Thirty
Big News
I drove the thirty minutes to Devin’s house with a huge smile on my face. I still couldn’t believe how much my life had changed in the last couple of months. I used to be so lonely and now I had a wonderful guy in my life that I loved with all my heart and a baby on the way.
I’d had the entire day to think on it, and I’d decided that I was ecstatic about the baby. I’d already started thinking about the baby names I liked and all the fun stuff I was going to buy. I thought about houses and buying a new “mom” car.
Even with all the good stuff running through my head, I was still worried about whether or not Devin would want to be a part of all of it. I hoped more than anything that he would.
Jenny would be the perfect aunt and Dad would love our little girl like there was no tomorrow, but what about Devin? What would he say when I told him the wonderful news?
The subject of kids had never been brought up, mainly because our relationship was just getting started, but also because the subject of kids hurt so badly. It had never been a possibility for me and it killed me to think about how lonely my future looked without little ones running around.
I sat under a red light praying for it to turn green and pulled out the ultrasound picture that the doctor had printed out for me. I couldn’t wait to show it to him and get his reaction.
It felt like the trip to Devin’s house had gotten longer. By the time I arrived in his driveway, I was almost jumping out of my car and running to his front door. When I knocked, a swirl of anxiety hit me. What if he didn’t want the baby? What if he wanted a family, just not with me?
What was I thinking? He was Devin Michaels, the sweetest, most unselfish, loving man I knew. He was the man that I had fallen madly in love with, and the man that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I shook all the bad thoughts out of my head and knocked once more.
He pulled the door open, smiled, and then held open the screened door, inviting me in without saying so. The ultrasound picture was burning a hole in my hand. It took everything in me to not open it and throw it in his face with a big smile.
“Hey, baby.” I leaned up and gave him a pop kiss.
He kissed me back then wrapped his arms around me and hugged me close for a long time. He was acting awfully strange and for a brief second I panicked and thought that maybe he somehow knew about the baby already. That was impossible, of course, since other than the doctor, I was the only one who knew.
He let go, stepped back, and just stared at me while sitting on the couch. I sat beside him and held his hands in mine. He didn’t even notice the picture in my hand. He looked as nervous as I felt and again I wondered why.
“I thought about you so much today.” I brought his hand to my mouth and kissed his palm softly.
“I thought about you, too. I love you, Lilly,” he said, flatly.
“I love you too, Devin. More than you could ever know.”
This time it was his turn to kiss my hand. He pressed my cool palm against his check and looked back at me. He didn’t even notice the folded picture in my hand. Something was definitely wrong.
“I need to tell you something.”
Alarms went off in my head.
“I need to tell you something, too. That’s why I came to you, but you go first. What I have to say can wait a few more minutes. Are you OK? What’s wrong, baby?” I slid closer to him and wrapped my arms around him.
“I don’t know where to start,” he said. “I guess I should start with how wonderful I think you are. You’re the sweetest woman I’ve ever met and I thank God every day that I met you.”
He was starting to sweat. Even his hands were starting to sweat in mine. He cleared his throat and pulled at his collar.
Then suddenly I knew what he was doing. He was breaking up with me. Right before I was about to tell him that we were having a baby, he was telling me he wanted nothing more to do with me. I could feel it. His next words were going to kill me and I was going to have to drive home with a part of Devin tucked safely inside me.
Years from now, when I would look into my daughter’s eyes, I’d see him, and it would kill me, but I wouldn’t let it break me. I had more than just myself to think about now, and if it was the last thing I did, I’d protect my baby, even if it meant staying strong and not breaking down over our break-up until after she was born.
I sat quietly and tried to cover the worry that I hoped wasn’t showing on my face.
“God, this is so much harder than I thought it’d be.” He started to breathe heavier. He knew his words were going to crush me.
I knew it, too.
“Devin, you can tell me anything. No matter what it is, I’ll understand. Just tell me what’s wrong and I’ll fix it. I love you, Devin, and I…”
He cut me off by holding his hand up for me to stop before I could finish.
“You’re going to hate me when I say this. Promise you won’t hate me, I just want to be honest with you.”
He wanted to be honest.., that meant there was another woman involved. I had to remember to be strong once he broke it off. I could take it.
“I could never hate you, Devin,” I whispered.
This was it, the end of us. He was about to break up with me.
“Do you remember the first day we met?” he asked.
“Of course, I remember.”
I definitely did, I counted it as one of the best days of my life.
“Well, it wasn’t by coincidence that I came in your store that day. Your mom told me to go in your store. She told me where you worked and where you hung out. She made it easy for me to get you to go out with me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, confusion written all over my face “What does my mother have to do with this? You’ve only met her a handful of times.”
“I met your mom before I met you. I met her at the bank one day. I was making a complete fool out of myself begging the bank to give Dad more time to make a payment on the house. We were fixing to lose everything, Lilly, everything that we worked so hard for. We owed the bank eight thousand dollars and we were fixin’ to lose it all. We didn’t have that kind of money,” he pleaded.
“I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with my mother,” I said.
Inside I already knew. Instead, I sat there quietly praying that he wasn’t about to say the words that would shatter me completely.
“The bank turned me down. They told me there was nothing I could do except pay the balance owed. I went crazy and punched the bank manager. I was arrested, but I wasn’t there long before your mom bailed me out. I had no idea who the hell she was. I’d seen her at the bank before I showed my ass, but I was still shocked when I stepped outside the jailhouse to see her standing there waiting for me and well…” He stopped.
“Well?” I asked.
I needed to hear him say it. I needed to hear him tell me that my mother bought him for me. I had to hear it!
“She made me a proposition that I couldn’t refuse.”
OK so maybe I didn’t need to hear it. Maybe hearing it would rip my heart out, slam it to the floor, and spit all over it.
“How much?” I asked.
I didn’t want him to finish after all. I could feel the bile rising in my throat. The room suddenly started to spin. I leaned my head against the back of the couch and closed my eyes, hoping it would slow the spinning.
“How much did she pay you to sleep with me?” I asked calmly.
“It wasn’t like that, Lilly. I fell…”
“I said how much?” I yelled loudly. “What was the going price for my virginity?”
“I wasn’t supposed to touch you. It was strictly forbidden, but I couldn’t stop myself with you. You make me so weak.” He grabbed the tops of my arms as if willing me to understand.
“Oh, but let me guess, I’m just so beautiful and sexy!” I threw his words back at him. I felt disgusted that I’d let him see me naked.
Just knowing that the entire time he was probably turned off by me made me sick to my stomach. My mom didn’t have to tie a porkchop around my neck to get the dog to play with me; she just had to pay the son of a bitch!
“You are, baby. You’re so beautiful and I…”
“Don’t you dare call me baby! I’m not your fucking baby, and I’m sick of your lies already! Just tell me how much!” My voice cracked and that pissed me off even more.
I didn’t want explanations. I didn’t want to hear another word except for the amount of money I’d paid to have Devin in my life for the brief time he was in it. I needed to know how much it cost me to conceive my child.
My heart was officially broken and it hurt worse than being kicked by a mob of spiteful cheerleaders, worse than a grown man beating the shit out of me. It hurt like nothing I’d ever known in my life.
“Twenty-three thousand all together. She gave me three thousand in the beginning and I was supposed to get another twenty when I…..” He stopped.
“When you what?” I asked.
The fact that I couldn’t cry was starting to scare me. For the first time in my life, I was OK with bursting into tears. I welcomed the damn tears, anything that would relieve the amount of pressure on my chest, but no tears came. Instead, I just stared at him like a crazy person.
“You get another twenty grand when you what, Devin?” I growled.
“When I break it off with you,” he whispered. “But now that I’m being honest with you, I probably won’t get the money and I don’t care anymore. I don’t want the money. I’m prepared to lose everything…everything but you.”
When he said those words, instead of hearing I love you and I don’t want to lose you, I heard, “Why bargain with your mom, when I could just be with you and have more than twenty grand? Why fuck with the mother when I could have the daughter who’s loaded with millions?
He kept his head down the whole time. Of course he couldn’t look me in my face. For months he stared me in my eyes and told me things I’d never dreamt of hearing a man say to me. Months!
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.
The room was closing in on me. I needed to get out of there. I needed to run far away and never see his face again, but just the thought of being without him already started to burn my stomach.
I felt like someone had just knocked the air out of me. How could my mother do this to me? How could she dangle something so perfect in my face and then snatch it away? I’d never be able to forgive her for this.
I wasn’t breathing and the lack of oxygen was making my head swim.
I stood quickly and the room spun harder as I turned toward the door. I felt his arm on me to help me from falling, but I ripped my arm away from him as if his touched burned me. It did. The memories of his touch burned me all over.
“I am so sorry, Lilly,” he said.
I could hear what sounded like sadness in his voice, another act, I supposed.
Then he was in front of me on his knees holding my hand. “Please, forgive me. I’m so sorry. Please, forgive me.”
It was unnatural to see Devin on his knees begging. Such a beautifully broken man, but I’d seen people do worse for money. Money! It’s what made the world go ‘round and I’m so lucky that it was kind enough to snatch me up and sling me around with it.
“Don’t be sorry because I’m not. I can’t be sorry. If anything I should thank you.”
I looked down into his face. Even on his knees he was almost to my shoulders. I wanted to scream at him. How could he do this to us? We were going to have a baby!
“Thank me? For what?” he asked, confused. “I’m a horrible person and I hurt you, regardless of what you’re gonna say, I know I hurt you. I just…” I cut him off.
“You just did what you had to do to take care of your family. I’m glad that I could help y’all out. I’ll make sure your balance to the bank is paid.”
His head snapped up with anger on his face. He looked so heated, that for a second I feared he would attack me.
“I don’t want her damn money!”
Her money? Did he not know all of it was mine?
A tiny bit of hope bloomed inside of me before I squashed it good and hard. A lie….he was still lying! Oh he knew, he knew it was mine and that’s why he was down on his knees in front of me begging.
“As far as you hurting me goes, that’s just stupid. You gave me more than I gave you, trust me.” I could feel the tears tearing through my eyes.
The lump in my throat suddenly felt too large to swallow. I tried to clear it before continuing.
“The time we spent together was a lie, at least for you it was,” I choked.
“No! Not everything I…”
I cut him off again. “Let me finish. Even though the time I spent with you was just an act, I didn’t know that, and I’d rather have a moment of wonderfully altered reality no matter how much of it was false. I’d rather have had it fake, than never at all. At least now I can say that I know what it feels like to be in love.”
I somehow managed to smile through my pain. The liquid in my eyes felt like it was going to spill over at any minute and it wasn’t long before I could feel the tears streaming down my face. It was over. He was going to be gone out of my life for good as soon as I walked out the door and got into my car.
“Thank you, Devin. You’ll never know why I’m thanking you, but just know that once I walk out that door, I’ll be just fine.
I would be, I had no other choice.
I swore to myself I’d never let him find out about the baby. It would be just another reason for him to suddenly want to be with me. I thought he was just as deep in this as I was. He’d said he loved me for money; I didn’t want to hear him lie again for our baby.
“Please, Lilly, don’t leave me. I love you so much.”
His words echoed like they were screamed across a deep canyon. That’s how it would forever be—me on one side and him on the other. I couldn’t hear his lies anymore. It hurt every time he said he loved me because I knew it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with my money.
There were so many things I wanted to say, but nothing would come out except, “I’ll never know if you’re with me for me. I’m sorry, Devin. I can’t.”
I finally took a good look at him and saw the tears on his cheeks. He reached out and grabbed my hand, but his touch made me nauseated. I shook his fingers away from mine, turned, and walked away.
I could hear him calling from behind me, begging me to please just give him another chance, but Hell would freeze over before that happened.
The tears kept coming as I made my way to my car. Once I was inside, they poured heavily.
I knew it would be a long while before the tears stopped. I had never in my life felt that kind of pain. It cut me so deep emotionally that it physically hurt. My stomach hurt, my chest hurt, everything inside me hurt.
Was I dying inside?
This is what it’s all about. This is why people are afraid to fall in love, because losing the person you love hurts like Hell.
I cried the entire drive home.