NOT PREGNANT.
Not.
A month had passed since San Francisco, and Romy, sitting at her computer with her email account open, knew she could no longer put off telling Matt.
She should have done it the instant she’d gotten her period two weeks ago, but she’d had a minimeltdown in the bathroom and bawled her eyes out instead.
And then the cramps had hit, the pain going all-out to completely incapacitate her as though punishing her for daring to do what she’d done with Matt—and surely agony was a valid excuse for delaying the call.
Disbelief had come next. With all Matt’s potency, delivered at the right time of the month, it was inconceivable that she wasn’t pregnant. So maybe her uterus was playing a last, loathsome trick on her and she wasn’t not-pregnant after all.
That had bought her a week.
But today, when Lennie had called to ask her to return to San Francisco because he’d finally made a decision and needed her to scout out a definite location for his restaurant, it was a case of time’s up. Within two minutes of peeing on the stick of her home pregnancy kit, she’d burst into tears again.
And now, sitting at her computer, she knew there’d only ever been one honest reason for not telling Matt two weeks ago: fear that the instant he knew, she’d lose him.
Okay, that wasn’t quite true. It was more that the instant he knew, she’d have to accept that she’d already lost him. She could even pinpoint the exact moment it had happened: when he’d put his hand where their baby might have been and what he’d done had become real.
The mind-blowing sex he’d almost immediately launched into made no sense after that...but Romy had a nagging feeling that if she figured out what had motivated him to “go for broke” following that club to the head, she’d have the key to the tower Matt kept himself barricaded in.
Not that she’d had time to test any locks! The vortex into which he’d hurled her had been so wild, she hadn’t been able to so much as catch her breath from start to finish. No words, no instruction, no invitation—just his touch driving her inexorably on until her eyes rolled back in her head and her toes curled. The crescendo? Two soaring, thrilling orgasms, the last one adroitly, effortlessly, synchronized to his own.
And yet despite his almost slavish attention to her pleasure, and despite that careful synchronization she though may well have curled his toes, too, she’d felt...alone. Flung away, like an electric guitar that had been played for maximum flash and drama before being pounded onto the stage and obliterated.
Her self-preservation instincts had kicked in, and she was up, preparing to leave, desperate not to face being Matt’s first-ever regret.
She’d reached for her mobile phone so many times that night, wanting to jump back over that crossed line and at least open the door to reclaiming their friendship, but every time she’d started a text, she’d lost her nerve. There’d been no adequate words for what she was feeling. Or at least, none he’d want to hear. Don’t call it love, he’d said, and she hadn’t, she wouldn’t. But she had no other words, either.
So here she was, still with no words, effectively in limbo, with Matt’s email address staring accusingly at her from the To box above the blank message space.
She scrubbed her hands over her face. Had it really been only six weeks since that phone call, when Matt had assured her having a baby would be the easiest thing in the world?
She closed her eyes, steeling herself to call up the image of his face after he’d come inside her that first time—the bleakness of it. To remember the way his expression had changed to something cool and calculating as he’d said, I’m recharged—let’s go for broke this time. The silence as he’d walked her downstairs. The desolation in his eyes when she’d kissed his cheek—as though in going for broke, he’d broken himself.
And she knew what she had to do was formally, officially, let him go.
She opened her eyes, and started typing.
Hi, Matt
The big news is I’m not pregnant, so no Yippie-Kai-Yay motherfucker just yet.
Been thinking that with you there and me here and all that paperwork we never got to the end of, a donor closer to home makes more sense. So consider this an official notification that Plan A is extinct—in other words you’re off the hook, services no longer required.
She paused there, not sure how to sign off.
Would these be her last words to Matt? If so, she knew what she’d want them to be. She’d broken the cardinal rule before she’d known it existed and said them in her heart ten years ago. She may not have said the words aloud but she wanted to. She was tired of keeping them inside. So tired, her fingers trembled on the keyboard with the need to type them...
I love you
Almost by magic the words were there on the screen. Her heart raced as she read them; she knew if she sent them it really would be over.
In which case, wouldn’t the words be useless?
If she wanted to get him back into her life she had to be more strategic. She had to let him know there was a cleared path back to their old friendship...but only if he chose to tread it. And so she deleted those three words and tapped out a new closer. Light and bright and cool and unthreatening:
But I owe you a favor of your choice for giving it the old college try. If you’re still hankering for paella, I’ve got a new twist on the old recipe so give me a shout when you’re next in London if you’d like to collect.
Romy
X
And then she hit Send, closed her laptop and burst into tears.