Life Interrupted (16 page)

With one last pained look, she caves.  “What the hell, it’s not like I can feel any worse.”

I snort at that.  “You know how the baby comes out, right?”

“Shut up, Rae,” she says with the ghost of a smile as she sips tentatively from the can.  I watch her expression, noting the furrowed brow, the narrowed eyes.  She sips again and her eyes actually close.  “Sweet Jesus, that tastes good.  Who knew?”

This time when she brings the can to her lips
, she chugs and I’m pretty sure I’m witnessing Stacy’s O face.  “You two need a minute?” I ask and she slits her eyes. 

“
I’m a physical therapist—I should know pressure points to reduce this kind of nausea, not to mention the fact that I’ve read four books on pregnancy from cover to cover.  None of them mentioned Coke.  One gave some bullshit recommendation about celery easing heartburn—kind of like bringing a knife to a gun fight type thing if you ask me.  Seriously, nothing has tasted like this.”

“Don’t get too attached.  Just
because it tastes good now doesn’t mean it’ll taste the same if it comes back up in twenty minutes.”

“At this point, as long as I enjoy those twenty minutes I could care less.  Let me have the crackers.”

We sit there for close to an hour, sharing crackers and her can of Coke along with pregnancy pains and stories of being a parent.

When I hear Gracie start to wrestle around with her blankets, Stacy smiles and holds out her hand. 
“I need to get out of here before I think about the fact that I’m eating crackers on the floor of the bathroom.”

“Trust me, when the little one comes around, you’ll be begging for an hour, even if it means sitting on the bathroom floor to get it.”

Holding firmly onto her arm to make sure she doesn’t get dizzy and fall, I lead her out of the bathroom and down the hall back to the couch. 

“Give me a second to get her.”

Gracie is standing in her pac-n-play, her disheveled curls a testament to the wrestling I heard earlier, and the fact that she sleeps hard like her mother.  “Hey, gorgeous,” I say and she babbles and holds out her arms.  After a quick diaper change, I grab her some snacks and water from my bag and bring her into the living room where Stacy is.  One look at her has Gracie going full throttle, kicking her legs, babbling, squealing. 
After leaning her down for a kiss and nuzzle with Aunt Stacy (I cannot even begin to decipher what she garbles out when she tries to say Stacy), I deposit her on the rug and switch on the television to look for Sesame Street on the DVR.

When Gracie is seated with her crackers and Elmo, I sit across from Stacy.

“We’ve got ten minutes before she needs to do something else.  Do you need anything?”  She shakes her head, but she’s watching me closely, her brow puckered.  “What?”

“Does it ever scare you?
Being a parent.  I haven’t even been pregnant for a full three months and already I’m worried that I’ve hurt this kid.  How do you get through the day without freaking out? Especially since you have no one to talk to at night,” she adds quietly.

“
You remember me coming over and banging on your door in the middle of the night last weekend, right?”

“Rae, I’m serious.  How do you do this? How are you not freaked out all of the time?”

I sigh because I can see that she’s serious but I can’t describe to her what I feel each day.  “It’s different for you, Stace.  You’re an adult, you were trying to start a family, so you have all of the expectations, things and such that you want for the life you’re going to lead with this baby.  I didn’t plan for Gracie, and as for expectations, well, people are just shocked each day that she’s still alive.  Me included.”

“Rae,” she says but I smile.

“Seriously, Stace.  I’m eighteen, I have an almost one-and-a-half-year-old and I still need to graduate from high school and try to figure out what I’m doing with my life.  Do I worry? Sure, but there’s not a lot of time for it.  Mostly, as long as she’s laughing and breathing, I hang in there and just hope to survive.”

“You do better than survive, Rae.  I’m serious,” she says when I
shrug.  “I remember when you first told me you were pregnant.  God, I was so mad at you, and jealous.  I hated that you were getting the one thing I wanted most and it didn’t even look like you wanted her.  At first I pretended to be mad because I thought you were going to leave her with me to raise her,” she says and my eyes track to hers and then to Gracie. 

“And I did
.”

She shakes her head and reaches for my hand. 
“No, you didn’t.  You needed help.  There’s a difference between what you went through and deserting your child, Rae.  You need to realize that.”

I nod,
taking a deep breath.  Maybe Stacy is right.  “That day you went in and held her for the first time, when you cradled her in your arms and stared at her, so terrified but so strong? I knew you were going to do it.”

“Do what?”

“Raise a beautiful baby, the very thing I wanted to do but wasn’t.  It was my dream and you were living it.  I wanted to hate you, Rae, to show you that were too young to be a mom, and I know I was pretty hard on you at times, but I want you to know that I get how hard it is, more now than ever.  And I can’t believe you did it on your own.”

I squeeze her
hand, as grateful for her words as I am shaken by them.  Stacy and I have always loved each other, though we haven’t always understood one another.  She’s always been older so mothering was natural, and I rebelled at times, as I guess most kids do, but hearing her say that she’s proud of me, that she can’t believe I’m so strong, it means something more than when others say it.  The bi-product of loving her like I do, I guess—that sisterly bond that allows me to tell her to fuck off and then turn around and beat up anyone else who dares to say it.

“I didn’t do it alone, Stace.  I knew you were there, and Mom and G.  I mean, you guys never left me alone, never made me an outcast.  Even when I messed up, like letting her roll off of the couch or giving her peanut butter before she was a year old,” I add with a wince and we both laugh. 
I don’t add in about the months after her birth when they were the only ones who cared for her.  We’ve been there and she’s right—I have to try and find a way to move on.  “Do you want to know the hardest thing about it for me? Besides the fact that I’m in high school and I’m reading parenting books.”  She nods.  “Everything I do right now, with her and without, has a shadow over it, that thing that says the real world is waiting, so while I’m planning when to take her to the dentist for the first time, or if I should sign her up for swimming lessons, I’m also trying to fill out college applications and figure out if it’s even worth it.  If going somewhere and trying to be something is for her or for me.”

“
It’s for both of you,” she says and I can hear the fierceness in her voice.  “Rae, you have a baby, but you have a future, too.  Ignoring what you want and sacrificing your dreams isn’t going to benefit you or Gracie in the long run.  Don’t give up now.”

Relief floods through me.  It’s as if she knew this was t
he reason I came over here; I can’t think beyond what I feel, while Stacy is so good at taking items one at a time and making sense of them when you add them all up.  I think of my conversation with Kennedy earlier today and wonder if she’ll be lucky enough to have someone say this to her one day when she needs to talk about her decision, because whatever her decision ends up being, I know she’ll need to talk about it eventually.

“See? I’m not alone, ever. 
You were with me every time I needed to call the doctor or take Gracie in.  I might not have someone like Nick, but I have you, Stace, and you were always enough for me.  Even when you were being a know-it-all.”

She grins.  “I can’t help it.  I’m the oldest, it’s my job.”

“And you’re great at it.  Just don’t think you always have to know it all.  It’s okay to fail a time or two, to ask for help, even advice,” I say, and I know I’ve hit her weakness.  Just like she’s always stepped in and availed my fears, I step in now and try to do the same because she’s my sister, and no matter how often she gets up and puts on her crazy I’ll never leave her, never turn my back on her, like she’s never turned her back on me. 

“The what-ifs kill me,” she mumbles. 

“They’re going to if you don’t keep them leashed,” I tell her with a smile.

“But what if-”

“Seriously?”

She smiles.  “Sort of.  Okay, you’re right, so let’s talk about something else.  How’s Tripp?”

“Pass.”  She narrows her eyes at me.  “I don’t know.  I think he may have feelings for me.  I can’t trust him yet so I’m laying low.”

“Smart.  You okay?”

I nod.  “Now, to really important matters.  Tell me about Dad’s baby mama.”

“Oh, Jesus, I forgot.”

“And?”

Stacy shakes her head and lifts her hands, palm up to convey her confusion.  “She’s normal.  Go figure.”

“There’s no accounting for taste.”

“Seriously.  Look who you slept with.”

Not for the first time these past few days my sister makes me laugh and feel lighter.

Me: I slept with Tripp on Saturday and then ran out on him before he could run out on me and the other day he told me that he wants to be with me and I said I needed to think about it

             
Katie: OMFG! AYFKM?!?!?!?

             
Me: are you asking a question or having a seizure? Should I be calling an ambulance?

             
Katie: Flow, seriously, wtf does this mean?

A second later I’m calling her.  “I know what wtf means but I can’t have this conversation and try and decipher the rest of your code.”

             
“Flow, oh my bleeding Jesus what does this mean? And why did you wait so long to tell me? Is he still with Lauren? Oh my god, is that why she was crying at lunch today? I just assumed it was because she’d looked in the mirror and realized that yellow sweater made her look like someone’s dead aunt.”

             
“Gross.”

             
“I know.  Imagine what I felt like looking at her all of art class.”

             
“I wasn’t talking about the sweater—never mind.  What do I do? Tripp can’t love me.”

             
“Flow, don’t be an asshole, of course he can love you.  More to the point, he
does
love you.  Why are you so scared?”

             
“I’m not scared,” I fire back instantly.  More like terrified, and I’m
not
admitting that.  “I’m just nervous.  I mean, is he just doing this because I finally got the balls to date someone else and he’s jealous? And even if it goes beyond that and he really does care about me, I have Gracie.  My life is complicated.”

             
“Why were you willing to date Dean if your life is so complicated?”

             
This is what I forget about Katie—she goes along without saying anything remotely helpful and then just when you think she’s tuned out on you completely, she calls you on your shit and forces you to say the one thing you don’t want to say.  It’s like she and Ms. Flynn are related. 

             
“What?”

             
She snorts, fully aware of my stall tactic.  “That’s what I thought.  Because what you feel for Tripp is much more than what you even wanted to feel for Dean and you’re scared that it’s going to hurt if he walks away.”

             
“Or that he won’t walk away and he’ll eventually feel trapped and hate me,” I finish for her.  “It killed me when he ignored me last time, Katie, and I know we were just kids, but I can’t go through that again.”

             
“God, I wish you would have let me junk punch him for that.  I still say he deserves it.”

             
“We’ve been over this, you’re not junk punching anybody, peewee.”

             
“Fine, but if he hurts you this time, I make no promises.”

             
“I haven’t said there’s going to be a this time.”

             
“Sure you have,” she says and sighs.  “You love him, Flow, you’ve always loved him.  He broke your heart because he was an asshole sixteen-year-old and for once in your relationship neither of you followed script.  You didn’t beat his ass for being a bastard and he didn’t chase after you for leaving him.  But he’s chasing you now.  Doesn’t that count for something?”

S
core number two for Katie.  Jesus, she’s on a roll today.  “I’m scared.  I hate being scared.”  I say it quietly because it’s an admission that makes me feel weak, small, like a girl who can’t live on her own and that’s the very foundation with which I’ve built my life.  I’m the girl who can handle anything, so why does needing Tripp scare me so much? 

             
“Being scared is what makes it real, Flow.  Just like Gracie scared you, Tripp scares you because what you feel for him? It’s real and it’s raw and it’s going to hurt as much as it heals.  But you’re strong enough to handle it.  You’re the strongest person I know,” she says in a serious tone and I feel like an idiot that my throat closes.  “Take it from me, not all moms can do what you do for Gracie—not everybody is strong enough to get through life on their own, especially if someone needs them,” she says and I’m reminded just how much Katie doesn’t have.

             
“Hey, are you okay?”

             
I hear her suck in a breath.  “Yeah, sorry, I’m fine.  Besides, this isn’t about me, it’s about you and why you should let Tripp love you.  Because he does love you, Flow, even if he’s had a hard time showing it.”

My breath catches and my heart
rate speeds up because I know she’s telling me the truth and that she’s right—I’ve always loved him.  “Thanks, Katie.  I guess I just needed to hear it from someone else.”

“Always, Flow. 
And just in case you need backup,” she continues, “I’m always available for the junk punch.”

~

After Tripp’s disappearing act, I refused to acknowledge how much it hurt.  By
not
acknowledging it, my hope was that the pain would be less consuming, less constant, less of a reminder of what I’d had and no longer did.  Really, I just wanted it to be
less
.  It took everything I had not to break when I saw him with Lauren again, and then to continue going on after that, moving, being as if nothing had happened.  I wasn’t weak.  I was strong. I’d seen Tripp with girls before, this was no different.

             
Wrong.  So, so wrong.

             
This time
was
different because I now knew what it felt like to be the girl he looked at, the girl he touched, the girl he kissed and held and whispered things to while his hands kept all of the promises his lips made.  It was different now because for twelve hours I’d been his and he’d been mine and even though he was gone again, he’d left that memory behind, taunting me until by the end of the first week, I finally broke.

             
After an emergency text to Katie, I found myself in my bed wearing pajamas at two o’clock on a Friday afternoon, a carton of Java Chip ice cream in one hand and a Snickers bar in the other while I spilled the whole painful event to Katie.  I never cried, though, not when I told her about the phone call that started it all, not when I told her about how I’d stopped him moments before we’d gone all the way, or how he’d still managed to make me break into a million pieces with his fingers and mouth only, or how I’d come out of the bathroom to find him gone.  Not even when I told her how it felt to watch him walk into school with Lovely Lauren on his arm, his eyes skimming over me as they walked through the hallways.

             
I didn’t break because it felt like there was nothing left to break, that everything that had once been so strong and solid was already shattered and all that was left was this small piece of me.  Tripp was my best friend and we’d ruined it.

             
“
You
didn’t ruin anything,” Katie snapped at me.  “
He
ruined it, the jackass.  Why would he hook up with you and then go back to Lauren? If you’re going for the random hookup, the girl has to
be
random, not your bestie from back when who also happens to live down the street.  Jesus Christ, what an amateur.”

             
That was my first laugh in days, and as we went through that night and the next it got better, until that following Saturday at that fucking spring break party when I couldn’t see anything because I didn’t want to see anything, when I said yes instead of no, when I gave my virginity up to a guy who didn’t know or care that I was a virgin, one who left me on the bed we’d done it in after taking everything that was mine without slowing down, without pausing and waiting for me to catch up.  It had been rough hands and minimal touching, a get in and get out that left me even emptier than before.

             
That’s when I realized what feeling broken meant.  Laying on my side in a bed that wasn’t my own, my bra and shirt still on, my knees to my chest as I prayed for the pain to go away, I was sobering up quickly enough to realize that however much it might have hurt when Tripp left me, what I’d just done to myself hurt a thousand times worse.

~

              I wait until I get home from my tournament on Sunday night to text Tripp.  Partly because I had to think more about it, and partly because I knew that my mom would be gone with Stacy for dinner at Nick’s parents’ house in Portland.  (They’re going to have the big reveal and tell the rents that they’re all expecting a grandbaby.  A much more enjoyable rendition of the
You’re going to be a grandparent
than the one I previously delivered, to be sure.) 

             
Me: I’m home.  Going to eat dinner and play with Gracie.  If you can be here after seven when she goes to bed, I’m ready to talk.

             
Tripp: See you then

             
At 7:01 I hear a knock on the door and even though it’s silly, my heart’s beating too fast and I have to stop and take a deep breath before I open it.  I’ve always been aware of Tripp, always had this feeling for him, but when I open the door and see him standing on the other side wearing casually fitted jeans that rest on his hips, with a red t-shirt that carries some faded NBA logo on it that fits in just a way that I can see his broad chest and shoulders, my body has to fight the physical pull to walk straight up to him and grab a fistful of it.

             
His hair is short, buzzed like always, making those girly lashes seem longer, the lids of his eyes heavier.  He stares at me as I stare at him and I’m wishing I had put on something sexier than a pair of cutoffs and a white V-neck.  And then I wonder if I even
have
anything sexier.  My subconscious delights in answering for me: negative, Goose, there is nothing sexy about your wardrobe.  Awesome.

             
“Hey,” I finally manage and step back. 

             
He steps in but stops in front of me instead of continuing, the heat from his body reaching out and wrapping its fingers around me, sliding over my skin causing every nerve ending in my body to go on high alert.  I swallow audibly when he leans down the few inches he has on me and gives me a light hug.  “Welcome home,” he says in my ear and I feel its vibrations all the way to my core.

             
I want to slap myself when a nervous laugh escapes.  Stepping back, I motion for him to keep walking and he does, but I see the smile that crosses his face.

             
“I wondered if you were ever going to call me,” he says when we’re in the living room and sitting on either end of the couch.  He angles his body into the corner and throws an arm over the back, his movements causing the material of his t-shirt to shift just enough that I can see his biceps, the outline of his broad chest.  “Rachel?” he says and I snap my eyes back to his face.  He smiles and I can’t help but respond. 

I clear my throat. 
“Yeah, I uh, I needed time, and not just because I needed to think.  My life now, with Gracie, it’s busy.” 
Understatement
.  “It’s a constant battle for time each day and I have to think about that, too.”

             
“Don’t you think I know that? I would never ask you to sacrifice time with her for us.”

             
“I know that, Tripp, that’s not what worries me.”

             
“Then what does?” he asks leaning forward.

             
I swallow and lean forward, too, crossing my legs under me and putting my hands under my thighs.  “When I found out I was pregnant, I ran to you.  Do you know why?” He shakes his head.  “Because I knew you would make it easier.  Just telling you made it easier, just knowing that you knew all those months when no one else did made it easier.  I already lean on you, Tripp, depend on you.  As a friend, I don’t worry that you’ll think Gracie is your responsibility, that you’ll think I’m asking more of you than I am.  But if we start this—”

             
“We’ve already started this, Rachel.  We can’t change that.”

             
I acknowledge that with a nod of my head.  “But we don’t have to move forward.  I need you to be sure, Tripp,” I finally say.  My eyes meet his and I try to show him everything I’ve never shown anyone.  “I have zero idea what I’m doing every day.  I get by, I get through, because my mom and sister and grandmother pull me up when I fall, and I feel like I’m falling a lot.  Not as much as I was,” I say and clear my throat.  “But enough to know that if you and I start this and it gets too tough for you, it might really sink me if you walk away again.  I might be able to handle that if it was just me, but it’s not.  I can’t lose myself and forget about Gracie again.  I just can’t.”

             
Silence hangs between us for a minute and then he’s shifting, standing, taking steps to close the small distance between us until he’s crouched in front of me, his hands on my bare thighs and his face only inches from mine.  I don’t move, mesmerized by his closeness, trapped by his eyes as he holds my gaze.