I took a step further into the room. Jay sighed, and it wasn't just his breath that swirled out of his lips and circulated around the room. Nicotine. A cigarette neatly balanced between two of his fingers. "I swear, I can't get away from you."
I was speechless; my hand propped against the wall to stop myself from falling over my mouth, it was open so wide. I eventually closed it, and regained some composure.
"Jay?" He put the fag out in a small dish that was placed on the living room table. He then ran both hands over his face, subtly wiping away any spare tears as he did so. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, I don't know – do I look okay to you?" He snapped – not daring to look in my direction. I carefully crept over to the sofa and sat down next to him.
"What's going on?"
He leaned back over to the dish and pushed down harder into the cigarette, to make sure it was put out. "You don't need to hear about any of this. It's just life: there's stuff going on and this is how I deal with it - just like you do by throwing things across the room." I bit my lip, understanding the truth behind his words.
"If you didn't want to get caught, why didn't you go upstairs? That's where you usually are-"
"Yeah, well, this was an emergency. An emergency pain relief." He interrupted, leaning back into the cushions and staring up at the ceiling. I lifted my right knee up onto the sofa to face him properly – prepared for whatever problem he may be facing.
"Jay. Just tell me." I kept my voice quite and soft, running my hand through my tangled hair, and then placing the other one on his strong bicep muscles for comfort. As soon as my hand touched his arm, he flinched slightly, but I didn't remove it, and he didn't move away.
"It's awful. You're going to hate me."
Can't be anything worse than what I've done. I thought to myself, but didn't let the words slip off my tongue, knowing he'd want an explanation that I was still not ready to give.
He kept his eyes locked onto the ceiling. "I was 18, like you, and it had been a couple of days after my Prom night. I was just sat in my room, listening to some music when there was a knock at the door." All of my senses were purely focused on Jay's story, and the way he clearly described it, the words climbing out of his mouth with such clarity, made me feel like I was there.
"I ran downstairs to answer the door, and it was my girlfriend. I invited her upstairs to my bedroom and she said she had news to tell me. We sat on my bed at either end and she smiled and told me: 'Looks like our drunken selves weren't so safe after all: I'm pregnant.'"
My hand slowly came to my mouth and I leaned against the sofa more heavily. Jay was a dad.
He looked at my reaction and moved my hand off of his arm. "That's not even the worst of it. I just sat there. Silent. Staring at my knees. She kept pestering me for a response, wanting to know if I wanted to be involved, but I couldn't take it in. Her hand came to my leg and not only did I flinch and kick her hand away, but I slapped her." Jay's eyes filled to the brim with tears and they slid quickly down his cheeks like a waterslide. "She left, without another word. I haven't heard from her since. I'm 23 now. So somewhere out there is my son or daughter, and they will have said their first word and taken their first step and will have a new daddy who they will think is their own-" His hand went back over his eyes and his breathing got heavier as he cried harder and harder at the thought of his baby having grown up without him.
I felt tears of my own falling out of my eye, feeling so helpless with his pain. "Jay. You are not a bad person. Okay? Yes, I suppose you can't win back those years with your kid, but there are still many more years to come. You can play football with them, or take them to dance lessons, or just play in the park. You could still be apart of all that." He hadn't stopped crying, but he did remove his hand away from his face. His cheeks were bright pink, and his eyes slightly blood shot, from pressing into them so hard. "But, have you thought that maybe she didn't have the baby at all." I reminded him, crinkling up my face a bit when I said it, unaware of how he might react.
"She was going to have it for certain." He said, almost as if he were reassuring himself.
I nodded, keeping my gaze on his face: "Why is this all coming out now, if it's been 5 years?"
"You remind me a lot of her – Gabby. The way you talk to me, and the little things you do. I mean we never actually broke up; we just didn't speak to each other again. I loved her. I loved her so much and I still can't believe I screwed things up with her and my child." I looked down at the sofa, the few centimeters separating us was filled with Jay's hand. I put mine down next to it and linked my fingers with his. He didn't pull away, so I shuffled closer to him and rested my head on his shoulder.
"You can still fix things." I whispered, as I relaxed into his side, and I felt him do the same.
YOU ARE READING
No Problem
Teen Fiction"This was the secret that I had never told anyone. I had kept it so dear to me, that I had never written it down nor uttered the dreaded words under my breath." Kadie Meadows has regrets: these problems that are constantly at the back of her mind, b...
