Chapter Two

As the taxi delivered me back to my apartment, I tightly gripped the note Jones had left me in one hand. I had woken up that morning in my hotel bed, alone, and it hit me like a ton of bricks- what had happened, what I’d done the night before. The hangover clutched at my stomach and my head as I sat up and saw that I was by myself once more, a note sitting where Jones had passed out next to me the night before. I picked it up and squinted at the messy writing on the hotel-branded notepaper.

“Sorry, I had to leave early for a game. Hope you’re doing okay and that you had a good time last night. J x”

I rolled my eyes as I read it -- yeah, he was just as much of a thoughtless jock as he ever had been. I was reminded at once of all the shit he pulled with girls back in high school, how many hearts he left broken in his wake -- well, that wouldn’t be me. I was already firmly getting over one guy, I didn’t need another on top of that.

I settled up with the hotel and made my way back home, glad that at least David and I had kept separate apartments up until we had planned to marry. It was still a stab to the chest, the reminder that we weren’t going on our honeymoon, that we weren’t coming home to house-hunt together. But I had to move on -- I had no choice but to keep going, to push David and Tam and all of it from my mind as best I could. First things first, though? I had to handle this hangover.

I spent that day as I spent many of the following ones -- alone, in the apartment, drinking beer and eating takeout and watching all the crappy reality TV that David had convinced me I was too good for, whatever that meant. I found myself actually enjoying the solitude.

The wedding planning had required me to be in contact with pretty much everyone I knew and then some almost all the time, and finally I could enjoy some peace. Mom and Dad stopped round a couple of times, checking on me. I put on a brave face for them because I knew they needed to see it-- they needed to know that I would survive this. I knew I would, but it was difficult articulating to them just how okay I was going to be.

I think it was harder losing Tam than David. With romantic relationships, there’s always that innate, built-in knowledge that one of you can leave at any time, no matter how shitty it might make the other person feel. With friendships, it’s different -- you’re meant to be there for each other, without an easy out-button, for better or worse. David had always been a moderate- level dick, even if I hadn’t been able to see it at the time, but Tam was a friend - my best friend, the kind of person I considered my soulmate in so many ways. For her to have been the one lying to me all this time, that hurt doubly as much as it did with David.

But, I got on with things. I felt wobbly and raw for a long time. It’s hard to explain how you put your life back together after a break-up of that magnitude if you’ve never done it, but trust me when I say that it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do.

But the other option is simply to give up -- to back down and let the world shit all over you just because one guy wanted to fuck your best friend over you. I felt these powerful jolts of pain, reminders that I could barely handle the enormity of once in a while -- his coffee mug in the back of the cupboard, a pair of his boxers in the drawer. But the reminders of his existence became less potent as time went on, growing less important with each passing day.

After a month, I could think of him without wanting to burst into tears. After six weeks, I allowed myself to get really, really fucking mad, and hated him for all I was worth, hated them both. It felt damn good.

In all that time, I didn’t give a lot of thought to Jones. I appreciated that he had come to see me after it had all happened, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he had planned all of it somehow, as if he had hoped that the two of us were going to hook up. Maybe he was trying to get me on the rebound? He had certainly been quick out the door the next day, not keen on hanging around much longer than it took him to get dressed and call a taxi.

Yeah, maybe he did have a game, but he was lax on mentioning that the night before, and did he honestly think that another guy leaving without notice was going to do me the world of good after what had happened?

The note he’d left me had been such a brush-off, a mild nod in my direction to acknowledge that a shitty thing had happened to me but that he wasn’t going to be the one to deal with it. Not that I thought he should have been or anything like that, but damn. Show a little decency. Especially after all his talk about proving to me that not all men were assholes.

Well, yeah, maybe I did give some thought to Jones. And I certainly spent plenty of time thinking about the night we spent together, too. That was the kind of shit that stayed with you, in the best possible way. When he was rich and famous, I told myself, I can sell an expose to a gossip mag and make a bundle. Till then, it’s our fun little secret.

It was two months after the wedding when I realized that something was…missing. I’d been working on a flurry of freelance graphic design projects- partly to keep me busy and partly to pay back the money I owed on some of the wedding stuff. During that whole time, something was nagging away at the back of my brain, something that said there was an aspect of my life that wasn’t in place. I assumed it was just the David stuff and did my best to ignore it- until it suddenly clicked. It wasn’t David. It was my period. I hadn’t had one since the wedding.

I made my way down to the drugstore on the corner of my street, and prayed that no-one I knew would bump into me, which was of the downsides of living in a small town. I could barely breathe without someone reporting back to my mother on the manner in which I’d done it. I furtively picked up the pregnancy test and slipped it into my basket, paying for it with cash in some paranoid fugue.

By that time, I’d made it back to my apartment I had myself convinced that everyone in town knew my predicament- although what they might think and the actual truth were probably pretty far apart.

David and I had agreed, a few months before the wedding, not to have sex until our wedding night. I agreed, thinking it was romantic. I guessed that I wouldn’t have found it quite as charming had I known that he was banging my best friend to make up for it, but hey, hindsight is fifty-fifty. I’d had a period the week before the wedding, so that meant that if I was pregnant, there was only one person it could belong to. Jones.

I paced back and forth in my apartment a few times, trying to pluck up the courage to take the damn test. Maybe you’re just late, I told myself, even though I knew it was bullshit. I was never late, not ever, my menstrual cycle going like clockwork. This could only mean one thing, and I had to be certain of it. I had to know.

Finally, I managed to get myself into the bathroom, and hunched over the toilet as I waited for the results to come through. I held my breath, my mind racing- after everything that had happened, God would have to have a pretty sick sense of humor to do this to me as well. Surely, I was just overthinking -- maybe it was the stress that had finished off my period, or my bad diet or the drinking or…

I don’t know if you’ve ever waited for a pregnancy test to come up with a result, but those will be the longest three minutes of your life, let me tell you. I sat, frozen, on the toilet as I clutched the little stick in my fingers, staring intently at the small panel that would tell me my fate. I bargained desperately, praying that I wasn’t about to see the result I knew was inevitable.

Finally, finally, the panel changed, showing two perpendicular lines. I stared at them for a moment, then scrambled around for the box so I could figure out what they meant. I knew, but I needed to be sure -- needed to be certain. I grabbed the little cardboard package, and scanned the insert.

Pregnant. I was fucking pregnant.

Motherfucker.