I Had to Let You Go

by Emma Quinn

  But it wasn't as though he ever lifted a finger to care for her. It was always me taking her to chemo sessions. Me helping her into the bath when she was too weak and me who soothed her to sleep on the couch downstairs when she was too frail to walk up to bed.

  I thought of everything I had done for her, but I knew it wasn't enough. I couldn't save her and I had no idea what to do.

  You're going to have to start praying for a miracle.

  At last, when I noticed the fuel gauge was almost hitting empty, I looked at the time and realized I'd been driving for almost three hours.

  How the hell did I manage that?

  Just a moment ago I was leaving the hospital and then...

  I looked around the street and recognized nothing. In the distance, I could just about make out the lights of a gas station, and rolled the car down the hill toward it. Reaching it just in time, it came to a halt right at the gas pump.

  Catching sight of my reflection in the rear view mirror, I barely recognized myself. My eyes were so red and swollen it looked like I'd done ten rounds with Mike Tyson.

  “Jesus look at the state of you.”

  Reaching into the glove box, I rifled around for some painkillers and found a box of aspirin. Knocking them down my throat with some soda, I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself. But I couldn't stop shaking. I didn't know if I'd ever stop trembling.

  Reaching for my phone, I moved to text Dad and give him a warning that I was going to be on my way home soon with some news. But as I unlocked the screen, I saw a message flash up from Sophia.

  Shit, Sophia. I had been so taken in with the news about Mom that I'd forgotten to get in touch with her all day.

  My eyes scanned her message once then twice, then again for the third time. I could barely believe what I was seeing.

  You'll never guess what? I got accepted to Harvard!

  Holy shit... My girl's going to Harvard.

  I should have been happy, but all I had in the pit of my stomach was a black hole.

  5

  Sophia

  Y

  ou're not pregnant, I told myself in the mirror. You can't be.

  So why was I holding a pregnancy test in my hand?

  After I'd spewed up my pizza, Emily had insisted I'd gone to the nearest drug store and pick up a test. And when I refused, she bought one for me and thrust it into my hand.

  “Just pee on the fucking thing,” she'd said, but I'd still refused.

  “I'm not pregnant,” I'd insisted. “I'm just not.”

  “Just do the test and find out.”

  But the truth was that I was too scared to.

  After she'd driven me home, I'd rushed up to my room and lay on my bed feeling as though my stomach had pulled itself inside out.

  In my hand was clutched the test still in its box and wrapper. I held it up to the light and turned it over in my hand.

  “You can't be pregnant... Or can you?”

  I knew that the moment I tore open the box I was going to have to take the test and then I would know for definite. But right now I was far too afraid to know. Right now I wanted to reside in this limbo state of not knowing.

  “Honey!” came Mom's voice from down the stairs.

  In a panic, I thrust the test beneath my pillow and sat up straight just as she barged right through my door.

  “Jesus, do you ever knock?”

  “I yelled, didn't I? Anyway, Ethan's here.”

  “He is!”

  I'd texted him hours ago but hadn't had a response yet.

  He was probably out buying me a big celebratory gift to say congratulations, I thought. That's why I haven't heard from him. But as he walked into my room, his face cast down to his shoes, I saw there was no sign of a present, or the big smile that was usually spread across his face.

  I waited until Mom disappeared back down the stairs before I ran to hug him. He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me back, but I noticed there was a weakness in his arms.

  “Hey...” he said, pulling away.

  “Hey... What's up?”

  “I got your text,” he said. “I'm so happy for you.”

  “Happy for me? You don't look it.”

  He sniffed and I now saw his cheeks were unusually red and his eyes were watery.

  “Have you been crying?” I asked.

  “No. It's just allergies.”

  “Aw... Come here. Give me a kiss.”

  I leaned into him and pressed my lips to his, but his kiss was lackluster and held none of the passion it usually did.

  “I don't get it,” I said. “I thought you'd be ecstatic for me. I'm going to Harvard, Ethan!”

  “I know! Shit. Sorry. I've kinda had a bad day. I am happy for you. Really I am. It's just that...”

  “That what?”

  He looked out the window, his eyes glossed over as though he'd disappeared inside his own head.

  “It's just that I'm not going to be able to come with you,” he eventually said.

  “But... What if we found a way where you could come with me?”

  “No... I really can't. I gotta stay here for my parents. You know that. And I can't just leave my mom.”

  “Aw, Ethan. You need to stop thinking about your parents so much and start looking after yourself. You could transfer to another college. A better college. You and me could start all over again away from this crappy little town.”

  He took a seat on the edge of the bed and cradled his head in his hands.

  “You're not listening,” he said. “I can't come with you. I can't leave my parents!”

  “Ethan. Come on. Don't be like this. Your parents can survive without you. You do too much for them. I mean isn't it about time some of your other family stepped in and helped? Besides, you can drive home to see them every few weeks or so and -”

  “Stop!... Just stop.”

  The ferocity in his voice took me aback and I stood staring at him, my mouth dropped open with the rest of my sentence frozen between my lips. In the whole time I'd known him I'd never heard him raise his voice to me. Not once. So why now?

  “I can't come,” he said.

  “Okay...” I breathed, sitting beside him and taking his hand. “We can make it work. “Couples have long distance relationships all the time, right? We can call each other every day and I'll come home every weekend. How does that sound?”

  He shook his head and pulled his hand away from mine.

  “I'm sorry. It just won't work.”

  His face was getting red again, and I could see his breathing getting faster and faster.

  “Ethan... What are you saying?”

  “I'm saying....”

  He paused for a second as his voice broke.

  “Ethan you're scaring me. You don't even look like yourself right now.”

  He pushed the heel of his hand into his eye and and I noticed his arm tremble ever so slightly.

  “I think we should break up,” he said, softly.

  “No... You don't mean that.”

  “I mean it,” he replied with a long sigh. “I can't hold you back anymore. You need to go to law school. It's what you've always wanted. But I'm always going to be stuck in this town. I'm always going to be tethered to my parents and I can't keep you held down anymore. You need to live your life, Sophia. And you need to live it without me.”

  “No, Ethan! How can you say this? I love you!”

  “And I love you too,” he cried, grabbing my hands.

  There was a raw fierceness in his eyes that frightened me. I'd never seen him look at me like that before. Had never seen him look so intense.

  “We can make it work,” I tried to convince him, but all he did was shake his head.

  “Go to law school and forget all about me,” he said.

  “No. How can I do that? I love you, Ethan!”

  He leaned in and kissed me, then he simply stood up and walked out the room.

  “I'm so sorry,” he said. “I love you so much.”<
br />
  “Wait!”

  But he was already hurrying out the door. Giving chase, I rushed down the stairs and outside, but the engine of his car rumbled and a moment later he was driving away.

  I stood in the driveway watching his car disappear into nothingness on the horizon with tears streaming down my face.

  “Honey?” asked Mom as she came hurrying out. “Aw, honey what's the matter?”

  “Ethan broke up with me,” I sobbed, falling into her arms.

  “He did?!”

  With a tight squeeze, she pulled me into her chest and kissed the top of my head.

  “Then he's a stupid boy and he doesn't know what he's missing. You forget all about him, you hear me?”

  I nodded with my head pushed hard into her breast, but I knew I could never forget about Ethan. He was the love of my life. He always would be.

  Throwing myself onto my bed, I pulled the pillow into my face and cried until my head throbbed.

  “Honey? Please don't cry like that!” called Mom through the door.

  But how exactly was I supposed to stop?

  I loved Ethan more than anything. Had assumed we were going to be together forever, but here he was telling me it was over and why? Because I got into law school? Because he didn't want to finally break away from his parents?

  You would think he was still a child the way he had to be around them all the time. I was always telling him to take a break from them. To learn to be a little more independent, but he always told me the same thing. I simply didn't understand what it was like to live with them. They needed him.

  But now his relationship with them had come between us. Or rather there was no us anymore. I couldn't wrap my head around it. This morning I'd got the best news of my life and I thought he'd want to share it with me.

  But he dumped me instead...

  “Asshole,” I thought as I sat up and dried my eyes with my sleeve. “If he wants to live here for the rest of his life in his parents' house then he can go right ahead. I'm going to make something of myself.

  “Fuck him. I'm going to Harvard and I'm going to be the best damn lawyer that ever lived. And him? Well he can dream all he wants about becoming a famous actor, but he's never conquering Hollywood if he can't even leave his parents' house. “

  Angrily, I picked up my pillow and hurled it at the wall. And it was then that I was reminded of what I had hidden beneath it.

  The pregnancy test.

  I'd almost forgotten about it, but now it was staring right at me as though willing me to take it out the box.

  Take the test, said one half of my brain.

  Don't you dare, said the other.

  I found myself slipping the test up my sleeve and opening my bedroom door. Mom was standing on the other side of it and leaped back when I bumped into her.

  “Were you hanging around out here the whole time?” I said.

  “I was just worried about you.”

  “What were you doing? Listening to me cry?”

  “Maybe...”

  “I'm okay,” I assured her.

  “You are? You look like you've just suffered an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Your face is as big as the moon.”

  “Geez, thanks Mom.”

  I edged around her, the pregnancy test still stuffed up my sleeve.

  “Honestly, you can stop hovering around me. I'll be okay. You were right about Ethan. I just have to forget about him. He's an asshole.”

  She took a step toward the stairs then hesitated.

  “It feels like the end of the world,” she told me. “But it isn't. I went through the same shit with your father. Of course, you were just a baby then. I was sure him and me were going to be together forever. Then he suddenly just took off with Tiffany,” she spat. “The bitch.”

  Tiffany had been our next-door neighbor and the girl Dad ran off with. I couldn't figure out why Mom hated her the most. Because she stole Dad from her, or because she was a full fifteen years younger. Either way, the name Tiffany was banned in the house unless Mom was hissing out her pursed lips.

  “I cried for days when your father left,” she continued. “But it was the best thing he ever did. He was an asshole too, and the two of us are far better off without him.”

  “Exactly,” I said, still edging my way around her with my eye on the bathroom. “Aaaaanyway... I'm just gonna.... Go to the bathroom. No need to hang around listening to me anymore. I'm not going to spontaneously combust on the toilet.”

  “Only if you're sure.”

  “Am I sure I'm not going to spontaneously combust on the toilet? Yeah... I'm pretty sure.”

  “Okay... Well, you call if you need anything.”

  At last, she walked away and descended the stairs, but she kept turning to look over her shoulder at me with each step.

  “Honestly, Mom I'm fine!”

  “Okay. Love you, honey.”

  At last, when I was sure she had finally gone, I scurried into the bathroom and slid the pregnancy test out from my sleeve.

  I can't believe I'm doing this. If it's positive... But it's not going to be positive, is it? I'm just being silly and Emily was just jumping to conclusions. It was nothing but a bad pizza. Not a baby for Christ's sake.

  Still, as much as I tried to convince myself I had nothing to worry about, my heart was beating like a hummingbird's as I held out the test and urinated on the strip.

  Urgh, this is so gross.

  When I finished, I pulled the test out from between my legs and stared at it for a long while.

  Two minutes. That was how long the box said I had to wait. Two minutes and I'd finally get my answer.

  But right then two minutes felt like two years.

  Pulling up my pants, I sat on the edge of the bath and stared at it, willing it to give me my answer as soon as possible.

  “Come on. Come on,” I mumbled under my breath. “How much longer can this take?”

  Time stood still. My heart felt as though it was going to beat out my chest and my mouth was impossibly dry.

  That morning everything was boring in my world. Things were normal and perfect with Ethan, I had no idea I'd even got into Harvard, and thoughts of pregnancy were non-existent. But here I was potentially becoming a lawyer and a single mother.

  With my eyes on the little window of the test, I held my breath as letters began to form.

  Soon I saw eight letters develop across the window. Eight letters that would change my life forever.

  Pregnant...

  For a full second, I was sure my heart had stopped as I gripped the edge of the bathtub to stop myself falling backward.

  I read it over and over again, hoping that at any second I'd realize I'd read it wrong. I even shook the test as though it would somehow change the result. But it was there in black and white.

  I was going to be a mother.

  6

  Ethan

  Seven years later

  “ O

  ne thousand. One thousand and one.”

  “I… can't… do… another.”

  “Just one more press up.”

  “No! I'm gonna… barf.”

  “Just one more.”

  “My arms… are gonna… snap.”

  “Just one!”

  “I hate you! Raahh”

  With all my strength, I pushed myself all the way up then was immediately overwhelmed by exhaustion and collapsed flat on my face.

  The rubbery smell of the gym mat mixed with my sweat stung my nostrils and I rolled over onto my back, gasping for air.

  “Gary...” I said, sucking in air. “Remind me again why I pay you to torture me like this.”

  “Because I'm the best fucking personal trainer in Hollywood and as the best actor in LA, you need me to look your best and do all those crazy stunts that make you famous.”

  “I still hate you,” I joked, sitting up to reach for my water bottle. “One of these days you're actually gonna make me puke.”

  “I'll break you ye
t,” he laughed.

  Walking over to the window of my home gym, he looked out across the infinity pool where my girlfriend Mila swam laps gracefully throughout the turquoise water.

  “This is some place you got here,” said Gary. “Must have set you back.”

  He may have been one of my closest friends and an amazing personal trainer, but he was also a nosy bastard, and was constantly dropping loaded statements and questions into conversation to get me to open up.

  “Yeah, it set me back a whole lot,” I said. “Almost my entire paycheck for my last movie.”

  “What did you get for The Rampage again? Thirty million?”

  “Thirty five,” I corrected him.

  He whistled and rocked back on his heels.

  “That's crazy money,” he said.

  “Crazy indeed.”

  Not that Mila thought it was crazy money. She barely thought it was negligible.

  “Thirty five?” she'd moaned when I told her. “You should have negotiated for fifty.”

  But nothing ever impressed her. Not even the pool she swam in now made her happy. She was always moaning it was too small and too cold. We'd only moved into our new house a little over a month ago, but she'd already found at least a dozen faults with just the pool alone.

  I watched Gary's eyes on her as she moved and wondered what he was thinking. He had the weirdest habit of studying people's bodies and thinking about ways he could improve them.

  It was as though he could see all the way through all the layers of skin and fat right down to what he believed mattered most. The muscle. I always thought he should have been a surgeon with all his knowledge of human anatomy.

  He was probably dissecting Mila's breaststroke right now, imagining each movement of her biceps and glutes.

  “Okay,” he said at last, sucking on his bottle of water. “Another hundred.”

  “Another hundred press ups?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Do I ever kid?” he said, striding back over to me. “Come on. Another hundred.”

  “Fuck off. There's no way I can do it. I'm practically dying here.”

  “Hey! Warner Brothers contracted me to sculpt you into a superhero in three months so that's what I'm gonna do. Now get moving!”