TRIPPED

by Jacob Chance

  “Somehow, I held my tears at bay until I was home and in my own bedroom. Then the floodgates opened.” I tuck a damp piece of hair behind my ear. I didn’t even take the time to brush it after my shower. Getting over here as fast as possible was all I could think of.

  “Can we move this along? I have studying to do.” Donovan rolls his index fingers around each other.

  I’m hoping the casual air he’s affecting is all part of an act. That it’s only a defense mechanism because he’s hurt. Whatever it is, it’s painful as fuck for me to look at him and see no emotion in his killer blues.

  “For the first few weeks, I convinced myself that you didn’t mean what you wrote in the letter and you’d contact me. Once that didn’t happen, I worked on convincing myself that I hated you. I was doing okay at that stage and I would’ve continued to do so, but I found out I was pregnant.”

  “Your mom said you got sick and that’s how you realized,” he mentions.

  “Yeah, I did. I got really bad morning sickness but it wasn’t only in the morning. I lost ten pounds because I couldn’t keep much food down.”

  “Were you still in school at the time?” he asks.

  “No, I finished my senior year the third week in May and found out about the pregnancy in the middle of June. Because I was sick, I took it easy as much as possible. The only thing I did was take walks. I didn’t dare go to the gym and work out.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was worried about the baby and I wanted to keep her safe.”

  “Her?” He visibly swallows.

  “I’m not sure what sex the baby was, but it always felt like a girl to me. I made it to week ten and I started to bleed a lot.” I close my eyes as the painful memories hit me. How do they feel so fresh after over two years? Tears trail down my face from my closed eyelids. I feel the wetness on my cheeks and do my best to ignore it. “My mom rushed me to the hospital where they told me I’d lost our baby.” I pause and take a deep breath. “I had to have surgery to remove her from my uterus.” I open my eyes to find Donovan silently crying along with me. Having him to share the pain with helps. “They discharged me the next morning as if none of it had happened. Told me to take it easy for a week and follow up with my doctor. It was so odd. One second I was pregnant and the next she was gone. None of it seemed real, and I couldn’t shake my sadness, no matter what I did.”

  “I’m sorry you went through all that,” he whispers hoarsely, and I nod. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”

  “I had planned to and then I had the miscarriage. After she was gone, there didn’t seem to be a reason to tell you. There was nothing you could do to change what had happened. I thought by telling you it would only make you sad too. What purpose would that have served?”

  “I should’ve been told. She was my baby too and I would have mourned her with you.” He starts to cry in earnest. “She deserved to have two parents mourning her and you took that away from the baby and me.” He sniffs. “How could you have been so selfish?”

  “I”m sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing.” I sob.

  He sniffs again, wiping his forearm across his eyes. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Donovan

  I’ve led a charmed life. I come from a great family and we’ve never known real struggle. I inherited my parents’ good looks and athletic ability. School has never been difficult for me, and I make friends easily. And chicks dig me and always have. But listening to Piper tell me what happened in those months following our break up is the most painful thing I’ve ever endured.

  I’m so angry and conflicted—so fucking pissed at her for denying me my rights as the baby’s father.

  “You know, if you had told me, I would’ve been there for you through it all,” I choke out. “You wouldn’t have gone through it alone.” I hate how emotional this is making me, but it fucking hurts to know I helped create a child that was growing inside Piper. And I’m guilty as fuck. Why do I feel so guilty when I didn’t know about any of this?

  “I’m so sorry.” Piper lowers her head, quietly sobbing into her hands. I want to comfort her, but I don’t have any more emotion to spare. I’m spent. I feel like my insides have been wrung out like a wet sponge. I’m physically and emotionally exhausted. I want to climb in my bed and stay there for a week.

  “I don’t want to be an asshole, but I’d like you to leave now,” I say.

  Piper’s head whips up, exposing her tear-stained face. She rises from the mattress and reaches into the front pocket on her hoodie. “I brought my journal for you to read. I wrote down everything during that period of time. Anything you want to know should be in there.” I nod, and she places the small purple book on my bed before walking from my room.

  I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to read her entries. It was hard enough hearing her explain it. Reading her personal thoughts and feelings might pulverize my heart.

  Enough of this shit. I need a break and a drink.

  I find Jeremy in the kitchen eating a slice of pizza. “Hey, man.”

  “Hey. What did you do tonight?” he asks.

  “Not a thing.” I grab a beer from the fridge and pop the cap off.

  He puckers his face up like an asshole—an actual asshole. “You look like hell. What’s wrong?”

  “Piper came over.”

  “Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?” he asks around a bite of crust.

  “Dude, her mom dropped a bomb on me.” I spend the next ten minutes explaining everything that happened and all the details I’ve learned.

  “Whoa. That’s some heavy shit. What are you going to do? Are you going to forgive her?”

  “I don’t know. I’m hurt that she never told me. I’ll have to see how I feel after a couple of these.” I hold up my beer. “Some sleep will help too,” I add.

  “I’d hate to see you guys let this keep you apart. You just got back together. Can’t you write all this off as the past? What good will hanging on to resentment do?”

  “Jeremy, I can’t let her off too easy. She fucked up and there needs to be consequences for that,” I explain.

  “At what cost, though? Is it worth letting her go?”

  “That’s a good question.” I know without a doubt that yesterday was the happiest day of my life. When she agreed to be my girlfriend and then we made love, I thought it was the beginning of amazing things for us. Here we are a day later and it was the worst day.

  “Life can change in an instant. You can go from one extreme to another without warning.” Jeremy grips my shoulder. “You need to ask yourself if Piper is the girl you want by your side when you hit your lowest points in life. If the answer is yes, then you need to forgive her and move beyond what happened in the past. Jesus, you were both dumb kids. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be judged on the stupid shit I did as a kid. I’m not the same person as I was then.”

  He’s making a lot of sense. “Jeremy, when did you get so smart?” I ask, chuckling.

  “I’ve always been this way. You haven’t needed my advice until now.”

  “You gave me a lot to think about.” I take a long pull of beer and set the bottle down on the counter.

  “Any idea what you’re going to do?” he asks.

  “I need to take tonight to think it over and decide. I’m not making any hasty decisions about something that could potentially affect the rest of my life.”

  “You might want to cut Piper some slack. You were kind of heartless back then.”

  “I wasn’t heartless. I was trying to do the right thing.”

  “We see it differently. Does that mean we can’t be friends anymore?” he asks.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Keep that in mind with Piper. You don’t have to agree on the way she handled the pregnancy, you just need to forgive her.”

  “I think you’re oversimplifying the situation.”

  “Maybe I a
m, but love doesn’t come around often. I’d hate to see you turn your back on what you guys have.”

  I held off on opening Piper’s journal last night. I didn’t want to fall asleep thinking about what’s between those pages. But now, it’s a new day and I’m ready to take the plunge.

  Lying on my bed, I start from the first page, which begins when she first returned from hockey camp. After reading her side of our breakup, I’m ashamed of how it went down. I can see how she thought I used her for sex, but I really didn’t. I never planned to sleep with her. Piper was the one who pushed us toward taking that step.

  Not that I argued to change her mind.

  If I ever doubted the depth of her feelings for me, I won’t ever again. We may have been kids, but the love was real. I know for me it never went away and I tried my hardest to forget her.

  The journal entry when she found out about the baby is heartbreaking. Her panic is so real it jumps off the pages at me. I’m relieved when she mentions how she’ll have to find a way to contact me. That proves she had good intentions.

  There are many parts where she discusses how important being a good mother is to her. She rarely complains or feels sorry for herself. It’s just another example of how strong she is.

  When I get to the point where she wrote about losing the baby, it’s so devastating, I have to put the book down for a few minutes.

  I’m glad she left her journal with me. It’s made me aware that no matter how much I think I know what her situation was like, I’ll never understand completely. It happened to her, not me.

  I’m thankful this little purple book is giving me all the insight into what she went through. I can see her actions were done with the best of intentions and weren’t meant to be malicious. I should’ve accepted her word and not felt it was necessary to also read her journal. But I can’t take my actions back now.

  I lie on my bed until I read every single word. I feel every single word she poured out of her soul onto the pages. I wish I could’ve been there for her. My brave, strong girl shouldn’t have had to go through everything alone.

  Reaching for my phone, I type out a message to Piper.

  We need to talk.

  “Hi,” Piper says softly. She moves back and I step inside.

  “Thank you for letting me come by.” I push the door shut. “I know your schedule is full.”

  She nods. “I had my classes this morning and practice is later. Like you said, we need to talk.” Her brown eyes look unusually large in her oval face and dark circles shadow them. “Rachel isn’t here, so we can sit in the living room.”

  We both settle sideways on the couch so we’re facing one another. “Can I go first?” I ask.

  “Sure.” She folds her hands in her lap, her gaze settling on me.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the past couple of days and then I read your journal this morning.” I pause to organize my thoughts. “When your mother told me about the baby, it hurt me. A lot. I didn’t know what to think. My head was spinning with a hundred questions. I was angry at your mom for telling me so unexpectedly, and I was angry at you for not being honest. My anger was the main reason why I didn’t reach out to you. I didn’t want to strike out with something spiteful that would hurt you, because no matter how angry I was or how much pain I was feeling, it didn’t cancel out my love for you.” I shift my weight, moving closer to her. “Sometimes words get said we wish we could take back. I have personal experience with that. From the moment I told you I didn’t want to continue our relationship, I regretted uttering those words. There were so many times I wanted to pick up the phone and get in touch with you. To ask you to forgive me and give us another chance.”

  “Why didn’t you?” she asks.

  “For the same reason I broke us up in the first place. I thought I was doing the right thing. We needed to focus on our futures instead of a brand-new long-distance relationship between two teenagers who knew nothing about love.”

  “You should’ve talked to me about your concerns. We could’ve worked through them together,” she says.

  “I know that now. My lack of communication and poor actions are the reason I understand why you didn’t tell me at first. You were scared and you didn’t know how I’d react to the news.”

  She nods. “Yes, but I was going to tell you. I just didn’t get the chance to.”

  Reaching forward, I capture her hand with mine. “I realize that now. I’m sorry I questioned your honesty about what happened. I should have believed you when you told me, instead of waiting until I read your journal.”

  “I don’t blame you for thinking the worst. You got hit with a lot unexpectedly, and it came from the worst source.”

  “How are you handling what your mom did? Have you talked to her since you found out?”

  “When I didn’t hear from you, I put two and two together and realized what she must have done. I called her and she confirmed it. She wasn’t the least bit sorry either. I set her straight about the way things are going to be if she wants to be in my life. The rest is up to her.”

  “I’m sure that wasn’t easy for you to do. You guys have always been close.”

  “Not as much as you might think. The older I’ve gotten, I’ve begun to realize how manipulating and controlling she is. I don’t need her to insert herself into my life.”

  I squeeze her hand comfortingly. “Maybe as time passes she’ll give you more space, which will end up bringing you closer together.”

  “Maybe. I’m not holding my breath.” A hint of a smile curves her bow-shaped mouth.

  “That’s good because it might take some time for her to learn that lesson. We can’t have you passing out.”

  She nibbles her bottom lip, avoiding my gaze.

  “What’s on your mind?” I ask.

  Her eyes make the slow climb from her lap to lock on mine. “So where does this leave us?”

  “I guess that depends on a few things,” I say.

  She frowns. “Like what?”

  “Do you still resent me for ending our relationship?”

  She shakes her head, the knot of red hair on top of her head wobbling. “I don’t resent you. How can I when you were trying to do the right thing?”

  “Do you promise to share anything that concerns you or pertains to us in the future?”

  “Yes, of course,” she answers.

  I cup her hand between both of mine and drag in a breath for courage. “Do you love me as much as I love you?”

  Her eyes open wider. “How much do you love me?” she asks.

  “More than anything in this world. I’d give it all up for you—even hockey.”

  “I don’t know if I love you that much.” She pauses for effect and then laughs. “Just kidding. Ditto.”

  I lean forward. “I love you, Piper Kelly.”

  She leans forward. “I love you, Donovan Archer.”

  Our lips meet in a soft, promising kiss, sealing our new beginning.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Donovan

  Two months later

  “How’s it looking?” Marshall asks.

  “We need some more red cups on the right side to balance it out,” I say.

  Jeremy comes rushing into the living room. “I had the greatest idea for more ornaments for the tree.” He holds up a box of condoms. “Check this out. If we put the hooks high enough on the wrappers we won’t puncture the condoms. Our Christmas tree can be a public service announcement for safe sex.” He looks proud.

  I pat him on the back. “Great idea, J. I’ll let you work on hanging those up.”

  The tree we bought is eight feet tall and almost as wide around. We paid a small fortune for it, so in order to save frat house funds we’re decorating the tree with things that we already have or ornaments that we make. So far, we have red plastic cups, pine cones from the backyard, and bows made out of toilet paper.

  “Yeah baby,” Jeremy celebrates the first successful hanging of a condom.

&n
bsp; Oh yeah, we have condoms too.

  Shaw walks into the room, takes one look at the tree and bends over laughing. “This is the best fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Who had the brilliant idea?”

  Marshall points at me. “That would be Donovan.”

  “We should’ve been doing this every year. We need to make this a new tradition going forward,” Shaw states.

  “It’s kind of fun,” Jeremy chimes in as he hangs another condom on the tree.

  Shaw grins and shakes his head. “I’m gonna add the ice and drinks to the coolers since everything else has been taken care of.”

  Christmas lights have been strung around the fireplace and we have pine cones in a bowl on the coffee table. All in all it’s a festive feel.

  People start rolling in after twenty more minutes. There are some ugly-Christmas-sweater-wearing jocks floating around and even some matching-Christmas-pajama-wearing couples. Clearly, those dudes are so pussy whipped. Just because their girlfriend suggested they wear something, it doesn’t mean they have to. Did they hand over their balls to their girlfriends when they started dating?

  “Hey, honey,” Piper throws her arms around me.

  “Hi, babe. What do you think?” I gesture toward the tree.

  She snorts. “I think it screams frat house chic.”

  “Nice. I like that. Chic makes us sound upper crust.”

  “You know what would make this party slammin’?”

  “Mind-altering substances?” I joke.

  “Nope. Every successful Christmas party needs a Santa.” She places a hat with an attached white beard on me.

  “No, I don’t want to wear this.” I reach up to remove it.