The Hunter

by Jessica Gunn

  The world seemed to fall away at my feet. I reached out a hand to my mattress to ground me, to convince my mind I’d somehow survive.

  “Sandra, I know I missed our date this morning and I’m sorry. Coach had me—”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  I blinked, words ceasing their outward movement past my lips. My mouth dried to rival a desert. Warmth seemed to be vacuumed out of the room in an instant, there one moment and utterly gone the next.

  Sandra’s hands shook, then her whole body. She looked up at me with expectant eyes, red from crying and now I understood why. At least, I thought.

  “You’re not breaking up with me?”

  It was quite possibly the stupidest thing to ask, but the words escaped my mouth before I had any idea what was happening. That was what I’d thought she’d come here for. To end it. And for her to say something else, to say what she had…

  Does not compute. My brain didn’t understand. I didn’t understand.

  She shook her head slowly like she couldn’t believe I’d been dumb enough to ask that, as if she thought I was stupid enough to think it was even a possibility. Or maybe that was just me adding my own commentary to a situation to which I suddenly felt like an outside viewer.

  “No, Ben,” she said. “At least, I don’t think so. Did you hear what I said?”

  I wasn’t sure. All the noise around me, my heartbeat and her words included, now sounded as though they were coming at me through a wall of cotton. Muted, lost. Like I’d been not a month and a half ago.

  “You’re… pregnant?” It took a few tries to get the last word out, as though my tongue had grown three sizes and now couldn’t operate. “How?” Idiot. Another dumb question. “I mean, I know how, but…” Sure, we’d had sex a lot lately. Especially after the coma. But we’d been super careful…

  Except for that first time.

  My eyelids closed and I released a long breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding as panic surged through every inch of my body. Holy crap. This was possible. This was happening. No. No way. Not now, not after… “Are you sure?”

  She laughed once, but it wasn’t a happy sound. A bitterness hung in the air between us, shaped by her single chuckle that managed to relay disbelief, hurt, and fear all at once. I reached for her, as much to comfort her as to anchor myself in this moment of reality that shouldn’t be happening, much less right fucking now, but Sandra leaned away from me.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she hissed. “I’ve known for over a week now. I just wasn’t sure how to tell you, or when, because you’ve been all-football-all-the-time.”

  Words froze in my throat as alarm sirens shrieked in my head. Keep your mouth shut. Do not speak, Hallen. Nothing I’d say would make this moment any easier. I hadn’t been around because of football, that was absolutely true. No denying that.

  But I also hadn’t been around because my head was still half in the darkness of the void I’d slept in for three months. And I hadn’t told anyone about that, hadn’t been able to even form the words to let anyone know that sometimes I missed the silence of that black lake and sky. That sometimes the coma had been easier than real life. There’d been no expectations there, no work. No one to accidentally miss dates with. And definitely no coaches kicking my ass for missing the first two games of the season, even if we’d won them.

  But the truth was: I had noticed Sandra acting weird. Rushing off the few calls we’d had, or meeting up later at night than we used to. And I’d brushed it all off as nothing.

  So, instead of denying her argument, I said, “I know.” My gaze dropped and I hung my head. “I know, and I’m sorry, Sandra.” I was the worst sort of person.

  “Yeah? Well, me too.” She hiccupped a sob, tried to stop it from getting worse by coughing, but ended up crying.

  My heart twisted around itself and I pulled her into my arms. “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop apologizing,” she said into my shoulder. “Stop saying you’re sorry and start telling me what to do about this because I honestly have no idea.” She pulled away from me and glanced up with that expectant look again.

  What did she want me to say? For us to keep the baby? Not to keep it? I knew what I wanted: to go back in time before the accident and live life like normal.

  But the look in her eyes, that expectant hope I knew translated as her not wanting me to walk away from this or her… She wanted the baby. I knew it as sure in my gut without her saying the words as I knew that when I threw that football, Derek would catch it and run for a touchdown. My gut wasn’t often wrong.

  “We’re twenty-one, Sandra,” I said, more trying to reason with myself over this than to attempt convincing her to get rid of the baby. I knew she wouldn’t, and she knew she wouldn’t, but these words were coming out all wrong. And they’d continue to because my only play right now was word vomit. I just had to keep talking until I’d talked myself out of this situation and back into reality because holy crap, Sandra is pregnant. “We’re not ready for a kid. We can barely handle college.”

  That was a lie. She’d handled school and working near full-time hours just fine. It was me and me alone. I knew I wasn’t mature enough to raise a child. Jesus, I shouldn’t have to raise a kid yet.

  Pressure built at the back of my throat, like I’d swallowed something metal and cold. I rubbed my chest to try working it out but only succeeded in making my breaths come in shallow gasps.

  Sandra rolled her eyes slowly and looked away, not in a rude way, but like a last desperate grab for reality. “I know. Believe me, I know. But I can’t… I won’t. And I won’t make you stay with me, Ben, I love you too much for that, but I need you to—”

  “Stop.”

  How would we even be able to afford a kid? I didn’t work. Not really. And right now, I was going to school on a full-ride scholarship that’d end if we didn’t win tomorrow’s game. Then I’d have to somehow cough up enough money for next semester, or risk not graduating at all.

  And then what? Say we didn’t lose and say we made it through next semester and graduated and Sandra had the kid, then what? I needed someone to tell me, to fill in that big fucking blank.

  Sandra rested a hand on my leg. “Ben.”

  I shook my head and pushed her warm hand away. Then I was standing next to the door with no idea how I’d gotten there or how much time had passed since I’d moved. “I-I can’t. I mean, I know I need to. But not right now. Not with the game tomorrow and school and—”

  She now also stood, arms crossed over her chest and the saddest, most heartbroken look I’d ever seen in my life on her face. “Forget that stuff, Ben.”

  It cracked my heart in half, but I planted my feet. I was not moving toward her. I needed space to think, to figure this out, to write some sort of play that wouldn’t end with us imploding or me becoming a shitty father, or her growing so tired of my stupid antics that she left me before I even had a shot to prove to her that maybe I did want this. Or, if I didn’t want this, that I could at least handle having a kid until I did want it.

  “I need time,” I said. Each word felt ripped from my very soul, so painful to speak that I hoped she wouldn’t make me repeat them. Me. A father. I didn’t know how to be a father. My own had died when I was so young, and though Uncle Dave did the best he could, we both knew he wasn’t my father.

  I can’t. I couldn’t do this right now, right here.

  Sandra pressed her lips together as fresh tears streamed in torrents down her cheeks. She wiped them away with the back of her hand. “How much time, Ben?”

  Hell, I didn’t know. I ran a hand through my hair, pausing to rub the back of my neck, as my thoughts ran a million miles a minute. Part of me wanted to say, “Give me about nine months to think about it,” but I managed to keep my lips firmly sealed.

  “A few hours?” I asked. “I… God, this sounds weak as hell, but I literally just woke up twenty minutes ago from a nightmare about the void, three hours late to breakfast with you. I missed all my
classes. I’m not sure my brain’s working yet and I don’t want to say anything I’ll regret. Please, Sandra. Please understand that.”

  She nodded slowly, but I got the distinct impression from the way her tongue ran along her teeth that while she didn’t say a word, it wasn’t okay. Nothing would be ever again. “I’ve been dealing with this alone for a week. A whole week, Ben. Only my mom knows. And for three months this summer, I dealt with you being in a coma. I waited for you to get out of that, I stood by your side and defended you when your aunt and uncle wanted to pull the plug. So sure, you can have a few hours. But I need to know tonight if you’re going to stick by me like I stuck by you.” Her tears started flowing again. “I don’t want to make this a fight or an ultimatum, but god, Ben… we’ve been dating for five years. I think we could survive this. I just need an answer.”

  “I’ll give you one. I promise.” And I didn’t break my promises. But without space and time to think, and maybe some coffee, I wasn’t sure an answer or reasonable thoughts about her being pregnant would happen anytime soon. “Give me the afternoon. Please.”

  She lifted her chin and straightened her posture. “Fine. I’ll see you at dinner.” Then she walked past me, pausing long enough to give me a quick hug before leaving me alone.

  Derek walked into the room a second after Sandra left and asked, “Whoa, man. You two break up or something?”

  I wiped at a stray tear I didn’t realize had made its way past my normally-emotionless wall. “No.” Not yet, anyway.

  “Good,” he said. “She might, though.”

  I spun on him. “Excuse me?”

  He reached for his phone and held up an email from Coach for me to see. “Double practice tonight. 4 p.m. straight through until 11 p.m.”

  Sudden anger bubbled up from somewhere inside my chest. “Shit!” My fingers twitched and I felt a static shock, prickling against my skin in tiny, painful thumps. I looked down. The shocks continued, but they weren’t shocks at all. They were mini-lightning strikes.

  I shoved my hand behind my back, away from Derek’s line of sight. “Sandra is going to kill me. Not break up with me. Not leave me. Kill me.”

  “If there’s anything of you left.”

  I lifted an eyebrow at him. “What’s that mean?”

  Derek flashed the email again. “Coach says there will be Pro Scouts at the game.”

  I closed my eyes, steeling myself with as much oxygen as possible. Of course there’d be scouts there. When had the universe ever worked in my damn favor?

  Answer: only once. The universe had woken me up from my coma. And she’d been waiting to collect ever since.

  Chapter 5

  I called Sandra exactly sixteen times after practice. I’d decided to go to my afternoon classes, figuring that if Coach heard I hadn’t attended them, he’d only make tonight that much worse. So, I went to class. Until 3:45 p.m., when I had to sprint across campus to change into gear for practice, and was still five minutes late.

  It was hell. True hell. If it wasn’t evident before—and believe me when I said it was—us winning tomorrow’s game was more important to Coach than anything else. Probably more than if we made it all the way to the championship. This was the game the scouts would be at, which was as imperative to Coach as it was to us.

  But after sixteen calls at 11 p.m., I’d decided Sandra was either already pissed off and asleep, or she was so raging mad at me that I wasn’t likely to ever hear from her again.

  In either case, her not calling back tonight was a likely possibility. So I shot off a goodnight text and retreated to the closest off-campus bar: Sam’s.

  I pushed through the door and into the crowded space. Swarms of people collected here every Friday night. I tried not to make it a habit of coming here, especially the night before a game, because all everyone ever wanted to talk about was how we planned on beating our rival team, or how bad or good the last game had gone. And when it wasn’t football season, Sam’s was filled with every freshman and sophomore who’d managed to get a fake ID.

  The scent of cigarette smoke and spilled beer with a hint of vodka filled the space. I tried not to breathe too deeply. I just needed a few shots, something to help me forget or at least come to some decision about Sandra, and then get to sleep. Enough to help me pass out but not be hungover. That precious balance I never seemed to attain.

  People at the bar moved to let me through, though they hounded me with questions at every step.

  “Ready for tomorrow’s big game?”

  “What’s the strategy?”

  “Ha! If you lose tomorrow, you’ll be the laughingstock of the entire school, Hallen!”

  I blocked them out as best I could. How was I supposed to think about tomorrow’s game when all sixteen unanswered calls to Sandra weighed me down as though I were standing in the deepest part of the ocean with cement at my feet? She was pregnant. Didn’t anyone understand what that did to a person? One second, I was just trying to make it through the week to tomorrow’s game, still reeling from my accident, and in the very next moment, the entire world was looking at me, asking if I was ready to help raise a child. A life. A real person-thing that would need every ounce of attention I was able to give it, and then even more than that.

  I scrubbed my face with both palms as I slid onto a barstool at the counter.

  Sam didn’t even ask what I wanted, just pulled out a bottle from under the register and poured something dark into a small glass. He slid it over to me and said, “On the house. You look like you need it.”

  I accepted it gratefully and downed it in one gulp. “You would too, if you only knew.”

  Sam cringed, the wrinkles around his eyes becoming more pronounced. “That’s not exactly a shots kind of drink.”

  “Today was bullshit,” I said. “I’ll chug whatever I want.”

  He lifted his hands and backed away a step. “Fine by me. Make sure you get to the field in the morning or Coach will have my head. And no more drinks on the house.”

  I waved him off. “Whatever.” I had money enough for drinks.

  Or should I go home now and save that money for Sandra and the baby?

  I rubbed my face again, stopping short of following through with the desire to smack it on the wooden bar. This was what I’d meant, what I was so afraid of.

  Did I want Sandra to leave me? No. I still wanted to marry her. But now, I wasn’t sure she’d say yes. I wasn’t sure she would want me at all after tonight.

  I waved Sam over and asked for two more shots of whatever he’d given me. He poured the drinks and set them down in front of me.

  As I stared into one of the glasses, another question boomeranged to the forefront of my mind: Did I want to be a father? Because that was really the only question that mattered, wasn’t it? If I answered yes, I’d probably stay with Sandra. I’d have manned up to the situation and done the right thing.

  The right thing for who, though? Her? The baby? What about me? Did I even get a say in this? I threw back the first drink. Yes. I did get a say, and that “say” was what I was currently trying to figure out.

  I gripped the third drink as the buzz from the others started thrumming throughout my body. Whatever Sam had poured me was strong and it was working. Thank god. I gulped the last glass and sat back from the bar. Only after three drinks did my real fear come burrowing up from beneath the surface. A fear I didn’t want to admit to anyone.

  My own father had died young. I supposed a part of me was afraid of that, too. And though the chances of following in his footsteps were unlikely, I’d already been struck by lightning once before.

  That was my answer for Sandra if she’d let me give it. I wanted to be a father. I’d even do it now. But she had to realize how terrified I was. Not of being a terrible dad, but of being a dead one.

  “Hey,” someone said as they sidled up to me at the bar.

  I looked over to find Rachel, cheeks flushed from alcohol and a guy hanging at her side. My overprotective re
action was instant. I sized the guy up, though his outfit and expression, and Rachel’s penchant for engineers, said I wouldn’t have an issue taking him down if he hurt her.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Her brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?” As if the recognition of my devastated mood could be that instant. Between siblings, I supposed it would.

  I glanced over her shoulder at her guy friend. “Can we have a minute?” He shrugged and walked away without hesitation. “Good taste you have there.”

  Rachel smacked my shoulder. “Leave him alone. He’s a nice guy.”

  “Who let you get drunk.”

  She gave me an “are you kidding me?” look. “I’m not drunk, and even if I were, it’s Friday. Who gives a crap?”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “Sorry. I know.”

  She placed a hand on my arm, eyes softening in concern. “What’s wrong, Ben? Nervous about tomorrow?”

  “I can’t even think about tomorrow, Rachel,” I said. “I should be banned from the game.”

  Her face scrunched up in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  I looked her straight in the eyes and figuratively raised my white flag of surrender. “Sandra’s pregnant. I don’t know what to do.”

  Rachel held my gaze for a moment before reaching past me to put her drink on the counter and pay off my bill. Then she took my hand and led me out of the bar. The cold air smacked against my face and uncovered my sobriety.

  “First thing you do is leave the bar,” she said. “Go home. Get some sleep. Play your ass off in the morning.”

  “I should see her first,” I said, my gaze traveling to the buildings in the distance. I could just make out the top of her dorm. “Before the game.”

  “Absolutely not,” Rachel said as she jabbed a finger against my chest. “That gives you a time limit for the conversation and this isn’t one that should be rushed. Play your ass off. Win the game. Then talk to her. And be honest for once in your goddamn life, okay?”