Twelve #3
The number one rule of adulthood, I’ve decided, is that it will always find new ways to fuck with you. Just when you think you’ve seen every permutation, the universe whips up a fresh disaster, sprinkles it with humiliation, and serves it to you in a mug you won for free at a library fundraiser.
Here’s today’s fresh hell: I’m pregnant.
It’s Alexander’s. Now I have to figure out how to find him and tell him.
I haven’t told a soul outside the three people who physically wrestled me into taking the test, and yet I’m convinced the entire town of Seabrook is charting my hormone levels like a stock index, which based on my café announcement… they might be.
The morning after the Page & Grounds Incident, I wake up with the existential hangover of someone who has crossed every available Rubicon and now must live on the far bank. First thing I do is check my phone, as if endless scrolling will erase yesterday. No messages from Clara.
I brew coffee. I pour in milk after, and it floats in sour islands. I stare at it, too tired to fix it, and drink it anyway. I line the positive pregnancy test on the table next to the mug, as if I’m plotting the stages of my own unravelling.
Leo is at the breakfast bar, legs swinging, immersed in a shark book. He looks up with my tired eyes, only eight years younger. “Did you know whale sharks eat by vacuuming up plankton and then spitting out the water like a filter?”
“That’s a very tidy way to eat,” I say.
He shrugs. “Less messy than puking.”
I stare at him, wondering if he’s psychic or if he heard me losing my stomach contents again this morning.
After I bundle him off to school, this time putting my bag on my shoulder instead of the freezer, I sit at the kitchen table and force myself to plan.
Plans, I’ve learned, work best in novels.
In real life, too many variables, too many people who refuse to play the part you’ve cast them in.
I used to think I was the protagonist. Lately I feel like a side character who got written out mid-season.
First order of business: find Alexander. All I have is:
- His first name.- Knowledge that he’s a lawyer.- Vague memory of his hands.- A building with a blue elevator.
That is it.
I scour Facebook, five pages of Alexanders, none of whom ring a bell. I comb the bar’s Instagram: bachelorette parties, two men in dinosaur suits, zero evidence of him. I try to text Luca for help, but the message is so mortifying I can’t hit send. Instead I type and delete. Type and delete.
By 11 a.m., I’m spiralling.
My entire to-do list looks like this:
- Write one chapter (lol).- Respond to Rachel’s emails.- Do not Google “how to tell a near-stranger he’s the father of your baby.”- Do not call the bar.- Figure out if I’m a monster for not getting Alexander number.
I manage to open my document before Luca’s text arrives.
“Just checking in, babe. You alive, or do we need a rescue party? Also, Elsie’s buying baby books.”
I type: “Can you find a guy with only a first name and a probable job?”
He replies in seconds: “Piece of cake. I once located Adrian’s cousin with a misspelled surname and LinkedIn. Give me 48 hours.”
He means it as a joke. At least… I think he does.
I laugh, then immediately start crying, my body’s preferred way to register anything more complex than hunger. The laugh-cry spiral lasts two minutes, ending with a tissue clamped to my mouth, the test stick under my elbow, and the slow, certain realization that nothing will ever be simple again.
The rest of the day blurs into emails and avoidance. I fire off three replies to Rachel, each with the unmistakable tone of “I’m definitely fine.” I eat half a sleeve of crackers for lunch. I stare at my phone, will it to buzz, even though I know no message can fix what’s broken.
At two-thirty, I pick up Leo. He climbs in, silent, then asks, “Can we have pancakes for dinner?”
“Of course.”
“With strawberries?”
“We can put anything in them.”
He’s quiet, then murmurs, “I hope Dad still likes pancakes. And me.”
My throat tightens. I want to say he will, that he will always love him fiercely, but instead I grip the wheel and say, “He will. He’s your dad.”
He nods and gazes out the window. For a second I wonder if some people have kids just to fill the silences that people leave behind.
After pancakes, homework, bedtime, I sit at the table amid the wreckage of my life: the still-positive test, the cold, congealed mug. Silence wraps around me like a blanket.
Then the phone buzzes. Unknown number.
I stare at it, heart pounding, before opening the message:
Hi. This is Alexander. Sorry for texting so late. Your friend Luca is terrifying.
I read it twice, trying to make sense of it. Before I can formulate a response another text comes through.
He says you wanted to talk. . I hope you’re okay.
I laugh, then immediately start crying again. This is what it means to be alive, you can be drowning and still find a pocket of hope. You can be broken and still laugh until you cry.
I type back. Hi. I’m okay. Are you?
It takes a few seconds before his reply pops up.
Honestly? Not really. But I’d like to see you again.
I debate how to reply to that. How to tell this unsuspecting man that him and I have just been tied to each other for the foreseeable future. FUCK. MY. LIFE.