“Choked on my own spit. Holy shit, Aud. Holy f**king shit. Holy shitfuck.”
“I know. It’s hard for me to believe and I lived through it. Sometimes I still wonder if it was real and then I look down and see the scar and I remember. Come on upstairs with me and I’ll tell you the whole story. Whatever you want to know.”
He peeled himself off the truck and met my eyes.
“This was what you were hiding from me?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you hide this from me?”
Now I was the one who had trouble with words.
“I don’t know, Will. There were a lot of reasons. I wanted to forget about it. Thinking about giving her up was so painful, still is, that I just wanted to pretend that it didn’t happen. And then I didn’t know how to tell you and then I got it in my head that you wouldn’t be able to deal with it and then she got sick and everything got so twisted and tangled up and I couldn’t see my way out. And now here we are.”
He nodded again and walked toward me.
“I want to know. I want to know everything.”
“Okay,” I said.
30
Daughter. The word exploded in my head like a bomb. Audrey had a daughter. She’d had a daughter. She was a mother.
Of all the things I’d thought she could be hiding from me, this had never crossed my radar. But now that I knew, I felt like an idiot. How could I not have considered that her scar could have been from having a baby? I mean, I wasn’t that bad at science, and I was f**king taking anatomy right now.
She walked with me back up to her room and I tried to organize my thoughts. She’d given me a lot of information all at once and I didn’t know if my brain could process it, or if it would overload and break down.
I’d gone from thinking that my girlfriend was cheating on me to finding out she’d had a kid I didn’t know about and had been hiding her from me. I didn’t know which question I should ask first. So I asked them all at once, but they came out like gibberish.
“Daughter? How can you have a daughter? Did your parents know? Why did you give her up? Why did you decide to have her? Is Eddie the father? You said she was sick? Why did you hide her from me? Did you think I would leave you? Why?”
“Whoa, Will. Slow down.” She unlocked her door and let me in. I collapsed on her bed, unable to stand and think at the same time.
“I’ll answer everything, just not all at once. How about if I just tell you what happened and then we can have a question session after?” She sat next to me and I realized how tired she looked. She’d used makeup to cover the dark circles under her eyes. I should have noticed.
“The part about me cheating on my boyfriend with Eddie was true. I just didn’t tell you the part where we didn’t use protection and then I got pregnant. At first, I thought about not having the baby, but then I really thought about it and I couldn’t imagine not having her. But I also knew I couldn’t keep her. It was . . . it was a bad time. And then my parents found out and totally freaked. We had a huge fight about it. They told me there was no way was I taking the easy way out and having an abortion, which almost made me want to get one anyway, even though I’d already decided to keep her. Their plan was to force me to marry my current boyfriend and move into the basement, but I couldn’t do that. So I talked to my aunt, because we’d been close. She told me that she’d take her, and that’s what I agreed to do. My parents basically stopped talking to me at that point and I was pretty much on my own. I thought about telling Eddie, but then I didn’t. Looking back, maybe I should have. He’d said he might not have been able to handle it, but I think he would have.”
Will stared intently at me as I talked. I’d never told anyone this story before. I’d had Maria around when I’d told Eddie about everything and she’d been able to take over the narrative.
I continued my story, and a few times it felt like I was talking about someone else’s life. Not my own.
When I got to the part about Emily getting sick and Maria calling me the, words started coming out so fast, I could barely breathe between them. The relief in explaining everything to Will was so sudden and so extreme that I almost started laughing. And crying. I wanted to do both.
Finally I got to the part about Eddie being a match for her and I broke down again, but this time Will held me. I got the rest of the story out, and then it was finally over.
I’d told him. He knew the truth and now I had no more secrets. I was naked and bare and vulnerable.
“I’m so sorry for lying to you, Will. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was such a stupid idea and then it got out of my control and I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s okay.” I looked up at him from where I’d had my face buried into his chest.
“What?”
“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter. I love you. I told you, it doesn’t matter.”
“But it does. I don’t want you to say you’re okay with this now and then always wonder if I’m hiding something from you again. I don’t ever want you to throw this in my face when we have a fight. I can’t live that way.” I couldn’t.
He shook his head back and forth, his hair whipping around.
“That’s not going to happen. Do you know how relieved I am that you weren’t cheating on me? That this was the thing you were hiding from me? This I can get over. I mean, I’d find away to get over you cheating on me. It would probably take some time, and probably a lot of sexual favors, but I’d do my best. But this? You having a daughter and giving her up so she could have a better life? How on earth could I hate you for that? It’s just crazy for me to imagine you would have thought that I wouldn’t be okay with that. Is that how you see me?”
No, it wasn’t. It had been my own insecurities that had prevented me from telling him.
“It’s my fault. I hated lying to you and I thought about telling you, but then I was afraid you’d get mad at me for not telling you and I was just so afraid of rocking the boat, or having something change. We were doing so well and I didn’t want it to change.”
He kissed my forehead.
“It’s going to be okay now. Everything is going to be okay.” I was out of words for the moment, so I just let him hold me.
“I’m sorry for ruining Sex Partner Appreciation Day,” I said as I lay on Will’s chest and listened to his heart. I had a headache from crying and my mouth was dry, but I didn’t want to move from my current position.