Confessions of an Unreliable Narrator 6

Hold on to yourself. This is going to hurt like Hell.

Fall semester was hard. I signed up to take some generals now that I knew what they were. Math, microbiology, nutrition. I was struggling with Math. I had to work almost every night and every weekend to make enough money for rent which left very little time for study. Sage wanted to be with me when I was not at school or work. My grades started to slip. I told him I was worried about it, but he didn’t seem to fully understand my anxiety. He encouraged me to slow down.

“What’s the rush? Are you there because you want to be there, or are you just filling up your life with busy work?”

I had a set amount of time before my scholarship money ran out and I had already wasted so much time not knowing how to navigate college. I thought I could figure it out if I just stuck with it long enough.

His carefree existence started getting on my nerves. I told him he couldn’t live in Star’s basement forever. Maybe he should start thinking about getting a job. And I pushed him to “do something” with his stories. I thought they were great, but what difference did it make if he was a great writer when no one would ever read his work? He grumbled about it, but found a job in telemarketing again selling Direct TV. Prostitution without the sex. I told him to just deal with it. Everyone must do a few things they don’t enjoy to get by. My mother’s words coming out of my mouth.

We were trying to survive in a world that seemed to have no place for people like us. The only consolation we found for our alienation was in each other. Just when I thought I could not possibly take another microbiology test or serve another god damn fajita, I went to Sage and fell asleep in his bed. Every time his boss told him he needed to dress or behave a certain way, ask to use the restroom, or a cop pulled him over for no apparent reason except that he “looked suspicious,” Sage came to me. The world might suck, but at least we had each other.

By Christmas break, I was exhausted. Amber was getting really short with me. I was never home and she missed me. Sage missed me. My grandmother missed me. My brother missed me. I felt like I was being stretched too thin. I collapsed in a pile on Sage’s floor one night and slept like I had never slept before. Deep, dreamless sleep. He was worried about me. “Maybe you should take a break from school for awhile.” I thought leaving school would be a bad idea, but secretly, I longed to have some time to think straight again. I couldn’t leave though. I had to prove my mother wasn’t right about me. Sage took me to a hotel in Park City one night just so we could get away. I knew it must have cost him a fortune, but he did it anyway and I was touched. We had a wonderful weekend before coming back to the real world.

God help those born under a wandering star.

Sage was getting anxious; his growing animosity towards life was increasing every day. He spent more and more time bitching about Utah and the people in it. How they were all living fake, inauthentic lives. He could look at a map for hours, planning his escape. It made me nervous. One of his best friends, Chad, had just moved to New York. He talked about the Big Apple, Harlem bohemians and Publisher’s Row. How New York was the center of the writing world. Sage was getting restless. He kept asking me if I wanted to move.

“Do you really want to spend the rest of your life in this valley?”

I did want to leave, but I felt like the timing was not right, there were still things I needed to do. I was still in school. I needed to finish. His patience was wearing thin.

Twenty-and-eight the phases of the moon,
The full and the moon’s dark and all the crescents…

In February, shortly after spring semester started, I noticed my menstrual cycle had ceased to come and panic hit me like a thousand bricks. This couldn’t be happening! I didn’t want to mention my predicament to Sage yet because it might just be paranoia. I avoided him for a few days and waited. Nothing. I told Amber how worried I was and she took me to Wal-mart, bought me two home pregnancy tests and a bag of chocolates. I followed the instructions, peed on a stick, and waited. Those were the longest twenty minutes of my life.

“You look. I can’t”

Amber peered over at the little white stick.

“Well, honey. I don’t think it gets any bluer than that.”

I let all the air out of my lungs. I had not realized I was holding my breath. I sank to my knees and started crying. Amber told me not to worry, we had things like Planned Parenthood now if I didn’t want to have it. Everything would be okay. It didn’t matter. My whole life, all my goals and plans flashed before my eyes. I was going to end up like my mother after all. I did not know how this could have happened. We had been so careful.

I took the second test and received the same bright blue results.

“Sometimes shit happens sweetie,” Amber said, trying to cajole me out of my misery.

My life was over. Amber sat with me all night. I will never forget her kindness.

Sage called me a few times that night but I could not answer the phone. I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. The next day I skipped class and went to the clinic where they confirmed I was indeed, very pregnant. They gave me some pamphlets about adoption, abortion and young women’s programs for unwed mothers and said good luck. I still was not ready to tell Sage. I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. I didn’t know what I was going to do. The apartment phone rang off the hook for nearly a week.

“You can’t keep putting him off forever,” Amber advised. “Just get it over with.”

I drove to Star’s house with the weight of the entire world on my shoulders. When I went inside, Star told me Sage was out. He had been fired that day and he was sick with worry about me. She didn’t know where he had gone but I was welcome to wait for him. I trudged downstairs and lay on his tiny bed, flat on my back, like a corpse. I waited and thought. How should I tell him? How would he react? Had he not said a thousand times that having babies young is bad for children? Had not his own parents’ youth set them up for failure? What about my parents? I didn’t even know my father. Was this all going to end badly?

He showed finally up around midnight, drunk, with bloodshot eyes.

“Where have you been? Why have you been avoiding me?”

“Why are you drunk?”

“I quit my job today. My boss was trying to feel up one of the girls and when I told him she’d had enough, he tried to write me up for insubordination. I told him to go fuck himself and walked out.”

“I’m sorry.” And I meant it.

“I’m leaving. I talked to Chad yesterday and I’m going. He’s got an apartment in the Bronx and he needs help with the rent.”

“How are you going to help him with the rent?” I said with real concern. “You don’t even pay rent here and things are twice as much in New York.” I was worried about him. My own problems were temporarily forgotten.

“I can get a job. I’ll wait tables. I’ll drive a cab. I’ll scrub fucking toilets, but I’ve got to get out of here. I’ll die if I stay in this place.”

I stared at him and felt like I’d already lost him. I tried to imagine my own father, tied down to a baby and a miserable wife when he was only nineteen. No wonder he left. He probably couldn’t get out fast enough. Even if Sage did not leave, he’d hate me the rest of his life. I’d ruin everything for him. He wanted to live the life of an artist, starving in New York City, walking up and down publisher’s row. Who was I to keep him from his dreams? At least he knew what his dreams were.

“I want you to come with me?”

I tried to imagine scraping by in some dim little apartment in the Bronx, with a squalling infant and Chad’s nerves growing thin. He’d tell us to get out and then what would we do? What would I do? “What are we going to do?” echoed the voice of my teenage mother. Sage would start staying out late. He’d run away and then I’d be abandoned in a strange city, with no job and no friends and a baby. Should I tell him? No…I wouldn’t tell him. If he stayed in Utah, he would regret it and I would know it. I’d be a noose around his neck. He didn’t want to be a father. He wanted to leave. Did I blame him?

“No. I’m not going with you. I could never survive in New York.”

“So, what? You’re just going to stay here? Be a good girl, live in the suburban house with a white picket fence?”

I knew he was trying to goad me into going with him, but it wasn’t going to work. I could tell by the desolate look on his face, he knew it.

“Yeah. I guess so.” There was no emotion in my voice. It sounded hollow, even to me.

Things turned ugly that night. Sage accused me of being heartless. If I really loved him, I’d go. He begged me to go with him. He made desperate pleas, everything would be okay, then accused me of being a God damn coward, before he broke down and cried.

“You’re right, I am a coward,” I told him.

“Why are you doing this?”

“You know what, Sage?” I said in an utterly monotone voice, “I think maybe it’s best if we go our separate ways.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Well, maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

“You’re right,” vitriol in every syllable… “I don’t.”

In the end, I walked out to my car and drove away. He didn’t call me again. Two days later, he was gone. Leo told me he took the Greyhound to Chicago. No forwarding address. I had never felt more alone in my life.

When love is lost, the day sets towards the night,
Albeit the morning sun may still be bright,
And not one cloud-ship sails across the sky.
Yet from the places where it used to lie
Gone is the lustrous glory of the light

Amber asked me if I had finally worked up the nerve to tell Sage he was going to be a father.

“He’s gone. He went to New York.”

“That bastard! Couldn’t take a little responsibility, eh?”

“No, I never told him.”

“You never told him!” The accusation in Amber’s voice was like cold steel. “About the baby? Brianna! How could you? Why not?”

“Because he would have stayed and I wanted him to go.”

“I don’t understand you!” Amber was pacing around the room. “I don’t understand either of you.”

I didn’t understand things myself. I only knew I was alone and I was going to be a mother and there was nothing I could do about it. But even that impending doom seemed less final than Sage’s disappearance. Amber mentioned abortion again. She would be graduating in May and college was the pinnacle of her life. She could not imagine giving up school for a damn kid. I had uttered these same sentiments myself just a few short months before, but I couldn’t imagine aborting Sage’s baby. If it had been some random guy I didn’t love, a casual hook-up, I would have done it. But this was different. Amber threw up her hands in frustration and left me in my room with the covers pulled over my head.

For the first time in nearly two years, I wanted to talk to my mother. Despite my anger, she was still my mom. She had been through this, maybe she would understand. I thought about calling her, then chickened out. I flipped through one of my old etymology books and started listing off potential babies’ names in my head: Katerina, Larissa, Sophia. I somehow just knew this unfortunate being couldn’t possibly be male. Only a girl could come into a situation like this. I hurled the book across the room. I was only twenty. I wasn’t ready for this. I missed him. More than any other emotion, I missed Sage and I wondered if I had made the right decision.

I am the widow of a living man.

Sometimes, life has a weird way of stepping in when you least expect it. One early morning in March, I was late for class, math class no less and we had a test that morning! I had overslept because I’d been up the previous night, pacing. I still didn’t know what the hell I was going to do. I’d figure it out over the summer. Finish this semester, and then worry. I was speeding along Harrison Blvd, lost in my train of thought, when a huge silver truck materialized out of nowhere, heading straight for me. Before I blacked out, my last thought was, “Oh shit, this is going to hurt.” Screech of wheels. Crunch of metal. Crash of glass. Nothing.

Through hazy fog vision, I saw my mother. She was crying. Grandma was beside her. I tried to lift my head up, but it was strapped down by a metal brace. My face was locked in an egg cup. Then, the pain hit. My brains felt scrambled, jaw tightened like a fist, neck on fire. Brands of heat ran up and down my body from hip to head. I felt like I’d been beaten from the inside out.

“Am I okay?”

“Yes! Yes,” my Mom bawled. “You’re okay.”

“I don’t feel okay.”

Mom ran off to get a nurse and Grandma held my hand. I could hear the steady beep of machines, saw an IV bag to my left and realized I was in the ER.

“Hang in there kid,” Grandma cooed. “You’re going to be alright.”

……

The final summation of my encounter with the truck was a concussion, whiplash, cracked jaw, a broken wrist, and of course, the baby was gone. I vaguely remember being in an ambulance but nothing else. I had been hemorrhaging badly when I got to the hospital and I lost a lot of blood. The doctor told me I’d been conscious when I arrived, but I had no memory of that. I’d been out of it ever since.

I came to love that wonderful moment when the nurse arrived with her magic needle. Morphine waves washed over me through the cold fluid of my IV. I imagined Renton from Trainspotting screaming, “I just need one more hit!” Things were hilarious on morphine. I would find myself laughing hysterically over nothing. It didn’t last. I was reduced to Loratabs and physical therapy. Grandma brought me to her house. Fed me soup and changed my sweat drenched sheets. My mother came to visit me often.

The two women sat by my bed and held my hand but all I could feel was an overwhelming sense of loss and guilt. I kept thinking over and over again, “I should have told him. I should have told him.” My mother and grandmother both knew there was something terribly wrong. My voice was gone. When they left the room, I felt something horrible in the pit of my gut trying to come out. A wretched worm, sliming its way up my throat. I kept swallowing and swallowing until finally something awful emerged. A sickly laugh mixed with tears. I let go and cried and cried and cried. It had been a long time.

I can wade Grief —

Whole Pools of it —

I’m used to that —

Slowly, I regained my physical self. Walking was not such a struggle but eating was painful. They took the caste off my hand and the brace off my neck. My body healed, but my mind felt terrible. My doctor had not revealed my pregnancy to my mother for which I was eternally grateful. I was a legal adult after all and my medical records were my business.

Amber and Shane came to visit me. Shane brought me a big bouquet of pink carnations and Amber bought me a copy of Leaves of Grass. They revealed their engagement to me and I tried to be happy for them. Above all, I wished Sage was there. I wanted him to help me through this more than anything, but he was in New York now and I had miscarried a kid he didn’t even know about. And I didn’t know how to reach him, but I was too embarrassed and miserable to ask. Depression swam through my veins. I felt heavy with it. The world had turned gray. I wanted to smear ashes over my face. I pulled long strands of my hair out by the fistfull.

In a way, I felt like maybe the car accident was for the best. I didn’t really want to have a baby anyway, but I had started getting used to the idea, imagining what it would look like. I felt robbed of something I wasn’t even sure I wanted in the first place. My doctor told me depression was very common following a miscarriage, especially considering the trauma from the accident. He gave me Zoloft. I flushed them down the toilet. I wanted to feel this. Memorize it. Etch it into my bloodstream. Mostly, I felt the loss of Sage. I had treated him like shit so he wouldn’t have to deal with responsibility. Maybe I should have given him the option. Who was I to decide for both of us? I was ashamed of myself.

After a few weeks in the shop, my little Ford was back in working order minus a few scrapes and bumps. Driving again was scary at first, then uncomfortable. I avoided it at all costs. My vehicle of freedom was now a harbinger of bad memories. I took long walks by the river, letting the warming spring air bathe me. It was May. I had missed too many days of school and I didn’t care enough to plead my case before the college committee. Fuck it.

I thought about going to Star’s house to ask if she had heard from Sage but, what would I tell him if I could find him. Sorry? I still love you. I didn’t mean to be so cold and by the way, I was pregnant but I didn’t think you could handle it? Now I’m not. Would he believe me? Would he hate me? No. Better to leave well enough alone. I was a coward.

I went to Amber’s graduation and clapped for her. My own graduation swept under the rug like so much dust. Over dinner, she asked me if I wanted to come back to the apartment. She and Shane would be getting a place together in the fall but I was more than welcome to stay until then. I said yes. I couldn’t take my grandmother fussing over me anymore. One of these days, she was going to find out why I was so sad. I couldn’t have that. My mom was getting impatient with my depression. She thought she could bully me back into happiness but all that did was make me dig in deeper.

The driver of the silver truck’s car insurance company took care of my medical bills since the accident was his failure to yield and they paid me a small compensation check to ensure I wouldn’t seek legal action. I didn’t need to go back to work just yet. I sat in the apartment and read and waxed nostalgic over the past.

One day, while digging through my dresser, I found a ring Sage had bought me at Capricorn’s Lair. It was a small silver ring with a green stone in the center. We had walked there. It had been a sunny day. We picked out two rings for each other. I got him one with the Mercury glyph and he gave me the green ring. We exchanged them in the park, on a swing set and vowed we’d always be best playmates. I had worn it everyday until I found out I was pregnant. Reminiscing over this made me wish everything was different. I wanted to be in New York. I wanted to be with him. I decided if I ever saw him again, I would tell him everything and no matter how he reacted, I would tell him that I still loved him, but only if God or the Universe or whatever was in control, sent him to me of his own volition.

…to be continued…