Perhaps you felt it best
That I let my frustrations out on paper,
So my anger wasn’t as sharp,
Dulled by the time it reached you.
How sweet you are . . . to me?
Or to yourself?
Day 319
Mornings are the fucking worst.
I haven’t thrown up but because I haven’t eaten in hours, the nausea makes it feel like it could happen any second. I inhale two bananas, barely chewing them, only relaxing when my stomach settles.
There’s a knock at my door and when I open it, I’m surprised to see Sabrina. Honestly, I’m surprised that anyone is here so early in the morning.
“The hell are you doing here?”
“Good morning to you, too, shorty.” She ruffles the top of my head and I dodge her at the last moment.
“Uhh?”
“Decided to take the day off and take us to get pampered,” she announces as she reaches in the fridge for orange juice. She pours two glasses and hands me one. “So, get ready.”
“What about my job?”
“Call out,” she answers, a look of confusion on her face. “What the fuck kind of response is that?”
“I can’t just call out,” I tell her. But she calls my bluff.
“You and I both know you could not go in for a day without calling, and you’d still be fine.”
“That’s what happens when you work hard and establish a good reputation instead of taking days off to relax.” By the time I’ve finished the sentence, she’s throwing one of the grapes she pulled from the fridge at me.
“Fine!” I shield myself with my hands and laugh until she stops pelting me with grapes. Carlos walks over to see what the commotion is about. “Pick these up! Grapes aren’t good for dogs.”
I grab my phone to call my district manager. When I look at the screen after making sure Sabrina is indeed picking up grapes, I see someone’s been trying to get ahold of me.
Two missed calls from Gavin and a text.
The past few days, I haven’t heard much from him as he tried to process the information. And for once, I didn’t mind the space. I willingly gave it to him in heaps.
Gavin: Call me.
Frown in place, I call him back. He picks up on the first ring.
“So, you’re keeping it, then.”
He sounds frantic and I try my best to diffuse with near nothing.
“Oh, hi. Good morning.” When I open my mouth to speak again, it’s for nothing. He takes the reins and starts in on his own agenda.
“No, Denise. I can’t have a good morning. I can’t have a good anything because I just moved to Pakistan until my parents see fit, and now you’re pregnant.” But he isn’t done quite yet. “I don’t want this baby. I can’t take care of it and be the son my parents are expecting me to be.”
“It isn’t like this is all my fault,” I tell him. Sabrina’s eyes follow me as I make laps around the apartment, little green pokers that prod at me to keep him in line or she will. “I’m sorry that this isn’t ideal, but it was never a question of keeping it or not.”
“So, now I’m stuck.”
“Not at all. You have a choice.”
“How the hell do I have a choice?” He shouts into the phone.
“He might want to relax on the other line. I can hear him from here.” Sabrina’s tone threatens all kinds of unspoken horrors and I say a prayer into the abyss.
Please don’t let this get ugly.
“You don’t have to do this with me,” I answer.
“Damn straight,” Sabrina mutters from her place in the kitchen.
I’m passing the couch, Carlos following me until I get the hint and feed him.
“I’m not going to just leave you alone. That’s not me.”
“Well,” I say with a grunt, standing from squatting to pet Carlos as he eats, “then get onboard and stop stressing me out about it.”
Gavin offers a mirthless laugh.
“You have all the answers, huh? You seem so happy about this. Fuck it, at least one of us is!”
“Excuse me?”
Sabrina walks from the kitchen to lean against the living room wall, her eyes squinting, waiting for a hint of trouble.
I don’t need for her to get angry and jump into this. I want them to get along; that’s more important to me than anything.
But Gavin’s frustration isn’t going to make this peaceful.
“I don’t want this baby, Denise. I do not want a child right now.”
The patience in me is dwindling at his insistence.
“You should probably stop telling me that, Gavin. Quit telling me you don’t want the baby. Because one day I might not be able to forgive you for it.”
Sabrina rushes over and snatches the phone from me. Before I can grab it back, she hightails it to my bedroom and locks herself inside.
And then I’m pressing my ear to the door like this isn’t my apartment and she hasn’t hijacked my cellphone.
Fucking Sabrina. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid.
I can hear some of what she’s saying, about stress, about getting shit together, about the past, and me being supportive.
“If I hear you say anything else about not wanting this damn baby, I’ll fly to Pakistan myself, do you hear me? She deserves better than that and so does your unborn child.”
That part comes out perfectly clear.
She emerges a minute later and hands me my phone. He’s no longer on the line but I have texts coming in, back-to-back.
Gavin: This is too much for me.
Gavin: I can’t come home. How would we even do this?
Gavin: I feel like I’m being trapped.
Once I read that last text, I send him one I never thought I would.
Me: Stop messaging me, Gavin.
And, for the rest of the day, he doesn’t. All while we get our nails and toes done, while we get facials and have lunch, my phone doesn’t get any notifications from Gavin.
“He just needs time,” Sabrina says when we finally make it back to my place, examining her fresh manicure after taking Carlos on a walk.
“I need you to not step in like that again.” She looks up at me, her head tilted and her eyes a little squinted, like she isn’t understanding why. “You can’t chastise him like that, Sabrina. If we’re all going to get along, and we should for the baby, we need to be on the same page.”
“I was trying to get him on the page you and I have already been on.”
I shake my head, and even though I’m smiling, I repeat myself.
“You can’t step in like that.”
She puts her hands up.
“Okay.” When she sets her hands down and sits back, I expect that to be the end of it, but she speaks up again. “For the record, he seemed apologetic and receptive. Even if I still want to put my foot up his ass.”
“Yeah, but . . .” How do I explain this in a way she’ll genuinely understand? “As much as I’m . . . dying for his support,” tears are building in my eyes, “I only want it if he’s willing to give it. I don’t want anything from him that he won’t give me on his own. I have no interest in accepting what he feels like he was bullied into giving.”
Sabrina grabs my hand and offers me a smile.
“And they say I’m supposed to be wiser.”
I laugh.
“You’re too much of an asshole for wisdom. But, man, you’re quite the protector.”
She shrugs and lays her head on the back of the couch.
“I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s hard to let go of that job. I think if you ever got married, your husband and I wouldn’t get along.”
“I couldn’t marry someone who didn’t love you.” I smack her thigh. “See why it’s important that you don’t chastise my boyfriend?”
Truthfully, I don’t know if we’re at that level of commitment anymore, everything so muddied between us. But it’s easier to call him that than to explain the mess we’d made of our love to anyone else. Even Sabrina.
She rolls her eyes with a smile.
“Oh, he’s got some growing to do before he’s even close to good enough to marry you.” She gets up and adjusts her yoga pants. “He’ll have to ask me for permission.”
I smack her butt now and she jumps away from me with a small yelp.
“Heading out?”
“Yeah. Got a big day tomorrow.”
She leans down to kiss my cheek before heading to the door.
“Love you most!”
“Impossible,” I yell back as the door closes behind her.
I glance around my apartment, feeling at home with all of the colors and patterns. My eyes graze over the bookshelf, landing on one of my notebooks. It was the first one Gavin had ever given me, the day after I told him I’d always wanted to be a writer.
I get up to grab it, wondering what beautiful things lived inside of it.
The pages look back at me, begging to be felt again, begging to have someone other than me reading them. And it’s a little upsetting that these words that I pieced together to create these little love sonnets will only ever live on my shelf.
It makes me wonder about these words and about if Gavin knew what he’d done when he gifted the notebooks to me. Page after page, I go over our moments together, much like I do from time to time, recalling moments when I’d told him, “I write the most beautiful things about you, Gavin.”
Because I did. And I still do. Even when they’re a little less than perfectly happy.
But, was that always the plan? To curb my need to release to him, he created a safe place for me to let go with less of a mess for him?
I close the notebook shut and press it against my forehead.
Truthfully, there isn’t anything in the world that can curb my hurt at this point.
And I make a promise to myself that once the baby is here and everything is settled, these notebooks will no longer just collect dust on my shelf; forgotten pieces of this heart of mine.