“I stopped taking my birth control when I went to St. Helena,” I say. “My prescription ran out and I didn’t feel like or was too lazy to make an appointment with a local doctor, so I just stopped taking them. It didn’t feel … important.”
Teller’s eyes narrow, and he drops his arms.
“I was out of my mind the night I went to you in the tent. It didn’t even cross my mind that I was off the pill. I’ve been on birth control since I was sixteen years old, so it’s not something I’ve ever thought about when I’m with you.”
“Ella—”
“I was upset about my mom showing up,” I say, cutting him off. Tears fall down my face. “And I missed you so much, Teller. I’m sorry I wasn’t more careful. I am so sorry.”
He shakes his head, confused. “What are you sorry about? Leaving? It’s okay.”
“No.” I smack tears from my cheeks.
“Then why are you apologizing to me?” Teller scratches the stubble along his jawline. Sleep lines crease his face, and he blinks unclear eyes as if he’s not all the way awake.
Before the sky brightens from cobalt to navy and the stars burn away, I say, “I’m pregnant.”
His silence stretches the moment until it snaps, and his only reply is, “Oh, okay.”
After a long pause, I ask, “That’s it? That’s the only thing you have to say to me?”
He doesn’t stop me from getting into my vehicle, and I don’t want him to.
This officially ends here.
Now
A rational person wouldn’t let the woman who’s admitting she’s having your baby stand in the walkway, damp from the neighbor’s sprinklers.
A rational person would have invited her inside.
A rational person wouldn’t let her drive away.
I’m not rational.
Instead of going after Ella, I go back to bed and bury my head under the pillows. I sleep for twelve hours, and when I wake up, it’s a minute before I realize none of what happened was a dream.
Ella drove to my house before the sun was up. She pounded on the door, and she told me she’s pregnant.
“I was out of my mind the night I went to you in the tent,” she said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more careful.”
Now, standing in the shower as the water runs cold, I’m ashamed I didn’t say more, offer more, do more. I let her run away again. What I should have done was ask how I can help. Between the time, her presence, and the bomb she dropped, my mind went blank.
I didn’t panic. I wasn’t scared. There was no confusion.
I was stunned.
I am stunned.
But enough is enough.
My teeth chatter from the icy water spraying on my back, freezing my skin. I turn off the shower and step onto the bathroom mat with clarity I didn’t own when I first got in. Nothingness is replaced with anxiousness and excitement, and I’ve never been surer of anything in my entire life.
I’m going to be a father.
This baby may be the first and only thing Ella and I have ever done right, so I’m not going down without a fight. The life we created deserves more from us than the aggressive love we’ve shown each other. It should come into the world knowing both parents are in it for the long run.
Ella can be halfway across the fucking world by now, but I’ll find her.
I always do.
She’s not halfway across the world. She’s not even halfway across the city.
Ella’s at her apartment in the living room, watching TV with a large bowl of random vegetables on her lap. Not even a flicker of recognition changes her expression when Emerson invites me inside. She chews on a carrot stick, absorbed by a murder reenactment.
“Don’t get any bright ideas,” I say jokingly. Kind of.
Pointing at the television with her carrot, Ella says, “She poisoned her husband with antifreeze. But that takes too long, if you ask me. I’d just chop you up and bury the body in the garden.”
Em’s eyes widen and he whistles. “Okay, to avoid being an accessory to homicide, I’m going to take my leave.”
“Do we have a shovel?” Ella asks. She pops the last bite of carrot into her mouth and crushes it between her teeth.
“Are you sure you want to stay, Teller?” Emerson asks, clapping my back. “I’m going to meet Nic for dinner. You’re welcome to come along.”
“No, man.” I take my jacket off and hang it over the arm of the couch. Ella pushes it to the floor. “I’m going to hang out with your sister. But if you don’t hear from me in twenty-four hours, tell my mother I love her. Tell my dad he’s an asshole.”
Emerson lingers awkwardly by the front door, swinging his gaze between Gabriella and me. He’s put on mass since he was accepted into the police academy, straightened out and sharpened up. There’s a new kind of awareness in his posture, one that warns him that we’re not to be trusted alone. We’re repeat offenders. We’re institutionalized.
“Nicolette’s waiting,” Ella says. She pokes around her bowl and comes up with broccoli. “I’m not going to kill Teller and chop his body up.”
“Promise?” Emerson asks.
Contemplating me for a second, Ella drops the leafy green back into the bowl and nods. “Yeah, he’s not worth the effort.”
This is good enough for Em, and after wishing us farewell and a safe, non-murderous night, he leaves. I search the room for exit points before taking a seat on the opposite side of the sofa from Ella. There’s a throw pillow between us, but it feels like we’re separated by a concrete wall.
She’s indifferent to me, barefoot, barefaced, and self-assured. Her spine is straight, her shoulders are back, and she snacks on cherry tomatoes like they’re bite-sized pieces of bliss. Instead of pushing confrontation like I normally would, I sit back, geared up for a long night, and settle in.
I reach for a piece of sliced cucumber, but Ella slaps my hand away and hugs the bowl to her chest.
“Don’t touch my nutrition. I have some making up to do,” she says.
“To me?” I ask.
“No,” Ella corrects. She rolls her eyes. “To our unborn child, whom I’ve poisoned with preservatives and MSG up to this point. If our baby comes out with three feet, it’s my fault.”
She’s being dramatic. But, hormones. I won’t hold it against her. That part of Ella’s pregnancy will probably get worse before it gets better, and her bad diet will be amended and is the least of our problems. Our relationship is on the motherfucking plank, ready to fall to the sharks.
“Can we talk?” I ask in a watchful tone.
She shakes her head. “Not yet. I’m trying to figure out where this lady goes wrong, so I don’t make the same mistake.”
Sinking deeper into the couch, I rest my head back and say, “Antifreeze isn’t sweet tasting anymore. They’ve added denatonium benzoate to make it bitter. So, don’t try to slip it in my drink, because I’ll know.”
“I already said I’d slice and dice you,” she counters.
“You’re a psychopath.” I smirk.
“It’s funny you should say that, because your sister literally called me the same thing last night.”
Playfulness skips out on the conversation, and I ask, “Maby knows? Does anyone else?”
Ella nods, but she keeps her eyes glued to the television. “She knows. Maby and Husher we’re with me when I found out.”
Calling my sister to get a play-by-play of what happened when Ella realized she’s pregnant would probably be easier than pulling it out of the baby mama one sentence at a time. She’s full-stubborn, and she’s going to make me work for the details.
“But, I’m not ready for Emerson and Nicolette to find out yet. They’re worried about me enough as it is. First thing tomorrow, I’ll look for a place of my own, and I should probably gain employment before I start to show and no one will hire me.” Her eyes shine in the light from the TV. “Maybe if I have a roof over my head and a job, my family won’t be so disappointed in me.”
> Relief rolls through me in whitecapped waves, and I sit forward. Resting my elbows on my knees, I drop my face into my hands and ask, “You’re going to keep the baby?”
Ella throws a tomato at me. “Of course, I’m going to keep it, Teller. Our kid drew the short stick, but it didn’t ask to be conceived. I can’t think of one good reason not to have it, but—”
I look up to catch and hold her gaze. “Don’t give me that you don’t need to be in the baby’s life shit, Gabriella. The baby is mine, too, and I want to be a part of its life. I will be a part of its life.”
She nods, and the resentment in her dark eyes softens.
“I want to be a part of your life, too, Smella,” I say.
Ella laughs sarcastically, reaching forward to rest her bowl of vitamins and minerals on the coffee table. “You can leave if that’s where you think this conversation is going. I don’t have the energy to go back and forth with you, Tell. Literally. I am exhausted, and I’m glad to know you’re willing to co-parent with me, but our matters of the heart need to stop for the baby’s sake.”
“I agree,” I say.
“No, I don’t think you do.” Ella turns her entire body toward me, and I fill up with blistering appreciation. My kid—my very own person—grows inside of her. “We’ve spent nearly a decade trying to one-up each other, and we’ve dragged our families through the dirt over and over. We can’t do that to our baby. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Let’s get married,” I say.
The entire world turns off. It explodes into nothing, vacuumed by a black hole, and we don’t exist outside of this apartment. Adrenaline-dosed blood courses through my veins. My heart, lungs, and brain can’t keep up, and this sharp pain in my chest must be what cardiac arrest feels like.
I’ve asked this girl to marry me a hundred different times in two hundred different ways, and I meant it every time. She’s only agreed to be mine forever once, and we fucked it up. But this is different. One part me and one part her will exist in nine months, and the running and half-trying stops now.
“Get out,” Ella says. Her face burns as red-hot as the intensity I feel unraveling throughout me. “Get the fuck out!”
I don’t leave, but I get up and protect my face with my hands when irrationality starts to throw uneaten vegetables at me.
“Be reasonable, Ella,” I beg, taking a cucumber slice to the throat.
“Be reasonable?” she screams. Ella runs out of veggies and chucks the entire bowl. “I’m pregnant, and you’re asking me to marry you?”
I step forward, crushing a carrot beneath my shoe. “It’s a little old-fashioned…”
“Leave!” The television remote whooshes past my head and collides with the wall behind me, shattering into a dozen pieces. “Yesterday you had nothing to say to me, but tonight you want to get married?”
Shaking my head, I pat my pockets for my pack of cigarettes. Ella takes advantage of my vulnerability and hits me in the head with a magazine. The pages flap on its way to the carpet with the vegetables and plastic shards from what used to be the universal remote control.
“You’ll have to forgive me for last night, baby.” I stick an unlit Marlboro between my lips and duck when she throws an empty coffee cup. The look of outrage on her face and the sound of glass breaking against the drywall takes me back to the good days when she’d throw beer bottles and school books to get her point across. “I sleep like shit without you. It makes me delusional.”
“Oh my God, Teller,” she groans. Ella squeezes her hands into fists, having run out of things to heave. “This is exactly why we can’t be together. We can’t do this to our kid.”
I pull the cigarette from my lips and stick it above my ear, braving a few paces closer to her. “It’s going to be okay. I’m here.”
Ella’s hands relax, and her chin quivers. She lets me three, four, five steps closer as her dark eyes brim with deep sadness, and she admits, “I’m scared, Tell.”
There’s not much about Ella that’s brand-new to me, but there’s a softness in her tone that I’ve never heard before. It’s a helplessness she’s never been brave enough to share with anyone, not even myself, before right this second. And I believe her.
“I’m scared, too.” I rest my lips beside her ear, tasting the scent of the citrus shampoo she uses. “And I’m sorry I let you drive away last night. I am so fucking sorry I’ve let you run away from me a thousand times, baby, but that’s over now.”
“Tell,” she whispers. Ella holds on to the front of my shirt with unsteady hands.
I slide my palm around her lower back and press my lips to her forehead, to each of her cheekbones, and at the corner of her mouth. Sorrow is salty on my lips, and I lick it away before saying, “Stop pushing me away, because I’m never going to give up on you. I’m never going to leave you.”
The shaking starts in her hands and spreads through Ella’s entire body. She shivers from the tips of her bare toes to the ends of her wet eyelashes and gets worse as susceptibility is harder to restrain. I gather her in my arms and hold tight before she falls apart, determined to prove I’m strong enough to keep her together.
When her knees go weak and emotion rocks bone deep, Ella hides her face in my neck and cries a lifetime’s worth of uncertainty and insecurity. I pick her up and carry her to the bedroom, kicking the door closed behind me. We lie in the dark on top of the blankets, where I kiss every part of her face.
“I love you,” I whisper as she cries. “Let me show you. Let me prove it. Stop running. Stop leaving me. You’re not alone anymore. You’re never alone, Gabriella.”
Unstoppable tears slow down to heavy eyelids and overpowering yawns. Ella rests her head on my chest, soaking my shirt with grief that won’t stop despite exhaustion. They continue as she sleeps, and I absorb every ounce.
Sometime during the night, after her brother and Nic have come home and gone to bed without disturbing us, Ella wakes up and says, “I won’t survive if we don’t work out again, Teller.”
I sweep my fingers up and down her back, understanding but undaunted by her doubts. I didn’t grow up with the abandonment issues she did. Dysfunction plagues me with my parents’ expectations and my father’s unrelenting disappointment. I’m not afraid of Ella leaving me, even when she tries, because my mind was made up the moment I laid eyes on her: she’s the only one.
My demon is fear of not being worthy.
I manage to fuck things up every single time. But for the first time since I was a kid, I can see past that bullshit, and the grass is way fucking greener on the other side.
“Can we go to my place?” I ask.
“Not sure that’s a good idea,” she answers in a tear-thick and raspy tone.
“Follow me over in your Wagen if that makes you more comfortable.” I want to rip the words from the space between us and break them in half, but I’m working on impulse control. “There’s something I want to show you.”
For the second early morning in a row, Ella’s on my walkway, dodging overspray from the neighbor’s sprinklers. The only improvement with the situation is that I’m hurrying her inside instead of watching her drive away.
She loiters just inside the entryway as I walk from light switch to light switch, illuminating the living room in glowing orange-yellow light. Warmth returns to the house with her return, and I’m so fucking grateful regardless of how brief it may be. It feels like home again.
“Why am I here, Teller?” she asks, shifting from hip-to-hip uncomfortably. Ella’s face is blotchy, red, and swollen from a night of crying. Her hair’s unruly, and I don’t think she’s noticed she’s wearing two different shoes. But I see the contempt in her body language relax and the venom in her expression ease. She knows she’s home, too.
“Follow me.” I lead her to the kitchen where I’ve left the tank.
It hasn’t been easy, and I’ve had help from my family and friends, but I’m really fucking proud of my small victory.
“Is that Phish
?” Ella asks, pointing at the goldfish swimming slow circles in his tank. “No, Phish was smaller.”
Today I’ve kept a goldfish from biting the dust. In a handful of months, I’ll work on keeping my kid alive.
“He’s growing into his bigger environment.” I stick my hands into my pockets as Ella approaches our first dependent. “I got him a bigger tank. The other one felt like unusual punishment.”
A small smile curves the corners of her mouth as she lightly taps on the glass bowl. That four-inch fish has been my only constant companion since Ella left, and keeping him from a watery grave gave me purpose when I felt like I had nothing left.
“Did you bring me over here to show me this?” she asks, pointing to the fish tank. “It’s awesome he’s still around, but couldn’t this have waited?”
“No,” I reply. “I wanted you to see that he’s important enough to take care of. Two years ago, I would have let him die.”
She laughs, and I don’t mind it’s at my expense. “Teller, feeding a goldfish once a day isn’t the same as taking care of a family.”
A flash of anger blasts through the palms of my hands, but I choke it down and say, “You don’t think I’m going to be a good dad?”
Ella closes her eyes and exhales. “That’s not what I meant. What I mean is, we won’t be the parents our baby deserves if we’re together.”
I stride to the sliding glass door to smoke a cigarette in the backyard. The pool shines neon blue, and the sound of water moving through the filter in the silent night helps to lower my blood pressure. The air smells like chlorine and honeysuckle, and a light breeze rustles the leaves in the trees framing the property. The idea of a kid running around back here never crossed my mind, but now there’s nothing I’ve ever wanted more.
Except Gabriella Mason.
“I’ve always loved this backyard,” Ella says. She leans against the doorframe.
Putting my cigarette out under my shoe, I exhale a lungful of smoke over my shoulder and wave it away.
“You should probably stop smoking,” she says.
Sever (Closer Book 2) Page 13
