Something Had to Give (40 page)

Jason and I began to talk regularly once again. He had even made the effort to come and visit on two different weekends when he was off work. It was nice, but it did nothing to help my situation with Eric. I was stressed every time I came home and left thinking that I would run into him. After the night I met with Jason, I called him twice, but I had done it at times that I knew that he was at work and wouldn’t be able to answer just so I could say I tried to reach out. Either Eric knew exactly what I was doing or was pissed off at me because he didn’t return my calls. Each time I heard him come home, I would listen for a girl’s voice to see if he was going to try and get back at me, but it was always just the sound of the TV or his music. Some nights I would sit in silence in my apartment listening to sounds from his apartment and pretend like we were watching TV together. It was pitiful and I knew that, but I missed his company, the corny movies he would pick out for us to watch, and his goofy laugh. I missed him. I wasn’t sure how many times two people could try to be together before they just had to accept that it wasn’t meant to be. Each time Eric and I stopped talking, I told myself we were out of tries. Every time one of us hurt the other, it damaged us a little more, yet somehow we always found our way back to each other. It was hard to accept that it could really be over. Even though I was back on speaking terms with Jason, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be out of tries.

When my luck of dodging Eric ran out, it went much better than I expected. We happened to be leaving the house at the same time. I was so nervous that I dropped my keys twice trying to lock the door.

“What’s wrong, you got butter on your fingers today?” His comical demeanor caught me off guard. I wasn’t even expecting him to acknowledge me.

“I guess so.” I managed to respond over my shoulder as I finally got the door locked. I wanted to turn around and find him gone, but when I turned around, there he was patiently waiting for me to get done.

“So where you headed?” He asked, allowing me to head down the steps ahead of him.

“Grocery shopping, unfortunately. What about you?”

“I got a date.”

“Oh, well, hope you have fun.”

His response made my stomach turn and I had to force myself to continue to walk normally down the steps. I didn’t understand why he felt the need to tell me, but I did wonder who the date was with. By this time, we were down the steps and face to face. Eric gave me a sly grin before responding.

“Thanks, it’s our first date, I’m hoping to make a good first impression.”

When we said our goodbyes and were in our separate cars, I waited until he had driven off to let the smoke come out of my ears. I had no idea if he was serious about this date, but if he was trying to get me rattled he had succeeded. Deep down I knew either way that he was trying to hurt me the way I had obviously hurt him, and maybe I deserved it, but still I wish it wouldn’t have worked. I hoped a trip to the grocery store would get my mind off what happened, but it was all I could think about. The thought of Eric being on a date bothered me so much that when I got home I realized that I had forgotten most of the items I needed. The rest of the evening was no better. I fixed dinner but didn’t have an appetite to eat. When Jason called, I talked to him only briefly before making up a reason to get off the phone before he realized that I wasn’t myself. I even left the TV off so I could hear when Eric got back home. I wanted to be able to hear if he brought anyone back with him.

At some point I fell asleep on the couch and was awakened by Eric coming home. When I looked at the clock it was nearly 2 a.m. I assumed that the date had gone well since he had been gone for hours. As I got off the couch to get in bed I still listened for a female voice, but all I heard was the music he thought was appropriate to blast in the middle of the night. While brushing my teeth, I listened to him sing loudly to the music half amused at his terrible singing and half sad that he had such a good time that night that he felt compelled to sing. Before I crawled into bed, I wanted to knock on his door to ask him to turn down his music, not because it was bothering me but because I wanted to be sure no one was there. I also hoped he would invite me in to join his party of one. As much as I wanted to, I knew it wasn’t a good idea if I ever wanted to stop the cycle of juggling both him and Jason. In bed, the singing seemed louder as if he had his mouth to the wall singing at the top of his lungs. It sounded awful and pretty obnoxious, but for some odd reason, I was enjoying it.

As it got closer to the end of the school year, I started to get anxious and nervous about life after college. I had decided to attend graduate school at UTC to be close to Jason. We were going strong once again and I wanted to finally put an end to our long distance relationship, but I still found it difficult to turn down George Mason. Even as I stood in front of the mailbox to send the letter off, I had to pray hard over my decision. I was out there in that very spot for at least 15 minutes waiting for a sign I was doing the right thing. By the time a third person had to ask me to move over to check their mail, I stopped procrastinating and dropped the letter in the outgoing mail. Jason was thrilled when I told him the news and immediately began planning our lives together. Everything he said sounded good and I wanted to be just as excited for the new chapter in our lives, but I still found myself wondering if I had made a terrible mistake. The letter was mailed though and there was no turning back. I had to live with my decision and make the best of it.

It was a little over a month before graduation before I spent time with Eric again. It had been pressing on my mind to make things right with him before leaving town. I hoped I could catch him coming home and talk to him outside, but against my better judgment, I ended up calling him and inviting him to come over after work. He was more than willing to do so and showed up in such a good mood, that I found it hard to find the words to officially end things with him and wish him well. It was very difficult and I found myself talking in circles. What I was trying to say obviously sounded so ridiculous that Eric sat there grinning the whole time. The fact that he didn’t take me seriously annoyed me and made me feel like a complete idiot. I sat there rambling for at least ten minutes and when I finally shut up, Eric gave a simple response.

“OK.”

I didn’t even know how to respond to his response so I didn’t. We both sat there not knowing what the next move should be. I wanted to ask him to leave and stick to my guns, but he had been such a big part of my life for so long that I just couldn’t find it in my heart to make him leave.

“So, you up for a movie?”

I had to smirk at his response. He was being so arrogant like he knew I wasn’t for real. In my mind I knew what my response should have been, but my heart won the battle and I agreed to watch a movie. The night was full of so many “should haves” and the next morning when I woke up next to Eric, I felt ashamed and disgusted with myself. As I was in the bathroom washing my face, I heard him in the bedroom singing. The louder he sang, the angrier I got at his arrogance. He knew he had me. It was obvious that he felt like I wasn’t ever going to leave him alone permanently. Acting irrationally, I stormed out of the bathroom and asked him to leave.

“Can you leave now?” It came out harsh and the minute I said it, I wanted to take it back and rephrase it. When he turned to face me, he looked pretty confused. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just think it is best if you go. Like I told you last night, I’m back with Jason.”

“Since when has that stopped you before?”

“That’s what I’m trying to stop Eric. I have to put an end to this. I’m moving to Tennessee to be with him. It’s best we end things now on a good note.”

“A good note?” He repeated with a scoff. “Is this what you call ending things on a good note?”

As he got dressed and gathered his stuff to leave, it hit me how wrong everything was going. It was not how I wanted things to end with us. I tripped over my words once again as I tried to explain why we had to cut ties, but he wasn’t listening anyway. He stormed out of my apartment slamming the door behind him. Once he was in his apartment, I could hear him slamming things around so hard that it made me jump. I started to cry as I laid back down in bed. It was something that had to be done, but I hated the way I handled the situation. Eric didn’t deserve to be treated that way. There wasn’t any way that I would be able to fix things. I had to let go.

∞∞∞

The time leading up to graduation was spent mostly in solitude, packing up my apartment and studying for exams. Eric and I had no contact at all. I had only seen him once outside my apartment. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me. It’s the treatment from him that I deserved but it still felt like a gut punch. I didn’t allow myself to dwell on it though. Instead I focused my attention on graduation and my upcoming move. One week before graduation, my apartment was pretty much empty since I had sold all my furniture and sent most of all my other belongings to Tennessee. My parents were coming in just two days followed by Jason and Shanna both coming the following day. Despite my feelings around my family, I was in such a great place mentally about life after Wilmington, that I was actually excited that they were coming to be a part of the day. It was the best I had felt in a long time. I found myself smiling for no reason as I walked around Wal-Mart picking up a few items to get me through my last week in my apartment. I was feeling good as I marked items off my list until I passed by aisle 9 and stopped dead in my tracks. Aisle 9 was familiar to me since I had to walk down it every month. It was the aisle for feminine hygiene products. As I passed by it, I had to stop and think back to when was the last time I had bought tampons. When I realized that I hadn’t bought any recently, my stomach hit my knees as I said the words out loud, “I’m late.”

I held it together long enough to finish my shopping and get to my car. As soon as I got to my car, the tears started as I once again tried to trace back time in my mind to remember my last period, but everything over the last month seemed like such a blur between getting everything ready for the move and exams. I had a glimmer of hope as I reminded myself that stress could easily be throwing my cycle off. Before I left Wal-Mart, I forced myself to get out of line and go get a pregnancy test. I ended up leaving the store with three tests. Just 30 minutes after getting home, I sat on my bathroom floor sobbing with all three pregnancy tests in front of me all showing bright pink plus signs. It felt like one of the worst things that could happen to me at the moment. How was I going to go through with grad school with a baby on the way and moreover, who’s baby was it? How could I be in a situation where I didn’t know 100% who the father was? It only happened to trashy people, not me.

I sat there on my bathroom floor for hours it seemed like. By the time I got up and remembered that I had items to put away from the store, the rocky road ice cream I picked up for Daddy was mush and my milk felt warm. That made my mood even worse. I was close to just throwing everything away and telling everyone not to come. The only thing that stopped me was that I would have to tell them why and how could I do that? By the time I laid down in bed that night, I had convinced myself that I was carrying Eric’s baby and called to tell him. I had butterflies as the phone rang. When he didn’t answer, I left a frantic voicemail hoping it would increase my chances of him calling back. I waited 15 minutes before calling back and kept calling like a mad woman. Each time I called and he wouldn’t answer I would cry harder.

By the time morning came, I had only slept an hour before passing out from pure exhaustion. As soon as I woke up, I went right back to calling Eric to no avail. He was ignoring me and it was driving me crazy. He had to know it was important. After walking outside to ensure his car wasn’t outside, I hit desperation mode and looked him up in the school directory to find his home number. I hadn’t seen him in several days, so I figured that he went home to visit his mom or maybe she knew where he was. I had never met his mom or talked to her so I felt strange calling her home demanding to know where he was, but I was out of options. I took a deep breath and dialed the number praying that he would answer.

“H-hello.” A lady answered the phone sounding frazzled. I was afraid that I had woken her up as I looked at the clock and saw that it wasn’t even 8am yet.

“Uh, hi Ms. Evans, my name is Cheryl and I am a friend of Eric. I have been trying to get a hold of him with no luck. I was wondering if he was there.

There was a long silence and I wasn’t sure if the line disconnected or what was going on. “Honey, what did you say your name was?”

“It’s Cheryl. I’m sorry I had to bother you so early this morning. I didn’t know who else to call to find him.”

“No, it’s no bother. It’s just that…” Her voice trailed off and once I heard her sniffling, I knew something was wrong. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Eric died in a terrible car accident last week. We just had his funeral yesterday. I didn’t know of any of his close friends there in Wilmington, so it was mainly just family that attended.”

There were no words I could find to respond to Eric’s mom. We talked for a few minutes longer for me to learn that Eric had been home to visit for the first time in months. On his first night home, had gone out with his brother. They had apparently gone out drinking and on the way home, his brother lost control of the car and ran into a pole. Eric was killed instantly while his brother walked away from the accident with just a few scratches and bruises. His mom was devastated. I wanted to stay on the phone and console her as much as possible, but the more I talked to her, the more the room would spin. I felt like I could vomit at any moment. When we hung up, I made a beeline for the bathroom and emptied my stomach into the toilet. I was so weak after that I slumped down by the toilet and just sat there crying and dry heaving. At that moment, I would’ve given anything for just one more moment to say sorry to Eric for how I had treated him. I wanted to hug him one more time and hear his horrible singing through the wall. How could he be gone? It just didn’t make sense that I was losing someone else after losing Derrick and Jackie. The pain was unbearable when I thought about how I was never going to see him again. Worse, my child would never know its father.