You Deserve Nothing - Alexander Maksik [78]
Then at night I’d lie in bed and try to imagine a child inside me, what it would look like, how it would resemble him, you know? Slowly I began to love it. Slowly it took on a personality. It had a face. I began to see it as a boy and then I imagined him with eyes just like his. Despite all the panic and dread of those last few days in the mountains, I was able to find a sort of center of warmth in this fantasy that I would give birth and the three of us would live together in his apartment in Paris. It’s what kept me alive.
* * *
He insisted I see a doctor as if there might be a doubt. I knew. I was pregnant. There wasn’t a question. But in Paris I went, for him. The day we got back I told my parents I was going to see Ariel and I went straight to the clinic. I waited there alone for hours. I was in a trance. I sat staring at the wall numb and frightened. He wanted to come but I told him not to. I think I was afraid he’d be angry, that he’d hate me for being pregnant.
By the time it was over it was nearly dark, and I had to go home. They did the tests and handed me the papers and I took them to school, which was the first place I saw him after break. It was terrible. We walked around and around the field with kids whispering and looking at us and me handing him the papers like we were doing some illegal business deal. I couldn’t even touch him. I couldn’t even look at him really. It was cruel and it was brutal. Walking there together, this baby inside me, his baby, and I couldn’t even touch him. My God, you should have seen his face.
That afternoon I took the train straight to his apartment where we got into bed and I cried and cried. Then I sat up and looked at him. I’d never felt so hopeful in my entire life. It only lasted a moment. I was so happy for those few seconds, a sort of short burst of hope, of joy. As if we’d be O.K., the two of us. Together. Me and him.
WILL
I came back to school and met Marie at lunch. She handed me an envelope. “In case you don’t believe me,” she said.
We walked long, slow circles around the field.
“Of course I believe you, Marie. Whatever you want to do. Whatever you decide. I’m here. No matter what,” I told her looking at the thin piece of paper.
“I want to get an abortion,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry for all of this. But you know, we’re going to be fine. We’ll be great, the two of us. One day we will.”
She stopped walking and turned to me and forced a smile. “Us. I’m not stupid. No, listen to me. No matter what happens, Will. All of this? Nothing. It’s. It’ll be nothing. You’re going to be great no matter what. You’ll see. Trust me. I’m young, but I know some things.”
She moved her hand as if to touch my face, caught herself, and started walking again. She whispered, “My God, you look sad.”
We walked in silence for a while.
And then I said, “Just think about it, Marie. For you. Whatever you want to do. I’ll support anything you decide. And when you’re sure, tell me.”
“Hey,” she said. “You don’t have to be any better than you are, O.K.? And I’m sure.”
* * *
One of those days, Lily’s white dog, missing a leg, limped across a field covered with snow. The bell rang and they left with their clean copies of As I Lay Dying.
* * *
It was very early. I’d forgotten to leave the heater on and from beneath the blankets I could see my breath in the morning air. I forced myself out of bed, took a shower and got dressed. The moon was a fang in the lightening sky.
I stood close to the heater but couldn’t stop shivering.
I locked the door behind me and put my coat on in the staircase.
I turned up my collar but it did no good. I walked faster. There were street cleaners moving along the rue de Seine spraying away the night’s garbage, avoiding two neighborhood drunks lying unconscious together on the sidewalk. The guy working the hose turned it off and signaled for the truck to stop. He kneeled down and shook the one who wasn’t wearing shoes.
“Il est