by Amira Rain
I showered, dressed, and waited all morning, thinking that maybe Gavin had just gone out to get us some breakfast from a café. Around ten, I started thinking that maybe he’d needed to do some errands before picking up breakfast. Around eleven, I lost all hope in this possibility. Around noon, I began to feel in my gut that he was gone for good. He was never coming back.
Over the next several days, I cried for him. I cried because I missed him and was mad at him. I cried because I felt like I loved and hated him all at the same time. I cried because I just couldn’t reconcile his words and seeming sincerity with his actions.
I cried my heart out over a man that I’d spent just a few hours with and had slept with exactly once. When Eric and I had broken up after two years together, I’d actually tried to make myself cry, just because I’d felt like I should, but I just hadn’t been able to.
During those first few days after Gavin’s leaving, I also cried for myself. I cried because I felt stupid, felt like an absolute fool. Clearly, I’d allowed some kind of a game to be run on me. Clearly, I’d fallen victim to a man who’d only wanted one thing. At the same time, though, if that were really true, I couldn’t understand why Gavin had said what he had after, when he’d already gotten what he’d wanted.
He hadn’t had to caress my face after, telling me that I was stunning. He hadn’t had to promise me that he was going to come back. In fact, it almost seemed like added cruelty that he had. I would have preferred him to just be brutally honest, and say that no, he was definitely moving on to wherever he was headed. That would have hurt me badly to hear, but not as badly as his lie had hurt me.
After what felt like endless thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that maybe Gavin was just the rare man who preferred his one-night-stands to be filled with romance and fantasy, despite the fact that he was a complete liar and a fraud.
Maybe it just did something for him, I figured. Maybe he even liked carrying on with the romance and fantasy until the very end, and that’s why he said what he had even after our passion had been spent. I couldn’t think of any other explanation for his behavior.
On day four, my crying spells stopped. I just felt empty. Empty, that is, except for being filled with regret. I wished that I’d never met Gavin, and that we’d never shared a night of passion. This was because even though it had apparently all been a lie on his part, just an elaborate acting game, he’d made me feel some very genuine, strong emotions that I knew I could never forget. And now I was afraid that what I’d felt might prevent me from ever finding true happiness. I was afraid I’d never meet another man like Gavin, a man who’d made me feel the way he had, even though it had all just turned out to be a game in the end.
I was tempted to try to make some attempt to track him down in an attempt to confirm my thinking about him or get some answers, although I really knew so little about him, I wasn’t sure if tracking him down would even be possible. And, in fact, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be. I knew his first name and the make and model of his truck, and I knew that he’d been an all-state varsity baseball player for four years. I knew that he had a sweet spot for caramel apples. That was about it.
Besides, I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to track down a person who clearly wanted nothing more to do with me. I may have been heartbroken, but I still had my pride and dignity. And to me, the possibility of getting some half-baked explanation from Gavin, if he’d even provide one, wasn’t worth losing those things.
However, about a week after Gavin’s exit, I had a moment of crumbling resolve, brought about by seeing the teddy bear he’d won for me at the fair. The day after, when I’d realized that Gavin had taken off, I’d stuck the bear in my linen closet, not wanting to throw it out but not wanting to see it. Then, I’d completely forgotten about it, which was why it kind of took me off guard early Saturday evening, while I’d been putting away towels.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I hopped in my car and drove to The Doodle to see Dana. Since it was very early in the evening, the bar was mercifully empty of pipeliners, and I ordered a beer, saying that I’d been bored at home and had just felt like stopping in to say hi.
Setting my beer on the counter, Dana gave me a dubious look. “I’m always glad to visit with you, but I know you dislike bars. You’re one of the few people I know from high school who isn’t in here all the time. So, what’s the real reason you stopped by? In the mood to share a few details about your night with that hunky man from out-of-town?”
Face warming, I took a sip of my beer and set the mug down, shaking my head. “No…I mean, there’s really not much to tell. We had a pretty nice time at the fair and maybe planned to meet up again, but then we even forgot to exchange numbers, and he really didn’t tell me much about himself, so…well, I guess I was just wondering if he happened to tell you his last name or hometown or anything while he was in here…maybe while I was in the bathroom cleaning up after Angie or something.”
Leaning on the bar with folded arms, Dana shook her head. “No…sorry. He really didn’t seem inclined to talk about himself at all.”
He hadn’t at the fair, either. Whenever I’d asked him anything even semi-personal, he’d either answered vaguely or had steered the conversation back to me.
Before Dana and I could talk further, a boisterous group of young men entered the bar, with one of them announcing that it was his twenty-first birthday and he was “ready to get messed up!”
Dana snorted, pushing herself up from her lean across the counter. “Think I should even bother setting out my classy candleholders on the tables tonight?”
While the guys swaggered their way up to the bar, I sipped my beer, and before she went to start pouring their drinks, Dana gave me a sympathetic sort of look and spoke in a low voice.
“I really am sorry I don’t have any info for you, Alyssa. Not that I have a ton of personal experience with them myself, but Men can be such assholes…even ones who seem so nice at first. I hope you at least got some fun out of Mr. Hunk.”
I soon left the bar, mad at myself for “weakening” and asking about Gavin in the first place.
However, once I got home, my anger at myself didn’t stop me from opening my laptop, intending to get info about Gavin a different way. I didn’t even know why I still wanted it; I just did. Especially since I’d thought of a way I might be able to get that info fairly easily, with just a bit of detective work.
Since Gavin hadn’t struck me as having any particular accent, I figured he must just have a standard Midwest accent, like I did, meaning he’d likely grown up in the Midwest and had possibly played baseball in the Midwest as well. So, just to start out my search, I typed Michigan + Gavin + varsity high school baseball + all-state + pitcher in a search engine. Thousands of results came up, but the first page didn’t contain anything even remotely like what I was looking for, so I tried again, this time entering Indiana as the first search word. And this time, the first result made me think I possibly just had a bit of beginner’s luck.
It was an undated, grainy, scanned article about a Gavin Rossi-Macfarlane who’d been an all-state varsity pitcher for four years at Washington Heights High School in Washington Heights, Indiana. After speed-reading the article and not gleaning any other identifying information, I opened a new tab and searched for Gavin Rossi-Macfarlane on the nation’s most-used social networking site. A profile came up right away, dashing my hopes, because Gavin Rossi-Macfarlane clearly wasn’t Gavin. Gavin Rossi-Macfarlane, who grinned in his profile photo against a backdrop of what looked like some major-league baseball field, was African-American.
My search continued with similar dead-ends, no matter which Midwestern state I searched and what keywords I used. I tried all different combinations of terms, words, and states, some simple and some complicated, but never found anything useful, and after two hours or so of exhaustive searching, my determination began to flag. Not long after that, I closed my laptop, realizing that was I was doing was essentially look
ing for a needle in a haystack.
Not to mention that I’d already realized that there probably wasn’t much info on the internet about high school baseball during the years that Gavin had played anyway. Being that I guessed that he was in his early thirties, he’d probably graduated high school some fourteen or fifteen years earlier, when high school sports stats generally only appeared in the local paper. I hadn’t even found any info on high school baseball all-state players that was any more recent than eight years earlier.
It’s just as well, I told myself. You don’t need any lame explanations or excuses anyway. Some men are just assholes. Time to move on.
Over the next two weeks, I tried to do just that, throwing myself into work so that I wouldn’t have much time to think. Fortunately, there was a lot of work at the gym to do. Not only did I need to safety-certify two new preschool gymnastics instructors who were set to start work at the end of the summer, Betty had also tasked me with completely overhauling the existing preschool program, including drawing up all-new weekly lesson plans for every single class.
On top of all this, it was time for two back-to-back “summer camp” weeks at the gym, with kids staying for eight hours a day. When they went home, I had just enough time for a short early dinner break before my “cheerleader hopefuls,” teen girls who wanted to learn some tumbling skills before tryouts, came in for an hour-and-a-half class.
During these weeks, I was vaguely aware of some kind of a buzz around town, something about the Free Dragon State having a new commander-in-chief of the nation. Everyone was excited and glad, because a stable FDS to our north hopefully meant peaceful, long-term stability for everyone in the region, including those of us down in Michigan.
I was glad about the new commander-in-chief, too, in a back-of-my-mind sort of way, though I really didn’t pay much attention, being incredibly busy at the gym. Not to mention that I’d never been incredibly interested in international politics anyway. I knew that the new FDS commander-in-chief was named David Iverson, and that was about it.
At the end of my two exceptionally busy weeks at work, I began to feel really run-down, no huge surprise. I’d even begun to feel exhausted to the point of feeling a little sick periodically, like I had at lunch that day, as well as the day before. But again, this really wasn’t a huge surprise. Stress had always had a tendency to kill my appetite and make me feel a bit ill.
What was a surprise was waking up feeling incredibly nauseated that Saturday morning, even after a full ten hours of blissful, deep sleep. After vomiting not much of anything, since I hadn’t eaten since about six the evening before, I brushed my teeth and sat on the edge of the bathtub, heart racing, but not because I’d just gotten sick. I was starting to get a clue about what might really be going on, and it wasn’t stress.
A quick scroll through the calendar in my phone confirmed my thinking. I was six days late for my period. I hadn’t noted the date of my last period, but I remembered it, because I’d gotten it right before leaving my apartment for Betty’s birthday dinner, which I had noted on the calendar. Somehow, I’d been so busy I hadn’t even noticed I was late at all, let alone six days.
I didn’t even shower, just washed my face, threw my hair up in a messy bun, and flung on some clothes, before flying out of the apartment to make a trip to the pharmacy.
When I checked out with my purchase, which was a pregnancy test multipack with two test sticks, the teenaged boy doing the checking silently glanced from the box to me, and then from the box to my left hand, possibly checking for a wedding ring, which made a little heat rise to my face. It became a little warmer still when the boy handed me my purchase in a bag and said good luck.
“I hope it turns out whatever way you want it to be.”
After mumbling thanks, I all but sprinted out of the pharmacy with my thoughts racing. It’s going to be negative. I’m just late because I’ve been stressed and very physically active. That’s all. It’s going to be negative. No doubt. I’ll probably be laughing about all this soon. Just laughing my damn head off.
The first test definitely wasn’t negative. Neither was the second. I didn’t laugh. I didn’t cry, though, either. I just felt numb. Just shocked to the point of absolute numbness.
After taking a good look at the second test, I had a seat on the edge of the tub, weak-kneed. Immediately, my phone began going off, and I mechanically took it from my pocket, saw an unfamiliar number with an Indianapolis area code on the screen, and then hastily answered, stupidly thinking it might somehow be Gavin. It wasn’t him, though. On the other end of the line, it was Nikki, saying she’d just gotten a new phone.
“Accidentally dropped the old one in a urinal full of pee and beer last night. Hard to explain what was going on.”
She went on to say that she was out and about doing some shopping and errands and just thought she’d give me a call to check in, since we hadn’t talked since the night at The Doodle.
“And I just thought that maybe you might be interested to hear the tale of what happened after Liz and I left with those two pipeliners.”
Still in a state of complete shock and hardly able to focus on what she was saying, I somehow managed an mm-hmm, too out of it to realize that I could just say it wasn’t a good time to talk and end the call.
“Okay, great. So, let me tell you this sad tale. So, Liz and I left The Cock with Rick and Tim. Rick was my red-haired guy, remember? So, we go back to their rental house. Rick and I pretty much fall down on the couch, kind of pawing on each other, and Liz and Tim go into some bedroom down the hall and immediately start having a pretty good time, just by the sound of Liz yelling, ‘Oh, yeah!’ and ‘Harder! Harder!’ At first, Rick and I had a little laugh-fest about it all, and then we started having some whiskey from this jug thing or whatever on the coffee table.
Then we got laughing even harder, and then…I don’t even know. We made out some; we laughed some more; we watched this cartoon; and at some point, Liz and Tim went quiet. So, then…then…by the way, can you still hear me, Alyssa? This new phone is being annoyingly fuzzy for a second here and there. You still with me?”
I’d carried the second pregnancy test from the counter over to the tub with me and had set it down beside me on the ledge, and I now picked it up again, just staring at it. “Mm-hmm.”
“Okay, great. Well, really pay attention, here, because this is the crazy part of the story. So, all that regular, boring stuff happened, and then Rick and I are sitting on the couch just like normal, and I’m thinking that I’m about to undo his pants and get really serious about things, but then he does something crazy. He, get this, Alyssa, he pulls out a pipe. He pulls out a pipe. Not kidding. And he says, ‘You up for some?’ Can you believe that?”
Still staring at the pregnancy test, I forced myself to respond, trying to force my brain to work at the same time. “You mean…like…he pulled his ‘pipe’ out of his pants or something? Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Nikki heaved a deep, prolonged sigh, drowning out the sound of honking car horns in the distance. “No, Alyssa…not a ‘pipe’ pipe. He pulled out a crack pipe. With crack in it. I guess some of the pipeliners are into it on the weekends. Meth, too.”
“Oh.”
"But I’m not. I don’t get into any of that really crazy shit, not even drunk off my ass. I might lose my judgment a little bit, here and there, but I don’t lose my whole mind; get what I’m saying? I’m smarter than that. Some of the other girls at the office even get into some crazy drug stuff sometimes when we party, and I’m always the first one to tell them it’s seriously dumb. And I don’t even care if I sound like you. I don’t even care if I sound like a total mom.
"But, anyway, so Rick was like, ‘You mess with this stuff?’ And I was just like...'Later, dude.' And he was just basically like...'Whatever. I’d rather get high than screw,’ and I was just like, ‘Yeah, obviously.' So, end of story, I grabbed Liz and helped her get dressed; we left the house; and some old dude came driving alo
ng and gave us a ride back to Liz’s house. I did not get any pipe that night.
Very disappointing. Very boring. So, moral of the story, I guess I should have picked a different pipeliner. One who was actually ready to lay some pipe, and not just smoke illegal drugs from one. But…I guess win some, you lose some. That’s life.” After pausing for a deep breath and a long exhale, Nikki continued. “So, anyway, what did you do after the bar? Just went home?"
"No, I...." Still staring at the positive pregnancy test in my hand, I hesitated briefly. "I went to the fair."
"Oh, why I am not surprised? Well, did you get that caramel apple you were wanting so badly?"
"Yeah.” Again, I hesitated briefly, just still unable to fully process the two dark pink lines on the test. “Although I ended up getting a little more than that, actually."
"Sorry, say that again. This damned phone keeps fuzzing out."
"Oh, I was just saying that yes, I got my caramel apple."
"Well, how was it? Worth all your longing and waiting?"
"Well...it maybe wasn't quite as sweet as I'd hoped. Maybe the first bite was, but...."
"Sorry, you fuzzed out again. You said it was good?"
Suddenly, I became aware of a tear sliding down my cheek, and I brushed it away.
"Yeah."
"Well, at least one of us got what we'd been wanting that night, right?"
"Yeah."
Nikki soon ended the call, saying that she was about to get into an elevator with a "solid nine out of ten...maybe even a nine-point-five, because he looks rich."
I pocketed my phone recalling how I had been hassling Nikki about birth control the night we’d went to The Doodle, when now it was clear that I was the one who’d needed the hassling. Unbelievably, when Gavin and I had tumbled into bed, birth control just simply hadn’t crossed my mind, despite the fact that I’d gotten off the pill several months earlier, when Eric and I had broken up.
