Page 70 of Badd Ass
She shrugged, speaking to my chest, her words muffled. “I don’t know. Because I was tying you down. Burdening you with a kid you don’t want. Trapping you, somehow. And…when you let me leave, and didn’t call or text…I guess I just figured you were done with me, with us.”
“Letyou leave?”
“Yes,letme leave. I spent that whole night hoping you’d ask me to stay. I knew it was stupid and crazy, but if you’d told me you wanted me to stay here with you, I would have. I mean, I didn’t dare say anything because I knew exactly how stupid the idea was, but…it’s what I wanted. Right up until I went through security, I kept hoping you’d be like ‘Mara, wait!’ But you left, and then I never heard from you again. So I knew it was stupid. That I’d been stupid to think what we had was something worth—shit, I don’t know…something worth having, I guess. Like, why would you want me? Why would you want to tie yourself down to one woman forever when you can have as many as you want, any day of the week?”
“Mara, that’s not—”
She kept going, ignoring my outburst. “And then…and then I was feeling sick, and I thought it was just a weird flu or something. But then I left work early because I’d been puking and I walked into Claire’s and my apartment and she was there with Brock, on the couch, having sex. WithBrock. Your brother. My best friend. Having sex on my couch.” She shuddered.“And then it turned out I didn’t have the flu, I was fuckingpregnant. So I had to come here. I had to see you, I had to—I had to tell you in person. Because I…I owed it to you to tell you in person.”
I cradled her as she cried, then. I just let her cry, holding her, running my hands through her hair. Eventually, her crying quieted and she pushed away from my chest.
“Thanks for letting me be a baby.”
I snorted. “Mara, crying about all this doesn’t make you a baby. I’m a dude so I don’t cry, but ask any of my brothers…I’ve been a miserable bastard for the last two months.”
“Part of me is sorry that you’ve been miserable, but part of me is glad that you’ve been as upset as I have. Is that weird of me?”
“That makes complete sense.”
She craned her neck to stare up at me. “I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me or not.”
“I’d never make fun of you, Mara.”
“I don’t mind being teased, but I’m just so…emotional and hormonal right now, and sometimes I don’t make any sense to myself. Like, the thoughts I have, the emotions that go through me…is this what it’s going to be like for the next seven or eight months?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea, Mara. I know absolutely nothing about pregnancy.” I leaned her backward to lay her on the bed, pushing her sweatshirt up to look at her belly. “I mean, how far along are you?”
She watched me, bemused, as I touched her belly with my hand. “I don’t think you can see or feel anything yet,” she said. “I’m eight weeks. I mean, obviously it was one of those times we didn’t use a condom.”
“I thought you were on the Depo shot or whatever it’s called.”
Mara let out a shuddering breath. “Iwas. But no pill or shot is ever one hundred percent effective. There’s always a minute chance you can still get pregnant. I mean, I’ve heard stories about girls getting pregnant when they were on birth controlandthe guy was wearing a condom.”
“Life always finds a way,” I said.
She rolled her eyes at me. “Okay, Ian Malcom.”
I laughed. “It’s true, though, right?”
Now that she was lying down, Mara looked absolutely exhausted. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her eyelids were sliding closed and then opening again, looking heavy. I went to pull her sweatshirt down, but she latched onto my wrist, holding my palm against her belly.
“You’re not upset?” she whispered, peering at me through half-closed eyes.
I shook my head. “No, Mara. Not at all.” I curled up on the edge of the bed beside her. “I’m a little scared and nervous, and I have no idea how to be a boyfriend or a father or anything, but…I’m in this. I’m in it with you.”
“Just promise me…” she trailed off and started over. “Just promise me if you’re not…if you don’t really want this, or me, that you won’t pretend and you won’t lie to me, and you won’t stick around just because you think you should. I’d rather never be with you than have you walk out on me…on me and the baby…”
I pulled the blankets up over her. “Sweetheart, I have a lot of faults. But I’m not a faker, and I’m not a liar. And I’llneverabandon you. I’llneverwalk out on you.” I palmed her belly under the blankets. “Either of you. Never. Okay? I never leave anyone behind, and I have the medal to prove it.”
She cracked one eyelid open. “What? What are you talking about? What medal?”
I sighed. “I don’t make a big deal of it, but…I was awarded a bronze star.”
She opened both eyes then. “And you’re just now mentioning it?”
“It was…when Marco died, um…he and I were cut off from our unit, and I did some crazy shit and got a bronze star out of it. But Marco died, so it was kind of…I don’t want to say meaningless, but it’s hard for me to feel proud of it. I dunno. Can we talk about it another time?”
“Of course.” Mara offered me a sleepy, tender smile. “Thanks for telling me.”