It's Complicated

The sunlight spilled into the bedroom through the tiny crack left between two black curtains, bathing the two lovers in a serene glow. In their sleep, they destroyed the covers with their constant stirring, all of blankets wrapped around the girl, while the curly-haired teenage boy was exposed, quite literally, to the elements of the poorly-heated flat.

Harry felt the beam fall across his eyes and blinked rapidly before finally drawing his eyelids up toward his eyebrows. Other than the one small exception, the room was incredibly dark, everything over a foot in front of his face shrouded in mystery.

It took a second for the events of the night before to come back to him, but when the memories flashed through his mind like a movie, he couldn’t help but smile. He’d never thought he’d be attracted to the girl sleeping next to him when they’d first met. She was just Jess’ annoying kid sister who dressed just like he used to when he was twelve and whooped his butt at videogames.

But seven years had passed, and she’d blossomed into one of the most beautiful women Harry had ever seen. Gone were any remnants of her tomboy past, besides her slightly and endearingly abrasive attitude, and a bird with curves that could stop a truck had taken her place. Even when they’d hooked up at Jess’ wedding, he hadn’t figured anything would come from it. Everyone hooked up at weddings. It had been no big deal.

And to Maria, it hadn’t been. She got up the following morning and left without glancing back. She didn’t even bother to thank Harry for the good time. But Harry wasn’t finished with her, and she hadn’t fought him too much when he called her and asked for another date. She may have not admitted it to him, but she was just as much addicted to his presence as he was to hers.

Harry blinked slowly before scooting closer to Maria, planting a soft kiss on her forehead. Immediately, her perfectly-plucked eyebrows pulled together, alerting that any innocence that had taken over her face in sleep would disappear. Almost any time she was awake, she was scowling and making sarcastic, and occasionally rude, comments. But Harry loved it. He felt like he had to work for those infrequent smiles, and nothing made him happier to see a smirk pulling at the corner of her full mouth.

After what seemed like an eternity, Maria opened her dark brown eyes to look at the boy that she couldn’t even call her boyfriend. For a split second, a period of time so fast that Harry almost missed it, she had a sparkle of love in her eyes. But just as quickly as it appeared, it was gone.

Harry didn’t want to let go of the moment. “God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered to her, reaching out to put his palm against her face, running his thumb along her cheekbone.

But she wasn’t willing to play along. She rolled her eyes and threw the covers off herself as she stood up. “Quit the shit and make me breakfast.” And a second later, she slammed the bathroom door shut behind her, cutting off any view Harry had of her incredibly perfect and toned naked body.

He groaned and shoved the palms of his hands into his eyes. She frustrated him, of course, since she wasn’t into romantics or anything he did that could remotely resemble courting in any way. But there was something about her that made her worth all the irritation and rejected attempts at flattering her.

Once he got over the pain of her getting up and leaving, he got up and pulled on a new pair of boxers, his bare feet padding against the hardwood floor as he went.

As the stove heated up, he readied the pancake batter, pouring a healthy dose of chocolate chips into the batter, which he knew Maria loved. Somewhere during the process, Maria reemerged, clothed in her underwear and bra, one of Harry’s Rolling Stones t-shirts covering her torso, falling just underneath her bum.

“So,” Harry started when he saw her out of the corner of his eye, “when are you going to let me ask you to be my girlfriend? It's been almost a year, you know.”

“Never,” she replied seriously. “Because that’s cheesy as fuck. Are those chocolate chips?”

He nodded, struggling to suppress his smile as he did the last of the stirring. “Do you want to try the batter to make sure it’s okay?”

“Just as much as I’d like to try salmonella to see if it’s as bad as everyone says,” she fired back without hesitating. “Oh! I don’t think I told you!”

“Told me what, love?” He took a ladle-full of the runny batter and poured it into the tiny skillet, watching it carefully to see when he should flip it over. Making pancakes was always a long process in Harry’s flat, which is why he usually went to the bakery down the street for pastries, but when Maria requested for him to make her breakfast, he could never refuse.

“Jess is pregnant.”

The words just came out like she was stating that it was foggy outside or she preferred Converse sneakers. So incredibly conversational, like she wasn’t delivering one of the most important pieces of news in her sister’s life. “That’s wonderful!” Harry replied excitedly. “Are you excited?”

Maria shrugged. “I don’t know. Not really. I mean, it won’t have much to do with me. And what’s scary is that Jess says she’s pretty sure there are twins, but it’s too early to do an ultrasound.”

Harry grimaced at the thought. It must have been creepy to feel like she had two babies inside of her, yet not know for sure for months. “That’s still great for them, though. I’m surprised Louis didn’t tell me.”

“Uh…Louis doesn’t know.”

His jaw dropped. “Are they not Louis’?!”

Maria narrowed her eyes and slapped his shoulder. “Are you an idiot?! Of course they’re Louis’. What other guy would be desperate or dumb enough to shag my sister?”

“Hey, that’s not nice. Your sister is a perfectly wonderful human being.”

“Oh, please. Let’s be real. I’m the pretty sister, and we both know it.” She shifted a little on the counter. “But just to be serious for a second, what would you do if I said I was pregnant?”

Harry’s heart stopped beating and his throat constricted, making breathing nearly impossible. It wasn’t possible for her to be pregnant. She told him that she was on the pill, and he’d made sure to use a condom every time, just in case, as far as he could remember. After the pregnancy scare in high school, he’d never take the risk again. “What?” he managed to breathe, his hand feeling around for hers, desperate for some kind of strength. “Maria, are you…are you really?”

“Of course I’m not.” She rolled her eyes, her signature move, before shaking her head. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’m just asking a hypothetical question.”

“Well, if you’re not pregnant, let’s leave it hypothetical.”

“Why are you freaking out about this? Are you saying that if I was pregnant, you’d leave me?”

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his curls. It was a good thing that she wasn’t pregnant, really, because the two of them could hardly go through a week where they didn’t have some kind of a disagreement. Sure, the making up afterward was great, but the near-constant arguing wouldn’t create a good environment for a child. “No, I’m not saying that at all. Just drop it, Maria.”

“I’m not dropping anything! You’d leave me. How can you say that you care about me, but you’d leave if I had a child?” Violent red coloring filled her cheeks and she hopped down from the counter, her blood growing hotter and hotter with fury.

“I wouldn’t fucking leave you, Maria! Okay? But we shouldn’t even be talking about this if it isn’t true!”

There was a long silence, with Maria watching her lover’s every move while he pretended not to notice, before she stormed into his bedroom and closed the door.

He’d just give her time to cool off. That was all she ever needed. Then they’d have hot make-up sex, or a few different bouts of make-up sex, and everything would be fine for a while. It was how they always were.

But then, as he finished the sixth pancake in his tiny frying pan, he heard slamming from his bedroom. It sounded like doors opening and closing, and Harry knew that she was cleaning out the drawers she’d claimed for herself in the past couple months of their confusing relationship.

He threw down the spatula, ignoring the harsh clanging noise it made against the metal edge where the stove met the oven, and darted toward his bedroom. Throwing open the door, he found Maria shoving clothes into her fairly large purse, putting article after article into the poor thing; it looked just about ready to burst, but the youngest McCormack girl couldn’t quit.

“Maria, what are you doing?!” Harry shouted, more out of fright and concern than anger. “Maria!”

She didn’t seem to notice his existence, continuing to focus on her task without so much as glancing at him.

Sick of the dramatics, Harry grabbed her arm, forcing her to turn toward him. “Maria, what’s wrong? Tell me the truth, are you pregnant?”

Her gorgeous eyes went to the floor as she wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m not on the pill, Harry,” she whispered. “I haven’t been for a while because I don’t have the money. My mom stopped paying for it because she found out how old you are, and she doesn’t think we should see each other.”

“But I’ve used condoms,” he replied in a soft voice. His hand was still grasping her, but his grip had grown much softer, and he traced little circles on the tender skin of her inner arm.

“Think about it, Harry,” she snapped. “About a month and a half ago? After one of our arguments? At my flat, where there were no condoms?” Harry couldn’t speak. “Nice job pulling out, you jackass.”

He attempted to swallow the lump in his throat as he pulled her tight against him, kissing under her ear before squeezing her as tightly as he could. “It’s okay,” he assured her, one hand reached up to pull her head tighter against the crook of his neck, the other still wrapped around her waist. “We’ll be okay.”

“I should just kill it,” she stated. Her voice was just as strong as ever. Maria had never been one to cry, and she certainly wasn’t about to start because of a dumb bunch of cells inside of her.

“You’re not going to get an abortion,” Harry defied. “We can do this. I love you, and we can do this.”