Page 36 of His Bittersweet Regret

“No, you really don’t. Let’s just say, I think I managed to make things even worse.”

“How could you possibly do that?”

“She asked what I was going to do if I got Monica pregnant, too.”

“Oh no,” my mother groaned.

“And I told her that I didn’t even cu-uh-finish in her unless the um…” Shit, this was my mother I was speaking to. I couldn’t exactly spell things out for her. It was fucking embarrassing. Beyond that, I knew she’d be even more disappointed in me when she realized what it all meant. I had been beyond irresponsible.

“Unless pre-ejaculate counts?” My mother guessed, though she used the more acceptable term to convey the thought.

“Yeah.”

“I know I taught you to wrap your tool! What were you thinking? Dammit, Marshall, it’s not like you don’t already have a hell of a mess to clean up in your life, a baby on the way, and the baby’s mother might never forgive you for how you treated her. But she’s right. What if you got that other girl pregnant? You know you don’t have to finish in someone for that to happen, right?”

“I know, Mom. But what are the chances of that happening?”

“What are the chances that you’d leave your girlfriend of seven years, who you claimed was the love of your life, for a damn stupid reason on the same day she was going to tell you that you were about to become a father?”

I sighed. As usual, my mom wasn’t wrong and there was absolutely nothing I could do about the Monica situation except to wait and see. So, that would tack another month onto the timeframe for when I could ease Opal’s mind about other women. It would figure that I held out on having sex with anyone else during the six months, even though that was what I originally set out to do, and at the last minute, I fucked it all to hell and back.

“Have you heard about how long closing will take?” My mom asked.

“Should be thirty days.”

“Well then, maybe in a month you’ll be able to deliver double the good news to Opal and earn some of her good graces instead of adding to her burdens.”

“Mom?” I asked hesitantly.

“What?” The impatience in her tone almost made me keep my mouth shut. Almost. I wasn’t kidding myself earlier about not having anyone to talk to about the mess I’d created.

“What am I going to do if she never forgives me?”

I thought my mom’s sigh might be never ending at one point. Then, she finally answered. “Son, you need to prepare yourself for the fact that she may never forgive you. What that poor girl has gone through,” she started to say. “I had no idea it was that bad for her, and then every time I turn around, I hear how much worse it has gotten, and not a bit of it is her fault. Marshal, even though none of it is her doing, she probably feels as though it is.”

“What do you mean?”

“When everything happened with your father and his secretary, all I could think, the only thing that kept cycling through my mind, was: ‘What had I done wrong? Why was I not good enough? Was there something I didn’t do? Something I did do?’

“The doubt I heaped on myself was almost as bad, maybe worse, than your father’s actions. But it was his actions that caused me to doubt in the first place. Opal’s life has fallen apart since you left her. Your ex-girlfriend has a baby on the way while she’s feeling as though she isn’t good enough, doing enough, and is failing at life. I can’t imagine how she could forgive the person who started that chain of events for her.”

My heart sank even lower than I ever thought possible.

“Marshall, she also has seven years of loving you and knowing what a good man you can be. People make mistakes, sometimes big ones, and hopefully they learn from them. You just have to show her you learned from yours and that you’re doing everything you can to make up for how those mistakes you made affected her.”

After I hung up with my mother, I drifted off down memory lane, to better times, from before I screwed it all up. There was a time when, that no one knew about, when Opal tried to leave me. You wouldn’t think I’d classify that as a ‘happier time’ but she did it for good reason. She did it for a selfless reason – for me.

~*~

“Can we talk?” Opal asked as I got ready to head to baseball practice.

“I have practice, babe. Can it wait until after?”

“Sure, I guess, it’s just that…” her voice trailed off and she glanced around for a minute, watching all the other students pass us by in the hallway. “Well,” she sighed, almost a defeated sound. “I guess it will be better if we talk in private.”

“Privacy is good,” I teased and winked at her before hurrying off. There was something sad in her voice, or maybe it was her eyes, that had me worried. During practice, the only thing I could think of was that Opal said the words every man dreads hearing from his girl.

“Yo! Crayfish, wait up!” I called to my best friend after practice was over. “I need some advice.”

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