Let Me Love You

by Lily Foster

  I couldn’t have a baby.

  The past few days I was alternating between running on autopilot and trying to fight back an overwhelming sense of panic. I was either devoid of emotion and acting as if I wasn’t really in this predicament, or being consumed by feelings of longing, sadness and guilt over what I knew I was going to do.

  One night I woke up in the middle of the night crying, even though I recall feeling a sense of complete happiness and warmth in my dream. I was with Caleb on a beach. I was holding a baby, our baby. We were laughing and he stood behind me with his arms wrapped around me so that he was enveloping both me and the baby.

  I sat up immediately, turned on my small reading light and scribbled out a list.

  Pros:

  - Caleb would take care of us

  - I think I would make a good mother

  - I love him

  - I don’t want to have an abortion

  Cons:

  - He would only stay with me out of a sense of duty

  - He couldn’t really want this

  - I don’t want to lose him

  - We’ve only been together four times

  - It won’t work out between us

  - Caleb will wind up resenting me

  - His family will think I trapped him

  - I won’t be able to finish school

  - I’ll be financially dependent upon him

  Then I was back on autopilot. The cons outweighed the pros. I didn’t want him to resent me and I was petrified of being totally dependent upon anyone. Up until now, I’d done virtually everything on my own. I was not going to have someone feel like I’d tied them down. The thought of him or anyone else thinking that just infuriated me.

  The next morning I called a clinic. Within five minutes I had an appointment set for an exam this week and an appointment for the procedure set for the following week.

  So easy.

  Too easy.

  I knew I should tell him but life was so much easier when I just kept things to myself and handled my problems without anyone’s help.

  The exam was quick. The doctor confirmed I was pregnant, estimating seven weeks. When he started talking about what to expect in terms of symptoms, I said in a clipped voice, “I’m terminating.”

  He didn’t look surprised. I was sure most people who came to this clinic on the wrong side of town weren’t overjoyed at the prospect of expecting a bundle of joy.

  I had been the oldest person in the sorry-looking waiting room. It was a dismal place. Ugly, chipping, light blue paint on the walls covered by posters, some with girl-power sentiments on them and others giving information on birth control, pregnancy and prenatal health. There was a young girl in the waiting room who looked like she was no more than fifteen, all alone. There was also a young couple, no more than seventeen, I guessed, obviously poor. He was holding her hand. I felt sick sitting there. I felt too old, too accomplished and smart enough to know better. I was different from everyone else here, wasn’t I? No, I thought ruefully, I was just like them. I was alone and without resources. I was as poor as they were.

  After the exam I had to sit there and have a “termination counseling” session. I sat there like a stone, nodding when I knew it was expected of me but hardly listening. I just wanted my prescription for something I had to take the morning of the procedure and then to get the hell out of there.

  Riding home on the train I daydreamed about what it would be like to have Caleb’s baby. The baby would be beautiful, for certain. I knew Caleb would be totally wonderful and loving towards his child no matter how he wound up feeling about me. I must have looked like a loon on the train as tears started to roll down my cheeks. I didn’t even notice until an older woman next to me put her hand on my shoulder and asked if I was ok, startling me. I assured her I was fine but the tenderness in her voice made me want to cry even harder. Then I did what I always do so well—I shut it down, iced the feelings over, back to autopilot.

  I could do this.

  I had to.

  The waiting over the next week proved difficult. I was so sick that I skipped work on Saturday and Monday. The smell of coffee in the morning made me retch and that damn coffee maker in our suite was set on a timer. After the second morning of waking up to that smell and running to the bathroom to puke, I unplugged the thing.

  Caitlin looked annoyed when she woke up that third morning. She really needed her coffee. I tried to play it off but she wasn’t buying it. “Really? Rene, we share a room. You think I don’t notice that you’re practically green with nausea, that the bathroom smells of disinfectant with a faint trace of vomit and you think I haven’t heard you crying every night this week?” Sadness, relief—a mixture of both washed over me. The tears came like floodgates were let open. “You’re pregnant. You haven’t told Caleb. What else do I need to know?”

  “That’s all,” I managed to choke out.

  “Oh, Rene.”

  She just held onto me as I cried. I shook with sobs. After what was probably only five minutes but seemed like days, I told Caitlin everything else.

  “I think you need to tell him, Rene.”

  When I immediately said no she put her hand up to silence me. “It’s not just because it’s the right thing to do, Rene. It’s because you need to stop doing everything alone. If I didn’t just call you on this you wouldn’t have even told me. You would have been living with another giant secret. Don’t you see how bad this is for you? You’re just piling one secret onto another, onto another. I know it won’t be easy to tell him but you need to do it. He’s been so good to you, Rene. He’s not going to be an ass about this, ok? You have to tell him, promise me. Rene, what’s right is usually not what’s easy.”

  Caleb

  I knew what was wrong. She was different. She couldn’t wait to get off the phone. She was avoiding me like the plague. “Rene?”

  “Um, hey, what’s up? I’m at work, Caleb, so I only have a sec.”

  I was at work too and whispering into the phone. “That’s bullshit, Rene. You’re avoiding me. I have to ask you something. Are you,” shit, I could barely voice my thoughts, “are you pregnant?”

  Click.

  She fucking hung up on me.

  The thought crossed my mind a week ago after she made another excuse why she couldn’t get away to see me. Nothing else made sense. I should have asked her then but the idea of it made me so fucking petrified that I just pushed the thought away each time it came to mind.

  I was just about to hit redial when my phone started ringing. I answered on the first ring as I walked out to an empty corridor. All she said was, “I am.”

  “I’m coming up.”

  “You can’t. Please, please don’t.”

  “Rene, I have to be there. I need to see you. Were you just going to keep avoiding me? Were you even planning on telling me?” She didn’t respond and I felt myself starting to choke up. “Just fucking lie to me. Lie to me and tell me that at least you were going to fill me in, Rene. Oh my God. I can’t fucking believe this.”

  “I don’t want you here, Caleb. I won’t be able to handle it if you come up.”

  “Handle it? What are you talking about? This isn’t just your decision.”

  She let out a sarcastic laugh. “We both know I’d be doing you a favor if I just took care of this without telling you.”

  “Is that what you think? Is that who you think I am?” She said nothing. I practically spat the words out, “What’s the plan, Rene? What did you decide?”

  Her voice was void of emotion. She was controlled, icy. “I have an appointment Friday.”

  “I’ll be there with you Friday morning.”

  “Don’t, Caleb.”

  “I am.”

  “Don’t.”

  She hung up on me again.

  Thoughts began ricocheting through my head. It was Wednesday afternoon. I was going to do what? Head up there Friday morning to just hold her hand? I was a coward. I was giving her shit for not telling me, f
or not letting me in on the decision, while what she said was true. She was making it easy on me. What did I want? Did I want a baby? I had to think about it and I came to the conclusion that yeah, someday, yeah, I did. With her, yes. Now? No. But I would. I would if that’s what she wanted.

  I would.

  Cherry came over to my desk when I sat back down. She put her hand on my shoulder and looked concerned. “What’s the matter, Caleb? You look like shit.”

  I couldn’t speak for a moment, I just shook my head. “I can’t talk about it, Cherry. I’m not coming in tomorrow or Friday. I have to take care of something.”

  “All right. If you need anything, I’m here.”

  “Thanks.”

  When I got to Boston it was around noon on Thursday. She had stopped answering her phone after we spoke yesterday. I sat in the campus parking lot for fifteen minutes hoping I’d just catch her. That wasn’t going to happen. Knocking on the door, I really wasn’t sure what I was going to say if one of the other girls answered. Thankfully, Caitlin opened the door and I knew right away that this was the one other person who was in on it. She quickly closed the door behind her and walked back out towards the lot. I led her to my car and she didn’t speak until we were sitting together. “Rene didn’t tell me you were coming. You’re picking her up?”

  “From where?”

  She turned pale. “She’s there now, Caleb.”

  I slammed my hands against the steering wheel and then looked away from her out the window. “When did she leave?”

  “I was planning to head out in ten minutes to go get her. It’s over. She went this morning. She needs someone to accompany her home or they won’t release her. That’s probably the only reason she told me.”

  “I’m going to get her.”

  “Okay. Caleb?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I shouldn’t give you this but maybe you need to see it. I found it when I was straightening the room up just now. Anyway, it made me so sad.” Caitlin started to cry. “Caleb, she’s …you’re so good for her. I was so happy she’d found you.”

  She scribbled her number on the back of the folded up piece of paper before handing it to me. It was as if she knew Rene was going to shut me out.

  After Caitlin got out I unfolded the paper. It was a list of pros and cons written in Rene’s precise script. The list of pros brought me to tears. Her thinking she would be a good mother? I knew without a doubt she would be a caring, loving mother. And when I read that she loved me, I already knew that without her saying the words. I loved her so much. I felt like a piece of shit when I read that she didn’t want to have an abortion. I felt so guilty that I’d led this beautiful, innocent girl down this path. It was all on me. The list of cons turned my stomach. I wanted to say no, no, no, checking off each one. I wouldn’t be doing this out of duty, I wouldn’t feel resentful, I wouldn’t feel trapped. But in all honesty, I didn’t really know how I’d feel if she’d kept the baby.

  The baby…our baby.

  What a fucking mess.

  Rene looked pale and wiped out when she walked back into the waiting room. Her jaw tightened when she saw me. She went to the reception desk and gestured to me, I guess to get the ok to leave. She walked right past me without making eye contact and I just followed her silently to the car. Rene got in, slammed the door shut and looked straight ahead. “Rene, are you going to talk to me?”

  She looked out the window then and sounded as if she was choking back tears as she whispered, “Caleb, I’m sorry.”

  I reached over to hug her but she stiffened. I spoke softly. “I’m the one who’s sorry. But Rene, didn’t you think you owed it to me, at least the chance to be here with you? To talk about it face to face before you made the decision to do this?”

  She moved as far away from me as she could, pressing herself against the passenger side door. Her eyes narrowed and she laughed derisively. “You’re being ridiculous, Caleb. I’m twenty. You and I don’t even live in the same city. I need to finish school. I’m relieved Caleb, so relieved. And you know—you know this is what you wanted too.”

  “I never would have asked you to do this, Rene. I would have taken care of you.”

  She stifled a cry. “I know. But it would have been out of duty, not desire. That’s not how I want it to be. I don’t want to be a responsibility or a burden. I only want that when it’s out of love.”

  “I do love you, Rene.”

  She shook her head angrily. “No. You’re telling me that now? Don’t tell me that now.”

  “You know I do.”

  “It doesn’t matter. This is what I wanted and whether you admit it or not, it’s what you wanted too.”

  I’d never seen this side of her; she was completely shut down, cold. She could turn her emotions on and off, as if there was a switch. I could feel my anger rising. “How the hell do you know what I want or what I feel?”

  She practically spat the words at me. “Who are you kidding? I’m a girl who never even got to your four month mark, right? I’m practically not going to be considered an ex, right? We were together barely longer than a month.”

  I grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face me, a little too forcefully. So hard, I thought to myself later, that I might have actually hurt her. “You think I’ve been with you a month? Are you fucking kidding me? Rene, sometimes you can be so fucking cold.” I was screaming at her by now, “I’ve been with you…I’ve been with you since that night on the beach.”

  I let her go. My hands were shaking. I started the car and we drove back to campus in silence. My hands were still shaking when I pulled into the lot. She looked at me impassively and said, “Caleb, I can’t be who you want. It’s better if we just end this.”

  Then she got out of the car and walked away from me.

  I started the engine and drove. I don’t know how I made it back to New York. My mind was elsewhere the entire time I was driving.

  It’s not like I didn’t see this coming. It’s not like I thought Rene would be able to turn around the next day and say, “Ok, that’s behind us, back to normal now.”

  I called her that night to see how she was. No answer. I called her the next day, same thing. When she ignored my call again that night I broke down and called Caitlin. “Hi, it’s Caleb. She won’t answer her phone.”

  “I know. I’m not surprised. She’s fine, I mean physically. Otherwise, she’s just kind of acting like a zombie. She’s working tomorrow night.”

  “Is that ok? I mean, is she physically able to?”

  “She says so. She’s acting strange, Caleb, like she’s totally fine, like it’s no big deal. I know she’s going to crash soon.”

  “I’m going to come up tomorrow but don’t tell her. I’ll meet her at the restaurant after she gets off.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Caleb. She’ll be pissed.”

  “I have to see her and she’s not going to agree to that. I can’t just walk away.”

  Caitlin was right but pissed off was an understatement. When she saw me standing outside the restaurant at the end of her shift, she lost it. She looked around the dark parking lot quickly to make sure no one could overhear her and when she determined that we were alone, she laid into me. “What are you trying to do to me? I need to be alone! Goddammit, Caleb! I cry all night and can barely pull myself out of bed in the morning just to get up and pretend to everyone that nothing happened, that I’m fine. I can’t revisit this all the time. Every time my phone rings and I see your name, I’m back to square one. I want you to go!” Her voice quieted then. “I can’t be any clearer than that.”

  With that, the cab she’d called pulled up and she got in, slamming the door.

  She left me standing there.

  Holy shit.

  Two days later I got an email from her:

  Caleb, I wanted to call you Saturday night. I know what I did was harsh and hurtful. I couldn’t speak to you that night or call because even though I know what I want to say, I
don’t think I can get the words out when we’re face-to-face.

  I feel like I’m two people lately. All day long I smile as if nothing is wrong. I work, go to class, study and hang out. And it’s amazing, besides Caitlin, no one notices anything is wrong, that anything is different about me. I feel so awful inside that it’s hard to believe that it doesn’t show. Since I’ve been hiding things my whole life, though, I’ve probably become a very good actress.

  At night, Caleb, I feel as if I’m sinking into a black hole. I feel an overwhelming sense of guilt over what I’ve done and I regret it. I wish I could go back. It’s so pathetic. I feel like I don’t deserve—or have the right—to feel remorseful. The “problem”, the “situation” that I needed “resolve” in a quick and efficient manner, now I see as a child. My first child. Your child. Too little, too late. I know I’m rambling. I just feel so sad, so terribly sad.

  I know what’s happened will always be between us and I don’t see us getting past this. For me, it would be easier to cut ties and put this event behind me. I know that I’m the one losing out here. No one, no man has ever been as caring and good to me as you have, Caleb. I just know that right now, seeing you or talking to you is something I cannot do.

  I hope you understand and can forgive me.

  Rene

  Sad, so terribly sad, were the best words to describe me too.

  I sat at my desk reading her email over and over again. I was searching each sentence, looking for something in there, anything that would give me an opening, an indication that I still had a chance to get her back. I found nothing and I knew what type of person Rene was, strong-willed and obstinate. Once she made a decision she wasn’t likely to waver.

  Cherry came up to my desk then and softly placed her hand on my shoulder in a comforting gesture. “Are you ready to talk about it?”

  I reached up and placed my hand over hers as I shook my head. I did need to talk about this now, so badly, but the only person I wanted to talk about it with had all but shut me out. Even if I was desperate, I would never betray Rene’s trust in that way.

  I left work early and went home. I turned on my computer and sat in front of the screen, looking at her words again. I couldn’t think of anything but her.