but he didn't want to know
Some of you will say I should have told him. Others of you will say I did right. It really doesn't matter now, as I can no longer tell him. However, I have to tell someone. So I will tell you.
It was July 4th. I had gone to visit my boyfriend because I had a few days off, as did he. We hadn't seen each other much lately, so we spent little time... ah... "catching up". We weren't having sex because I had gone off the Pill due to some complications I had while on it. We were simply doing "other" things to be close. Unfortunately, we got carried away. I'll spare you the graphic details. Suffice to say, we had sex. Unprotected.
A month later, and I was two weeks late. I didn't realize it at first, but when it did finally occur to me, I took a pregnancy test right away. I waited, pacing in the tiny bathroom. The timer went off. Positive.
SHIT!
I was going to see him in a week. I decided not to call him... this isn't the kind of information you give people over the phone. I would wait to tell him that he was going to be a daddy.
Would he be a daddy? Would I keep it? We had discussed what we would do should I get pregnant when we first began having sex. I told him I was pro-choice, and I might abort the fetus. He did not like that option, though he told me it was my body, and he would support my decision. "I can't keep it." I told him. "I'm not in any position to keep a baby. I would have to quit my job, and how would I finish school? If I have it, I'd have to give it up for adoption." "I could take it." he said, quietly. He meant it. He would be a single father. We left it there, hoping we would never have to worry about it. Now, I had to worry about it.
He called me the next day. He had spent the weekend with his brother, and we hadn't spoken in a few days. He was upset, I could tell that right off. "Something happened." he said. He had found some things out that "turned his world upside down." He didn't want to talk about it on the phone. He needed time, he said, to think things through. He would tell me everything when he came the next weekend. I told him I was there if he needed me, and I told him nothing about the baby.
"He's going to break up with me." I told my roommate. "I know him too well. Whatever has happened, he's going to break up with me. He won't be able to stay with me. I know him." They told me I was silly, but I knew better.
He came the following Sunday. We sat down, he told me what had happened. It would have messed up anyone's mind. Then, he told me, "I can't be a boyfriend right now. It wouldn't be fair to you. I need time to get my life back together, before we can be together."
"I need to tell you something." I said. "Is it bad news? Because I can't take any more bad news."
"No, it's not bad news. I love you. That's all."
We talked a while longer. We cried, we kissed. We said goodbye. I didn't tell him.
But then, I never had to. Nature took care of the problem for me. I lost the baby the next week. No choices to make, except one -- to tell him, or not to tell him.
I never did. We spent the next few months in a kind of relationship limbo. We talked for hours on the phone every night, just as we always had. He came to see me, though not as often. We were still intimate with each other in various ways -- not often, but occasionally, sex. Then, without warning, he started dating another girl. He didn't tell me about her. He lied about dating anyone, actually. I had to find out through his MySpace page.
I never told him. I wonder how things would have changed if I had. I wonder what my life would be right now if he hadn't heard the news that changed his life. I wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't lost the baby. I can never tell him, now. I'm sure I'll never speak to him again.
But I had to tell someone.