“I don’t want a baby,” he said.

She blinked. “Well... I don’t know that I was really planning on...”

“No. We said this was a fling. That was it. I told you, I am not up for this.”

“I...”

Everything in her started to shut down. She didn’t know how to handle this. Because he looked like a stranger. His eyes had gone deadly flat, his body language so distant... So...

“Are you saying that you would want me to get rid of it?” she asked.

He shook his head, decisively. “No. I’m not gonna tell you what to do. I just...”

“So you would just not have anything to do with it?”

“I didn’t say that either,” he said, his voice hard. “I said I didn’t want a kid. And I don’t. But I would be responsible. I would make sure that you had everything you needed. I’d be there. Physically. But I don’t have anything to give, Tansey. Not emotionally. This... This was nothing. We hung out, we ate, we talked. We fucked. It wasn’t real life. It wasn’t really me. It was... It was something different. It’s not my life. It’s not who I am.”

“So you... What? You would be in your child’s life, begrudgingly?”

“Like a kid is going to know the difference.”

“I... I can’t have this conversation. I can’t...”

“This has to end,” he said. “Whatever the outcome. It can’t keep going on like this. It’s already too much.”

“What?”

She didn’t know how she had gone from telling him that she might be pregnant, to him talking about how he didn’t want a child but he would be there in the child’s life, to him wanting to end things.

“We’ve been careless, and this was supposed to be short-term. If you’re not pregnant...”

“Right,” she said, everything inside of her dissolving, breaking apart. And she could see herself, the little girl that she’d once been, collapsed on the gravel driveway, watching her father drive away. And if he had looked at his rearview mirror even once, he would’ve seen how badly she was devastated.

She wouldn’t let Flint see it. She pushed the rising dread, the awful pain down. She cut it off; she didn’t let herself feel it. She didn’t let herself show it. She couldn’t. She couldn’t give him that. Because she would be different this time. She would push it down.

She would handle it.

She would stand upright, because she knew who she was.

“I should go,” she said.

“Right now?”

“Yes. If it’s done, then it should be done. I... I’ll let you know. I’ll let you know what happens.”

“I don’t want you to leave until...”

“You said it was finished. And you’re right. Of course you’re right. It was getting to be too much. And this is just... It’s proof. I promise I’ll tell you.”

She packed up her things, and everything was numb. It wasn’t until she left, until she drove all the way to a roadside motel six hours away that she let her chest break open entirely. That she let everything dissolve within her.

She cried until she thought she would be sick with it.

Curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed, weeping.

She didn’t find a pregnancy test. She didn’t know whether or not to pray that she was or pray that she wasn’t.

Five days later, she started bleeding. And she was angry at herself, because now she would never even know if it had been a fluke, or if she had one of those early miscarriages that were far too common. Maybe it was better. Except nothing felt better.

She texted him.

Not pregnant.

He didn’t respond. And she tried to heal. She tried to write music. She tried to move on. But the only lyrics she could write were about him.

And finally, during one session, she gave in to that. All the anger, all the pain. All the brokenness. The most scathing, personal lyrics that had ever come from her.

She couldn’t stop them.

“It’s perfect,” said her manager. “It’s the best song you’ve written.”

“I don’t know if I can put it out,” she said.

“It’s your pain,” he said. “You can do whatever you want with it.”

She held on to that. It was her pain. He was the one that had said they needed to be finished, and she hadn’t fought him, because what would the point have been? She didn’t want to show him that she cared more than he did. She refused to show him that.

And it had to go somewhere. She had to put it somewhere. It was her pain; her manager was right. Didn’t she deserve to get something from what they had?

“Yeah,” she said. “You’re right. Let’s...let’s make that the next single.”

Chapter 9

After

He didn’t know what had drawn him downstairs. And he didn’t expect to see her sitting there, her face in her hands, and notebook in her lap, and her elbows resting there.

Her shoulders were shaking, and he found that no matter what, he wanted to walk to her. He wanted to go and pull her in his arms, even though he had no right to do that. Even though he had no right at all, because it would just be more promises he couldn’t keep.

“Tansey?”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I didn’t expect you down here, I’m sorry. I’m just...”

“What’s wrong?”

“I was just remembering,” she said, her voice watery. She swallowed hard. “And maybe...maybe it’s okay that I’m letting you see it. Because I didn’t let you see it then. And I told myself that I didn’t feel it anymore. And that’s why it’s been easier to snipe at you. But that’s how it was in the beginning too, wasn’t it? I was mean to you because I wanted to push you away.”