Brett here to save me, to apologize and tell me he didn’t mean anything he said and that he knows I’d never cheat on him and that being in love is something we can work on because life isn’t a fairy tale, it’s just hunkering down and having a good understanding of one another. I understand Brett. I thought he understood me.

But in reality, I know whoever is at the door isn’t him even though I left the address to the hotel I’m in in the voice messages I left. The last time we spoke, Brett looked at me in the way a man looks at you when he’s really done and there is absolutely nothing you can do or say to change his mind. The first man I ever loved looked at me that way, and I’ll never forget it.

There are four hard knocks again, and they make my stomach nervous. Since I’ve been here, the housekeepers’ knocks have all been light and continuous, not sharp and final.

My mind drifts back to the stalker/killer movie I fell asleep to last night. I pick up the bottle of wine and place it behind my back, if need be it will go up against an intruder’s skull. The alcohol seeping into my bloodstream makes me wonder if Brett would try to kill me. I could see that being a Lifetime movie plot, only Brett’s not married and I’m not a gold digger. I look around the room. It is a mess. Housekeeping could definitely spruce it up, but it’d be kind of weird to have them clean up while I’m in here. A chatty housekeeper would be better than a crazed Brett here to kill me though.

I roll my eyes, deciding not to have any more wine today, and make my way off the bed. I open the door wide, expecting to see a woman with one of those big carts full of fresh bed linens and smelling like Pine Sol, so my breath is stolen by the person standing in front of me.

“Aidan?” It comes out quietly and like a question, a question that doesn’t need an answer, because even in my tipsy and emotional state, I can’t mistake him.

My eyes take in all of his six-foot-three frame. He’s always towered over me, at least since we were twelve. His sky-blue eyes narrow on mine as his hands, which were in his pockets, fold across his chest. With a warming in my stomach, a tingly sensation flows through me. His hair has grown out, it’s longer, longer than I’ve ever seen it, and it’s wild but in the way most guys spend hours and money on here, but he’s Aidan and I know he just decided on a whim one day to stop cutting it and it fell perfectly into place. If I’d seen him as a stranger on the street he’d probably cause my face to flush and my body temperature to rise but he’s not just a hot guy on the street; he’s my ex best friend. Still, the sight of someone familiar, someone who used to care about me, makes me want to hug him and thank God he’s here, but the hard scowl on his face keeps me from doing that. I’m frozen in place as I replay the last words he said to me when I called him after I arrived in California.