Don’t break my hope.
It’ll be far worse
Than breaking my heart.
Day 316
“Have you told him yet?”
I want to choke Sabrina, and I would if anyone could ever invent a way to reach through the phone to throttle someone.
“If you don’t calm the eff down, asking me that shit every day.”
“Well, he needs to know.”
“And you need to chill,” I tell her. “Where are you?”
“Dunkies.”
“No Starbucks?”
“Don’t fucking insult me,” she says before she places her order.
For all of her fanciness, Sabrina still preferred Dunkin’ Donuts over Starbucks; a fact that I would forever tease her for. She was a true-blue Bostonian, from the slight accent she got when she wasn’t trying to be this uppity bitch, to her choice in coffee and even her love of the Red Sox.
Me, I didn’t give a shit about sports, but you better believe Dunkies was home.
“Get me a coffee?”
“Absolutely not. No caffeine.”
I sputter into the phone.
“What kind of cruelty is this? You call me while you’re at Dunkies and I can’t get a coffee?”
“I called you because I needed to give you your daily reminder to tell him.”
“Fine! But only to get you off my fucking back,” I tell her before I hang up. No Dunkies for me, no goodbye for you.
I scroll through my photos and pull up the picture of the positive pregnancy test that I took two days ago. When I found out I was pregnant.
Sabrina had been waiting outside the bathroom door and I was too afraid to open it and show her, so I took the picture and sent it. She ended up breaking into the bathroom anyway, volleying between wondering how the fuck we’d raise a child without its father in the country and complete and utter happiness.
The psychopath.
It’s all been a blur since, with Sabrina being the only person in the world to know.
And she’s right. I do have to tell Gavin. Rather than handle this with a long and drawn out conversation, I opt for ripping off the Band-Aid. It’s always been my preferred method.
Me: I have to tell you something.
The text sits there, staring back at me like, so, are we gonna tell him?
And before I can chicken out, I send the picture of the positive test.
The man messages back instantly.
Gavin: Is that real?
Me: Of course.
And then he calls.
“Hello?”
“You’re pregnant.” It sounds so simple, but the statement is only the beginning of complicated.
“Seems that way,” I tell him as I maneuver through my apartment to get ready for my day.
He breathes on the phone all while I curl my hair, pull my skirt over my hips, adjust my patterned tights, and push my hoops through the holes in my ears.
“Are you keeping it?” he finally asks.
“That isn’t even a question for me,” I tell him. “You know more than anyone in the world that if I got pregnant, I was going to keep it.
His sigh sounds disappointed.
“Take some time, feel it all out—”
“How long have you known?”
I close my eyes and figure out the best way to tell him that I hadn’t told him immediately.
“A few days. Kind of had to wrap my brain around it first.”
He’s silent again and I have to look at my phone to make sure he hasn’t hung up on me in anger.
“I should’ve known as soon as you knew. As soon as you thought you might’ve been. There had to have been signs, something that made you think you were.”
“Well, yeah. But you and I haven’t exactly been speaking these days.”
Since you’re so busy now. I want to say it. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but it isn’t something that’s going to push the conversation forward in a positive way, so I refrain.
I brush my lashes with my mascara wand a few times. He’s on speaker at this point and when I’m mulling over today’s lipstick, he starts breathing heavily again.
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” he answers. “I just got here. My parents are under the impression that I’m going to find a Pakistani woman to marry while I’m here. They don’t even know that you exist.”
His words hurt. To have been a part of his life and not realize just how small that part was . . . it hurts.
“I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do this,” I whisper. “Regardless of your situation. And . . . you are under no obligation to do this with me, if you can’t handle it.”
I’m at this delicately balanced place in my life, where I can either do what’s best for me and for what’s to come, or I can do what’s best for Gavin and possibly live my life with immense regret.
After all, it isn’t like we’re married. He could very well meet a Pakistani girl and fall in love and that would be that. While that wasn’t his intention, it isn’t like what we’re facing now was intentional.
“Maybe it’s best you forget this and me . . . and marry a Pakistani woman. That could very well be your life. A better life for you.”
I look at my reflection in the mirror. This mascara isn’t waterproof and it’s now running down my face.
“I don’t want anyone else, Denise. I still . . . only want you.”
But you don’t want what comes with me now, I want to say. I don’t know what keeps me from saying it.
Other than the fact that I wasn’t just me anymore and that wasn’t going to change, it makes this whole situation feel like do or die. And I never want to back Gavin in a corner.
I’d rather be his choice than his obligation.
“Take some time and figure it out,” I tell him one more time.
And then I hang up the phone.
I message Sabrina.
Me: I told him. And then I told him he didn’t have to stick around.
Sabrina: Yeah right. I’ll kick his ass myself.
I don’t respond.
There were enough words said today; words that felt like little needles poking at my heart.