Trust Me

by Claire Raye

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she now asks, her question genuine and without the judgement I automatically assumed it would carry.

  “I didn’t tell anyone. Well, I told Charlie, but that’s it.” The last part comes out quietly and instantly I picture the guy’s smug face and everything that happened that night. There was not a chance I would ever go back and tell him because I wanted nothing to do with him. But it’s something I will never forget, no matter how hard I try. Every single time I think about it, I want to throw up.

  It only takes one time, one time for me to end up pregnant and that’s exactly what happened. But that wasn’t when the shit hit the fan. It was when he admitted to me he had a girlfriend, a long term girlfriend of four years, who eventually found out.

  But she didn’t blame him, she blamed me, harassed me and called me a slut, claimed I seduced her disgusting manipulator of a boyfriend. She was so in the dark about what really happened, it wasn’t even funny, and in a way, I felt bad for her, despite how much of a mess my life had become. I knew there was a possibility I would never recover from what he did to me, but it was her I felt sorry for. I would never have to see him again, but her, she couldn’t leave. He is the definition of a gaslighter and she would probably end up marrying him.

  Those following weeks were the hardest of my life. I didn’t hide from what happened, but I still didn’t process exactly what was going on. It was like my body was going through the motions of being alive, but my head was so fucked up.

  That same night, I went right to the local hospital and requested the morning after pill, and promptly took it with the nurse watching me, a little cup in her hand. She was kind and reserved and spent a small amount of time asking me a few questions that just seemed to make things worse. I don’t remember much after that other than feeling like my life was falling apart. The nurse wished me well and gave me a reminder card to come back in two weeks to get on birth control.

  I didn’t bother to tell her this was the first time something like this had ever happened to me. It felt like it went without saying, but I’m sure she was wondering exactly what happened, despite her outward demeanor. This was a college campus, and I withheld my explanation, an explanation I was even having a hard time coming to terms with.

  While I went home with guys and messed around, I never went this far and I’m certainly not reckless enough to have unprotected sex, even if that’s the impression I’ve allowed people to have of me. I slept with two of my high school boyfriends all while on birth control, and then went on to sleep with a couple of guy friends I made at school. Again, all while on birth control and then when my prescription ran out, I never refilled it. Totally fucking irresponsible looking back now, but I never thought I would find myself in bed with a guy I barely knew.

  “You could’ve talked to me,” Ruby now says, but we still haven’t looked at each other. “I’m sorry that you felt you couldn’t.”

  “I felt I couldn’t talk to anyone. It felt easier keeping it to myself, but now I’ve totally fucked up my relationship with Adam,” I say, again the deep guttural sobs returning, the bed shaking as I cry, sucking in hard, unsatisfying breaths. “I did everything right and it still failed.”

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” Ruby asks. “I’m a pretty good listener. Someday I hope to make a career out of it.” She smiles at me when I finally look over at her and she looks different. Something about her has changed making her look older and wiser, or maybe it’s just because I feel so small and alone right now.

  “I want to tell you everything, but I don’t know if I can,” I gasp out through stuttered sobs, my head a complete mess as I try to process Adam leaving and me finally admitting a secret that has eaten at me for the last several months of my life.

  “Tell me as much as you can, even if it’s just a few words. It will help to get it out and I promise you, Mila, I’m not judging any decisions you’ve been forced to make.” Ruby stops, her eyes now shining with tears too. “I had a scare with Caleb early on and I ended up getting the morning after pill. I have no idea if it would’ve resulted in a pregnancy if I hadn’t, but I do know if it had, I would’ve made the same decision you did. Caleb and I were in no place to have a baby, financially or mentally.”

  “I took the morning after pill and it didn’t work,” I admit, wondering if she’ll believe me because fuck knows I didn’t believe it either.

  “Wait, that can happen?”

  “Yeah, and I’m still wondering why it isn’t flashing like a neon sign when they give you the pill because it can fail, and it did for me.”

  I cover my face with my hands, relieving the nightmare all over again, sitting on the ice-cold table in the women’s services center, the paper crinkling under me as the nurse shared the news that I was in fact pregnant. I had come in for birth control just as I was told to do and now, I was being told I was pregnant.

  “So, I had an abortion at eight weeks. I was pregnant for eight weeks and I didn’t even fucking know it. I drank and smoked weed, I partied with Charlie and tried to forget the nightmare had ever happened. But it was far from over. Charlie took me two days later and ever since I’ve been…”

  I don’t even know how to describe myself. One minute I’m totally fine, like nothing ever happened, but then in the darkness of my bedroom or in a moment of quiet, I’m reminded. I’m reminded of the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my life. I’m reminded of my poor choices and the judgement of other people. I’m reminded of the way the sterile room smelled and the way the nurses and the doctor spoke and moved so softly. I’m reminded of the kindness of the nurse that night and how she just knew everything I couldn’t say out loud.

  “I’m trying to be strong because that’s the expectation. I made my bed, so I should lie in it, right?” I ask, my question spat out with venom, bitter and angry. “I’m not allowed to feel bad for myself.”

  “I don’t think that’s true at all,” Ruby replies. “You are allowed to feel however you need to feel. There are people who stand by you and people who need to hear this story more often.”

  It’s a story I still can’t bring myself to tell, knowing that people aren’t walking around holding signs that say, “I hate people who have abortions no matter the reason”. It would be a lot easier if they were. Then I’d know who I could tell and who I couldn’t.

  Adam is obviously one of those people I couldn’t tell.

  As I lie here, I see Adam walking out the door upon hearing my answer to the nurse’s question after she had come in to tell me I might need to have surgery. She gathered my medical history, and it was only one question, one fucking question that changed the entire trajectory of my life, a life I thought I was finally getting back.

  “Number of pregnancies?” she asked, monotone and moving through the list as if she had just asked me the color of the sky.

  “One.”

  “Number of live births?”

  “None.”

  “Miscarriage?”

  “Termination.”

  The word still hangs heavy in the air, it weighs heavy in my chest and in my stomach making it feel like I swallowed a rock.

  I replay the conversation over and over and every single time I miss the look on Adam’s face, but what I don’t miss is seeing him turn his back and leave.

  “He hates me,” I mutter, feeling like I can’t possibly cry any more tears, but they just keep spilling from my eyes. My head throbs, aching behind my worn-out red eyes, my body is weak and broken, sore from the accident, but it’s my heart that hurts the most.

  “I don’t think he hates you, Mila,” Ruby says, sympathetically, her hand brushing my hair back. “I think there’s a hell of a lot more going on with him.”

  I know there is, and we’ve talked all around it, piecing together that we’re both clearly hiding something that we’re not ready to share. But fuck my life because mine was just shared so publicly.

  “Mila, he was
so shaken up when we got here. He was crying and he could barely talk to me. He actually hugged Caleb when he saw him. Like grabbed him and was clinging to him.”

  For a second, I forget all the awfulness that surrounds us. I forget that he left, angry and confused, and I remember what it was like to have him hold me, what it was like to have him love me.

  A broken heart hurts the worst of all.

  “Please don’t tell Mom and Dad,” I whisper to Ruby when we both fall silent. My head is resting against hers as she lies next to me.

  “You can trust me with anything.”

  I wake up a few hours later when the nurse comes in, her shoes are loud in the quietness of the room, and Ruby shifts beside me. She stayed when she didn’t have to, when they should’ve made her leave, but they didn’t.

  It’s the same nurse who took my medical history, but this time she looks different, her eyes look tired and her face wears a pained expression.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers, looking down at Ruby sleeping next to me. “That question, it’s…” She stops, shaking her head. “I’ve been there too, and it was as hard for me to hear your answer as it was for you to say it.”

  I watch her face, her brows knitted together and in the faint light I can see the moisture pool in her eyes. She looks as if she wants to say more, that she wants to share her story with me and in a way, I wish she would. There’s solidarity in numbers, there’s compassion and understanding, there’s the feeling of not being so lost and alone.

  “You’re lucky you have your sister. I had no one,” she confesses, now looking back at the door, almost like she wants to ask me about Adam, but she doesn’t. “They’re going to take you in for an MRI of your ankle now. Maybe he’ll be here when you’re done,” she adds, trying on a smile that we both know is just for show.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  Chapter Four

  Adam

  I walk aimlessly through the darkened streets, my head a mess of images and sounds and a loud, deafening roar that just won’t go away. My chest aches with a sharp stabbing pain, right where my heart is supposed to be. I thought I’d lost it long ago, but the truth is, I’m pretty sure I left it behind in that hospital room when I walked out the door.

  When I ran away.

  Again.

  I’m such a fucking coward.

  “Fuck,” I suddenly scream into the night, shoving rough hands through my hair as I grip the back of my neck and sink into a crouch on the footpath. I close my eyes, the tears still streaming down my cheeks as my head falls between my knees.

  Such a fucking coward.

  I don’t know what to do or where to go. I want to go back to her, but I can’t. She’s the only person I want to be with right now, the only person who can make this pain stop and I can’t go back to her.

  I can’t be what she wants or needs even though she is everything to me.

  But I caused this, all of it, and now I’ve just made everything worse and all I can feel is the guilt eating at me.

  Groaning, I push up from the ground, turning in a circle as I try to work out where the hell I am. Eventually I get orientated and start the long walk back toward my apartment. It’s nearly four in the morning now and the streets are quiet, even if the noise inside my head is loud and unrelenting.

  When I get upstairs, the door to Mila and Charlie’s apartment is closed. I have no idea if Charlie even knows what happened tonight and if I was anywhere close to being a decent guy, I’d knock on her door and tell her. Give her a chance to go and see Mila.

  But I don’t, turning toward my apartment instead.

  Inside, I don’t switch on the lights, I just walk into the darkened kitchen as my eyes scan for anything that might help take away this pain. They eventually land on a bottle, which I grab and take back to my bedroom.

  A side lamp is still on, casting the room in a soft light. My gaze lands on the unmade bed, to the t-shirt that’s been left lying on it. The red panties and bra are discarded on the floor. I can’t even remember the last time we slept here.

  I walk over and pick up the shirt, lifting it to my nose as I inhale deeply, her scent filling me, making the pain in my chest even worse. I collapse to my knees on the floor with a groan, burying my face in her t-shirt and sobbing now, unable to hold back the tears.

  I don’t know how long I sit on the floor, but eventually, I pull myself up, falling onto the bed. Her scent still lingers on my sheets too, only now, it’s mixed with mine, my bed smelling of us. Of everything we had together.

  Closing my eyes, I bury my face against her pillow, her t-shirt still balled up in my fists as I try to remember what it was like to have her here, lying beside me. Her warm body pressed against mine, not a sliver of space between us as her arms circled around me, pulling me closer and her lips kissed the scar that runs across my chest.

  Almost like she knew.

  I wake to the sound of my phone ringing. Blinking my eyes open, I immediately snap them shut against the sun streaming in through my open blinds. I roll over, reaching for Mila and the second my hand touches the cold sheets beside me, everything comes flooding back.

  The sound of her laughter at something I said.

  The feel of her warm skin beneath my fingers as I pulled her toward me.

  The sudden jolt of the taxi as the car slammed into us, sending Mila crashing into me before the seat belt across her chest yanked her back against her side of the car. I think she screamed but when I turned to her, her eyes were closed, almost as though she were sleeping.

  She wasn’t though, not when the whole side of the car was caved in around her, twisted metal and broken glass and her.

  The ringing of my phone stops and I roll over, a fresh wave of pain now coursing through me. It starts up again and when I reach for it, I see Caleb’s name flashing on my screen. Groaning, I send him to voicemail because I can’t speak to him right now. He calls back once more and I do the voicemail thing again before the ringing stops and is replaced with the sound of an incoming text message.

  Caleb: hey, are you ok? Ruby said you left the hospital last night. Mila didn’t have surgery in the end. Call me…we’ll go see her.

  I don’t reply and a few seconds later, another text comes through.

  Caleb: Adam, call me. Please. Trust me, I know how shitty this is. Let us help you.

  I almost laugh at the second message because honestly, the idea that anyone can help me is fucking laughable. Caleb and I might work together, and we might be friends. Hell, we hang out and we’re dating two girls who happen to be sisters, but that doesn’t mean he knows me.

  It doesn’t mean he knows anything about me.

  Actually, I’m pretty sure after last night, I won’t be dating Mila or whatever it was we were doing, anymore anyway. Pretty sure I’ve just completely fucked up what we had going on.

  Because I’m a coward.

  A coward for walking out on her.

  A coward for walking away from what was happening between us.

  A coward for continuing to deny the one truth in all of this: that I’m falling in love with her. That I am in love with her.

  A coward for being so afraid to lose her.

  Such. A. Fucking. Coward.

  And all because of one word. One stupid little word that I never thought would affect me like it did.

  I never expected that word would be a trigger, the catalyst for me losing my shit over everything that had happened last night and causing me to do what I do best, run away.

  I’d thought for sure the accident would have been what did me in. And even though every single second I spent in the middle of that intersection, holding Mila in my arms, telling her everything was going to be alright as she drifted in and out of consciousness, pressing my hand against the cut on her arm to stop the bleeding, I’d managed to keep it together.

  When the ambulance came, the same flashing lights and blaring sirens as before, I’d felt my ches
t tighten, but then Mila had come around for a second, mumbled something that brought me back to the present. Grounded me.

  The ride to the hospital was different this time, the accents, the phrases, the way Mila kept opening her eyes and finding me. Trying to give me comfort even though she was the one lying on the gurney. At the hospital, everything had moved so quickly that I’d barely had time to process it all, let alone the fact that it was the first time I’d stepped foot inside one in over a year.

  I hadn’t realized though, just how fucked up I actually was or just how much I wasn’t holding it together. I didn’t know I was walking around with tears streaming down my face while Mila was in having a CT. How it became impossible to form a sentence, let alone explain what happened when Caleb and Ruby showed up.

  When Mila was finally taken to a room and Ruby took me to see her, I’d felt overwhelmed; relieved that she was awake, that she woke up and spoke to me. I was so fucking grateful that she was okay, despite the bruising and the possible broken bones.

  She’d been sitting on the side of the car that got hit.

  Me, I barely got a scratch.

  But when the nurse came in to ask some questions, that’s when everything changed.

  Because of one word.

  One single, fucking word.

  Miscarriage.

  Groaning, I sit up, getting out of bed as I grab a backpack from the wardrobe and start stuffing it with clothes. I’ve still got Mila’s t-shirt in my hand and I shove that in too, before grabbing my phone charger, wallet, and keys.