After Tonight

We had turned it into a game. I called and he ignored. He called and I ignored. Voicemails were never left. We never tried to contact one another by any other means—no texts, no emails, no letters. Nothing. It was dial, hang up, dial, hang up.
After a while, I had even begun to hate him. I wasn’t sure whether it was the hormones or what, but I had taken to thinking he was a selfish asshole who didn’t deserve to have this baby with me. Usually, I ended up regretting the thought several hours later.
I missed him. I missed his face, his voice, his smell, his laugh, his eyes—everything.
At times, I wished he were with me. I woke up in the middle of the night with an insane craving for Chinese or a hot dog or something else ridiculous, and instead of shaking Rob’s shoulder I was shaking my dad’s. I cried endlessly over pints of Ben & Jerry’s.
My mom helped out as much as she possibly could, though the extent was always watching a sappy Lifetime movie with me on days where I had horrible morning-sickness.
I felt a little lame, mid-twenties and pregnant living with my parents.
…
Allie walked in one morning just as I finished ringing up a customer. She wasn’t smiling. In fact, a monstrous frown was plastered on her face. I wiped my hands on my apron, which was increasingly getting tighter. I was coming up on three months pretty quickly. Three months and I was finally realizing that Rob wasn’t coming back. I told myself over and over that this baby was mine, and mine alone. But when I closed my eyes at night, I only saw Rob.
“Have you this?” She slapped the week’s OK! on the counter.
“Uh, no. No I haven’t.” I carefully picked the magazine up, righting it to get a proper look. It was a picture of the backside of a brunette. “What about it?”
“Are you blind?”
I took another look and that time I saw Robert. That brunette was practically eating his face off, or the other way around. Whatever. Feeling my chest tighten, I flipped to the page. There was an entire article about my pregnancy. According to OK! the baby inside my stomach wasn’t even Rob’s. It was “Blast from the Past” Eric’s. Rob “fled” to Vancouver to start shooting a new film and to hopefully recover from this “emotional setback”. There was a picture of Allie and me leaving the Yoga studio we went to every weekend. My stomach was circled in red with the words “baby bump” written beside it. I had been wearing a tank top that day and obviously hadn’t realized I was getting rounder.
But Rob.
Rob was caught in what seemed to be an intense lip-lock with a brunette. She had the body of a coke-whore and though I couldn’t really see her face, I bet she looked like a slut. Was that really what he was going to run to? We hadn’t even finalized things yet.
“All I’m going to say is that it is obvious you’re better off without him.” Allie’s tranquil voice consoled me as dabbed my eyes with the corner of my apron. “I just can’t believe he would do that—I would have never expected it from him.” I silently agreed and turned away so I could cry.
I guess I should have seen it coming, but I couldn’t have been more shocked. Or absolutely, completely, one-hundred percent terrified that truly had lost him forever.

Rob’s P.O.V.
Everything happened so quickly. One minute I was planning a life with the woman I loved and the next, I was waking up beside someone else in a hung-over state. I wasn’t sure why I’d slept with Megan—it’s wasn’t like I was madly attracted to her or wanted to get back at Abbey. I guess it was just that everything was already fucked; why not go all out? And that, of course, was stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.
I had officially hit a new low and was so disgusted with myself. Even if I did want to go back to Abbey, I knew she’d leave me standing at the front steps.
I watched Megan sleeping soundly, wishing that I could roll her up in the sheets and toss her into the hallway. But because she was a human being and not a bag of trash—though I begged to differ—I’d probably get a lawsuit slapped in my face. So I left instead. It was seven a.m. and I wandered aimlessly through the streets of Vancouver.
Abbey would love it here.
…
Once I’d slept with Megan, everything simply fell into place. Fate had a Full House and laid down all her cards.
Apparently seeing my face plastered on every tabloid in the country and beyond was enough for me to earn a berating phone call. In Tom’s words, I was being a “fucking idiot bastard”. He had been seeing a lot of Abbey ever since he moved in with Grace. After he got over the grudge that I had passed along, he began telling me how big her stomach was getting every time he felt it was necessary to kick me when I was already down. I missed the guy who felt my pain.
“What are you doing?”
“Look, I know it was a mistake—”
“You think? I mean, I understand that you were mad at her—but that was two months ago! After your second date you told me you were fucking in love with this girl—and now the only solution to your problem is to screw someone else?”
“Tom—”
“You’re twenty-seven! I know I agreed with you, but look at what you’re giving up now.” Tom was exasperated. “Wouldn’t it be fun—and with Abbey?” I wasn’t going to lie. It wasn’t like I had never thought about how it would go, Abbey and I being parents. It just such a big task that I would never know how to prepare for.
“Tom, will you just listen to me!” I yelled into my phone, drawing a stare from a passerbyer. “I think I’m going back.”
And not long after that, I got a voicemail.
“Rob, I uh…I—” Abbey’s voice, despite the light sobbing, was like music to my ears. I cringed as she spoke, feeling even more guilty than I had been. A sharp click cut her off and I pressed “nine” to save it. Before I went to sleep, I listened to the message at least twenty-five times. Each time made me want to smack my head against the wall a little harder.
My fate ended up being sealed by an email. It was from Grace, of all people. She mentioned nothing about moving in with Tom, nothing about Abbey—it was just a picture.
Of the baby.
It was grainy, black and white. I could barely make out anything but I knew this was the sonogram picture. I wasn’t an idiot. I printed it out and carried it around in my pocket for the next three days.
…
“Rob!” The director stopped the scene again. “Rob, what is going on?”
“Sorry Ray. I know I’m fucking this up, man.” I shook my head and paced around a little bit. I was no longer Rob Pattinson, ex-lover of Abbey Jones, father of her child—I was Alex Malone.
Get into character, Rob!
“Run it again!” Ray, the director, yelled and gave me a stern look.
I continued with my lines, not feeling any of the emotion I was supposed to portray. This was a love scene, how could I feel anything? When I looked at my brunette co-star, I only saw Abbey.
And her baby-bump.
…
“I’m dropping out.” I had finally managed to corner Ray. He knew something like this was coming and had been avoiding me at all costs, and I mean all costs—the guy nearly knocked over the craft-services table.
“It’s been two months, kid.” Ray pushed his glasses onto the top of his head and rubbed his eyes. “You’re asking me to postpone filming—which starts in a week, by the way—and get another actor? You’re nuttier than I thought.”
“If things keep going the way they have been, this film will be a dud. I can’t fuck this up for you just because my heads not on straight.”
“What if I give you another week to cool off, take time to think?” This film was supposedly his pride and joy. Ray thought he’d be taking home the gold with this one.
“No. I’m out. You can sue me, whatever you want. I’m out.” When I shoved my hands inside my pockets, my fingers brushed against the folded picture.
“I’m not going to sue you, kid. What’s going on?” Ray shook his head and wiped his brow.
“I’ve really got to get home.”
I had no plan. I wasn’t sure what I was doing as I walked away with my bags and got on an airplane to New York. I wasn’t sure whether or not I was doing the right thing. I wasn’t sure that Abbey would want me back and I wasn’t sure what the hell to think about the baby. The one thing I was sure about was that I could not live without her any longer.