Michael
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The next day
I’M STARING AT THE pregnancy test I bought yesterday. I bought it in secret when Luke was in the aisle with Aaron. He doesn’t even know I suspect I’m pregnant. I don’t think I can breathe.
In through the nose, out through the mouth, Michael.
I was so excited at first, when I started feeling queasy. But seeing him with his ex made me remember that we still have two weeks left on our trial. He might change his mind. He might realize that he should fight for his old life again. Aaron is so attractive. What if what he really wants is Aaron pregnant with his baby, and I’m just a poor man’s substitute?
I hug myself around the middle and wait.
If I am pregnant, it’s just barely. I only just lost my virginity and...oh my God. It’s a plus sign. I swallow. Should I take the other test? Like a second opinion? Or should I wait a week and then take it? Give things a chance to...
Oh my God. Is this real?
I wrap the test in toilet paper and hide it in the back of my drawer, remembering how I used to squirrel away books so my father wouldn’t find them.
If this marriage was real, I would go running out and find Luke and we’d celebrate. Instead, my first instinct is to hide it from him. He can’t hurt me if he doesn’t know where my weak spot is, right? I learned that from my dear old dad. He never knew that I had hopes or dreams or he would have crushed them just because he could.
Luke is not like that. I know he isn’t. But I’m so afraid of wanting this marriage. This baby. This life. It’s better, safer, to not care. Not want. Not need.
And then up comes my stomach. It’s the second time I’ve puked today, and it’s mostly dry heaves. I brush my teeth again, trying not to gag myself. Splash some cold water on my face. Stare at my bloodshot eyes in the mirror.
I have to get out of the bathroom. I have to just keep this to myself for now. For two weeks. If he changes his mind in two weeks, I won’t tell him. I’ll figure it out on my own. I’ve done it before by myself. Not well, but I managed. I throw open the door and run into the hall.
“You okay?” He’s standing at the top of the stairs. “Michael, you look pale. What’s wrong?”
“I thought you were going to the feed store today?”
“I decided to wait until tomorrow. Have you been crying?”
I sniff loudly. “No.”
“Michael—”
Do I stand a chance competing against his past? Yet his past is all around us. Even now, in the hall, there’s the room across the hall from ours that could threaten us. “You never go in this room.” I point to the always closed door of his childhood bedroom. “Why?”
It’s his turn to grow pale. “There’s nothing I need in there.”
“Are you so sure?”
“Michael, what is this about?”
“Your past. It feels to me like you’re holding on to it.”
He shakes his head. “If I were holding on to it, wouldn’t I be spending all my time in that room? Reliving my glory days. Maybe going to the bar every night and reminding everyone how I won that game. How I was the king. No, I’m not holding on to it. I put it firmly behind me.”
“I think you won’t go in there because then you’ll remember what you’re missing. What you want and don’t have anymore. How you’re settling.”
“Settling? Michael, what has gotten into you? You’ve been acting weird since we ran into Aaron yesterday. I told you. I’m not in love with him anymore.”
There is this part of me that wants to revert to the old me. Go deep inside myself where nothing hurts. Where my father’s tirades didn’t affect me, and I didn’t hear the snickers and taunts as people veered around us on the corner. Where I spent hours in a hard chair reading the bible, turning pages, but never really reading the words. Like I was watching myself. Never complaining to my father that the chair hurt my bottom. That I was too young to be forced to read for hours. That I should bathe more often, eat more food.
That Michael was as numb on the inside as his butt was on the outside.
But there is another part of me. The part that is so in love with Luke that I’d do anything to stay, even if he doesn’t want me. I’d trap him with a pregnancy. I’d pretend we’re okay even if we aren’t. I’d lie to myself if I had to.
What I need to be is neither of those Michaels.
I need to be truthful. I need to be upfront. I need to say what bothers me and go after what makes me happy. Otherwise—my father wins. He tried to break me. I’m so tired of being broken.
“Luke, let’s go in there. Together.”
He shakes his head.
“Please. It’s important to me.”
He considers this for a long, tension-filled moment, and then he nods and opens the door.
For better or worse, we’re going in.