I once fell off a roof, losing my footing on some slippery shingles and bouncing off a prickly shrub before hitting the ground hard. I broke my arm, cracked a few ribs, and had scratches from that fucking bush all over my body. It was growing needles, I swear to God. I was drunk at the time, of course, and didn’t feel too much when I landed, but the next day—the next month—I was in a lot of fucking pain.
That was nothing compared to what I felt after leaving Natalie. Nothing.
I would jump off a thousand roofs, bounce naked off a thousand prickly bushes, break every bone in my body willingly, if I thought it would ease the pain of pushing her away.
I couldn’t write. I didn’t feel like eating. I had trouble sleeping.
Sleeping! How can you fuck that up?
But every time I got in bed or lay on the couch, I thought of her. Didn’t matter if my eyes were open or closed—I saw her in front of me. Didn’t matter if I was alone or in a crowd—I could smell her. Didn’t matter what I ate or drank—nothing came close to the sweet taste of her, and nothing could erase it from my memory.
I spent long hours holed up in my apartment, watching cartoons or porn, not wearing pants, eating cereal with a plastic spoon and drinking beer, trying to convince myself that this was the good life. I jerked off to her constantly, but since I’d had the real thing, even that wasn’t as satisfying as it used to be. It made me even madder at myself that I’d fucked things up, although I still did it—the self-service equivalent of an angry hand job.
I called my friends to go out, but the ones with girlfriends seemed content to spend their nights in, and the ones without just wanted to troll for an easy fuck.
I was over it. I only wanted Natalie.
Finally, I broke down and called her. Got her voicemail. I tried to be casual and make jokes, but maybe I came off as pathetic or desperate, because she didn’t call me back right away. Ten days went by. The ten slowest, saddest, most agonizing days of my life.
I had to face it—she didn’t want me.
And why should she? Nothing had changed in her eyes. I hadn’t changed, although I wanted to. I just didn’t know where to start.
Should I show up on her doorstep? Admit I’d lied about California? Tell her I was in love with her and wanted to try one of those relationship things? I had no fucking clue. But every day without her was more miserable than the last, with no end in sight.
And then she called.
At the sight of her name on my screen, my body reacted like I’d just sniffed two lines of cocaine. I came alive instantly, my heart beating hard and fast. For a second, I debated making her leave a message and calling her back later, but then I thought, fuck it, I’m through playing games. I was unhappy, and she could make it better.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Miles. It’s me.”
“Hey, you.” I smiled and leaned back on the couch. “Took you long enough to call me back.”
“Sorry. I’ve been busy.”
“Yeah? I’ve missed you. What have you been doing?”
“Um, working. Painting the house. Helping Skylar with some wedding stuff.”
“Cool. When’s the wedding again?”
“September twenty-fourth.”
“That’s right. I’m supposed to go to it, I think.”
“That’s OK, you don’t have to. I know those things give you hives.”
Had I said that? I couldn’t remember. Sounded like me, though. “I might brave one, if you want me there,” I said, feeling like the biggest person ever.
Silence.
What the hell? Was she still upset with me? “Natalie? Do you want me to come to the wedding?”
“Um, before we talk about that, there’s something I have to tell you.”
Oh fuck. She got back together with the Douchebag.
I braced myself. “You’re back with Dan, huh?”
“No.” She paused and took a shaky breath. “I’m pregnant, Miles.”
I had to have heard that wrong.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“Like, with a baby?”
“Yes. Like with a baby. Your baby.”
I held the phone away from me and stared at it in shock. I had a baby? What the hell was this?
“Miles?”
Slowly, I put the phone to my ear again. I’d never had an out-of-body experience before, but this is what I imagined it would be like, where everything around me, even the air I breathed, felt foreign and wrong. Was this real?
“Miles? Did you hear me?”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah…but I don’t understand.”
“Not much confusion about it. We had sex. I got pregnant.”
Silence.
I had no fucking clue what to say. This had never happened to me before. What did she want to hear? Sorry? Congratulations? There were any number of possibilities but none of them seemed right.
I finally found my voice, and of course I said the wrong thing. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she snapped. “I wouldn’t have called you otherwise.”
I closed my eyes. A sweat broke out on the back of my neck. “Natalie, don’t be mad. I’m just…I need a minute to take this in.”
Actually I needed more than a minute. I needed the world to stop turning right now. I needed a pause button—no, I needed a stop, rewind, and do-over button. Why the fuck had we had unprotected sex? I never had unprotected sex!
“Didn’t we… I mean, aren’t you on the pill?”
“Yes, I’m on the pill. What do you think, I lied to you about that? I don’t know what happened, OK? I thought I followed the directions just like always, but it didn’t work. Your super sperm broke through the barrier.”
Absurdly, I felt proud of my super sperm for exactly two seconds before reality sank in again. And fuck, I kept saying the wrong things. “Sorry…I’m just…” I sat forward and tipped my head into one hand. “I don’t know what to say, Nat. What are you going to do?” God, now I’d just made it sound like it was her problem. I didn’t mean that, I just—fuck, this was hard! I needed a script!
“I don’t know.” Her tone was cold.
“What do you want me to do? Tell me and I’ll do it.”
Silence.
“Nothing, Miles. I don’t want you to do anything. The whole thing was a mistake. We were a mistake.”
“But—”
“Look, neither of us planned this, Miles. This is the worst possible timing for a pregnancy and the worst possible combination of factors. We’re young. We’re not married—we’re not even a couple—you don’t want kids, you’re moving across the country, I own a business, and I will have to answer everyone’s questions for the next nine months if I go through with this pregnancy, not to mention the next eighteen years.”
Oh my God. Nine months. Eighteen years.
The world was spinning too fast. Days and nights were flying by. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. “Jesus. I can’t handle this.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means, I know exactly how you’re feeling right now. You’re hoping I’ll just get rid of it so it won’t be your problem and you can go on with your life.”
I jumped off the couch, enraged. “Natalie, I never said that!”
“You didn’t have to!” she yelled. “I know how you feel about kids, Miles. They get in the way of everything. They’re expensive and they disrupt your sleep and your drinking habits and your sex life!”
Fuck, I had said that, hadn’t I? Fuck! “Well, how was I supposed to know this would happen?”
“You weren’t. Forget it, it doesn’t matter anyway.”
Oh God, now she hated me. “Natalie, wait. I’m sorry—”
“I’m sorry too, Miles. I’ll let you know what I decide, but don’t worry. I won’t ask you for anything. You can go ahead and move to California.”
“Don’t say that. Please.” I love you. I’m just terrified right now. Give me time to think.
“Goodbye.” She ended the call and I stood there, frozen, the phone still at my ear. I was sweating buckets, but started to shiver.
“Fuck!” I threw my phone on the couch and fisted my hands in my hair.
Natalie was pregnant. Pregnant! With a baby! An actual baby!
I fell back onto the couch and lay there with my hands over my face.
“Fuuuuuuuuck,” I groaned. This was so far beyond my adult zone I couldn’t even form a sentence. A relationship was one thing, but a child… I was the least qualified person I knew to be a dad. My own hadn’t been around that much. I had no uncles I was close to. The truth was Mr. Nixon was probably the best example of a good father I’d seen in my life. And he’d always been so nice to me—what would he say when he learned I’d gotten his daughter pregnant?
Oh God, I was such an asshole.
And she knew it. She’d thrown all my stupid remarks about being a husband and father right back in my face. But a guy could change his mind, couldn’t he? If he met someone who made him feel something he’d never felt before, if he learned something about himself—like that he was capable of falling in love—he should be allowed to take back what he said. Suddenly I was angry. She wasn’t even giving me a chance to do the right thing. She was just assuming I was the same old Miles I’d always been.
Because she doesn’t know you love her. You never told her.
Chills swept over my entire body, and I felt as if everything I’d ever wanted was right in front of me, and I had to grab it now or risk losing it forever. Was I scared? Fuck, yes. But what if this was my chance? If I blew this, Natalie would never forgive me, and some other guy would come along and fall in love with her and do things right. She’d always be the one that got away. But what if this baby happened for a reason? What if this was the universe banging me over the head with the best thing that had ever happened to me?
This wasn’t a mistake.
I grabbed the phone off the couch and called her back, but she didn’t answer. Her voicemail picked up as I was running up the stairs to pack a bag. “Hey,” I said. “I need to see you. I’m driving up.”
A bit short and not exactly heartwarming, but fuck it, I was flustered.
Five minutes later, I raced back down the stairs and grabbed my phone charger, computer bag, and the keys to the house up there. Frantically, I looked around, feeling like I needed more things, a better plan, a fucking clue what I was doing. But I couldn’t think of anything.
I locked my apartment and flew down the hall, tapped my foot impatiently in the elevator, and ran like mad through the parking garage. Thankful I had a full tank of gas, I was on the road within minutes, and figured if I didn’t hit terrible traffic, I could be there by nine o’clock tonight.
That gave me just over four hours to figure out what the hell I was going to say to her to convince her to let me in. To let me love her. To let me be a father to my child.
My throat closed up, and my vision went a little blurry.
I had no idea how to be a father, but I would sure as hell try.