Regretting You

by Hoover, Colleen

  You’re late. Please come home.

  She’s been staying out a lot, and I have no idea who she’s with because she barely talks to me anymore. When she is here, she’s in her bedroom. The app shows she’s always either at Lexie’s or Starbucks, but who in the world spends that much time at a coffee shop?

  There’s a soft knock on my back patio door, and I glance up, almost having forgotten that Jonah has been here for the past twenty minutes, fixing the kitchen door. I stand up and tuck my hair behind my ears when he walks outside.

  “Do you have pliers?”

  “I’m pretty sure Chris does, but his toolbox has a lock on it. But I might have a pair.” I walk into the house and go to the laundry room. I keep my own toolbox for when I needed to fix stuff when Chris wasn’t around. It’s black and pink. Chris got it for me for Christmas one year.

  He also got one for Jenny. The thought pierces me.

  Sometimes I think it’s getting better, but then the simplest memories remind me how much it still sucks. I pull my toolbox down and hand it to Jonah.

  Jonah opens it and sorts through it. He doesn’t find what he needs. “They’re old hinges,” he says. “I can’t get the last one off because it’s stripped so bad. I have something that’ll work at the house, but it’s late, so I’ll just come back tomorrow if that’s fine?”

  He says it like it’s a question, so I nod. “Yeah. Sure.”

  I texted him yesterday, telling him I couldn’t get the kitchen door off the hinges and asking if he could help. He said he’d be over tonight but that it would be late because he was picking his sister up at the airport. He didn’t even ask why I needed the door off the hinges. When he got here earlier, he never even asked why there was a huge hole in it. He just walked straight to the door and got to work.

  I’m waiting for him to ask what happened as we walk toward the front door, but he doesn’t. I don’t like the quiet, so I throw a question in the mix that I don’t even really care to know the answer to.

  “How long is your sister in town for?”

  “Until Sunday. She’d love to see you. She just . . . you know. She didn’t know if you’d want company.”

  I don’t, but for some reason, I smile and say, “I’d love to see her.”

  Jonah laughs. “No, you wouldn’t.”

  I shrug because he’s right. I barely know her. I met her once when we were teens, and I saw her for a few minutes the day after Elijah was born. And she was at both funerals. But that’s the extent of my relationship with her. “You’re right. It was the polite thing to say.”

  “You don’t have to be polite,” Jonah says. “Neither do I. It’s the only positive thing to come out of this. We get at least a six-month pass to be assholes.” I smile, and he nudges his head toward his car. “Walk me out?”

  I follow him to his car, but before he gets in, he rests his back against the driver’s-side door and folds his arms over his chest. “I know you probably don’t want to talk about it any more than I do. But it affects our kids, so . . .”

  I slide my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. I sigh and look up at the night sky. “I know. We have to discuss it. Because if it’s true . . .”

  “It makes Clara and Elijah half siblings,” Jonah says.

  It’s weird hearing it out loud. I blow out a slow breath, nervous about what it means. “Are you planning on telling him someday?”

  Jonah nods, slowly. “Someday. If he asks. If it comes up in conversation.” He sighs. “I honestly don’t know. What do you think? Do you want Clara to know?”

  I’m hugging myself now. It’s not cold out, but I have chills for some reason. “No. I never want Clara to find out. It would devastate her.”

  Jonah doesn’t look angry that I’m essentially asking him not to tell Elijah the truth. He only looks sympathetic to our situation. “I hate that they left this mess for us to clean up.”

  I agree with him on that. It’s a disaster of a mess. One I still haven’t even wrapped my head around fully. It’s too much to think about so soon and too much for me to want to discuss it right now. I change the subject, because either way, decisions aren’t being made tonight.

  “Clara’s birthday is in two weeks. I’m thinking about keeping the tradition going with a cookout, but I’m not sure if she would want me to. It won’t be the same without them here.”

  “You should ask her,” Jonah suggests.

  I laugh half-heartedly. “We aren’t on the best terms right now. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells around her. She’d disagree with anything I suggested.”

  “She’s almost seventeen. It would be more out of the ordinary if things were perfect between the two of you.”

  I appreciate him saying that, but I also know it’s not entirely true. I know a lot of mothers who get along just fine with their teenagers. I’m just not one of the lucky ones. Or maybe it isn’t about luck. Maybe I went wrong somewhere along the way.

  “I can’t believe she’s about to be seventeen,” he says. “I remember the day you found out you were pregnant with her.”

  I remember it too. It was the day before he left.

  I divert my gaze to the concrete beneath my feet. Looking at him brings back too many emotions, and I’m really sick of emotions at this point. I clear my throat and take a step back, just as headlights brighten the yard around us. I look up and watch as Clara finally pulls into the driveway.

  Jonah takes that as his cue to leave, so he opens his car door. “Good night, Morgan.” He waves at Clara before getting into his car. I give him a silent wave and watch him drive away. He’s already at the end of our street before Clara gets out of her car.

  I fold my arms over my chest again and stare at her expectantly.

  She shuts her door and acknowledges me with a nod but walks toward the front door. I follow her inside the house, where she kicks her shoes off by the couch. “What was that?” she asks.

  “What was what?”

  She tosses a hand toward the front yard. “You and Jonah. In the dark. It was weird.”

  I narrow my eyes at her, wondering if she’s just trying to deflect right now. “Why are you late for curfew?”

  She looks down at her phone. “I am?”

  “Yes. I texted you. Twice.”

  She swipes her finger across the screen. “Oh. I didn’t hear them come through.” She slips her phone in her back pocket. “Sorry. I was studying at Starbucks . . . lost track of time. I didn’t realize it was so late.” She points over her shoulder as she backs toward the hallway. “I need to shower.”

  I don’t even bother pushing for a more honest answer. She wouldn’t give me one anyway.

  I walk to the kitchen and grab a Jolly Rancher. I lean against the counter and stare absentmindedly at the hole in my kitchen door, wondering why Jonah so casually brought up the day I found out I was pregnant, like it wasn’t one of the worst days of my life.

  Maybe he brought it up because his leaving the next day didn’t mean as much to him as it did to the rest of us.

  I’ve forced myself not to think about that week since it happened, but now that Jonah brought it up, every moment of that day begins running through my mind.

  We were at the lake. The three of them had been swimming, and I was sitting on a blanket in the grass, reading a book. They all came out of the water at the same time, but Jonah was the only one who walked in my direction. Chris and Jenny ran up the embankment toward the playground.

  “Morgan!” Jenny yelled. “Come swing with us!” She was running backward up the hill, trying to entice me over.

  I shook my head and waved her on. I wasn’t in the mind-set to be playful that day. I hadn’t even wanted to go to the lake in the first place, but Chris insisted on it. I wanted a night alone with him, without Jonah and Jenny tagging along. I needed to talk to him in private, but we hadn’t had a single second of privacy that day. Sometimes he was oblivious to my moods, even though I had certainly been in a mood since realizing I was
late for my period last night.

  “What’s eating you today?” Jonah said as he dropped onto the grass next to me. “You’ve been acting strange.”

  I almost laughed at his timing. “Did Chris send you over to fish it out of me?”

  Jonah stared at me like I had somehow insulted him. “Chris lives in blissful oblivion.”

  Jonah’s response surprised me. I noticed he had been making jabs at Chris. Little ones. Harmless ones. But I noticed. “I thought you guys were supposed to be best friends.”

  “We are,” Jonah said. “I’d do anything for him.”

  “Sometimes you act like you don’t even like him.”

  Jonah didn’t deny it. Instead, he gave his attention to the lake in front of us, like my comment forced him into contemplation.

  I picked up a pebble and threw it toward the lake. It didn’t even hit the water.

  “We’re out of drinks,” Chris said, jogging up to us. He dropped onto the grass dramatically and pulled me to him. He kissed me. “I’m gonna run to the store. Wanna come?”

  I was relieved to finally get some alone time with him. We had a lot to talk about. “Sure.”

  “I have to pee,” Jenny said. “I’m coming too.”

  I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes, but every time I thought I might get one minute alone to talk to Chris about what was going on with me, something or someone inserted themselves into our scene. “Take Jenny,” I said with a sigh. “I’ll wait here.”

  “You sure?” Chris asked as he hopped to his feet.

  I nodded. “Better hurry—she’s already racing you up the hill.”

  Chris looked behind him and then took off in a sprint. “Cheater!”

  I turned back around and looked at Jonah, who was sharing the blanket with me, his knees pulled up, his arms resting on them. He was staring out at the lake. I could sense something was brewing in him.

  “What’s eating you today?” I said, repeating his own question.

  His eyes cut to mine. “Nothing.”

  “It’s something,” I said.

  The look he gave me in that moment was heart stopping. It was the same feeling I was starting to get every time he looked at me—like it had somehow reached past my eyes and slid down my spine.

  The reflection of the lake in front of us made his eyes look liquefied. The realization started to grow on me that I was staring back at him much the same way, so I ripped my gaze from his.

  Jonah sighed heavily and then whispered, “I’m worried we got it wrong.”

  His statement made my breath hitch. I didn’t ask him what we might have gotten wrong because I was too scared of his answer.

  I was scared he was going to say we weren’t with the person we were meant to be with. Of course, he could have been about to say anything, but that’s where my mind went, because why else did he look at me the way he looked at me sometimes? I tried to ignore it because Jonah and I had never been romantic in any sense. But we had a connection—one Chris and I didn’t even have.

  I hated it. I hated that Jonah always knew when something was bothering me, but Chris was clueless. I hated that Jonah and I could give each other a look and know exactly what the other was thinking. I hated how he always saved the watermelon Jolly Ranchers for me because it was a sweet gesture, and I didn’t like that my boyfriend’s best friend did sweet things for me. Besides, he and Jenny had just started dating. Unlike Jenny, I never would have betrayed my own sister.

  Which is why that day on the shore of the lake when Jonah whispered, “I’m worried we got it wrong,” I said the one thing I knew would put us both in our place.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Jonah stared at me in stunned silence. I saw the color drain from his face. My confession shook him.

  He stood up and walked a few feet away from me. It was as if all the what-ifs sank into him at once. He looked like he’d shrunk two inches by the time he walked back over to me. “Does Chris know?”

  I shook my head, watching how his eyes had gone from liquefied to frozen in a matter of seconds. “No. I haven’t told him yet.”

  Jonah chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, nodding in thought. He looked angry. Or destroyed.

  When he turned and walked back through the sand and waded out into the water, I stared at him with tears in my eyes. The sun was setting, and the lake was murky. I couldn’t see how far out he swam. But he was out there long enough that when he finally began making his way back to the shore, Chris and Jenny were pulling back into the parking lot.

  Jonah sat back down on my blanket, soaking wet and holding his breath. I remember watching beads of water drip from his mouth. “I’m breaking up with Jenny.”

  His admission left me aghast. Then he looked at me pointedly, as if what he was about to say next were the most important words he would ever speak. “You’ll be a great mother, Morgan. Chris is very lucky.” His words were sweet, but the look in his eyes was painful. And for some reason, those words felt like a goodbye, before I even knew it was a goodbye.

  With that, he pushed off the grass and walked toward the parking lot.

  My head was spinning. I wanted to run after him, but the weight of the whole day anchored me in place. All I could do was watch as he told Jenny he was ready to go. I watched as they got in his car and pulled away.

  When Chris started making his way down the hill, I should have been relieved to finally have that alone time with him, but I was devastated. Chris sat down next to me on the blanket and handed me a bottle of water.

  I loved Chris. I was going to have his baby, even though I hadn’t told him that yet. But I felt guilty because in all the time Chris and I had been dating, he’d never once given me a look that trickled down my spine. I was scared I’d never feel that again. I was scared I was wrong and that maybe I loved Chris, but maybe I wasn’t in love with him.

  He put his arm around me. “Babe? What’s wrong?”

  I wiped at my eyes, blew out a breath, and said, “I’m pregnant.”

  I didn’t wait for Chris’s reaction. I immediately stood up and cried the entire walk back to his car. Even then, I was blaming the tears on hormones. On finding out I was pregnant. I blamed the tears on everything besides what actually caused them.

  The next day, Jonah told Jenny he wanted to move in with his sister and go to college in Minnesota. He packed up his things, bought a plane ticket, and didn’t even come tell me or Chris goodbye.

  Chris and Jenny were so upset that Jonah had selfishly up and left, but as I was more stunned by the news that I was pregnant, I didn’t really have time to care about Jonah leaving. For the next several weeks, I mended Jenny’s heartache and forced Chris to focus on us and my pregnancy, rather than the best friend who had abandoned him. I tried not to give Jonah another thought.

  Little did I know, that routine would go on for a long time. Me being Chris’s devoted wife, taking care of his house and his daughter and his needs. Me being loyal to my little sister, helping her study her way through nursing school, cleaning up the messes she made of her twenties, giving her a place to stay every few years when she’d need help getting back on her feet.

  The day I found out I was pregnant, I stopped living life for myself.

  I think it’s time I figure out who I was meant to become before I started living my life for everyone else.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CLARA

  Despite knowing I just pissed my mother off by being half an hour late for curfew, I still can’t stop smiling. That kiss with Miller was worth it. I bring my fingers to my lips.

  I’ve never been kissed like that. The guys I kissed in the past all seemed like they were in a hurry, wanting to shove their tongue in my mouth before I changed my mind.

  Miller was the opposite. He was so patient, yet in a chaotic way. It was like he’d thought about kissing me so often that he wanted to savor every second of it.

  I don’t know that I’ll ever not smile when I think about that kiss. It ki
nd of makes me nervous for school tomorrow. I’m not sure where that kiss leaves us, but it felt like it was a statement. I just don’t know what exactly that statement was.

  My phone buzzes in my back pocket. I roll over and pull it out, then fall onto my back again. It’s a text from Miller.

  Miller: I don’t know about you, but sometimes when something significant happens, I get home and think of all the things I wish had gone differently. All the things I wish I would have said.

  Me: Is that happening now?

  Miller: Yes. I don’t feel like I was entirely forthcoming with you.

  I roll onto my stomach, hoping to ease the nausea that just passed through me. It was going so well . . .

  Me: What weren’t you honest about?

  Miller: I was honest. Just not entirely forthcoming, if there’s a difference. I left a lot out of our conversation that I want you to know.

  Me: Like what?

  Miller: Like why I’ve liked you for as long as I have.

  I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. I’m staring at my phone with so much intensity that I almost throw it when it rings unexpectedly. It’s Miller’s phone number. I hesitate before answering it, because I rarely ever talk on the phone. I much prefer texting. But he knows I have my phone in my hand, so I can’t very well send it to voice mail. I swipe my finger across the screen and then roll off the bed and head to my bathroom for more privacy. I sit on the edge of the tub.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey,” he says. “Sorry. It’s too much to text.”

  “You’re kind of freaking me out with all the innuendos.”

  “Oh. No, it’s all good. Don’t be nervous. I just should have said this to you in person.” Miller inhales a deep breath, and then on the exhale, he starts talking. “When I was fifteen, I watched you in a school play. You had the lead role, and at one point, you performed a monologue that went on for like two whole minutes. You were so convincing and you looked so heartbroken I was ready to walk onto the stage and hug you. When the play was finally over and the actors came back out onto the stage, you were smiling and laughing, and there wasn’t a trace of that character left in you. I was in awe, Clara. You have this charisma about you that I don’t think you’re aware of, but it’s captivating. I was a scrawny kid as a sophomore, and even though I’m a year older than you, I hadn’t quite filled out yet, and I had acne and felt inferior to you, so I never worked up the courage to approach you. Another year went by, and I continued to admire you from afar. Like that time you ran for school treasurer and tripped walking off the stage, but you jumped up and did this weird little kick and threw your arms up in the air and made the entire audience laugh. Or that time Mark Avery popped your bra strap in the hallway, and you were so sick of him doing it that you followed him to his classroom, reached inside your hoodie, and took off your bra and then threw it at him. I remember you yelling something like, ‘If you want to touch a bra so damn bad, just keep it, you perv!’ Then you stormed out. It was epic. Everything you do is epic, Clara. Which is why I never had the courage to approach you, because an epic girl needs an equally epic guy, and I guess I’ve just never felt epic enough for you. I’ve said epic so many times in the last fifteen seconds—I’m so sorry.”