Imperfectly Bad

by A. E. Woodward

  “I really don’t, but unlike you I know better than to self-destruct.”

  He shook his head. “So what the hell is going on?”

  “I’m so fuckin’ confused…”

  “Join the club,” Tyler scoffed as he threw his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “Women suck. Period. There’s no question about it.”

  Poor Tyler was still hanging on, waiting for Elizabeth to give him the green light. The dude was so whipped but I doubted he even knew it.

  “Well, it’s not even so much as that. I just can’t seem to figure out which way is up. Just when I think I have a handle on things, and where everything is the way I want to be, I go and do something stupid again.”

  “Like?”

  I shot a knowing look at him, cocking my eyebrows up. “Oh I don’t know. Like sleeping with Jenny again?”

  “No!”

  Just the tone of his voice told me all I needed to know and I hung my head. For the first time in a long while I was actually ashamed of myself.

  “Yes.”

  “Rob, what about Lay—” Tyler started scolding.

  “I know. I’m fucking stupid as shit. Here I am, moving along with this great thing with Layla, thinking I’m picking up the pieces left behind by Jenny, but for some reason I can’t just be done with her.”

  Unbelievable frustrated with myself, I got up and strode to the kitchen, grabbing the tequila and a couple of shot glasses from the cabinet. Setting them down on the coffee table, I poured a shot for both of us. Considering the weakened state my stomach was in it probably wasn’t my best idea, but I needed something to numb myself. Something to help me forget, if only for a short while, what I had done. Tyler raised an eyebrow, looking between me and the glasses. For a second I wondered what his issue was, but then I remembered I’d supposedly given up drinking.

  Yeah, that lasted long.

  “Shut up. It was a dumb idea anyway,” I snapped.

  “I didn’t say a thing.”

  “Whatever.”

  Tequila poured, I picked up both glasses and held one out to him.

  “She’s like a goddamn scab that I can’t seem to leave alone. Just as it starts to heal up, it itches, and I don’t have the willpower to keep from scratching it.”

  Tyler grabbed his shot, and immediately sucked it back. Using the edge of his sleeve to wipe his mouth he shook his head and said, “She’s the itch you can’t scratch.”

  “But I try anyway.”

  The glass balanced precariously between my fingers and so without further delay I opened up my throat and poured the shot of tequila down. It burned a path down my throat and set fire onto my already tender stomach. For a brief second the pain in my heart was overridden by the torture my stomach was inflicting on me. It was a good pain though. It made me forget… just not for long enough.

  “Yeah, and then it bleeds, festers, and gets infected. All because you’re an idiot.”

  I grabbed a throw pillow and threw it in his direction. “Fuck you.”

  He deflected it without any trouble and it fell to the floor. Stupid athletic abilities. “No but seriously, Rob, why? Why do you keep letting her fuck with your head?”

  “Because despite all the bad shit we’ve been through, I still love her. I always will.”

  “But does she love you?”

  Ah, the million dollar question. He had a point. Jenny hadn’t done, or said, anything that should lead me to believe that she felt the same way. Sure, she’d admitted to not being ready to let go, but that wasn’t the same thing. It was then that I wondered if I had just always been a game to her. Someone that she could play with in order to validate herself. Part of me refused to believe that everything we had done and gone through was fake, but the other part of me, the smarter part, thought otherwise.

  My shoulders slumped in defeat and I looked up at Tyler, tears stinging my eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “If you can’t say one way or another, chances are she doesn’t.”

  He stood and walked towards me, resting his hand on my shoulder he looked down at me with a knowing look. “The truth hurts, Rob. But you’ve got to move on. Layla is a good girl. We all love her, and she’s good for you—too good in fact. You should be holding onto her like your life depends on it.”

  I looked up at him and smiled. “I think it already does.”

  “Then I think you have your answer.”

  “I’ve got to let Jenny go.”

  Tyler nodded and dropped his hand from my shoulder. “That’s your choice, buddy. But you know that we’re all here for you, no matter what you decide.”

  I nodded and Tyler forced a smile before walking down the hallway, leaving me alone to make the hardest decision of my life. Wasting hours making a list of pros and cons for each girl would have been one of my usual solutions, but Jenny had already made my choice so much easier. I knew where she stood, but the question was: Where did that leave me?

  In a perfect world I’d like to say that I didn’t know, but I did. It hurt, but I already knew. I knew who I wanted, but for once in my life I was going to use my head. I was going to make the smart move. I was going to be with the girl I should be with.

  I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and punched in the numbers that had burned themselves into my brain the very first time I’d seen them. It rang once before she answered.

  “Hey,” she purred.

  “I probably shouldn’t do this, and I’m about to go against everything that we agreed to, but I want you to know where I stand.”

  “Rob—”

  “No, let me finish before I lose my nerve. You’ve gotta know that it’s unusual for me to feel something besides lust for a chick. But with you, well… with you things are different. You made me feel again. You make me feel… well, like less of a dickhead.”

  Silence.

  “Layla?”

  There was a paused that lasted just long enough for my heart to sink a little before she said, “Yeah, I’m still here.”

  “I’ve left you speechless?” I asked with a laugh.

  “Not really, I just hope that you know what you’re doing, Rob.”

  I pondered this for a moment. Leave it to Layla to know me better than I knew myself. She was making me question my certainty. “Jesus, Layla, I’m trying here.”

  “But you’re trying for all the wrong reasons. I’m not stupid, Rob. Don’t rush things with us. We need to take it one day at a time. You can’t force love just because you’re trying to move on.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “Do what?” she asked.

  “See right through me.”

  “It’s not that I see through you, I just know how matters of the heart work. And I know that you’re trying to fill a void with me—”

  “Lay—”

  “No, it’s my turn now. Let me finish.”

  I heard a deep sigh over the line. An awkward sense of foreboding overwhelmed me and every nerve ending told me to stop her, but at the same time I was curious about what she had to say. It was amazing to me that a woman of this caliber had managed to fly under the radar for so long. She was one of the good ones. One of life’s true beauties, both inside and out.

  “You’ve got a lot of stuff going on, Rob. You’re not quite ready to close that chapter of your life, and I understand that. So just know, that when you’re ready I’ll be here, waiting.”

  Just when I didn’t think that things could get any more complicated, Layla went ahead and muddied the waters further. The fact that she understood me completely made me think that she might be the one.

  But she was right. I had unfinished business with Jenny, and I needed to completely end things with her before I could start fresh with Layla.

  “Well, I won’t keep you waiting long,” I promised. I could sense her smile on the other end, and I hoped like hell that this was one promise I wouldn’t break.

  It had been a few weeks since my last run-in with Jenny, and there had
been no word from her. The one time I needed to talk to her and it seemed that she had fallen off the face of the planet. She avoided my calls and despite numerous visits to the coffee shop, I couldn’t track her down. I just wanted to figure shit out, close the door on her and be done, but she couldn’t even give me that much.

  In the past I had believed the things that she’d said to me, but with my newfound clarity my brain wouldn’t accept her diluted version of the truth. Although it ate at me daily, I pushed the guilt of what I’d done deep down and went back to Layla, putting my heart and soul into our relationship.

  It didn’t take long for me to figure out that shit was bad. I was in love with two people, something I never thought possible, and even though the idea seemed preposterous, it was the honest to God truth.

  Jenny.

  Layla.

  Layla.

  Jenny.

  Things in my life began to slip because my mind was in a constant fog. Day and night, work or home, I never knew whether I was coming or going. Yet somehow, I managed to put on the best show possible. Despite my confusion, and the never-ending game of tug of war that fate and the universe insisted on playing with my heart, I acted like nothing was wrong, fooling everyone around me into thinking that I’d made my mind up and moved on from the succubus that was Jenny.

  Everything seemed fine, until it wasn’t. I stared out the window, watching the rain pelt against the pane, until I wasn’t really looking anymore. I was watching, and listening to the patterns in the sounds.

  It was still early when the apartment buzzer started going off. Coffee splashed to the floor when I turned quickly to glance at the clock. It was seven a.m. and I wasn’t expecting anyone. In fact, since Tyler and Elizabeth had left early to take Emily to the zoo, I had been looking forward to a day alone.

  The buzzer went off again and I carefully set my cup down on the table, walking over to hit the button to let whoever it was, into the building. Within seconds there was a knock on the door. I flung it open only to find Jenny standing there, looking like shit.

  “You didn’t even ask who it was,” she said, slightly breathless. “Do you always just let ‘buzzers’ in?”

  “It’s like roulette,” I joked. “I do it for the thrill.”

  “I could have been a serial killer.”

  “But you weren’t… unless you have something to tell me.

  The smile left her face, and she diverted her eyes towards the ground. In the weeks we had spent apart she had apparently taken to studying wood grains.

  “Can I come in?” she asked quietly, her eyes never leaving the floor.

  “Of course.” I stepped aside to let her in. “Can I get you some coffee?”

  “No, thanks.” She plopped down at the table just as I closed the door and I followed her lead, taking a seat across from her.

  We sat for a few moments, surrounded by uncomfortable silence. Her lip quivered when her eyes made contact with mine.

  “You’re scaring me, Jenny.”

  It was the truth. The way her eyes kept darting around the room, and the fact that she was twisting her fingers so hard that the tips were turning white, was giving me all sorts of mixed signals. It was bad enough I hadn’t heard from her in weeks, but looking at her now I knew something terrible was about to go down.

  “You should be,” she said, and from across the table her voice was barely audible. Looking at her more closely, I noticed that her eyes were full of tears, so much so that they pooled along her bottom lid.

  “What’s going on, Jenny?”

  “I’m pregnant,” she blurted.

  It seemed stupid, but all I could manage was to say, “What?”

  “I’m pregnant, Rob, and I—”

  She threw her head into her hands as a strangled sound escaped from her mouth, and I watched in horror as her shoulders started to heave.

  Moving my chair closer to hers, I reached out to put my hand on her back and started rubbing small circles in an attempt to comfort her. On the outside I was able to keep a calm exterior, but inside I was freaking out. Truth was, I needed someone to comfort me.

  A fuckin’ kid?

  No way in hell was I ready for that!

  “I’m sorry, Rob,” she finally managed to say, “but I don’t know who the father is.” Another sob escaped from between her lips and my heart jumped to my throat. I felt sick.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” The two times we’d slept together she’d acted like she was starving and I was her only chance at another meal. We’d always had chemistry but I had obviously been delusional to assume that she wasn’t getting it at home.

  “He’s my fiancé, Rob. He takes care of me. I’m still marrying him but I thought you should at least know.”

  “What the fuck, Jenny?”

  “Please, don’t be mad at me—”

  “Don’t be mad? You’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me! You’re knocked up, possibly with my kid, and you’re still getting married to the prick! So forgive me if I’m slightly upset by all of this!”

  Tears started to roll freely down her cheeks. Watching her break down, it struck me that this was the first time I’d ever seen her cry. Everything around her was crumbling. Jenny was losing her inner strength—the one that gave her that tough exterior. I couldn’t bear to see her reduced to that so I diverted my attention to the window, feigning fascination at the patterns the raindrops made as they pelted against the glass.

  “What are you gonna do?” I finally asked, the tone of my voice harsher than it should have been with my need to just rip the Band Aid off.

  “I don’t know, but that’s not the only thing I came here to tell you.”

  My fists were clenched so hard that I felt my nails dig into the skin of my palms and I was sure I would start dripping blood at any minute. I took a deep breath, stopped steaming, and glared at her, knowing full well that the hits were going to keep on coming. Shit had come to a head, and all hell was about to break loose.

  But before my life as I knew it came crashing down around me, I needed alcohol. The silence in the room magnified the sound of my chair scraping backwards and without another thought, I made my way to the liquor cabinet. I had to dig a bit, pushing aside the cheap tequila, but finally I found it. This situation called for the good stuff and I had snagged the bottle of Glenfiddich from my Dad’s den when I’d moved out all those years ago. It was the symbol of all I wanted my life to be. It was the thirty-year-old scotch that I had been saving for the perfect moment. I had hoped for it to be a happy occasion, but fuck it.

  “No time like the present,” I muttered to myself before opening it and taking a long haul from the bottle. Not bothering with a glass, I carried it back to the kitchen with me, slamming it on the table. Too lost in her own thoughts, Jenny jumped at the noise.

  “All right,” I seethed, “I think I’m ready now.”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been pregnant.”

  My heart ceased to function. I literally felt it stop, deep in my chest. My throat tightened, and bile rose up my throat. Tears pricked my eyes as I choked back the sadness. Once my heart started beating again, I had the presence of mind to know what had happened. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where she was going with this. Jenny had had a baby, that much I was sure of. She’d mentioned one time that she was against abortion, and no matter how unfortunate a situation could be, it would never be bad enough to take a life.

  “You had a baby? Our baby? My baby?”

  She nodded, looking at the ground as she hung her head in shame. “I’m sorry, Rob.”

  “Where is it? What, I mean who—” I paused unable to find the right words. After a few moments of silence I settled on, “Tell me.”

  “I found out I was pregnant when they released me from jail. I was already a few months along, but as soon as I knew I did right by the baby. I quit drinking, smoking, and just plain old being dumb.” She stopped to wipe the
tears from her face. “I can’t do this.”

  “You can, and you will,” I demanded. “I have a right to know.”

  “My parents were already sending me to live with my aunt, so it worked out well for them in that respect. They didn’t have to deal with another of my ‘mistakes.’ I thought about calling you, but I could never get the strength to go through with it. I wouldn’t have known where to begin. But you need to know that not a day went by where I didn’t think of you during those six months. As my belly grew, so did my love for that baby—our baby.” She sniffed back some tears before continuing. “My aunt helped me get everything ready for the baby’s arrival, and I want you to know that it was never my intent to resort to adoption, but neither of us could have prepared for what happened.”

  “I was so nervous when my water broke, but luckily I had my aunt there for support. She held my hand and encouraged me through every push and scream. He came out crying, healthy, and making all sorts of noise. I was overjoyed. The doctors placed him on my chest while they took care of me and it only took me one look to know.”

  Without a doubt, I knew what she was going to say next. Why else would she have a sudden change of heart about having a baby? “Down Syndrome,” I muttered. It made sense, while we were dating we’d talked about the possibility of this if we had kids together someday, but neither of us had dreamed that it would actually happen.

  She nodded. “I didn’t know what to do, Rob. I’m sorry. I freaked out.”

  “You gave him up, didn’t you?”

  Hanging her head in shame, she continued. “I should have found you. You wouldn’t have been scared. You would have known what to do.”

  It was true. I would have. I had been there through it all with my sister—helping my parents with her therapies, taking part in her joys and her struggles. I wouldn’t have been scared. I would have known what to do.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. The adoption wasn’t open.”

  I put my head in my hands and mourned the loss of my son. The son I’d never get to meet, or play “catch” with. A part of me, ripped away from me without so much as a chance. And I felt like there was a distinct possibility it was happening all over again.