Infinite

“Please, all I’m asking for it five minutes. Just- let me explain,” I said, watching the blue eyed man falter at the end of the hallway. There was no way around me and I could see him calculating.

He nodded once as he relented, finally moving again. He stepped down the hall and walked behind me into my bedroom. I flipped the light on as his shorts dripped on the carpeting. He stood just inches in the doorway, apprehensive to listen to anything I had to say.

I turned around, three feet in front of him. “Chance, - I don’t know what to say to make this better,” I spoke, too guilty to meet his eyes. My thoughts had been so preoccupied since I’d seen him last and he’d barely appeared in any of them. I felt guilty for that too. It was like I’d taken advantage of him. No matter what I felt, I should’ve restrained myself.

He looked even younger, standing in front of me silently. I hadn’t heard him so quiet ever and it made it him seem hurt and innocent, and I couldn’t believe that I’d done that to him. I blinked back my show of emotion and offered an apologetic smile.

“I am pregnant,” I said, unsure of however to get it out there, “and I sort of already knew that when you and I… but I was scared and just being around you made things seems so much easier, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to give everything up because I wasn’t careful and made a mistake. It’s selfish, I know,” I added quickly, pushing my fingers through my hair and out of my face, “but I wasn’t thinking about anyone else and I’m sorry.”

He looked at me and I watched him, trying to figure out which negative emotion he felt about me now. I’d been terrible to him, used him to forget about my own problems. He crossed his bare arms over his bare chest and resettled his gaze on me. “What are you sorry about?” he asked, eyes narrowing, “Are you sorry about meeting me? About sleeping with me? Are you sorry that you’re in a mess? Are you sorry that you’re having someone else’s kid? What, Atticus, what are you sorry for?”

“I’m sorry that I hurt you,” I answered, stepping up to him to grab his fingers, “I tried to tell you how great I am at fucking things up, but I should’ve just ended it before anything happened. You’re only twenty years old and I should’ve known better. I didn’t mean to use you, Chance, you have to be believe me.”

He looked angry and it surprised me because that wasn’t the emotion he wore only minutes before. He dropped his arms with a sigh, pulling his fingers from mine. “You didn’t use me, Atticus. The only way you could’ve used me is if you didn’t actually care about me, and that’s obviously not true. I wanted to sleep with you, to be with you. I knew there was shit going on with Ronnie, and I told you that it didn’t matter. I just wanted to make you see that you weren’t able to use me, even if you wanted to.”

He quieted for a moment, but there was obviously more that he wanted to say, so I stayed quiet, looking over his face and trying to understand his thoughts. “But when I saw that you might be pregnant, that you knew, I realized that there was a chance that you really were just using me to make you forget. I had thought… that you felt the same about me and just wouldn’t admit it, so I pushed you to be with me, but when there was a chance that I was wrong, it hurt so fucking bad that I just lost it.”

I was at a loss for words. How could I tell him that I didn’t care about him in the same way? It was first instinct to do so, to tell him that it was an accident and I didn’t want him mixed up with me any longer, but I also knew it wasn’t true. He wasn’t just some twenty year old kid who I’d gotten mixed up with, he was right. There was something that kept him in the front of my mind, in the pit of my stomach, and that reminded me what it felt like to start something so simple with someone without having to explain it or work to keep it working.

“I didn’t know I was pregnant,” I said, unable to say anything else, “I didn’t want it to be true, so I didn’t say anything.” I couldn’t look at him as I explained, but he grabbed my fingers with his own, silently urging me to go on, “I didn’t know how I was supposed to tell anyone that I was accidentally pregnant. It’s was all just changing so fast and I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t want to put that on you, Chance. I didn’t want to see you have to deal with it.”

“I’m not a child, Atticus,” he answered, repeating the words he’d said to me many times before, “I can handle myself. I could’ve made the decision on my own and I would’ve. You just had to be honest with me. Like I said, I get you and I have to deal with Ronnie, I understood that, you were honest about that. It’s just when you weren’t, I thought you didn’t care.”

“It’s not that-“

“Atticus, are you-“

The door opened and Chance and I both froze as Ronnie came through the doorway, face turned away as though he expected to find me changing. But he stopped mid-sentence when we saw what was right in front of him. His lips parted in surprise and his eyes ran over us, landing on our connected hands.

The look on his face brought tears to my eyes automatically. He looked like I’d taken everything from him. I had seen many honest emotions in Ronnie, and they were all breathtakingly beautiful, but I had never seen honest pain face to face. Sure, I had heard it in his voice, but the sight of it snapped something within me.

“It's him," he spoke, eyes blank and staring like his brain was trying hard to process, putting all my words and actions together as he calculated what saw. "I should go,” he said, turning his face away so I couldn’t read his eyes, and then he turned completely and left the room without another word, closing the door behind him as though he hadn’t come in at all.

I looked at Chance and faltered without anything to say. “I-“ I stuttered, looking back to the door. “I’m sorry,” I said, squeezing his hand before I let go completely, “I have to go talk to him before-“

“Before what?” Chance asked, “Before he thinks there’s something going on between us?” His eyes hardened unfamiliarly. “Isn’t there?”

“I-, Chance, please, that’s not the point right now. Just, I just have to go catch to him, explain things. Ronnie’s…” I trailed off, unable to explain the relationship. Finally, I spoke his own words back to him, “You get me and you get him,” I said, “I know that’s not fair to you, but I have to make sure he’s all right. We’ll continue this conversation, I promise, I just have-“

“Just go,” he said, nodding, understanding, accepting.

I stared at him for a second longer, trying to read him and make sure he wasn’t angry, before I took off after the singer. I knew where he would go, what his game plan would be, so I raced down the stairs, careful not to slip and break my neck, and threw open the front door. He was cutting across the yard and pulling his jacket on over his bare chest, his shoes and keys in his hands.

“Ronnie!” I shouted as I hurried across the grass after him, “Ronnie, please, talk to me.”

He turned around vehemently at the sound of my voice, eyes landing on me. He was tearing up and he violently wiped them away. “I would give you everything!” he shouted, wiping at his eyes again, “Even my child, Atticus! And you still chose him!”

“I didn’t choose anyone!” I yelled back frantically, “Please, Ronnie, you have to understand. It’s not like that, please.”

“Understand what?!” he screamed back, shoving his keys harshly into the pocket of his hoodie, “That you ’care about us both’ or that you don’t know what you’re supposed to do? I told you that you’re supposed to be with me and you didn’t listen, so I don’t have to understand anything anymore, Atticus.” He turned his eyes to the lock and stuck the key in it, hands shaking, bare feet pressing into the jagged road beneath him.

“Ronnie, please,” I begged, crying as I watched him try to go, “Please, don’t leave.”

His eyes were hard. “Well, you can’t have us both and you obviously want him, so I should go. Don’t let me or our baby stop you from getting what you really want.”

I was lost in tears now, overwhelmed and unsure of how it had all exploded like this. Two half-clothed, dripping guys on either side and a couple of choices that I had no idea how to make. “Please, Ronnie,” I said again, wiping the tears away, “Don’t do this. We can work it out. We need to talk about this. We have a life together, even if it’s not the one that you want. You can’t just leave.”

“I came all the way home for you!” he yelled back, yanking the car door open, “I flew across the country when you said you needed me. I cancelled shows and ditched my friends and my responsibilities. I didn’t ask any questions or demand anything from you! I came home to show you that I can be a dad and to prove that I love you, but if that’s not enough anymore, then I’m going home. I’m not going to keep holding onto someone who’s just keeping me around because it’s easier than letting go. I'm not going to let you keep breaking my heart.”

His gaze darted past me and I turned, shocked to see my father standing near the corner of the house with my sister and a couple of people I didn’t recognize. When I looked back to the singer, he was already getting in the car and starting it up. He drove away as I watched, wishing we could erase this entire night from memory.

I didn’t bother to answer my father as he sent the strangers back to the party and turned to come to me. I was a mess in the middle of the yard. Eyes bloodshot from crying, head pounding from the shock of it all, and feeling more guilty that I could ever remember being.

Frida lingered near the edge of the house, looking between me and the space where Ronnie was just minutes ago. She stepped forward as I pushed past my dad to go back in the house.

“Atticus, what is going on?” my dad asked, looking bewildered, “Please, what was Ronnie talking about? Are you pregnant?”

“Yeah, Dad,” I answered, not meeting his gaze, “Sorry.” I moved past him and went back through the front door. The stairs were in front of me and I could see my bedroom door at the top, but I couldn’t go back there. It felt more like a crime scene than the sanctuary it had been before. Instead I took a left and cut through the kitchen to my father’s back office. I slipped through another door, into the sound proof studio, and dropped down to the floor among the instruments.

I didn’t know what to do. There would be no going back to the arrangement Ronnie and I had to take care of our child. He’d been holding out over the idea that we might get back together. And I obliterated that hope. The look on his face and his reaction killed me, but so did seeing Chance’s eyes when I ran from him to stop Ronnie. I was stuck in the middle, with a decision that I had no idea how to make. And the idea that Ronnie just made it for me, terrified me too.

I found my phone in my pocket and pulled it out, eyes slightly burry as I found the familiar name and photo and clicked on it, lifting it to my ear as I waited for it to begin ringing.

”Hey, you’ve reached Ronnie, leave a message.”