Page 31 of Size Game

He furrows his brow in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing to worry about,” I say with the fakest smile I can muster. Inside I regret my statement.

“Okay,” he says. He just accepts it so easily. He doesn’t seem pleased to have to accept it, but he does.

We sit there in silence for a bit. Eventually I pull my hand away from his. I do my best not to look at him because I know that if our eyes meet, then I’ll burst into tears.

“Claire, I’ve been meaning to talk to you, and up until now I didn’t really know how to go about it.”

“Alex…”

“Please, just hear me out and listen to what I have to say.”

I sigh uncertainly at his request. I turn away slightly so he can’t see the pain I feel inside. I know it’s showing through my eyes, and I don’t want him to see.

“Claire…” he begins. “I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while now, and honestly I never thought I’d be saying this. It’s been quite a wild ride, and I don’t know if this is the right thing to say but…”

He pauses, and I can’t help but look over at him. He locks eyes with me.

“I’m falling in love with you, Claire.”

My eyes go wide, and I am utterly speechless. I can’t believe he just said that. That is not the talk I was expecting. With everything that’s gone on recently, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to process it all.

I know he’s expecting an answer, but there’s nothing I can say. Well, really there’s plenty I can say, but nothing I can form into words. I want to tell him everything. I want to tell him there’s the possibility he’s a father again. I want to tell him that I have feelings for him too. I want to tell him that I want to be with him. But I can’t.

“I need some time to process this.”

I can see the disappointment in his eyes, and he nods. Then he gets up and shows himself out. I close the door behind him and lean against the door with my forehead just below the peephole. I watched the color and hope leech from him, and inside I just feel broken.

My eyes start to tear up, and I hear him slowly walk down the hall. The tears slide to the tip of my nose and drip down onto the carpet. I lightly smack the door in frustration, then knock my head against it.

“I’m pregnant.”

15

Alex

Iknow Phil said that once I heard a noI could be free to move on to bigger and better things. But after hearing what was effectively a no, I can’t bring myself to move anywhere at all. I hardly even want to go downstairs to get a cup of coffee. Imelda has been a big help this week, and I can’t thank her enough. She’s kept Sadie happy, fed, and entertained. Really that’s all I can hope for.

I start to think that maybe I should never have joined that online-dating app. That maybe I shouldn’t have brought Claire to my home, any of the times I did. I shouldn’t have let her so close to me and Sadie.

I went into something I wasn’t ready for. I’d told Phil I wasn’t ready for it, but he urged me to go for it. I guess I should be angry at him. He was just trying to help. And I certainly can’t be upset with Sadie; she was just an innocent bystander in this whole thing.

How Claire had looked at me when I told her I was falling for her felt like a thousand knives stabbing into my guts and twisting. I was hoping for something more than just being shoved out. I would have settled for a silent hug. That would have been thousands of times better than what I got.

The second I left her apartment and got in my car, I couldn’t stop the tears. I sat there for far too long watching the tears drip onto my lap before heading home. Once I got home, I hugged my little girl and sat in the living room watching a movie with her. But all I could think about was Claire.

My mother calls, breaking me away from this fog. I answer the phone and listen to her talk about something meaningless. She says that she will be by in an hour to pick up Sadie, then talks about something else that I’m not paying attention to. Hopefully, she doesn’t realize I’m not paying attention. Granted, she’s my mother. Of course she knows.

I get myself up off the bed and down into the living room where Imelda is singing a song with Sadie. I tell them that my mother will arrive soon and that Sadie needs to get ready for her day with Grandma. Sadie quickly bounds up the stairs to get herself ready.

I plop down on the couch, and Imelda looks over at me.

“¡Señor! ¡Ay, dios mio!” She dramatically shields her eyes and turns her head away while tapping her chest with her hand, mimicking a racing heart.

I chuckle and close my knees. I am wearing shorts and boxers underneath my robe, but Imelda enjoys the joke nonetheless. She looks at me with a big smile, then comes to sit next to me on the couch.

“¿Que paso?”