by B. B. Hamel
She kicks a rock and it skitters through the dirt, rolling on its side into the leaves. “Yeah, since we graduated.”
“Really?” I laugh a little. “You must be so sick of it.”
She shrugs a little. “It’s not bad. Eleanor’s the best.”
“She really is. Must make it easier.”
“Much easier.” She glances at me. “Her name is Cara, by the way.”
Her abrupt comment jerks me back into the present. I was busy thinking about what it used to feel like to be so close to her, and wondering if it would ever feel that way again. This is close, but it’s not exact.
“Cara?” I repeat, a little stupidly.
“My daughter.”
“Oh, shit.” I don’t know why I say that. She doesn’t seem to question it. We walk for a few more feet, the woods pressing closer. “Uh, is the father in the picture?”
She glances at me. “No.’
“That’s hard.”
“Like I said, Eleanor’s the best.”
“She’s helping you a lot, huh?”
“A lot,” she agrees. “I don’t know where I’d be without her.”
“I’m really glad then. I mean, that sort of thing, all alone?” I shrug a little bit, not knowing what else to say.
She seems to get it. “I never wanted to be a mother.”
“I thought you couldn’t… I mean, you told me…” I feel so awkward and dumb.
“I thought I couldn’t get pregnant either,” she says for me. “That’s what I was told right after.”
I don’t need to ask her what she means by right after. “You, uh, were having sex in college. Right?”
She glares at me. “None of your business.”
I grin at her. “Seems like it is my business, Addie.”
She hesitates a second and sighs. “Yes, I had sex with someone other than you.”
“Oh. Cool.” I don’t know why I feel so disappointed. I knew Addie wasn’t a virgin back then, or at least I assumed. I still wish I could have been her first.
“And with someone since,” she says pointedly. “Look, we don’t need to talk aobut my sex life.”
“We don’t need to, but I’d like to,” I say, grinning at her. “If you want to go into detail, I’m listening.”
She gives me a little smile. “I bet you’d like that.”
“Sure would. It was cold and lonely out in Russia. I’d love to hear some filthy stories.”
“Dream on, cripple.”
“I don’t need to dream,” I counter. “I can just remember.”
She glares at me but her anger quickly softens. “You really haven’t changed.”
“Neither have you.”
She looks away. “I guess not. I just feel like such a mom now, you know?”
“I can imagine. Have you been hanging around with anyone here?”
“Not really,” she admits. “I was seeing Melissa a little bit, but she moved to the city.”
“Melissa?”
“Short, really tan?”
“Oh, Big Boobs Melissa.”
Addie winces. “Yes, Big Boobs Melissa. I forgot about that name.”
“How could you?”
“It’s very descriptive, I guess. But she got one of those boob reduction things.”
“No shit?”
“Yep. Lopped ‘em off.”
“Damn. Seems like a shame.”
She looks down at her own chest. “I told her to give me some.”
“Not like you need it.”
She raises an eyebrow at me. “I’m practically flat.”
“No, you’re far from flat. If I remember right, you’re more than a handful.”
I love the way she blushes. I almost forgot about satisfying it is when her cheeks turn red, but it really warms my heart.
“Same old Will,” she mutters.
“Listen, if you’re having boob issues, I can help you out.” I lean against her a little bit, ogling her chest. “Come on, whip them out.”
“I’ll shove you over, cripple boy, I swear.”
I laugh as she pushes me, but not too hard. “Okay, okay, you win.”
“Damn right I do.” Her smile makes the slight twinging pain in my knee totally worth it.
“Must be boring here, though. I mean, it’s great Eleanor’s helping, but still.”
“It’s boring,” she agrees. “Most of my time’s spent with Cara anyway, though. It’s hard to have a social life when you have a kid.”
“I bet. All that crying and the diapers?”
She laughs. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“I’d rather not know.”
She gives me a look I can’t read but shrugs a little bit. “Eleanor hired a nanny to help me out.”
“Spoiled girl,” I say, laughing.
“Her name’s Julissa. I’d be going insane without her, although I think Eleanor got her because she doesn’t want to have to babysit ever.”
“Makes sense to me. Eleanor’s looking out for number one.”
“Can’t blame her,” Addie agrees.
We come around to a bend in the path. We’ve been walking for about a half hour now, and I’m starting to ache a little bit, but I don’t want to go home. I know that if we go left, my house won’t be too far away, and if we go right, we’ll head toward the waterfall. I can tell Addie’s having the same problem that I am, but she decides faster.
“I should get back,” she says. “Are you okay from here?”
“I’m not as crippled as I look.”
She raises an eyebrow, crossing her arms and facing me. I don’t remember the last time I really looked at Addie like this, but my god, she’s fucking beautiful. She’s still a little flush, maybe from the heat, but it’s pretty, and her figure is perfect. Not too skinny, with weight in the right places, and lips that drive me insane.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” she says.
“You will,” I agree. “Just don’t start dodging my calls again.”
She grins. “And don’t show up for tea.”
“Can’t promise that. If Eleanor invites me, I’m showing up.”
She rolls her eyes but still smiles. “See you later.”
I watch as she walks away, thinking about the feeling of that ass up against me as I fucked her that night. I’m a little hard when I finally start heading back home. I don’t want to go there, but I have nowhere else to go.
I could start thinking about leaving Weston. I probably should. I guess there are jobs I could take in the league, maybe coaching at a high school somewhere or something like that, but I suddenly don’t want to get out of town just yet. I hate living with my father, but I’m just starting to rekindle my friendship with Addie.
And there’s Addie’s little girl, too. She keeps bugging me, a weird little buzz in the back of my mind. I should just let it go but I can’t stop picturing her. She seems so familiar, and I did notice that Addie didn’t tell me who the father is.
I stop in the forest at the head to the trail toward my house, and I look up at the trees. I can’t imagine that little girl is my daughter. Addie wouldn’t get pregnant and not tell me about it, right?
But that face, and the way Addie seemed so vague… it’s bothering me. I have to find out more before I even think about going anywhere else.
7
Addie
“You really don’t need to meddle, you know.”
Eleanor smiles at me over her cup of coffee. It’s a beautiful morning and Cara is playing in the grass twenty feet away, a bunch of her dolls spread out around her in the dirty. I’m sitting on the front porch on a rocking chair, sipping my own coffee, and thinking about my walk with Will.
“I don’t have to, but I like to,” Eleanor says.
I sigh. “Really, I know what you’re doing.”
“Do you?” She gives me a little smile. “I thought I was just reuniting two old friends.”
“Cut it out. You know it’s not that smile.”
>
“I don’t?”
Her questions are driving me insane. “El,” I say.
“Addie.” She grins at me.
I sigh. “Look, do I really have to say it? All this time, and you haven’t made me say it.”
“Honey,” she says softly. “I respect your right to privacy, I really do. But you’ve kept it from me for so long.”
“I know.” I look away from her. “I just… I don’t want you to be ashamed of me.”
‘Ashamed?” She sounds genuinely surprised. “What makes you think I’d be ashamed of you?”
“I got pregnant young and without a husband.”
“So what? You were told you’d never have a baby, so I doubt you were using protection.”
I wince and blush at the same time. “Please don’t say that word.”
“What? ‘Protection?’”
I wince again. “Yes.”
“Addie, grow up. You’re a mother now.”
“I know. It’s just weird coming from you.”
Eleanor’s silent for a minute and I think the conversations over when she speaks up again.
“I was younger than you are when I got pregnant the first time,” she says softly.
I turn and stare at her. “You don’t have any kids,” I say.
She looks at me with a sad smile. “I got pregnant three times in my life, and each time I had a miscarriage.”
My eyes go wide. “Oh my god. El, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, honey. It was a long time ago.”
“That’s so awful.”
She sighs. “The first time wasn’t so bad. I wasn’t ready.” She smiles a little wistfully, sipping her drink. “I slept with the neighbor, this boy named Alvin. He was dumb as nails but he had the strongest arms I’ve ever seen. Well, he got me pregnant, but I lost it before I had to tell anyone.”
“That’s so horrible,” I say softly. “How old were you?”
“Sixteen,” she says, and smiles at my look of surprise. “I had a life before you, you know.”
“I know. That’s just so young for back then.”
“I guess so. But the world wasn’t in black and white back then. We had lots and ltos of color.”
I laugh a little bit. That’s her favorite metaphor. “Well, I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“And I’m sorry that all this hurt has happened to you, too,” she says softly. “Girl, you’ve had enough of it for one lifetime.”
I laugh a little bitterly. “I know.”
“You don’t have to tell me who Cara’s daddy is. I think I already know, anyway. But you can talk to me, if it’ll help with the pain.”
I stare out at my daughter playing, although my mind reaches back into my past. I can see the basement door, locked tight, light streaming underneath it. I can hear mommy and daddy yelling in the kitchen as I cowed at the bottom of the steps, crying. I can hear mice in the walls and my own fingernails, scraping at the concrete floor.
“It was a mistake,” I say softly. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.’
“I know, honey.”
“It was perfect. I mean, it was weird and made no sense but it felt good. We were best friends.”
“And then?” she prompts.
“And then he got me pregnant and I ran away from him.”
She nods and doesn’t say anything. We sit in silence for a little while and I try to push away the bad memories, but they won’t go away. It feels like I’m always in that basement, no matter how far away from it I get. I’ll always be down there, a scared little girl.
“I guess you never told him,” she says finally.
“No,” I answer. “He was going overseas anyway.”
“Would you have told him, even if he weren’t?”
I hesitate. “I… No. I don’t think so.”
She nods and sighs. “I’m sorry this is so complicated for you, honey. If you want my advice, just talk to him. Will isn’t a bad person.”
“I know he isn’t,” I say. “I wish it were that simple.”
She nods but doesn’t say anything and the conversation passes away.
I can remember the day I found out that I was pregnant. It was a little over a month after I slept with Will that night. I kept half expecting him to tell me how he felt about me every day after that, but he never did. It just never came up, and with each passing day, I felt worse and worse. I felt like he used me, just to get some ass.
It broke me. Because Will was my first. I lied to him out in the forest. I’ve never been able to let someone get close to me the way Will could. It wasn’t like I was saving myself, and I had boyfriends over the years, but I could never let myself sleep with them. Every time I tried, all I could think about was that basement, and I’d freak out.
It was easy with Will though. I didn’t have any bad thoughts, because it was him. It was Will, the guy I’d always loved, the only person who really knew me.
My period was late, which isn’t super unusual, but I’d been getting some weird symptoms. My boobs were sore, I was exhausted all the time, and I kept getting these weird nausea spells. I did some Googling, and ended up buying a pregnancy test.
Will came over a few hours after I took it. He had no clue.
“What’s up, Addie girl,” he said to me, grinning as he came into my apartment and flopped down onto the couch. We finished our finals a week earlier, and my lease was ending pretty soon, so these were the last true days of freedom.
“Just hanging out,” I said to him, trying to pretend like everything was fine, even though I was freaking out.
“I got some news,” he said casually.
“Oh yeah?” I sat down across from him, crossing my legs.
He raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Normally we sit together on the couch, our legs touching.
“I got a tryout,” he said.
“Really?” I perked up a little bit. He’d been trying to get tryouts with a ton of NHL teams, but kept getting rejected. “Which team?”
He faltered a little bit. “It’s, uh, a little unconventional.”
“West coast?” I asked him.
“It’s a Russian team.”
I stared at him like he was insane. “Russian?”
“The KHL is the second biggest league in the world,” he said, trying to sound excited, but I could see the pain behind his expression. He was giving up on his real dream by taking a European tryout. He wanted to play in the big league, not the second biggest league. I knew this was killing him.
“That’s amazing,” I said, trying to push through my own pain.
“Yeah. I gotta leave in a few weeks,” he says.
“Great.” I looked away from him. “Good luck.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” He sat there in silence. “I think I have a good shot.”
“I’m sure you do.” I stood up and walked away. “Listen, I gotta finish packing.”
“Yeah, cool.” He stood up. “You uh, need help?”
“No, thanks.” I stared at him, fighting tears. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay. Cool.” He walked to the door and gave me a look. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. Just stressed.”
“Sure, sure. That’s cool.” He hesitated, looking awkward. “Well, alright. See you later, Addie.”
“Bye.”
He left, and I hated him so much. I hated him for two years, two long years, until he appeared in my life again just a few days ago.
Now it’s hard to remember how much I hated him.
I get up and walk over to Cara. I get down in the dirt with her and pick up a doll. We play together for an hour, laughing and joking. She rolls around and gets dirty, and normally I’d try to keep her clothes clean, but I just don’t care right now. I don’t want to think about being responsible.
I just want to have fun with my daughter. I want to forget about everything else, especially Will. I know that’s impossible, but a girl can dream.
“Addie, it’s Will for you,” Eleanor calls up from the bottoms of the steps.
“Okay! One second,” I call back.
I get Cara dressed real fast and leave her in her room to play, the door cracked open slightly. I grab the house phone from Eleanor’s room and pick up.
“Hello?”
“Hi Addie,” Will says.
“Long time no see.”
He laughs a little. “Guess I couldn’t stay away.”
“I can’t blame you. I’m great.”
He laughs again, but I can hear something behind it. “Listen, my dad’s home.”
I hesitate. “Oh, shit. That sucks.”
“Yeah. Want to go out to the falls together? Like we used to.”
I pause, staring down at the dresser. I should probably say no, because there is no “like we used to” anymore, not since that night, not since Cara.
But god, just thinking about that feels good. I can’t help myself. “Okay,” I say. “But I found a new spot you might like.”
“Oh really? Been exploring?”
“Not much else to do.”
“Okay then. I’m down.”
“It’s a little treacherous. Are you sure you’ll be up for it.”
Slight pause. “I’ll be good.”
“Good. Meet me at the split in the path in like an hour.”
“See you soon, Addie.”
“Bye Will.”
I hang up the phone, grinning to myself like a moron. I turn and Eleanor’s in the doorway, watching me with a smile of her own.
“You going to go see Will?” she asks me.
I nod. “Yeah, I am.”
“Good. I’ll call Julissa.”
“Thanks, El.”
“Just be safe, okay? We don’t want another baby.”
I roll my eyes at her. “Definitely isn’t happening again. Even if I wanetd it to.”
She nods, a smile on her mouth, but her eyes serious. I walk past her and go into Cara’s room. I sit down and watch her play, but my mind’s already scaling the rocks, with Will at my side.
8
Will
