I throw my hands up in distress screaming at nothing but I can't old it in. I lave my fingers over my mouth. Hop materializes.
"Well, hello to you, too." Her uterus is a little swollen but not much. She doesn't look pregnant but she is. I know so because she wraps her arms over her belly as if to protect the fetus.
"How far along?" Tears stream down my face. Maybe because in a way, I wish she was pregnant with my kid, I wouldn't want to be a parent at so young but... I don't know, it's all confusing... I just know I'd be a better father than that douche. Such a sorry excuse for a dad.
"Four months." she barely says.
"How?" Spare me the details.
"I was drunk, Will." She tries to keep an even tone, defending herself.
"Ah, you were drunk," I get up and walk towards her. "That's a good excuse, right? 'I was wasted.' Listen to yourself!" My face is on fire.
"You hypocrite!" she slaps me. "You're drunk right now!"
I recoil. "Oh please Hope, Hop, Alicia, whatever the fuck your name is! I'm not drunk! How do you think I drove here!?"
"I can smell the liquor on your breath." She whispers angerily at me like I'm the one in the wrong here.
"Well, then," I back away slowly. "Have fun raising this baby on your own!" I exclaim and I turn and leave. Just like that.
---
For weeks, I've followed a similar schedule. I wake up, go to my classes, come home, polosh off a bottle of vodka, excercise, and then I just sit. Sit at my desk and look out the window and think until around one-thirty, two o'clock. Then I go to bed. And even then, I don;t really sleep. When I do, in my slumbers I have nightmares and then I wake up and pour myself amglass of water and sit at my desk again.
My roommate, Benny, used to ask me if I wanted to go out with him and his friends but after awhile, he just gave up. Just as I'm going into my room to sit, Benny stops me.
"Hey, I'm going to the store. Do you need anything?"
"No." I answer dryly.
"Kay. Fine. Bye then." he says in an awkward sarcastic tone.
Fifteen minutes into my sitting time, I find myself hopping into the dodge and driving until I pass Tanks Bar and Grill. Then I'm at Alicia's door. I wish someone had all the answeres. I wish someone would just tell my why I'm here because this is the last place I want to be at.
I lift my fist as if to knock but pause and drop my arm back to my side. I remember I have a key so I twist it in the lock. I'm begging you if you're listening, why am I here?
I find her bed and she's not in it. In fact, I don't even know where she is, all I know is I'm laying down now, caressing a teddy bead I guess she sleeps with.
I wake up to find myself mumbling words I can't even make out, words I can't understand but I'm surely saying them. Slowly, I begin to process.
"Everything." It takes awhile for me to get the next word out. "Has." Everything has what? "Changed." Oh.
I go to the bathriim and fill the tube while stripping my clothes off. Scamming through my pockets, I find a single ciggarette and light it. I lay in the tub, smoking the ciggarette, and stare out the open door into the hallway.
Some time passes and I get out, grasping the sink, staring at myself in the mirror. A pair of arms wrap around my soaking wet body. I turn into them and I'm hugging her back.
"How lovely of you to come." She says vaguely, like she's barely pressing on. Unintentionally, my hands find her stomach. It's empty now. I get on my knees, unzip her pants, pull them down and hold her shirt up a little so I can kiss her stomach. I get up.
"He left?" I half-smile.
"Mhm." She says tiredly. The bags under her eyes make her look like she's fourty-seven.
"When's he going to visit? Where is he?"
"She's in heaven."
No comments:
Post a Comment