Page 4 of Silent Cravings

For you to shut the fuck up and leave me be.

I would have liked him to stop trying to insert himself into my life. I would have liked to ask him why the fuck he cared so much all of a sudden when ten years ago, he didn’t give a damn.

I didn’t trust myself to permanently ruin our relationship, so I settled for, “Dumplings and an eggroll would be good. And wonton soup,” I added, imagining the shape I’d be in tomorrow. Soup would be easy to heat up.

“Got it.” His knee bounced up and down as he gazed out the window to his left. We were crawling down 34th Street, moving so slowly we may as well not have moved at all. I could’ve walked home faster than this.

Why the hell was nothing going in my favor tonight?

When the spicy, familiar scent of his cologne hit me all at once, tears sprang to my eyes. He was still wearing it. Not always, since this was the first time in a long time I recognized the scent.

Of all nights, he would have to wear it now.

I could still remember being wrapped in his sweatshirt, the scent all around me as I sat on the foot of his bed.

“Are you sure?” He hadn’t closed his mouth since it fell open when I gave him the news. I wasn’t sure he had taken a breath like he turned into a statue before those three words tumbled past his lips.

“I took three tests. They say you have to wait a few minutes, but the lines showed up, like, instantly.” I ran my hand under my eyes to catch fresh tears.

How did I have any moisture left in me after crying my eyes out in the hours since I took those tests?Wondering what I was supposed to do. Whether he would hate me or think I tried to trap him by getting pregnant.

He crossed the room slowly, then sat down next to me, putting a hand on my leg but not saying anything for a long time.I wanted to give him a minute to get himself together, but at the same time, I would die if I didn’t know what he was thinking. “Are you okay?” I finally whispered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I thought we were being safe.”

“Me too.” He scrubbed his other hand over his face before running his fingers through his thick, black hair. Eyeing the suitcases in the far corner, waiting to be taken to Harvard, he muttered, “Shit. We’re not ready for this.”

“I know,” I sniffled. “I get it.”

“I mean, we literally can’t handle it,” he insisted.

“I hear you.” I also heard what sounded like anger creeping into his voice. “You don’t have to tell me that. There is nothing you could say that I haven’t told myself already today.”

“Does anybody know besides me?”

“Only the woman who was at the register when I bought the tests.”

“Magnus would fucking kill me if he ever found out.”

And that was when I knew. He had no intention of ever telling anybody about us, about the baby, any of it.What did I expect?For him to suddenly have a change of heart? Realize how much he really cared about me, that we were more than just a fling one summer between high school and college? Ice pierced my veins before I brushed his hand off my leg.

All of a sudden, the thought of being touched by him was repulsive. “Don’t worry,” I told him, getting up. “Dad never has to know. Nobody has to know. Your life won’t change in any way.”

“Wait. Don’t start that shit with me.”

It was like he deliberately wanted to find the worst thing to say. Like I needed him to have an attitude with me on maybe the most emotional day of my life.

“Here.” I pulled off his sweatshirt and tossed it on the bed, straightening out the T-shirt I wore underneath. “I don’t want toinconvenience you.” He muttered something halfhearted, but that was it. No getting up, no hugging me, or asking what I needed.

How could I have been so wrong about him?

I ignored his weak-ass attempts at stopping me from leaving his room and his life. Not that it was possible to ever really be out of each other’s lives, with him being best friends with my cousin, but we would never get back what we lost.

“We’re here.” His sudden announcement yanked me out of my haze of memories and into the present, where we sat double-parked in front of the brightly lit takeout joint.

Now, there was nothing for me to do but go along with him since I knew he wouldn’t stop until he got his way. Time might have changed a lot of things, but it hadn’t changed that.

I just had to go through the motions of getting this over with so I could be alone with my pain.

2

---