Work of Art (14 page)

“I’d say hello, ask her how she’s doing, have some polite chit-chat and move on. I would not puke in a trashcan and tell her to get the fuck away from me.”

Grr
.
I had done those things, but that was because Ryan and I hadn’t had a traditional relationship. We’d had so much more, and then everything had come crashing down when he’d emailed me to break up with me and to tell me to have an abortion. I couldn’t let go of that. And seeing him, in my sanctuary, when I never expected to see him again, had hit me like a repeated punch to the gut.

Then I’d only felt confused, because seeing him brought back a flood of memories that conjured up all sorts of emotions, and I’d sort of been spinning since I’d seen him. I truthfully didn’t know what to feel, because as much as I hated to admit it, and as much as I wanted to be indifferent toward Ryan Carson, I just wasn’t.

“Brandon,” I said, as calmly as I could through clenched teeth, as I prepared to lie to both myself and him. “Ryan Carson hurt me more than anyone in my life, ever. I have
no
feelings for him. And granted, this all happened a long time ago, but it affected me for years.”

And you don’t even know the freaking half of it.
             

“Yeah, he said something about a baby and an abortion.”

I sucked in a breath, practically winded by his deadpan statement. “He told you about that!”

“Yeah, he did, but come on. You guys were kids. Everyone makes mistakes. Hell, I’m surprised my high school girlfriend didn’t get pregnant. It happens.”

Eleven years earlier

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Ryan asked, as I collapsed into his arms the minute he opened the door.

I couldn’t help the tears streaming down my cheeks. I was freaking out as visions of the white stick I’d buried in mounds of toilet paper in my
bathroom trashcan flashed back to me.

How could this have happened? How? We were so careful?

I felt Ryan drag me inside the house, the chill of the air conditioning enveloping me and contrasting to the warmth of his body. I wanted to stay there, in his arms forever, because there I felt safe. There I didn’t have to face reality.

“I ha-have to t-talk to y-you,” I stuttered, as I gripped him as tight as I could
and tried to stop the sobs that wouldn’t ebb.

“Harper?
What’s wrong?” he asked, pulling back and looking at me like he was so afraid I was going to shatter his world.

Well, I was.

I swiped at my eyes, already feeling how swollen they were from crying for the better part of an hour. I hadn’t been able to drive right away since as soon as I found out, I’d sat in the middle of my bed, shaking and crying and hyperventilating. So there I’d sat, alone, wondering what the hell I was going to do, and as soon as I’d felt like my legs wouldn’t give out if I tried to walk, I’d gone straight to Ryan, the only person who’d ever truly made me feel loved and valued and worthy.

“Yale,” I cried, the reality of the situation hitting me. We were leaving for Yale in two months. How the hell could I go to Yale now?

“Yale?” he asked, trying desperately to figure out what was wrong with me. “Baby, what about Yale? I can’t read your mind, and you’re starting to freak me out. What’s going on?”

“I can’t go,” I suddenly said, looking up at him in desperation.

I saw the panic on his face. “What? Why not? Did your mom refuse to pay, because if she did, I’ll pay for you. I don’t care. I want you with me.”

I shook my head, but at just the mention of my mom, I started to cry all over again. My mom was going to throttle me. She might also laugh, but then she’d kill me. She’d been telling me this would happen since I’d gotten my period
at age thirteen, and I’d sufficiently proven her right. I was a whore and a stupid whore at that. If I’d been a good whore, I wouldn’t have gotten accidentally pregnant.

“Come on,” Ryan said then, putting his arm around me as he ushered me upstairs.

I was suddenly afraid his parents were home. They already hated me, and now they would have all the more reason to despise me. I’d ruined their son’s life.

Ryan sat me down on his bed, closed his door and handed me a bottle of water from the mini fridge next to his bed. He sat next to me, looking terrified and took my hands in his.

“Whatever this is, we can fix it. We can fix it, Harper,” he said assuredly, but I could hear the doubt in his voice.

I shook my head. “No, we really can’t,” I sniffed.

“What’s wrong? Tell me? I can’t handle seeing you like this and not knowing how to help you.”

I took a deep breath, swallowed and blurted it out.
“I’m pregnant.”

And he sat there and stared at me in stunned silence, his hands gripping mine growing damp.

“Say that again,” he finally said, his eyes glazed over.

I sighed. “I’m pregnant. Ryan, I’m so sorry, but I am. I’m so
, so sorry.”

Suddenly, he
snapped out of his trance. “What? No, why are you sorry? It’s my fault.”

“How is it your fault?” I argued.

“Because, I’m the guy. I was supposed to make sure we were protected.”

I shook my head. “I should have gone on the pill. I was so stupid not to.”

“Hey, condoms work,” he defended.

I
snorted a laugh. “Apparently they don’t!”

His face fell. “Oh, yeah, right. Shit.”

He let go of my hands and ran his own hands through his hair, raking it off of his forehead.

“Ryan, what are we going to do?”

We were eighteen years old. We’d just graduated from high school, and we were bound for Yale. A baby was not in the cards for either of us. And I was so afraid he was going to say that.

“What do you want to do?” he asked. “Do you want to, um, think about our options?”

My hand instantly went to my stomach, almost protectively, and Ryan looked up at me, startled. Then his gaze dropped to my hand.

“You want to have it?” he asked.

I looked up and met his gaze. “I can’t see another option.”

He nodded a few times, as if processing what I was saying.

“Okay,” he said resolutely. “Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll have it. We’ll go to Yale and get an apartment and have it.”

“Ryan, I can’t go to Yale,” I reasoned.

“Why not?”

“Um, because of,” I pointed to my stomach, and I realized then that neither of us had said the word ‘baby’. It was almost as if it made things too real to call it what it was.

“Bullshit,” Ryan said quickly. “No, that’s ridiculous. We can do both. When is it, um, due?”

“Um,” I said, thinking back to what
I’d read on the Internet as I’d been waiting for the test results.

I’d done the math, and I’d figured out when I’d gotten pregnant. If I counted forward, I could determine the due date.
I probably needed to see a doctor, though, just to be sure.

“February, I think.”

“Okay, fine,” he said, his tone full of logic. “You’ll just take the spring semester off, and you can go back in the summer. We’ll take classes at different times, so one of us can always be at home.”

My mind suddenly started to swim with images of ‘home’. I saw us in a tiny apartment with our baby, and it actually seemed really nice. And I smiled for the first time in what felt like days, ever since I realized I hadn’t had my period in two months.

“You make it sound really nice,” I said, and he leaned forward and kissed me.

“It’ll be more than nice. Harper, I love you, and I was going to marry you eventually, and we were eventually going to start a family. Now we’ll just start earlier.
”

“Seriously?
Aren’t you scared?”

He laughed. “I’m scared shitless, but baby, as long as we can be together, we can get through anything. I
’m more scared of losing you. I was honestly afraid that when you came over here you were breaking up with me.”

I looked at him like he was crazy.

“Um, isn’t this news so much worse?”

“No,” he said, as he leaned forward to kiss me. Then he put his hand on my flat stomach that wouldn’t be flat in a few months. “This is unexpected, and the timing’s not great, but anything is better than losing you.”

I closed my eyes and set my latte down on the table next to me. My hands were shaking so bad that I was afraid I’d spill it. Brandon had brought up the one subject I hated to talk about, and with it he’d brought back a world of shattered promises and lies told to make me feel better in a moment.
Because just a few weeks later my world had fallen apart when Ryan ended things via email. And I never saw it coming. He’d been so sincere, so loving and so supportive when I’d told him I was pregnant, but it had all been lies. He’d been scared, and instead of talking to me, he’d taken the easy way out.

I had no idea what Brandon actually knew about our past, but there was so much more that he didn’t know, because I was sure Ryan hadn’t shared everything with him. He didn’t know that I hadn’t terminated my pregnancy, that I’d moved out to San Francisco with no plan and had ended up on my dad’s doorstep in tears but set with determination that I could raise our child by myself. I couldn’t let the baby go just because I was only eighteen, had no money, no job, and no boyfriend. I just couldn’t do it. And I was sure Brandon didn’t know that.

I was also sure that he had no clue that when I was six months pregnant, I’d gotten a letter from Ryan signing over his full parental rights. And that I cried for three days after I read that letter, and I then I decided I wouldn’t let Ryan Carson and his selfish decisions take away any more of my happiness. No, Brandon didn’t know any of that.

And he also didn’t know the
rest of the story.

After I realized Ryan
wanted no part of my life or our child’s, I decided to leave him in the past and moved forward. I got a job working at Mario’s tattoo parlor, Black Ink, where I was basically just a receptionist, but it paid well, and in my spare time, I took art classes and photography classes and started building a portfolio. My dad even fashioned me a studio on his back porch, since the room I’d been using, we’d turned into a nursery during my eight month.

And then my son, Tyler, had been born in February. I took some time off from working at the tattoo parlor, but I used as much of that off time as I could for my art. I took so many pictures of Tyler sleeping or just his hands or his feet or his smiling face. He was so beautiful. And when I was working on a photography series, I strapped him into the baby carrier, and he came with me. Or he would lie in his baby seat next to me while I painted or sketched and watch me and the colors so intently. He was such a good baby, but he looked so much like Ryan, and that sort of broke my
heart every time I looked at him. But I loved him with everything in me.

I went back to work after two months, and my dad watched Tyler in the evenings. During the day, Tyler and I would go out and present my work to any gallery that would see us. And before long, I had a show set up for my photography and had sold two paintings to local galleries. I also set up a website and sold my work online.

It seemed like it had happened overnight, but it was really a good year and a half before I started to make any money. I kept thinking I would quit my job at the tattoo parlor, but I couldn’t. It was what paid for my art supplies, for things Tyler needed and allowed me to contribute money toward the household bills since Tyler and I were still living with my dad.

And then one day Mario approached me about learning to tattoo. He’d seen me sketching during my downtime at work, and he’d even used some of my artwork in pieces for his clients. He told me he thought I had a real gift, but I honestly never thought about doing more than answering phones for him. And sure, I liked tattoos and he’d done several for me at that point, but to be an actual artist? That was a foreign concept.

But he’d pushed and pushed, and finally I figured, what the hell. I spent most of my time at work sketching anyway, why not do something more exciting. So I apprenticed under him for a year; observing, learning the technical side of the business and practicing on non-human surfaces. And when I did my first tattoo on a real person, it gave me a high I never knew was possible. I knew I’d found what I was supposed to do for the rest of my life. And working there allowed me to be with Tyler during the day.

It was a far cry from going to Yale with Ryan and majoring in Art History, but I loved my son and my life, and I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. I only felt sad that Ryan didn’t get to know what an amazing little boy Tyler was. I felt bad that he never got to know his son, but
he’d made his decision and had given up that right, and he’d have to live with that. But I still wanted to hate him for bolting on me and leaving me alone when I needed him the most. I’d hated him for a long time.

But the day before when I’d seen him, I hadn’t bolted or panicked or run.
Or puked for that matter. And I realized I actually didn’t hate him anymore. Somewhere along the way, I’d forgiven him for being a selfish eighteen year-old kid. And we’d even had a civilized conversation, and he’d invited me for coffee, and I’d said yes.