Brutal Game

by Cara McKenna

  He must have sensed the time for joking was over; he took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I can go with you.”

  She pursed her lips. It all felt so insanely intimate, this moment. Whatever the verdict might be, she didn’t yet know what she’d feel about it. Though she did know one thing. “I’ll go by myself. I’d prefer you hear the news from me, rather than from staring at a stick I peed on.”

  “Whatever you need.”

  She took a deep breath, blew it out slow and noisy and didn’t feel a jot calmer.

  Flynn offered another squeeze and nodded toward the bathroom.

  “Right. Okay. Here I go.” Her hand fell from his and she crossed the small apartment, the journey at once endless and way, way too short. When she hit the switch, the light was so bright, the fan so loud. The tub so white and the tile so cold. The plastic wand sat on the sink’s edge, so innocuous. She crept up on it, squinting so she couldn’t make out its little window. When she had it in hand, she shut her eyes, took a breath, another, another. Opened them.

  It took a moment to make sense of it. A blue line. Another blue line, fainter, crisscrossing the first, the point where they met darkest of all, like stripes intersecting on a field of gingham.

  “Plus sign,” she muttered. That means pregnant. Doesn’t it? She set the wand down with a trembling hand and fished the instructions from the trash can. The illustration left no room for doubt.

  Holy fuck. I’m pregnant. She snatched up the stick and stared at the window, expecting the second line to be lighter, maybe negligible, maybe inconclusive. But no, there was no denying it.

  “Fuck.” She glanced down at her belly, eased up the hem of her shirt. Same pasty white skin as always, same navel with the same single freckle beside it. How could this landscape look so normal, and yet something so monumental be taking place just an inch or two below the surface?

  “Laurel?”

  She looked to the door. “Be right out.” Staring in the mirror, she found herself only wide-eyed, looking drunk or high or dazed. At a loss, she sputtered her lips in a raspberry and finger-combed her hair.

  Time to change a man’s life forever.

  She left the bathroom. Flynn was sitting in the same spot on the bed, eyes nailed to her as she emerged. His brows rose but he said nothing.

  She didn’t know what to say herself. It wasn’t as though they’d been trying for this. She couldn’t rush him, pee-stick in hand, tossing herself into his arms and making his dreams come true.

  Her silence seemed to speak for her.

  “It’s positive, isn’t it?” he asked, voice soft and serious. Not grave, but somber, she thought.

  She nodded.

  “C’mere.”

  He took her wrist as she drew close and pulled her down onto his lap. Strong arms encircled her waist and hugged her tight, and he pressed his mouth to her throat. His exhalation was long and warm and heavy.

  “What do you think?” she whispered, wishing she knew her own answer to the question.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I have no idea what to do—” She’d nearly said, what to do about it, but that sounded so cold, like it was a pest and she had to choose between squashing it or trapping it with a glass and an envelope and shunting it out the window.

  “Two choices,” Flynn said, lips tickling her neck.

  “Two really awful choices. Oh. Three, I guess.”

  He pulled back to meet her eyes. “Three? You mean adoption?”

  She nodded.

  His smile was small, a mix of sad and mischievous. “Honey, if you decide to have this baby, I’m raisin’ it, whether you want to join me or not.”

  She could only stare at him.

  “That’s not to say that it isn’t completely your decision to make. And whatever you decide, I’ll support you. But I know what it was like, having my dad walk out of my life, and no child born into this world with me as its father is gonna find out what that feels like.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. She doubted she could form words, anyhow, emotion lodged like a fist in her throat. Flynn’s expression was soft but those eyes shone with something she knew well both from fight nights and from sex. Something hard and male and unbreakable.

  “If you’re not ready to be a mom,” he said, “I get that. You have plans. Ones you put on hold long enough.”

  “Yeah. I do.” She didn’t want to have a child now, not before she put her degree to use, landed a job with a salary capable of even making parenthood feasible. Boston was no place to raise a kid on tips. She needed a career, and a chance to live with this man for a while, as a couple—

  “Honey, you okay?”

  She blinked, slipping free from the swirl of panic. He must have seen it on her face. “I’m okay. Just overwhelmed.”

  “We can talk about it for ages, still,” he said. “For weeks, probably, right? Until you have to make a decision?”

  She wasn’t sure how long you could wait before getting an abortion, but she guessed she was only five weeks along, so there was time, probably. Although time sounded suffocating, same as the choices. “I’ve got a while, I guess… You’d really raise a kid on your own, if I decided I wasn’t ready?”

  “If the choice was that or adoption, yeah. I would.”

  “That’d be so hard.”

  “It would. But Heather managed it.”

  “I can’t imagine what…” She trailed off, lost all over again. What on earth would the kid think of her if she walked away, left it all in Flynn’s hands? To imagine saddling a child with the pain and resentment she felt toward her own mother opened up a pit in her stomach, raw and aching. She put her hand to the spot then quickly moved it away, remembering what was going on in there.

  Would leaving it in his hands really be so bad, if the alternative was subjecting it to an unfit mother? A depressive, thoroughly not-ready mother? She couldn’t even seem to get her professional life in order. How the fuck was she qualified to raise a child?

  “You’d be okay if I decided I wasn’t ready, period?” she asked.

  “Completely.”

  But could he be? If he knew already he’d be willing to take the responsibility on by himself, did that leave room for ambivalence? Did it leave room in his heart to keep loving a woman who might choose to end the pregnancy? Was it even okay, she wondered, to be so completely clueless about what she wanted to do? Both choices made her sick to her stomach.

  “I wish I felt as certain as you seem to,” she whispered.

  He laughed faintly. “Honey, I’m as lost as you.”

  “You promise?”

  She felt him nodding, his chin brushing her temple. “I’ve felt more lost, though,” he said. “Like after Robbie died, and after my dad walked out. I might be sure of what I’d do if you decided to have it, but my certainty ends there. Trust me.”

  “Okay.” She wanted to believe that was true, but maybe he was only saying it so she wouldn’t feel pressured.

  “There’s no way we’re gonna feel any more sure about what to do before bedtime,” he said.

  “No, definitely not.”

  “What should we do, then? Movie?”

  “Maybe.” She wouldn’t take in a second of it and she doubted Flynn would either, but it sounded like a comforting farce. She left his lap to cross the room and open her bag, pulled out her computer. He didn’t own a TV, so they watched things in bed, the laptop propped on a milk crate between their feet. Half the time they just wound up messing around, but for some reason they never sat on the couch.

  “I brought cheesecake back from work,” she said. “You want any?”

  “Nah. Maybe for breakfast.”

  Probably wise. Her stomach was a merry-go-round.

  One with a single tiny rider. Jesus Christ.

  “What movie?” she asked, voice half-breaking.

  “You pick. No superheroes.” He headed for the bathroom. He’d no doubt find and study the pee-wand still sitting on the sink.<
br />
  Laurel grabbed the milk crate and set up their makeshift entertainment center, sitting cross-legged before the screen. She scrolled and scrolled, finding little of interest. In truth, in no universe was there any movie half as engrossing as the unexpected drama currently unfolding in her middle.

  In the end she settled on some generic action movie, cueing it up, waiting for Flynn. She left the bed, intending to get herself a glass of wine, then promptly sat down, realizing her drinking days were done until such time as she knew what her choice was going to be. It triggered fresh panic, to think she had to get through the immediate future without the aid of alcohol. And the fact that that panicked her panicked her further.

  How the fuck can I have a baby? I’m not even sure if I have a drinking problem or not.

  Plus there was her depression. Did that make postpartum depression a greater likelihood? She didn’t even need to wonder if having a depressed parent could hurt a kid—that was the story of her life. Plus the kid could inherit those same struggles, or Flynn’s anxiety, or her mom’s shit, or all of the above.

  Flynn finally reappeared. He’d taken so long she wondered if he too had gotten caught up re-re-re-reading the test’s instructions and staring at the faint blue line.

  “What kept you?” she asked, mustering a teasing smile.

  “Just starin’ at a plus sign until my eyes crossed.”

  “I guessed right.”

  “What’re we watching?”

  “We’re going to pretend to watch some movie about a hit man. But I imagine we’ll both be thoroughly stuck in our own heads.”

  He nodded, opening a dresser drawer and pulling out some pajama bottoms and a clean thermal. Laurel watched him change, admiring his body with a reverent strain of appreciation. She was lost in biology just now, awed by Flynn in a way that had nothing and everything to do with sex.

  His child is growing inside me. Perhaps a dream come true five or more years down the road, but for now, the most confounding decision of her life.

  They went through the usual ritual, Laurel hitting play and the two of them propping pillows up against the shelves behind the bed, sitting side by side, her leaning into him, chilly feet finding each other beneath the covers. Usually she had a glass or bottle of something in her hand at times like this, and there it was again—that guilty pang to register how much she wanted a drink right now.

  Her hand sought his atop the covers, and she took comfort in the size of it, the familiarity. She didn’t trust her intuition. It had become a close friend in the past half a year, but right now it felt like a broken Magic 8-Ball. Like she might ask it what to do, but all she’d get back was blue liquid pooling in her lap and the rattle of plastic inside plastic. Or perhaps simply, Reply hazy. Try again. And again, and again, every answer the same, identically unhelpful.

  For half an hour they each pretended to give the movie their full attention, Laurel lost in what-ifs and certain Flynn was equally preoccupied.

  She squeezed his hand before letting it go. “Need the bathroom.”

  “Pause it.”

  “Nah, I’m fine.” She had no clue who any of the characters were or what they were up to, and wasn’t interested in finding out.

  When she returned, Flynn had tossed the covers aside, sitting with his legs outstretched in a V—a familiar invitation. She climbed onto the bed and got settled before him, grateful for his warm chest at her back, his strong arms circling her middle. She pulled the blanket back over them and laid her hands atop his in her lap.

  “You taking any of this in?” he asked.

  “Not a single pixel. What are you thinking about?”

  “Blue lines. You?”

  “Mainly marveling how I can have absolutely no idea what the right decision is supposed to be.”

  “You’ve got time,” he reminded her.

  We, she wanted to correct him. We’ve got time. It felt scary and lonely having the choice shoved wholly into her lap. She wanted to resent him for it, but she knew where his insistence was coming from. It was always the woman’s choice, ultimately. Though fuck, that was a shitload of responsibility.

  “It’d be easier if you were an asshole,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “It’s obvious what decision would be best for me—this is the exact worst time possible for me to have a child. But if I could also say it’d be shitty for the kid, it’d make it all so easy. But I’m pretty sure you’d be a great father, so really, deciding to end it sounds completely selfish.”

  “Not completely. It’s not easy growing up with a single parent. Or with two parents, if one of them isn’t up for it. I think you’d do a great job, don’t get me wrong, but I also think you’d do a better job if you were ready.”

  “Mm.”

  “You count, Laurel. What’s best for you matters. I know your own mom didn’t do much to drive that home, but it’s true.”

  She felt emotion rush and rise at that, something breaking free in her chest, making her eyes sting. “How would you feel if I ended it? Disappointed or relieved?”

  “I dunno. Maybe I’ll find out, and maybe I won’t.”

  She sighed, exasperated and exhausted.

  “I won’t tell you what you should do,” he said sternly. “I’ll do everything I can to help you figure it out—we can talk about it ’til we’re hoarse. But I dunno what I want any more than you do. I only know what I’d do if you decided to keep it, which is stick around.”

  She frowned, stumbling over a question she’d never thought to ask him in all their months together. “Do you want children? Like, theoretically. Not even with me, specifically, just in general. Do you want kids?”

  “I think so.”

  She craned her neck to meet his eyes. “Yeah?”

  “Probably. I’m kinda on the fence, always have been. Some days kids seem great, like they’d make life have a bigger purpose or whatever. Other days it sounds like hell and I can’t figure out why anyone would want any. I think if I didn’t have any, I’d always wonder if I was missing out, always wonder if I woulda been a decent dad. But I don’t think I’d regret it, necessarily. What about you? You want kids?”

  “I think maybe. I mean, my gut says I would like one, in ten years or something, but then you do the math and ten years from now my eggs’ll be all dried up and dusty.”

  She felt him laugh, a silent shimmy of his chest at her back.

  “But imagining having a baby five years from now?” she said. “I know I’d be thirty-five and that’s already kinda pushing it, but that sounds so soon. Fuck, I dunno. Maybe I’d feel different if I was using my degree. Or was married. Or basically did any of this shit in the right order.”

  “Sure.”

  “Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and the answer will be so obvious…”

  “Maybe.”

  “But probably not.”

  He gave her a hug and the sweet, clumsy weight of his chin came to rest on the crown of her head.

  “Tell me what to do,” she murmured.

  “Nope.”

  “I feel so alone in this.”

  “Your body, your choice.”

  She rolled her eyes, sighed her annoyance.

  “Still think feminism’s not complicated?”

  “Shut up, Flynn.”

  He laughed.

  “‘My body, my choice’—that’s about the right to have an abortion, not about women being the ones who have to make the decision for a couple.”

  “This little clump of tissue or whatever it looks like—if you decided to turn it into a baby—is going to have a bigger impact on your life than mine. It’d derail your career for the next couple years at least. It’d force you to figure out how serious you are about me, and probably sooner than you planned to.”

  “Sure.” She hadn’t thought of that. She was stupid in love with Flynn, but that wasn’t the same as being ready to marry him. They made each other happy, here in these early months of new attraction and sexual explorat
ion, but that couldn’t compare to living with someone for two or three years. She wanted to know how they’d be when the honeymoon lust mellowed to something more companionable. More than that, she wanted to be able to enjoy that shift, with only the relationship at stake.

  But my body seems ready. And there’s no other man I’d want to leap into the terrifying unknown with. Plus Flynn really would be a great father. No doubt strict and a little controlling, but fierce and loving, too.

  Fuck, she had no clue. But having him at her back, literally in this moment and in whatever decision she decided was best for her, she felt strong, if still uncertain. He was the only one she could imagine being this lost with.

  She turned in his arms, draping her legs over his thigh and putting her hand to his jaw. It was Sunday night and he was as stubbly as he ever got, and she admired the rough bristle of it, of this tiny little taste of letting go from a man who gripped the reins of his life so tightly.

  “What?” he asked, voice so soft the movie all but swallowed it.

  “Just admiring you.”

  “Thought you were annoyed with me.”

  She smiled. “Never for long. Thank you, Flynn. For being so calm about this. I know a lot of guys would be losing their minds.”

  “Who says I’m not?”

  She studied his eyes, shook her head. “Nope, no freak-outs hiding in there.”

  “Maybe not any freak-outs. But my brain’s goin’ a mile a minute.”

  She looked to his chest, traced the little triangle hem at the center of his thermal’s collar. “We got thwarted this morning.”

  “We did.”

  “You want to pick up where we left off?”

  He laughed. “You want to fuck?”

  “I think so, yeah.”

  He moved, above her in a blink, cupped hand guiding her head to a pillow.

  “Well,” he said, and kissed her softly, “I hope you feel like getting fucked for six hours, because I can’t remember the last time I was this distracted.”

  She laughed. “Maybe five and a half.”

  Flynn slapped the laptop shut and moved it aside, and they shed their clothes between deepening kisses.

  Laurel searched for signs that it was different this time. It didn’t feel heavy or angsty. It didn’t feel monumental, but it didn’t feel like usual, either. There was something delicate—no, not delicate. Vulnerable. There was something vulnerable in the way they touched and the way he watched as she slicked herself with lube. Something even akin to fascination, his eyes narrowed as though he were seeing her in some new and remarkable light.