SeanWard.org

“I’m not pregnant! You’re fucking crazy, that’s what you are! Leave me alone. Just leave me the fuck alone!” I granted this request, but rage has a way of overtaking an abandoned spirit, the way a wolf stalks a straggling sheep or dark clouds menace a lost vessel.

“You’re blocking my light,” said the mask. I was entranced for a moment at the lack of blood from what seemed such a large wound, the deftness with which the stroke had been delivered, metal against temple, metal through folds, snip, the head eased out.

“You don’t trust me! You don’t believe in me!” Her shrill voice pierced the stolid architecture of our apartment. It was three in the morning, moonlight trickled through from the patio, translucing our skin a whitish white in the shadowless room where we collided, she on her way to the bed, and I on my way to the bathroom. I had not heard her come in, did not expect her in the doorway, nor do I wish to remember the remarks I made to her. All I remember is her washing against the wall in the passageway and sinking to the carpet, her knees folded up to her chest.

“Sorry.” I moved back. Jenn couldn’t see what was happening between her legs. It was just as well, she didn’t seem thrilled with experience, the wind whoofing furiously out of her as she strained, contractions twisting her face, her hands confused, as if there was nothing they could do. They alternated from her side, to her body, gripped at sterile table bottom, pierced my arms, nothing seemed right.

I placed my hands and arms on her, helping her forward as the next contraction kicked the breath from her. “Push, Honey! Push!” More than anything else, it was not knowing that drove those words from me. There was the fact that she was unfaithful, that she was pregnant, and that she lied about both. I had been careful. I wore condoms, despite knowing I was close to sterile, that my odds of fathering a child were in the miracle range. And now was not the time, we could not afford it, I was not ready. I told her things I could never take back, confirmed her greatest fears. It was over.