Unclaimed (17 page)

“I
gotta go,” I said and stood up.  I needed to get out of here before I said something I’d regret.  If I learned anything from my fight with Pru last night is that I shouldn’t stand here and say things in anger and I was fucking angry.

I was
angry with my mother for not telling me all this and keeping my father from me, for letting me believe that he didn’t want me all these years.  I was angry that he didn’t try and fight for me.  That he just let me go.

I hate
d the world.

It wasn’t that my father never wanted me it was that my mother di
dn’t want to expose me to him.  She did what she thought was best but damn, if I don’t want to yell at her for all the years of hurt and anger and resentment I felt towards that man.  It was still there but some of it is now directed at my mother.  I hated that.

“Lincoln,” my mother called out behind me as I started
to head towards the door.  “I did what I thought was best.”  I could hear the brokenness in her voice.  I knew she was crying.  I couldn’t deal with it.  Apparently I was making every woman in my life cry.  “Please don’t think he doesn’t care because he does he was just respecting my wishes.”

I hesitated
for only a moment.  I didn’t know what to do with this so I just kept walking.  I had to get out of here, away from her.  I needed air.  I wanted Pru but wait I didn’t have Pru.  I pushed her away.

“Lincoln.  I love you. 
Please, don’t be mad,” she called out as I push the door open.

I didn’
t turn around and look at her.  I just couldn’t.  “I love you too mom,” I said before I stepped out the door and headed out into the warm heat. I had to get away from her.  I needed to be alone.  I needed more tequila.

Prudence

Two weeks.  It had been two weeks since Lincoln and I had that terrible fight and broke up.  Two, very long depressing weeks.  The most miserable two weeks I had ever endured.

I cried for days. 
Who had thought that I could be so invested in a two-month relationship that started with a one-night stand but I was.  I told him I loved him and I did.  I do.  I meant every word of it and he broke my heart.  I felt like he completely destroyed me.  For what?  I wasn’t not sure.  I truly believed he loved me but he ended us, deserted me.

He hasn’t called. 
I was sure he’d call when I left his house.  I never thought he would give up on us that easily but he hasn’t called but then neither have I.  We both said some very hurtful things, most of them were true and I don’t know if we will ever be able to move past them and it was looking very unlikely since neither of us had made an effort to contact the other.  I didn’t want to consider what that meant.

I’d
considered it multiple times.  I’d been only a step away, all I had to do was press send but I always stopped at the last minute.  He broke up with me.  He had to be the one to call.  This was his choice not mine.

Skyla had
n’t said anything about him and I was grateful.  I didn’t want to hear how well he was doing.  It would crush me.  If she told me he was just as miserable as I was I don’t know what I’d do.  Breakdown and call.  I don’t know.  Maybe I should ask her.

We hadn’t been together long
but it felt like an eternity.  The days dragged on and I somehow force myself to go on.  The love of my life left me because of my parents.  I hated them even more for it.  I used to want them to be part of my life and now I just want them to stay as far away as possible.  They ruin everything.  They did their absolute best to destroy everything I held dear.

I haven’t talked to them since
the dinner.  My father called, my actual dad not his secretary, to talk about transferring to Davis or Stanford so that I could pursue medicine but I haven’t answered once.  Although, I did listen to the voicemails.  I wanted nothing to do with them.  I may forgive them someday but not now, not anytime soon.  They did this on purpose.  I knew it.  This was what they wanted, although they’d never admit it.

I graduated from college. 
My parents didn’t bother to show up.  It was just icing on my depressing cake.  They didn’t even call.  I don’t mean anything to Lincoln and I don’t mean anything to them.  It hurt.  My chest ached from the pain of my heart breaking over and over again.

I tried
not to think about it but unfortunately I can’t seem not to.  My parents were easy to push to the side.  I have been pretending they don’t exist for years.  Lincoln was harder.  I kept telling myself it will get easier the wound was just too fresh but right now that seemed a long way off.  Everything reminded me of him, my room, the bathroom, the tattoo up my side, toothpaste, everything.

Maggie an
d Skyla came to my graduation.  I loved them.  I always will.  They have been a Godsend, dealing with the depressing, hysterical mess that I am.  But at least I have stopped crying at the drop of hat in front of everyone.  I kept my tears to myself for the most part now.

Here I was.  21. 
College grad, alone, family-less.

I fe
lt like a zombie.  I was just going through the motions doing my best not to completely lose myself in my depression. I’m on an emotional roller coaster, that only reaches varied points of depression.  Depressed, devastated, miserable, sad, hysterical.  I’ve been managing.  Barely.

All I want
ed to do is sleep, curl up in the middle of my bed and sleep but my bed reminded me of Lincoln so I’ve been opting for the couch but then I couldn’t cry in peace.  It was a lose, lose.  So I traded off depending on how much of an audience I had and how much I can handle at the moment.

At the moment it wasn’
t much.

I was
sitting on the closed lid of the toilet staring at the stupid test in my hand I just peed on.  The box said I had to wait two minutes but it didn’t take two minutes, it took seconds for a plus sign to appear in the empty box on the stupid test.

Crap.

I was pregnant.

Pregnant with the baby of a man who broke up with me because of my parents the same day he told me he loved me and hasn’t called since.
  Fantastic.

My life could
n’t get much worse.  Well, I was sure it could, even though I wasn’t sure how.

Maggie had been rambling about the crappiness of
periods when it dawned on me.  I haven’t had a period since before I started dating Lincoln.  How had I missed that?  We were careful, except for that first time when we had been extremely drunk and apparently really stupid.

I had
n’t had much of an appetite and what I did eat didn’t seem to settle but I managed to keep it down except in the mornings.  I woke up every morning puking what little I managed to eat the day before.  I’d blown it off as a severe depression but once I realized that my monthly friend hadn’t visited in months.  I realized that I was probably pregnant and suffering from morning sickness.

What was
I going to do?

I wasn’
t sobbing.  I didn’t think I had it in me but I could feel the tears streaming down my cheeks silently as I sat here and stared at the stupid test.  The stupid test that just unceremoniously changed my life forever.

I did
n’t know how long I sat in the bathroom just staring at the test but I finally managed to get up and walk out of the bathroom.

I n
eeded someone.  I wanted Lincoln.  My first instinct was to flee to my car, speed down to Dirty Ink, dive into his arms and let him hold me and comfort me.  But that wasn’t an option.  He didn’t want me.

Skyla wasn’t an option either. 
She was Lincoln’s sister.  She had conflicting interest, plus she wasn’t home.

Maggie.  I need
ed Maggie.  I walked over to her room and knock on the door.  If she wasn’t home I didn’t know what I would have done but thankfully she was.  The door flew open after my second knock revealing Maggie in her thong and tight t-shirt.  I saw a freakishly long body sprawled out on her bed under the sheets.

She scanned me over
and her expression grew weary.  I must have looked a mess.  I felt like one.  I had streaks on my face from my tears.  My hair was up in a messy knot.  I hadn’t even bothered to brush it.  My dress was probably wrinkled beyond wrinkles and I was barefoot.

“I’ll come back since you’re busy,” I mum
bled and started to turn away.  I was going to go sit in my bed and cry alone.  I’d deal with this tomorrow.  Right now I was going to cry until I passed out. I didn’t figure it would take to long.

“No, we’re good,” she said to me grabbing f
or my arm, stopping my retreat.  “Get out,” she ordered over her shoulder and I heard a man start to complain.

“Come on, Maggie,” he whined.  I recognized his voice. 
It was Miguel, her on again, off again boyfriend, bass player in the band Spunk.

“I said out,” she yelled. 
Maggie wasn’t known for her patience.

I saw his bare ass leap out of bed mumbling under his breath as he grabbed
his jeans and yanked them on.  He snatched up his t-shirt and walked over to where Maggie and I stood.  Her, basically naked leaning on the door.  Me, a numb mess, moments away from a full on panic attack.  She was watching me like I might break at any moment.  I felt like I was.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked as he looked
down at his pants where he was clearly still aroused.

“Tak
e care of it,” she said like he was stupid and shoved him toward the door.  “You have a hand.  Idiot,” she mumbled as he walked off shaking his head.

“Let me
get some pants,” Maggie said.  She grabbed a pair of yoga pants off the floor and quickly slid them on before sliding into flip-flops.  “What’s wrong?” she asked while she dressed.

I held up the test.  H
er eyes got large.  No words were needed.  It was clear I was pregnant otherwise I wouldn’t be holding up the stupid test.  No one cries over a negative pregnancy test, at least not someone in my situation.

“Sweet baby Jesus,” Maggie says in a quick rush under her breath.

“I know,” is all I could get out as the tears started to really flow now.  They weren’t the previous noiseless flow I had in the bathroom.  I was gasping for breath and Maggie wrapped her arms around me and helped me as I crumbled to the floor in the hall while she held me and just let me sob.

Somewhere in the middle of my break down Skyla came in and joined us on the floor runnin
g her fingers through my hair.  Maggie showed her the test.  They both held me until I was calmer saying comforting soothing things that I didn’t really hear.

They help me up on
ce I was somewhat put together.  “You need Fun Street,” Maggie declared and started dragging me out of the apartment.  Skyla was right behind us.  Thankfully she grabbed me a pair of shoes on the way out the door.

Twenty minutes later
we were sitting on an abandon bench in the park that overlooked Fun Street.  It’s not actually called Fun Street.  It’s what we’ve renamed it because we always see the funniest things on this road.  There was a fresh loaf of French bread between us and a container of dill dip with three fresh coffees.

“Oh look at that,” Maggie said and she nodded in the direction of a stray
teenager, “it’s teen Wolverine.”  I looked over.  It was.  It really was.  It was some teenager that looked like a younger version of Wolverine.  We busted up laughing.  “I want to go ask him if he has claws,” Maggie said as she made a slashing motion through the air.

I needed this.

“Please don’t,” Skyla begged as we continue to laugh because we knew that she would.

“So….” Maggie s
tarted in.  She thinks this is her opening to address the giant elephant in the room, well, park, because I’m smiling.

“So…” I echoed back
.  My smile started to fade.

“Look at that guy in his shorty, shorts,” Skyla
pointed out a man running in daisy dukes.  We all chuckled, my smile was back if only half-heartedly.

“What are you going
to do?” Maggie asked as she rips off a chunk of bread and dipped into the dip before shoving it into her mouth.

I shrugged
.  “What choice do I have?”  For me there was really no choice.  I couldn’t have an abortion.  I knew that long before I got pregnant.  It was just not for me.  I didn’t want to give up my child so that left only one option.  “I’ll become a mother.”

Skyla just shook
her head with her eyes closed.  I knew this was hard for her.

I always assumed th
at I’d have kids someday this was just way sooner than planned.  I also thought I’d be married with a house, maybe a white picket fence or something too.

“A single mother?” Skyla asked
.  This was hitting a little too close to home for her.  My chest ached.  I may be in this alone.  Lincoln left me.  He wants nothing to do with me.  What about the baby?

I nodded.

“Are you going to tell him?” she asked as I shoved some bread in my mouth.  Both Skyla and Maggie are remaining very calm on the outside for me and I was grateful but I knew they were both freaking out internally.