Miles Away

Chapter 15 - Pen to Paper

Chapter 15
Jagger
Pen To Paper

I wouldn’t wish this feeling upon any of my worst enemies.

The feeling of hopelessness and utter confusion just consumed the entirety of me. My mind was reeling with images of us fumbling with shaky hands and soft lips. I remembered placing the condom on, it was right after I lifted it out of the pocket of my jeans on the bedroom floor. I knew how to avoid causes like these; I was the expert at working my way around results like these. I’d spent years in bed with girls, some more than once and always remembered to protect myself.

To protect myself from the physical and emotional aspects of instances like these.

What the hell was I going to do now? How do I go about the career of a lifetime when the girls of my dreams was carrying my child inside of her?

I cringed outwardly at the thought of a part of me growing inside of her. There did not, under any circumstances, need to be a mini-me brought into this world. One Jagger Linden was enough of a fuck up in this world, and another one was not needed. How would they act? How would they look? Will they look like me, talk like me, act like me?

I contemplated so many options…adoption, keeping it, terminating the pregnancy. When I thought of the last one, I felt like a complete asshole and immediately forfeited that option. I wouldn’t have the heart to kill an unborn kid. The kid, even if we didn’t decide to keep it, needed to experience the world on its own. It needed to see the good and the bad. The bad most represented in their father.

How the hell could I have been so stupid? I shouldn’t have allowed this to happen. Ella and I were full of problems before this one decided to butt its way in. We couldn’t handle a baby of all things right now. She was only nineteen, and I was getting a shot at my dream. There was no way I could tour all the way over in Europe while she was at home, suffering from the repercussions of something I led her into.

At some point, I found myself regretting even pushing for a dance at that party over a month ago. I thought, maybe if I hadn’t flirted my way to the bedroom, this wouldn’t have happened. I would be able to tour the world without a care in the world, with a light-hearted way of life. I wouldn’t be worrying about Ella’s fears and breaking her heart. I wouldn’t be freaking out over the fact that a child that I helped create was going to be placed in this world.

But then I’d think of all the negatives of not going for that first dance. If I hadn’t talked to her first, if I hadn’t pursued a thing, I wouldn’t be feeling that hole in my heart closing up just a bit, day by day, all thanks to her. I wouldn’t have that face to be excited to see while I was away on tour. I couldn’t engage in Skype conversations, telling someone about my hopes and dreams that actually cared enough to listen. And as cheesy as it sounds, I would have never known what it was like to actually feel something for somebody else.

All I could feel was the light rain pattering against my skin, drop by drop, as I walked the busy sidewalks. I hadn’t even registered the handful of people I kept bumping into accidentally until someone cursed loudly at me before walking off. I kept my gaze far off, letting my mind run in circles around the fact that I was fathering a child. This was something I’d never expected to have to deal with. This was why I stayed protected and strayed away from relationships. But the main question dangling around the center of it all was this:

Why did I leave like that?

I couldn’t find it in myself to walk back to her apartment, to apologize and beg for forgiveness. I didn’t burst through the door and tell her how much I regretted leaving her in the first place. I didn’t go back and say, Sorry! I’m back. I just kept walking and walking, no certain destination in mind. I’d never been this lost before, this confused. I wasn’t ready to be a father. Hell, I wasn’t even ready for a relationship yet.