Because You're Mine

by Rea Frey

  “Ha. I’m sure she’ll still find some way to annoy the piss out of me until the end of time.” Carol clears her throat and glances at Grace, but she shakes her head. I’m still not ready.

  “So, since we’re all revealing our deepest, darkest secrets…?” Carol turns to Lee.

  Lee shifts in her chair. “What?”

  “Oh, come on. You know what everyone wants to know,” Alice urges.

  “I don’t get to pick what I tell you?” Lee rearranges herself under the blanket.

  “We’re dying to know,” Carol says.

  “What, how I wake up looking like this?” Lee laughs.

  Grace knows she needs to interject. It’s her turn. This is about her, not Lee. She should have told Lee separately and not gotten Carol and Alice involved in the first place.

  “Come on.”

  “Come on what?” Lee’s voice hardens.

  “Who is it?” Alice asks. “Who’s Mason’s dad?”

  Despite what Grace has to tell her, she pauses. It’s the one thing Lee has never revealed. With Alice’s and Carol’s confessions, maybe tonight is the night Lee will come clean.

  Lee closes her eyes. She opens them after a long, uncomfortable moment and blinks into the fire. “No one.”

  “Are you, like, the Virgin Mary?” Alice jokes.

  “Was it a sperm donor?” Carol offers.

  “No one is judging you here. Believe me,” Alice says. “We all have shitty sex stories.”

  Lee watches the fire, seemingly haunted. Grace leans forward. “Lee? Are you okay?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m fine. It’s just … not a good memory, you know?” She searches for something to say.

  Grace clears her throat and looks around the group. “I’ll go.”

  Lee looks relieved, but Grace dreads what’s coming. How it will change their relationship. How Lee will look at her. The exact moment their friendship will shift. She calculates all the ways to begin. When it started. What it was like the first time. How it got from there to here.

  “Will you hold that thought? I’m dying to pee.” Lee’s blanket pools at her feet as she disappears inside to the bathroom.

  The girls lean forward once she’s out of earshot. “Just tell her,” Carol hisses. “Get it over with.”

  “I’m trying! I can’t stop her from needing to pee.”

  Alice grabs Carol’s forearm. “Maybe we should give them privacy. So Lee doesn’t feel pressure to respond in a certain way.”

  Grace knows Carol wants to stay. She wouldn’t miss a good bit of drama for anything, but she reluctantly nods. “Fine. Have at it.” The women say good night and toss the empty bottle of wine into the recycling bin, the second one unopened by Carol’s lounge chair. “Good luck.”

  They head inside. Grace takes a staggering breath as she waits for Lee to come back out.

  It’s finally time.

  23

  grace

  A few minutes later, Lee appears on the deck and notices the empty chairs. “Where did they go?”

  “Tired, I think. Here, come sit for a second.” Grace pats the chair beside her.

  Lee sits and then lies back. “Can we just lie here for a second and not talk? There’s been so much talking.”

  “Sure.” Grace reclines. The fire crackles. Reams of black smoke lift into the night. She needs to tell her, but she wants Lee to relax first. She closes her eyes and takes deep breaths, the exhaustion and nerves taking over. She startles when hands shake her awake.

  “Grace, let’s go up. You fell asleep.”

  Grace swipes a hand across the back of her mouth. “Did I?” Her voice is groggy. “Sorry. What time is it?”

  “Midnight. Come on. We’ll go get ready.”

  Grace clamps a hand on Lee’s arm as she turns to go inside. “No, stay. I want to talk about something important.”

  Lee sits and gathers the blanket in her arms. “Okay.”

  Grace licks her dry lips. She swallows, her mouth robbed of moisture, and coughs. Her mind files her confession in the right order, and she gathers the courage to start. She exhales roughly, but before she can speak, Lee looks at her with tears in her eyes.

  “What’s the matter?” Grace asks.

  “I know you have something to say, but can I go first? If I don’t, I’m afraid I’ll lose my nerve.” Lee’s feet tap nervously against the deck. “It’s about what the girls asked.”

  Grace nods, but her secret inflates and threatens to pop if she doesn’t get it off her chest right this minute. “Sure.”

  “I never saw his face.”

  Grace studies her, confused. “Whose face?”

  “Mason’s dad. I never saw his face.”

  “What do you mean?” A jolt of panic flutters through her abdomen.

  “I mean that I was passed out, drunk, and when I woke up, he was, you know, inside me.”

  Grace absorbs what she’s saying, the words clicking in her brain. “Lee, were you…?” The word rape fades away. She can’t say it out loud. She doesn’t want to believe it.

  Lee works her bottom lip with a trembling hand. “I was wasted at some dumb party. I went upstairs to the bathroom and then the next thing I know, there’s a guy having sex with me.”

  It’s like a punch to the chest as Lee says it. Grace steadies her voice, but it slices across the silence. “And he forced you?”

  Lee cracks her knuckles. “All I remember is waking up, and he had his hand around my throat and squeezed until I couldn’t breathe. And then he said…”

  Needles of caution flood her entire body until she can’t breathe.

  “He said: ‘I could kill you. Do you know that? Do you know what I could do if I squeezed?’ I literally thought he was going to kill me, and then just as fast, he was done. I passed out. When I woke up, he was gone.”

  The confession is startling. Suddenly, Grace is at that party. She can see it, feel it. The words bring her to her knees. She moves to Lee’s chair and slides a comforting arm around her shoulder. “Oh, Lee. That must have been … I don’t even have words.” She holds her there, rocking back and forth the way she does for Luca after a bad dream. “Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this? Does anyone know?”

  Lee shakes her head.

  “Did you ever think about reporting it?”

  “How could I?” Her hands rise and drop. “I had no idea who he was. We were in the dark. I mean, complete dark. I was beyond drunk. I’ve tried to remember if I met someone that night, if I was flirting with anyone, but I was so wasted. I just don’t remember anything. Except what he said.”

  “And he never came back around?”

  “No.” Lee stares at her lap.

  Grace stutters over her next question. “How soon did you know you were pregnant?”

  Lee exhales. “Not until five months.”

  “What?” Grace looks at her, perplexed. “How is that possible?”

  “I was in denial.” Lee twists her hair at the nape of her neck. “I wasn’t really showing yet. I just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen, and by the time I knew, it was too late to do anything about it.”

  “My God.” Grace shields her mouth with both hands. She imagines the heavy breathing. Her own face on the floor. Hands strangling her neck, the hard ramming of flesh against flesh. The realization of a rapist’s baby in her belly. Her dinner rises in her throat and she bolts inside to the downstairs bathroom. Lee’s confession ravages her heart. She vomits into the toilet, her gut a lining of ragged nerves. Her mouth drips with leftover dinner. She rises on unsteady legs, splashes cold water on her face, and washes her hands. She grasps for the door, wrenches it open, and finds Lee’s tall, willowy frame against the backdrop of the moon’s reflection.

  “Are you okay?”

  Grace’s body begins to twitch and tremble as she moves toward her friend. She should be asking Lee the same thing. How can she reveal her secret after what Lee just confessed? Lee’s arms find her in the blackness, and Grace let
s herself be held. She can’t find the right words. She pulls back and swipes mascara from under her eyes. “Sorry. Something I ate. Let’s go back outside.” Her fingers are clumsy as they work to adjust her top.

  They descend the deck steps and crawl into the comfort of their blankets. Grace tilts her head toward the night sky. The stars pop and twinkle on their inky canvas. “I’m so sorry you went through all that, Lee. I can’t even imagine how confusing it must have been to have a baby like that.”

  Lee nods. “It was. It is.” Lee looks at her. “God, it feels so good to finally tell you that after all this time. I was so worried you would judge me.”

  “Why in the world would I judge you for that? Knowing you went through all of that alone breaks my heart. I wish I’d known sooner.”

  Lee rises and envelops Grace in another hug. “I love you so much,” she finally whispers. “I couldn’t get through even a day without you. Thank you for being the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  Tears threaten to spill, but Grace just squeezes her tighter. “Thank you for saying that. That means the world.”

  “Ugh. So much crying.” Lee wipes away her tears and curls back under her blanket. “Okay, wow. Talk about therapy.”

  Grace laughs. “Right?” She adjusts her own blanket. “That will be three hundred dollars, please.”

  “Pricey.”

  “Damn right.”

  Lee smiles. “Thank you for letting me get that off my chest. I know you have something you want to talk about too.”

  Oh shit. Grace considers waiting another day. Lee is in a good place. Lee trusts her. Lee feels closer to her. But it’s now or never, and she knows it. “Okay. I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just going to say it.” Grace closes her eyes. The wind cools her cheeks, the night sounds a guide around her. The fire is almost dead, but tiny flames still lick the bottom of the pot.

  “Just tell me,” Lee says. “You’re killing me.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Silence balloons around them. All of the ways Grace has been practicing to tell her amidst the array of emotions has come undone, those tenuous weeks of withholding finally leading to this very moment. She’s said it. It’s out. Step one.

  “What?” Lee shakes her head and angles forward, staring at Grace in disbelief. “How far along?”

  “Eight weeks. I obviously didn’t want to tell anyone yet because of my age and all the risks … Luca doesn’t even know.”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Lee waves her hands. “Back up. Who’s the father? You’re not even seeing anyone, are you? Oh my God, is it Chad?”

  “That’s the other thing I have to tell you.” Grace takes a shuddering breath. “It’s Noah’s.”

  Shock contorts Lee’s face. The open mouth. The frozen eyelids. The petite, flared nostrils. The veins in her neck that swell into ropes. Grace watches her rib cage expand and contract. Her fingers harden into tiny pale fists.

  Finally, Lee stands and tosses her blanket to the ground. “What?” Her voice howls across the night, and Grace realizes how ugly things are about to get.

  “My Noah? As in Noah Banks, my son’s therapist? The man I’m romantically interested in, that Noah?”

  Grace wants to remind her who introduced them. They were friends first. “Look. I know this is hard to understand.” She can physically feel the dynamic transform; the defensiveness Lee clings to like a lifeline. “I didn’t tell you at first because … well, honestly because I wanted to make sure it was real. Noah and I have been friends for a long time, so I wasn’t sure it was even going anywhere.” Grace registers the stricken look on Lee’s face and rushes to continue. “And I didn’t know you had a crush on him when we started seeing each other. I swear. By the time I did know, we were already pretty serious. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I’m sorry.”

  “My crush? You have no idea what you’re talking about, Grace. It’s more than a crush. He’s like family. You know how I feel about him!”

  Noah has wanted to tell Lee about their relationship for months, but Grace thought the truth should come from her. The pregnancy escalated the sense of urgency, and now, here they are. “Lee, I’m so sorry. We never meant for it to happen. We really were just friends, and then we just kind of … fell for each other.”

  “How could you do this to me? And not tell me when you’re with me almost every single day? How could he not tell me?” Though Lee is tiny, her voice stretches across the backyard, and Grace worries the entire neighborhood is on the verge of waking. “Oh my God. The thermos. You guys have the same coffee thermos, because you’re sharing it.”

  Grace shakes her head. “What?”

  “That fucking green thermos! Noah brought it the other day and I couldn’t place where I’d seen it before. But it’s yours. And the two of you in my kitchen, pretending to be friends.” She turns her back and then pivots to face her. “God, you both must think I’m a total idiot. How dare you not tell me this?”

  “Because we thought you’d react like this, that’s why.” Part of her is furious. Just once, she wants news not to revolve around Lee. For one moment to be entirely about Grace. For her best friend to be happy for her, understanding, compassionate even. This is big news. This is happy news. Why does she constantly have to be upstaged with tragic tales, anger, and so much darkness?

  “How in the world do you expect me to react? I like him, Grace. And you knew that.”

  “I do know that now. Which is why I was trying to wait and find the right time.”

  Lee fastens her hands on her hips and eyes her stomach with murderous eyes. “Well, I hope you guys make a wonderful little family. Because you just destroyed mine.”

  “Oh, please stop with the dramatics.” Grace stands, her entire body alert. “For once, this is about me, not you. Noah and I really care about each other. We are starting a family. That doesn’t take anything away from yours.”

  “The hell it doesn’t.”

  The two friends face off in the dark, and suddenly Grace is beyond drained. “I can’t do this. Let’s just talk about this in the morning. I’m going up.”

  She doesn’t wait for Lee’s protests and instead leaves her behind on the deck. She’s tired of her childish behavior. She heads upstairs and listens for Carol and Alice, but all is quiet and dark in their room. She scrubs her face, changes into pajamas, and climbs into bed, but her heart races. Tears threaten to spill, but she is not giving Lee the satisfaction. She tries to calm herself, knowing at her age, stress is even more damaging to a fetus. She takes deep breaths and sends a good-night text to Noah, giving him the brief outline. She waits for his kind response and reassurance that she did the right thing. He is on her side. He is here for her. She lies in the darkness for what seems like hours, until her breathing grows heavier and she starts to fade.

  24

  lee

  Lee soaks up the silence. Grace’s words ring in her ears. Grace is pregnant with Noah’s child. Grace and Noah are in a relationship. The betrayal snaps around her brain. All this time, lying straight to her face. She removes her phone from her pocket. She considers calling Noah right now, in the middle of the night, and telling him exactly what she thinks.

  How dare he?

  Who does he think he is?

  Who does she think she is?

  She thrusts her phone into her sweatshirt. Time stills and she focuses on her breathing. She notices the wineglasses and blankets scattered around and starts to fold, collect, and arrange them so Marge won’t have a mess to deal with in the morning.

  She brushes away the graham cracker crumbs and gathers the plastic packaging. Her fingers grip the second bottle Grace left by her chair. She pauses, her breath trapped somewhere in her throat.

  “Put it down,” she insists, but instead holds it tighter. She unscrews the top. The tiny foil seal pops beneath her grip and she inhales the tannins, grapes, chocolate, and oak. Her fingers tremble. She places the bottle at her feet and backs away as though it’s a po
isonous spider.

  She knows what it would mean to take a drink. After all the effort, work, and reasons she stopped drinking … it would all be for nothing. She turns, keeps her hands busy, calms her mind, and stacks the thick blankets on the corner of the steps. She balances the wineglasses in her hands, walks inside, and deposits them in the sink. She flicks on the tap and fills each glass with a little hot water so as not to leave a crimson stain.

  She should go upstairs, slip into the twin bed beside Grace’s, and carry on in the morning. Forgive her. Forgive him. She thinks of Noah and Grace, in a full-blown relationship behind her back. She thinks of the baby they made, those intimate moments they must have shared, the conversations, the family they will create, how Grace will pull Noah away from her, from Mason, from them.

  In one swift motion, she is back outside, palming the bottle and emptying half of it into her mouth in less than thirty seconds. Despite being away from her son and the pain from Grace’s confession, she feels immediately like herself again—as if the temporary Lee has been acting in place of this woman with glass in her mouth. With one drink, she morphs back into her true self, because this ugly, wretched need is still a piece of her. It’s the part that’s in control; it’s the part she can trust to tell her who, at her core, she really is. She lifts the bottle again. In less than five minutes, it’s drained.

  She ambles back to her chair, the buzz immediate. She stuffs the bottle deep into the recycling bin on the deck next to the other one, hidden under a pile of newspaper. The wine coats her lips with its sweetness. She wants more, is desperate for it, is desperate for him.

  She’s so tired of acting. After so many years of silence, she told Grace about the man at the party, about that night. It has taken a long time to close that section of her life, and with one confession, she’s brought that night, its ugliness, and everything that came after to light again.

  She fishes her phone from her hoodie and thumbs through the texts. Should she just text him? She hovers over the keys but thinks better of it. She blinks a few times and watches the treetops swish in the night. She’s drunk. Her mind is fine, sharper than it’s been in months, but her body is not. She needs to sleep and call her sponsor in the morning.