I drag myself back to our bedroom to find my phone. The soup will take a minute to heat through, and right now, I need more than comfort food. I need my best friend.
“Hi.” I sink back into the mountain of pillows on Joel’s bed, tuck the fur throw up to my waist, and lift my knees to my chest, hugging them with my one free arm.
“Hey, babe, how you doing? How’s your weekend? Have you told him? Have you made your decision? What are you going to do?” Harper quick fires questions like bullets, making my chest recoil with each painful strike.
“Harper, breathe.” I manage to keep my tone light, indifferent, and casual.
“What’s wrong? Regan, tell me what’s wrong. You don’t sound so good.” I can picture her frantically cupping the phone in both hands wanting to reach right in and hug me, and I have no idea how she knows. My voice didn’t even shake, although it does now, cracking with the weight of what’s been said and what’s still left unsaid.
“I had the best weekend up until ten minutes ago.” I suck back the bubbling emotion and bite down on the wobble, forcing myself to push through. “Yes, I’ve made my decision, and no, I’ve not told him.”
“Why, what happened?”
“He’s accepted a fellowship post in New Zealand.”
“What the actual fuck, Regan!” I pull the phone from my ear a little too late to prevent her ear piercing reaction.
“Yup.”
“That’s not just cold, that’s an Arctic freeze. What an asshole.” She exhales an audible angry puff of air.
“He wants me to come with him, maybe.” My voice drifts off with uncertainty.
“Maybe? And what about your studies? What about your job, your friends, your family?”
I derisively query her final selection of reasons to stay. “Family?”
“Okay, that’s fair. Your sister is a bitch, but me and Cam and your other friends, Regan, you can’t leave us.” I can hear the uncharacteristic panic in the pitch of her voice.
“I don’t know if he was just saying that to soften the blow.” Wiping the first trickle of tears from my cheek with a rough swipe of the back of my hand, I try to gather the fraying edges of my resolve. “I don’t understand how he hasn’t mentioned this before. This is huge, Harper, and he’s supposed to…” I hesitate over the aching void that the inability to finish that sentence gouges in my chest.
He never said he loved you, idiot.
“Still, isn’t this something that two people in a relationship would talk about?” My rhetorical question hangs like a noose, and even before Harper breaks the silence, I get the irony like a slap in my hypocritical face.
“Um…”
“Yeah, okay…fuck!” I groan out, dragging my free hand through my hair. I drop my head right back and stare up through the glass panels that run either side of the high-pitched roof. The inky black sky is impossibly dark, unhindered by the light pollution of the densely populated city that I’m used to. The stars shine a little brighter here; the backdrop black seems a little sharper, and the silence is eerily peaceful and welcome. Harper interrupts and brings me quickly back to my waking nightmare.
“I’m saying nothing you don’t know already, Regan, and I’m certainly not judging, but communication is king, and you two are both clearly pawns in this game of chess. You need to talk to each other.”
“You’re right. We don’t communicate. We fuck, have fun, and keep massive fucking secrets from each other.” This self-revelation hits me hard and true. I’m such an idiot. I thought we talked. I believed we shared, but we really didn’t. The last eighteen months of my life appear before me like the soft filter veil has suddenly been ripped away, revealing the stark and ugly truth. You don’t treat someone you are supposed to love like this, simple. My nondisclosure was a mistake. The pregnancy was an accident, but at worst, I’ve been irresponsible. Joel’s decision is both calculated and cold
“So?” Harper asks softly, interrupting my spiralling thoughts.
“I don’t think I can do this on my own, Harper. I’m a horribly selfish person.” I flatly state the way I feel as the enormity of speaking the words out loud tears right through me. “Selfish and horrible. Fuck, I’m a monster for even thinking this, only—”
“Hey, hey, stop. You’re not horrible, selfish, or any other derogatory adjective your head is currently fishing around for. You’re just scared.”
“I know his feelings about unplanned pregnancy, Harper, and you know even that didn’t sway me, not really. I still thought I would be able to raise our baby, maybe not in the ideal ‘mom and dad and a white picket fence kind of way’. Not even together in a Ross and Rachel way, but I know him, and I’m not being naïve. This isn’t his girlfriend speaking here, I know him professionally. He’d still care; he couldn’t help himself. But if he’s not here? If he’s on the other side of the world, eight thousand miles away…”
“Then tell him. He might not go.”
“No, I wouldn’t do that. He’d resent me, or worse, hate me, and I can’t bear the thought of him ever hating me.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m not going to tell him, and I’m going to take the first tablet in the morning. By the time I get back home, it will all be over.” My eyes spring with fresh tears, and my mouth pools with saliva that I struggle to swallow down. I wonder if I’ll even be able to swallow the pill let alone keep it in my stomach long enough. I feel so sick.
“You brought it with you?”
“I picked up the prescription on the way back from work on Friday. I didn’t want to leave the box in the apartment, just in case. Raleigh tends to invite all sorts over when I’m away, and she has no boundaries when it comes to going though my stuff. Privacy is an abstract concept to her. I didn’t want to just leave it lying around.”
“Are you sure?” Harper asks. I pinch my eyes shut, failing to stop the tears that burst through regardless. I sob loud and broken.
This can’t be happening.
“No. Harper, I’m not sure. I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know anything.”
“Oh, babe, please don’t cry.” I can hear the hurt in her voice, she quiets and lets me break, spilling a river of tears and sadness not so silently into the night. Several of the saddest minutes of my life slip by when she finally speaks. “Regan, look, I want you to leave the decision for two days, come home, and I’ll take the day off, and we’ll really talk it through. I’m not trying to influence your choice here, but Joel just dropped a fucking bombshell on you, and I don’t think you’re in the right mind to make any decisions, let alone one that could haunt you for the rest of your life.” I nod even though she can’t see me. She’s right.
“Thank you.”
“I love you to the moon and back, babe, and don’t forget…you’ll survive.” Her voice holds more optimism that I’m capable of right now because I’m not so sure I will.
“Bye, Harper.”