The Other Side(76)
“I can’t tell her I was raped. I can’t.” The tears have stopped, and I look up at him so he knows how serious I am. “I just can’t. You’re the only one who knows my secret and it’s going to stay that way.”
He nods again, but he doesn’t agree with my logic. “She needs you, she can’t kick you out. She wouldn’t do it.”
“My grandma is the sweetest person I know, but if she found out the baby’s father is a married man, she would never forgive me. Marriage is sacred.” The final words stick in my throat. I always thought it was sacred to me too. I watched my parents, a white man and a black woman, endure prejudice and racist remarks in the name of love and the sanctity of marriage. Their relationship in the late sixties and seventies in this country was marginalized, rare, and inexplicably misunderstood by the majority. Which is bullshit, love is love, but that’s how it was. I feel like I’ve betrayed them and the love they were forced to fight for. Guilt, I have so much guilt.
I’m looking at Toby’s hands hanging at his sides. There’s pencil lead smudged on his fingertips; he was drawing before he came down here. That small thought is a distraction that I grasp onto because I’ve seen his drawings and they’re unbelievably good.
His voice pulls me out of my thoughts like a swimmer trying, but failing, to tread water. “Hear me out before you say anything.”
It wasn’t a question, but I nod anyway.
“What if your grandma thought the baby was mine?”
I’m stunned, but I find the words to cut him off. “No. Absolutely not. I can’t let you do that for me.”
He tilts his head and licks his lips. “Hear me out,” he repeats patiently. “She caught us kissing on the couch the day we…you know…” he trails off and shrugs and lets slept together go unsaid. “She already assumes we were dating. Maybe she still thinks we are.”
She does. Neither Toby nor I have ever talked about what happened that day. It was two months before the incident with my professor. Toby came to our apartment to fix the stove. Grandma was taking a nap. We commiserated in our unspoken loneliness. It was profound that day, a driving force. We went from staring at each other, understanding and empathizing completely without words, to kissing with the same conviction within moments. One thing led to another; it was like we both turned our brains off and let emotion guide us into the blissful whirl of connection we both so desperately needed. Neither of us intended for it to go that far, but it was a combined force that neither of us wanted to stop. I will never forget the look on his face when he was inside me; it was devastatingly beautiful and tragic at the same time. He looked like someone who was suspended in the imagination of another person’s vivid dream, taking in every detail because it didn’t belong to him. He was curious but also knew it was impossible and wouldn’t last. I felt the same way. So like a soap bubble, we both floated on it, inside it, until it burst and disappeared. Afterward, we dressed and kissed on the couch, trying to regain the magic. The magic didn’t return because it wasn’t supposed to. Grandma caught us, and we ended up standing in the hallway wholeheartedly thanking and apologizing to each other with our eyes, while awkwardly saying nothing with our mouths because that’s how we both are. He may be quiet and I may be outspoken, but neither of us talk about feelings. We keep that shit bottled up tight. His eyes are soulful and honest. I’m looking at them now.
“I can’t do that to you. You can’t do that to you.”
“Why not? Are you embarrassed of me?” He doesn’t really ask the question as much as he determines it to be a universal truth. “I understand,” he whispers, and all I hear is the lonely heart that’s lived inside this broken boy as long as I’ve known him. It breaks my heart.
I should elaborate. I should tell him all the good I see in him that I’m sure he’s never heard from anyone else. Because he doesn’t have anyone else. And when he did have his mom, she was a bitch, especially to him. Instead, I go the logical route because, like I said, I don’t do feelings. “If we said you were the dad, that’s a lifelong job. Not that you would have to be responsible for the baby in a parental way at all, but you would be judged for not marrying me. You would be judged for us having different skin colors. You would be judged for not being an active father. There would be a stigma.” I don’t know what else to say, so I stop. You’re too good for that, I should add, but I don’t.
He looks like he wants to say something but then shakes his head to rearrange his thoughts, choosing his words meticulously. “What if…I wasn’t around in a few years? I mean…what if after graduation I left…moved away…and you never saw me again? If we told your grandma now that I’m the father to get you through this and to get you through school, wouldn’t that be worth it? I can just disappear in a few years…be the asshole…unfortunately, that happens all the time, dads walking out on their kids. Especially young dads.” He shrugs and it looks guilty because I know in my heart that if the baby were his, he would never walk out on them. “You can move on before then. I mean, you can date, obviously. We were never together, I wouldn’t expect us to be now.”
I smile sadly because I’m not sure where this guy came from, but I’ve never known anyone so selfless. I tease him because I can’t do anything else, “No one is going to date a pregnant girl or a single mom with a newborn; I’m not worried about dating.”