The Art of Being a F*ck Up - Chapter 22: Chapter 22

It's no secret that I've never wanted kids. For so many reasons it's just always made the most sense, but I guess I'm alone in feeling that way. I'm sitting in an uncomfortably large office as an increasingly pregnant Lilah lies on the bed thing next to me, preparing for her ultrasound. Kind of funny, how different we can be on this one thing. I know being a mother is all she's ever really wanted, and I'm still very happy for her. Maybe that's what makes all the difference though, because I know she's going to be a great parent no matter what, and me, well, nothing good could come out of it when you stop to think about the kind of people I come from. Not that all of them are that bad, necessarily.
I wonder how Bill would've been as a parent. He's got three divorces under his belt but nothing really else to show for it, and even though he's forced to share blood with my dad, the same as me, I want to think that he would've done things better. I mean, in a lot of ways he practically raised me. At least my dad's still been kind of cool though lately, he was even fine with letting me come in late today so I could take Lilah to the doctor. Why she needed me for this I'll never know, I'm not sure if she just wanted the emotional support—even though I only have the emotional intelligence of a fucking potato—or if she just needed me to carry the bags when she dragged me shopping before this for baby Pierson.
"Brent, honey. Are you okay?" She asks, evidently still keen enough to be focused on me even when she's in the middle of having that weird gel squirted on her stomach.
"Why wouldn't I be?" I ask, a bit distracted as I stare at the screen, waiting for the ultrasound to begin. It won't be my first time seeing the baby, not exactly, she brought home pictures from when she was here last, but this is going to be different and it's got me all choked up for some reason. Lilah goes back to chatting with the technician about her baby, about how much Jason wishes he could be here if not for work. Yet I can't shake the tightness in my chest.
This would probably be a beautiful moment for literally anyone else, but right now I can't stop thinking about Maddy, about how fucking close I came to sitting in a room like this with her instead of Lilah. For a second I let my mind wander, and there's a part of me that wants to know what happened to Maddy after she got pregnant, but then the rest of me just feels sick about it. She probably would've told me, had I stayed, and now I'll probably go to hell for how fast I ran out on her the night before last, but I don't know what good it would have done anyway. It wouldn't have made a difference.
What really gets me is that all this time I had no goddamn clue, I was just going along like an idiot, trying to figure out why she hated my guts so bad, unaware that I might have a kid out there somewhere. I pray to a god that I've never believed in that I don't, even if the alternative is just as bad in some ways. To think about her going through all of that alone, it makes me as sick as learning what she's kept from me. If this shitty excuse of a life has taught me anything though, it's that sometimes there are no good choices, just varying degrees of hurt, and no matter what you do someone always ends up having to take that hurt.
I'm so shocked, and confused, and sad, and I'll admit it, I'm mad—more than mad, I'm downright pissed—just, not at her. I don't know where all this anger is supposed to go, and maybe that's what makes it harder to deal with. What I do know is that Maddy didn't deserve the way I bolted on her. I pushed her, I'm the one that forced her to relive something she had made vehemently clear was best left in the past. A painful truth, one she obviously still carries with her, and one that has cost her a great deal. Yet another reason why I don't want kids, how shitty were her parents to disown her when she needed them the most?
She didn't have anybody.
She tried texting me yesterday, and I know I shouldn't be ignoring her, but this tightness in my chest is only getting worse and I have no idea what I'd even say. I guess I was stupid for thinking things would be great after I proposed to Jonah, it's only unearthed so much that was better left buried. Like the truth about Maddy, or how I still can't figure out how to tell my family that I'm engaged. This is so fucking dumb, I swear I'm having coming out flashbacks while I'm sitting here trying not to break out in a cold sweat, watching Lilah and the baby and seeing how much of a good thing this is supposed to be.
"Are you ready?" Lilah asks tentatively, breaking me from my thoughts when the technician finally begins. It's such a simple question, but I can hear in her voice how nervous she is, and even though we both know everything's fine I can imagine she's running all the possible scenarios through her head of the things that can go wrong. It's so unlike her, but for the many worlds of experience she has this is probably the one thing she doesn't have a handle on yet. Good thing or no, I'm curious what that must feel like for someone like her. To not have all the answers.
"Definitely, I'm glad I get to be here with you." I say, reaching over to take her hand. Her fingers curl tightly around mine before she exhales, prepared to know. That's another difference between us, she's not afraid to face the unknown head on. A soft flutter starts up, and the look on Lilah's face when she hears her baby's heartbeat for the first time touches me far deeper than I could've expected. She presses her other hand over her mouth while she cries silent tears of so much joy and relief and excitement. If I wasn't so careful, I think there's a chance I might tear up too, but I only smile quietly.
I'm so fucking excited for her, like, a stupid amount of excitement, and I would love nothing more than to be completely here with her in this moment, but I can't help when the tightness in my chest just grips me harder than before. Her hand leaves mine and she asks a million questions to the technician, but I'm back to thinking about Maddy instead. Is she feeling a tightness like this too? I wonder what Lilah would say if I had the balls to tell her the truth, but it would only get back to Jonah.
He can't know.
By the time the appointment's over and we're back in the car I'm still caught somewhere between my thoughts, which is always a dangerous place to be when I'm around Lilah. Again she demonstrates that even when she's having one of the best days of her life her incredible gift of perception is not dampened.
"I've got a terrible craving all of a sudden, do you think we have time to grab a bite before I drop you off?" She extends her feelers, patient. I would lie if I could, but I don't say anything and that tells her what she needs to know. A click of the tongue precedes her inevitable prying. "Seems like you've got a lot on your mind today."
"I guess." There's no outplaying her, so I don't try, I just stare out the window and think about the last five years. About how I've taken them for granted in so many ways, about how different my entire life would've been—veered off course forever by one, small mistake. So yeah, it's fair to say there's a lot on my mind. "But I'm good, honestly. I've just got to figure some stuff out."
"You will, you always do. Remember what I said though, I'm here for you no matter what, it can't be easy trying to juggle everything at once between school, and work, and your tutoring." The end of her sentence isn't quite the end, it leaves something to be desired. She broaches the rest with a quiet solemnness, the heavy dignity it deserves. "And now a wedding. I don't blame you for being a bit distracted, it's certainly a lot to take on right now."
"You think it's a mistake, don't you?" I pull no punches with the truth, I could read as much on her face when she sat there silent and straight-laced while I begged for her husband's blessing. I don't need to ask, it's really just for show, so instead I brave the question I actually want the answer to. "Why?"
"That's not what I said." She shakes her head, countering with her unabashed honesty. "If you told me you wanted to marry Jonah because you're so in love it hurts, or because it just feels right, I would be behind you completely—even though I think you are moving a little too fast. But I don't think you're being honest."
"Whatever you may think, I never lied to you." I'm taken aback by her unapologetic observation. This isn't exactly how I expected the conversation to go, but at least it takes my mind off Maddy for a minute. Though, to tell the truth, I'm not sure this is any better. Her face softens accordingly to my hurt feelings.
"Not to me, no, but I don't think you're being honest with yourself." She says. "I think you've had a rough year with your knee injury and finding out you're dyslexic. Then dealing with your uncle being sick, and this thing with your dad? I think you're being faced with a lot of really tough situations, and I think you're struggling to figure out how things work and where you fit in now. But Jonah? That's one thing that's stayed the same, isn't it? And I don't blame you for wanting to hold on tightly to that, Brent, really I don't, but holding onto this one thing isn't the answer, it's not going to make any of the bad stuff go away and no love can survive that kind of pressure."
"That's not true." I insist.
"I hope it isn't, but can you honestly tell me that if none of this happened, if this year were the same as the last, would you still have wanted this? I don't doubt you love him, or you want to spend the rest of your life with him, I just question why now?" Lilah hits back hard, as unafraid as ever to tear away at the unknown. Yet she does it all with the best intention. "I know what you think you've lost, but loving him isn't all you're capable of. That's not the best part of you. You're smart, and intuitive, and you have more compassion than anyone else I've ever known—I see so much good in you, I have all the faith in the world that you're going to do amazing things. I still really think you should start writing again."
"I know how much you believe in me, and you have no idea how much that means, but I swear I want to marry Jonah for all the right reasons. Maybe I can do all those amazing things, I just want to do them with him." For a moment—and just this one, fleeting moment because that's all I will ever give it—I stop to wonder if she's right. This proposal, this marriage, is it all because I really am too afraid to face the unknown?
"Are you absolutely sure this is what you want?" She poses the question as though I might somehow change my mind about it now, but when she takes her eyes off the road to glance over at me she must see it in my eyes—bold, emphatic. Whether she's convinced or not, she must also know she's done all she can, so she gives in with a smile. "Okay then, the least I can do is take this off your plate—consider it one less thing you have to figure out. I would be honored to plan the wedding."
"No, I couldn't ask you to do that."
"You didn't, and I insist. I want to do this for you, for the both of you." Lilah is resolute, so I don't fight her on it. I don't fight her on stopping for that bite to eat either, not that I really enjoy the food much. It is incredibly selfless of her to take this upon herself, and while I worry for a moment that it might be too much when she's preparing for a baby, I haven't a doubt she can handle it—or that she'd let me refuse anyway. Thinking that she's solved my problems, she's happy to segue into lighter conversation about the wedding, which happens to be the very last thing I want to talk about. Because no, my problems are definitely not solved, and while she managed to distract me for a bit, I'm back to thinking about Maddy.
And how if things had gone only a slightly different way, this wedding with Jonah would never have been possible. Not that I would have stayed with her necessarily, but because I doubt Jonah would have stayed with me—not knowing that I was still sleeping with her right up until I came out. It wouldn't matter that I didn't want to, that I only did it for show, I think it would have been too much for him to handle. It still would be, I think. Lilah did hit on something though, and while I refuse to further entertain her notion that this is a marriage of anything but love, she was right in saying I'm at a loss as to how things work anymore.
When she drops me off at the garage I'm hoping my dad will have something for me to do so I can stay distracted, but when I encounter him I only feel the tightness in my chest returning. Bill will be coming back to work in a few days, and I'm not entirely sure what I should expect. How do things work here now too? Unaware that I've already eaten, my dad has left me another present on my desk, only making it all the more confusing. I might even take the olive branch to ask him about my uncle, since it feels like that's the most information I'm going to get. Bill's been as secretive as ever about his health, but for as worried as I have been, a horrifying sense of dread creeps up inside my gut.
I'm not a perfect man, I never have been. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I've never really been a good one either. But I've always tried to be decent. I can't decide if I deserve what's happening or not. Am I really all that lucky with how things worked out with Maddy way back when if it's still coming around to bite me in the ass now? My phone vibrates in my pocket and I know already that it's her again. Sick or no, I also know she's not done with me yet, and neither is my dad. I did lie to Lilah, but only about one thing—how can I be capable of anything good? I want to be, god knows I try to be, but it seems like no matter how hard I try, or how bad I want it, I just fuck it all up because I don't know what else to do.
So maybe it is what I deserve.