“It’s okay. Statistics is killing me, though.”
“Come on. Statistics is easy as balls. Let me know if you need any help.”
Nina sat on Jake’s lap and wrapped her arm around him. “That’s how I got into trouble in the first place, letting this guy tutor me in math.”
Jake stuck his tongue out at her, and I could see his tongue ring. “Subtract her clothes, divide her legs and multiply, baby,” he joked.
She kissed him. “You’re sick.”
“You know you love it.”
I could have sworn I felt the temperature rise in the room from the explosive chemistry those two had. I envied them because they were at a point in their lives where they could just enjoy each other. I wished that Mitch and I were able to fast forward past the next four years.
Nina hopped off Jake’s lap. “Sis, you wanna help me finish up dinner?”
“Sure.”
Their kitchen was small but modern. Stainless steel pots and pans hung from above a small island. The cabinets were dark cherry wood with black granite counter tops, and there were at least 20 bananas sitting in a fruit hammock.
I laughed. “Bananas anyone?”
“Jake’s like a monkey. He eats them by the bushel.” She cleared her throat. “Mitch is really looking hot these days, huh?”
“Why do you say that?” I snapped.
“It was just an observation. You tell me all the time how hot you think Jake is. I’m just saying Mitch has really grown into a man from the last time I saw him.”
“Sorry. I’m just—”
“Something is bothering you. Talk to me.”
I looked down at the terracotta tile floor. “It’s been a bad couple of days. His being here in Boston is tougher than I imagined it would be.”
“What about it in particular?”
“He’s living with a bunch of girls. It’s like a brothel. I’m losing my mind over it.”
“So…”
“What do you mean, ‘so'?"
Nina poured some orange-looking curry sauce over plates of basmati rice. “He loves you.”
“I know, but four years is a long time. So much could go wrong.”
“Do you know how many women hit on Jake everywhere we go? If I worried about that crap, it would make me nuts, too. You saw what happened when I jumped to conclusions in the past and stopped trusting him. I was wrong. At the end of the day, trust is all you have.”
“I don’t think I could handle it if he ever cheated on me. I’ve always been such a strong person, but when it comes to him, I’m so weak, and I hate it.”
“Love makes us crazy. Take one day at a time, Sissy. You’ve been through a lot the past couple of years, more than most have in a lifetime. Maybe the stress is just catching up with you now.”
“Maybe.”
Jake walked into the kitchen carrying A.J. “Everything okay in here?” He kissed Nina’s neck. “You know they say curry boosts the male sex drive.”
“In that case, plain rice for you.”
“Nooo, baby. Load me up on the Tikka Masala.”
***
Three weeks after the Boston trip, the feeling of dread that surrounded my relationship with Mitch remained. There was no doubt that I loved him, and he gave me no reason not to trust him. Yet, with him gone, I had too much time to think.
My grades were plummeting, and I started seeing a therapist who reaffirmed Nina’s theory that my overreacting to everything was some sort of delayed response to the stress of the cancer ordeal.
Things were just starting to get a little better when a routine visit to my gynecologist sent my life into a tailspin.
My periods had been irregular, and while I remembered discussions with my doctors prior to the cancer treatments about the risks of infertility, I hadn’t paid too much attention, mainly because the priority was getting rid of the Lymphoma fast before it spread.
“Skylar?”
A nurse led me into a small room where she took my blood pressure. This was a follow-up appointment, and I was supposed to be getting the results of a blood test I had taken days earlier.
I focused on the butterflies on her scrubs and the pumping sound of the blood pressure monitor.
“The doctor will be right in.”
I looked through a pregnancy magazine while I waited, listening to a low instrumental version of a Whitney Houston song coming from a speaker overhead.
Dr. Ottone had a troubling expression on her face as she entered the room and cut right to the chase.
“So, Skylar, I wanted to talk to you about the results of your blood test.”
“Okay…”
“It seems that you have poor ovarian reserve.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, everyone is born with a limited number of eggs. Over time, under normal circumstances, they diminish. However, when a woman receives high doses of chemotherapy…that can destroy your eggs. It seems you have a very limited number remaining. It’s also possible that they may be of poor quality due to the treatments you received. While we can’t be absolutely certain, you’ll likely have a hard time conceiving. If you are able to, there’s a higher chance of miscarriage.”
“Is there anything that can be done?”
“Aside from someone freezing their eggs prior to treatment, there is little we can do at this point. I’m sorry, Skylar. This doesn’t necessarily mean total infertility, but chances are, you’re going to have difficulty.”
The magazine with the smiling pregnant cover model taunted me from my lap and fell to the ground as I got up to leave. My mother had been waiting for me, but I refused to talk and didn’t remember much of the ride home.
That night, I kept relaying what Mitch said when playing with A.J. at Nina’s house. “I wouldn’t mind one of these someday.”
There was a very good chance I would never be able to give him a child. How could I stay with him in good faith knowing that he wanted one? I loved him too much. But if I told him what I now knew, he would just say it didn’t matter to him. Deep down, I knew it would, maybe not right away but someday. The longer I stayed with him, the more it would hurt when he finally arrived at that realization.
I obsessed over it for the better part of a week. Then, one night, came a panic attack that felt like a moving freight train filled with insecurities.
800 nights.
Infertile.
I had myself convinced that his leaving me eventually was inevitable for one reason or another. Whatever the cause, it would destroy me when it happened, and I couldn’t let it. It’s always easier to be the one doing the leaving than to be the one left behind.
The room swayed when I opened my laptop and started typing:
Mitch, please don’t hate me for what I’m about to do.
CHAPTER 16
MITCH
Mitch, please don’t hate me for what I’m about to do. I don’t have the courage to call you because I know if I hear your voice, I will never be able to go through with this. Please know that I love you so much and always will¸ more than you could ever know. But I think that everything is just happening too fast with us. I don’t like the jealous monster I’ve become lately. You need time to just be away at school without worrying about how it’s affecting me.
At the same time, I need time to find myself without the strain of a long-distance relationship. You need to do the same without being tied down at this point in your life. The more I think about it, the more I realize we’re too young to settle down. I don’t want us to resent each other later.
I hope that someday we can manage to be friends again. I know that will be impossible for a while. I’ve started applying for internships in New York and plan to move back in with Oliver for the summer to make this easier. I’m so sorry. I know this is going to come as a shock. Remember that I’ll always love you.
Reading it never got easier. It had been six months since that email, and I still couldn’t wrap my head around it…not one single bit.
My phone lit up in the darkness as I reread it for what felt like the thousandth time. It was the middle of the night, and whenever I couldn’t sleep, I’d pull that message up again in an attempt to decipher it. I’d try to find some clue in the wording to understand how Skylar could so easily throw us away. Even though she explained her reasoning, it still made no sense. I knew in my heart, there had to be more to the story.
***
The weekend after she sent the email, I boarded a train home. We were in her room as she talked in circles, refusing to look me in the eye, only reiterating what she had written without explaining it further. It felt like I was in the middle of a nightmare as she kept her distance, arms crossed against her chest. The fact that she didn’t want me to touch her cut like a knife.
When she did offer fleeting glances, the pain in her eyes was almost tangible. She was struggling to hold it together and kept telling me she was “doing this for my own good.”
At one point, I lost my cool and screamed at the top of my lungs, “How is it for my own good if I’d rather die than live without you?” Her small lamp came crashing down after I smacked the desk in anger.
That was when Tish came upstairs and asked me to leave. Although a part of me couldn’t blame her since I was acting like a lunatic, she had been like a second mother to me and to have her kick me out really hurt. When I turned around one last time before leaving, I noticed that Skylar was crying.
I didn’t sleep that entire weekend, just stayed in my room pacing like a zombie with my mouth parched from lack of food or drink. I’d occasionally look across the street to the light in her upstairs bedroom. She was so close, but it felt like I was holding vigil for someone a million miles away. I just couldn’t believe I had lost her. It was impossible to accept, and I didn’t for a very long time.
The train ride back to Boston at the end of that weekend had felt like the lowest point in my life. Still, after that, I hadn’t given up and continued to call, email and text her to no avail.
Then, came Christmas break, which was supposed to have been special for us at one time. I arrived home to New Jersey to find that Skylar had already left for Florida with Oliver to spend it with Lizete’s family down in Miami.
The weeks went by, and it felt like my world was ending. The turning point came about a month ago when immense sadness transformed into pure anger.
Davey had sent me a text in the middle of my accounting class.
We’re at Chili’s and Skylar just walked in with some dude. WTF.
He then texted me a photo that he took without her knowing. She apparently hadn’t noticed Davey and Zena a few tables down. My heart felt like it was breaking with every second that passed as I stared at the grainy photo. They were holding hands across the table.
How the fuck could she do this?
I had seen enough. She had finally succeeded in getting her message through to me because at that point, I was done.
Rage enveloped me, and my hands trembled as I grabbed my books and abruptly left the classroom, nearly knocking into someone who was walking by in the hallway outside. As I ran in the rain down Commonwealth Avenue, I couldn’t get back to my room fast enough to escape into the bottle of vodka I had been saving in my closet for a special occasion.
I spent the rest of that night drinking myself into oblivion.
***
I had to force myself to stop looking at Skylar’s email.
It wasn’t gonna change after six months of staring at it, Mitch.
I shut my phone off, carefully reaching over to the desk and put it down next to an empty condom wrapper. I cringed.
Last night was a mistake.
Heidi lay next to me, and I didn’t want to wake her, mainly because I didn’t want to have to talk to her. I wished she hadn’t stayed over. It wasn’t meant to be anything more than a quick fuck. I hated myself for thinking of it that way, but that’s what you call sex when it doesn’t mean anything.
It was just supposed to be an escape, a distraction because I was now forcing myself to move on. I had finally convinced myself the love of my life wasn’t coming back. The pain was something I couldn’t deal with alone anymore. When I was by myself, all I thought about was Skylar: Skylar leaving me, Skylar on a date, Skylar having sex with someone else.
That one hurt.
Some other guy would eventually take her virginity. Her first time was supposed to be mine. All of her was supposed to be mine. She was my future. This reminded me of when I was a little boy because the future was now a black hole, just as it had seemed when my parents were divorcing…except this was far worse than that.
I’d never get over her change of heart. With the way she ended things and her showing up at Chili’s with some random guy, I should have had no feelings of guilt over what I did last night. Still, it sickened me as I sat here still tasting Heidi’s perfume on my tongue. Was this what sex with other women would feel like for the rest of my life? Like it wasn’t right somehow because my body belonged to Skylar?
Heidi’s long, black hair tickled my arm. I had just wanted her gone but didn’t have the heart to kick her out after we’d had sex. So, I let her curl up beside me while I stared at the ceiling, and she fell asleep.
She was from Germany—sexy—but not my type, meaning not Skylar. She wore heavy eye makeup and was extremely tall. She said she used to model. Heidi had always hit on me since the beginning of the year and last night, with Rob staying at a friend’s, I gave in when she came to my room under the guise of needing help with her history homework. The rest was, well…history and a night I’d rather forget.
The truth was, Skylar never had a reason to worry about me cheating on her. Plain and simple, it would have never happened because there was no other girl who made me feel the way she did. I just couldn’t prove that to her, apparently.
If I couldn’t get her back, though, I had to force myself to move on. She was sure as hell doing just that. We were broken up, so last night shouldn’t have felt like cheating, but it did.
I closed my eyes, envisioning our night in Lake George. The pain was excruciating. I missed the way her tiny body fit right into the crevice of mine when we lay together. I missed her laugh. I missed her scent. I was pining for her with another girl lying right next to me. It was fucking pathetic. I impulsively reached behind me and picked up my phone, deciding she needed to feel a fraction of my despair.
I know you’ve moved on. I tried to do the same tonight. I had sex with someone. How does that work for you? It’s not working for me. I still fucking love you so much. I always will. I’ll never understand. Never. By the way, have you fucked him yet?
She never texted me back, and I hadn’t expected her to.
CHAPTER 17
SKYLAR
I held myself in a fetal position after the text came in: I had sex with someone. It was hard digesting those words, but knowing that I had sent him straight into her arms made me want to puke.
This was inevitable, but I didn’t think he would be so cruel as to tell me about it. What did I expect? He must have been enraged when I staged that fake date at Chili’s. That was the intent. I knew Davey went there every Friday night, so I had asked Jason, a friend of Angie’s brother, to have dinner with me and hold my hand so that it would get back to Mitch. I knew the plan had worked when I saw from the corner of my eye that Davey was taking my picture.
The only way Mitch would stay away from me was if he got angry. The one way I knew to do that was to let him see me with another guy. I felt terrible, but what choice did I have? He wasn’t backing down in trying to change my mind, because he loved me. That wasn’t going to change unless I made him hate me. The anger in the tone of that text showed me I’d finally succeeded.
Congratulations, Skylar.
Images of Mitch’s mouth on another woman, his cock inside of her flashed through my brain. I begged my mind to stop, but it only kept getting worse.
What had I done?
Ge
tting out of town before he came home for the summer was more important now than ever. Seeing him would crush me.
***
The summer after my senior year, I took an interior design internship for a private design firm in Manhattan. I was taking a year off before starting college and wanted to understand the ropes of the design industry before making a decision on whether to choose it as a major.
Oliver and Lizete were happy to have me back for a while. This time, I had Seamus with me. It was ironic because Seamus, like Mitch and I, had also become the product of divorced parents in a way, getting shuffled from house to house.
Although being back in Brooklyn reminded me of my cancer days, there was solace in the fact that I wouldn’t have to face Mitch.
I interned three days a week at Harrington Design Studio, which specialized in interior design for high-end clients in Manhattan and the Hamptons. The other two days, I worked at Regal Fabrics, a well-known store in the city that supplied materials to the design studio. My job was to organize their stock by color and texture and also help clients choose a pattern for their needs. My internship manager helped get me the job since she saw what a hard worker I was for no pay.
I had texted Mitch at the beginning of the summer, letting him know what I was up to and where I was working. I figured I at least owed him that much. Even though I was staying away from New Jersey, I didn’t want to be totally cruel and not contact him at all. It turned out he decided to stay in Boston for the summer since he had gotten a job at an on-campus restaurant in the student union building. He made sure to stress in his response that he had no reason to come home anymore.
It never got any easier being apart from him. The thought of him sleeping with other girls still made me ill. I hadn’t told anyone the real reason I ended it with Mitch. I didn’t want to hear my mother or Nina tell me all the reasons I was wrong in thinking that he would leave me someday if I couldn’t bear him a child. This was my own private, selfless decision as far as I was concerned, and I didn’t expect anyone to understand.