270 Days #3
She hesitated before hitting send. What was the worst thing that could happen? He’d get annoyed, never talk to her again, and she’d get to be a mother someday? She sent the message off into the ether and waited to accept her fate.
Less than a minute later, he called.
“Wow, I thought I was pulling it off, but you’re not buying it, huh?”
She tried to sound as casual as he did. “Nope. Not buying it.”
“I’m really sorry. I just, uh, woke up feeling kinda…freaked out. And I wasn’t trying to play mind games or anything, I think I was just trying to buy myself a little time to figure out what to do next.”
Rhea was speechless. Every single time she had ever inquired how a guy was feeling in the past, she was met with some version of a lie, like, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m totally fine.”
But Danny was immediately admitting something was off and apologizing.
How was it possible for him to be even more perfect than he already was?
Well, not so perfect that he didn’t make her wonder what the hell was going on for several hours, but still way more perfect than anyone else she’d ever dated.
“Full disclosure, I tried texting you a few times earlier, and none of them felt right. I just, uh, felt like we needed to finish our conversation—the one we started in the hot springs—and I’ve been trying to figure out the right way to bring it back up without being a bummer…
. But seriously, you must be a mind reader, ’cause I thought my texts were all sounding very cool, very normal,” he said with what sounded like a smile.
“Not to me,” she said with what sounded like a performative smile.
“And I’m sincerely sorry about that,” he said earnestly.
Danny had mentioned spending years in therapy working on his internal issues, but this was ridiculous. This was the kind of honest, straightforward communication one could only dream about in a partner.
Rhea had often been accused of being “crazy” in past relationships, but this conversation was making her wonder whether she was crazy for being intuitive or just needed a partner who was emotionally mature enough to be able to admit her intuition was accurate.
“No, it’s completely okay, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just…very sensitive,” she said, trying to match his refreshing candor.
“One of the many things I like about you.” He took a deep breath and continued.
“Okay, so this morning I woke up thinking about our, uh, discussion, and I just need you to know I am one hundred percent on everything I said and…if you’re in a gray area about any of it, I really can’t continue this ’cause…
I like you and I don’t want to, ya know, head toward a dead end, like you said—and I feel guilty for going back to your room when I wasn’t sure where you were at with all of it—”
“Oh, please don’t feel guilty; I basically dragged you—”
“Rhea, I picked you up and put you on your bed….”
Rhea exhaled slowly as recalled images flashed through her head. She wanted to beg him to come over. She stayed silent.
“I, uh, dated a woman for a while and—in the beginning, she seemed totally fine with me saying up front I didn’t want kids, then three years later, she had a breakdown.
She felt like she’d wasted her time and missed out on motherhood, and we…
broke up. And I can’t go through that—or put someone through that ever again. So, I just wanna be really clear.”
Danny was stammering because having such a serious discussion so early on felt vulnerable.
“Wow…I’m so—sorry, that happened—that—sounds so…stressful.”
Rhea was stammering because she was realizing she was going to do exactly what that woman had done.
That was how she had been able to cross the bridge; she was secretly keeping a toe on the other side, biding her time until her eventual mental breakdown, and he’d just called her on it.
This left her with no choice but to execute Plan B: genuinely make peace with never becoming a mother.
When she got to heaven and her three unborn children asked why she’d never had them, she would just have to say, “I’m so sorry, but you have to understand, I technically met him on a golf course.”
She smoothly pivoted to Plan B as if she did not feel like she was being ripped in half.
“I promise I will not do that to you. I am making peace with…everything you said. And it’s not as if I’m, like, obsessed with motherhood or anything….”
She tried not to look at her vision board full of magazine cutouts and construction-paper alterations, a piece of décor that would not have been out of place on a serial killer’s wall.
“Man, I wish we didn’t have to have these intense conversations so early on…but I really don’t want to cause you any pain in the future. I’m trying to do everything I can to prevent that. I obviously didn’t nail it today, but I really am trying,” he said.
“I appreciate that, and yeah, I just wanna continue seeing where this goes. Regardless of all the other stuff…”
“Well…that makes me happy. ’Cause I really do like you.”
“You said that already,” she said through a smile.
“Yeah, well, don’t be surprised if you hear me say it again.”