Walls

As soon as Jack was in a deep enough sleep that he couldn’t restrain me from getting up anymore, I slithered out of his grasp and straightened out my shirt. Before leaving him to rest on the couch, I looked down at him, his chest rising and falling with content. Every time I took a breath, it felt dangerous, like it was putting too much pressure on my heart. I picked up my phone off of the coffee table and quietly slid outside.

I tried to get comfortable on the wicker bench on the porch. Dark clouds covered the sky, some torn apart as rain fell to the ground, making splash sounds into already existing puddles or making new ones of their own. I filled my lungs with air and kept them full for a while, long enough to feel them starting to shrivel and slowly let the air out. Breathing for two was stressful, and although the baby wasn’t meant to be mine, I wanted whoever it did belong to, to have something healthy without my markings all over it.

The ripping pain through my gut as I felt the small fetus stir inside of me was enough to make tears prick the back of my eyes like needles and I tried to squeeze my eyes shut to ease the pain. I supposed I tried too hard, as the collected tears spilled out anyway. I knew why I was so upset. It just hurt to know that Jack had no idea about the uncomfortable situation I was in, or that I felt that way at all. What really split me in two was that I couldn’t find the strength to tell him.

I opened my phone to read through text messages I’d saved from Jack. At the time of receiving those messages, I felt jubilance shoot through me. I guess, in those moments of missing him, I was just happy to know I was being thought of. But as I reread them, all I could think about is what I wish they could have said.

”I can’t wait for you to have that thing out of you! I’m ready to drink, and dance, and have sex with my girlfriend whenever I want to.”

Why couldn’t he have said “I can’t wait for our son to be born. I’m ready to be a dad, and take care of my family”?

”ily :p”

Couldn’t he have said “I love you” instead? The two phrases don’t mean the same thing. And that stupid “just kidding” face at the end didn’t make me feel any more confident that he did in fact love me. I was wishing for hopeless things, and I knew it. I just liked thinking that maybe things could be that way. Before Jack found out I was pregnant, he was so sweet and dedicated and he didn’t have to remind me that he loved me, but he did anyway. Since “three’s a crowd”, as he put it in the past, I felt that he was beginning to love me less and less and he was just waiting for me to have the baby so he could move on with his life with or without me. I sobbed loudly and quickly covered my mouth, hoping he hadn’t heard me.

My hoping was useless, since Jack stumbled out the front door, sleep still circling around his eyes. I looked at him quickly before fixing my eyes on the puddles.

“Lydia?” he asked quietly. “Are you crying?”

I shook my head slowly, but that didn’t convince him. He walked hurriedly to the bench and sat down beside me, lifting my legs and draping them over his lap. He reached towards my face, his thumb running under my eyes to wipe the damned tears away. “What wrong?” he asked, his voice sounding slightly uninterested, which tore at my insides.

I didn’t know what to tell him. My brain was fighting with my heart, making my head feel like it was splitting open and before I had time to control myself, words I wished I’d never mentioned tumbled out of my trembling lips.

“What if I wanted to keep the baby?” I asked.

I could feel his grip on my legs tighten just a little, but that was the only sign I received that he’d actually heard me. After a few moments of nothing, he cleared his throat and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

I got the feeling that my heart was being pulled in two different directions: the top half being held onto by Jack’s thumb and index finger effortlessly, the bottom half being tugged by all of the little baby’s might with difficulty. The image pained me.

“Would you stay with me?” I asked, once again without control.

Jack tensed up again and he shifted, letting go of my legs. “I…” he mumbled, stopping himself. Unease brewed in my gut at the idea that he actually had to think about that response. “I would try, but like I said Lydia, I’m not ready for a baby. You’ve got to accept that. I’d hang in there as much as I could, but I would expect you not to hold it against me if I bailed, considering I did warn you.”

It took everything that I had to remember how to breathe evenly. It was clear to me that Jack didn’t want this baby, and if I did, then he didn’t want me either. I looked away from his empty eyes, my fists balled and my skin crawling with chill bumps. I took a deep breath in through my nose and let it out of my mouth. Jack sat up a little bit and ducked his head, quieting his voice. “Do you want to keep it?” he asked.

Of-fucking-course I wanted to keep it, but I wanted to keep Jack more. And if I had to give up one or the other, I would just have to let the baby go. Jack is all that I’ve known for a majority of my life, and he’s so special that I couldn’t give him up for someone I’ve never even met. My head felt like it weighed a ton as I shook it in response to Jack’s question. He let out a sigh of relief and pulled me as close to him as he could.

“Thank god!” he almost shouted, kissing my cheek. I smiled my best although I wanted to slap the smirk right off of his perfect face. “Love you,” he smiled.

I heaved a sigh and nodded. “Love you too.” But I think I’d love you even more, if that is at all possible, if you actually said the words “I love you”, I thought to myself.

He got up from the bench and stretched, grunting as he reached for the sky. “I guess this was just one of those ‘pregnancy’ things,” he chuckled. “Let’s go eat now, I’m starving.”

No, it was not one of those “pregnancy” things. It was a “mother” thing.