Shana doesn’t even respond to him; she just gives him an endearing look before she turns back to the room and yells to Lisa to let her know he is there. By that point he has already heard her making noises in the bathroom before he walks up to the bathroom door to see her brushing her teeth.
She greets him with a hug and once again tells him she isn’t feeling good and that he should go to the game as she pushes him out of the bathroom doorway into the room. Thinking that he could laugh at his pain to make it feel better he responds with a joke, “You know I had to check on my baby mama.”
He doesn’t expect such an adverse reaction from Lisa, who has been acting like there is nothing to be upset about up to this point.
“Don’t call me that!”
He is shocked at her reaction and even more so when she begins to feel sick again and suddenly runs into the bathroom. She runs straight to the toilet and starts to throw up. It grosses him out, but he is worried about her and goes in behind her anyway trying to help her pull back her shoulder length hair. As he leans over her kneeling down in front of the toilet, he can’t help but wonder how she got so sick, still oblivious to what is going on. It only takes a few moments before he notices the two pregnancy test boxes in her trash from that weekend. Then it hit him and stands him up straight.
“Are you pregnant?”
Pulling up from the toilet she responds as if she is confused. “What? We already talked about that.”
“Answer my question. Are you pregnant?”
“Jairus, I can’t have a child. Not in college. I can’t!”
“So what, it didn’t say you were pregnant at first and then you started getting sick?” Hoping that was the case. She just stared at him intensely while remaining silent.
“You lied to me,” he says as his eyes begin to get glossy, knowing what her intentions must be.
This situation is much more complicated and deep rooted for Lisa than just lying to Jairus.
“My mother got pregnant with me just before she turned 20 at the end of her sophomore year of college. She never went back to school for her junior year because she had to take care of a baby then,” she said before pausing. “Even though she always told me I am the best thing that’s ever happened to her, she was never shy at letting us know she always wondered what she could have been if she finished college. I think she always said it to scare us away from making the same mistakes she made. She was a business finance and accounting major and now she’s an assistant manager at a local bank office. She’s been at that bank almost my entire life. She started as a bank teller and worked her way up and she has been passed up for the branch manager job four times even though she is the most qualified person. And you know why? Because her competition always had a degree and she didn’t,” she continues. “It’s easy for you to imagine this working out the best. You would probably stay in school and finish and get a great job to take care of your kid. But for me, I’m heading back home immediately. More than likely, my career ends with this baby,” she says as her eyes start to water. Jairus continues to just listen. “My father tried to stay in school. Everyone said it was the best thing for the family. Eventually it was too much, and he dropped out, too, but it always stood out to me that no one had that same thought for my mother. I don’t want to make this into a cycle for my family. I won’t let that be my story, too. Didn’t you tell me it’s the same thing that happened to your mother? Look how broke we both were growing up. Is that what you want for a family? For us?”
By this time, they are both wiping tears. Jairus hears everything she is telling him and the realization of what she is really saying has him floored and now sitting on the edge of the tub. She’s still sitting on the floor in front of the toilet. Neither of them is able to move from their spots. His perspective is totally different than hers and he can’t hold back from telling her how he feels.
“You know, I have never met my father. I’ve told you that. It’s one of the things that always felt missing in my life. For a long while my mom was with my sister's father and then they ended up breaking up and I felt like I lost another father. And then my uncle died, and he was like a father at the time. All I ever wanted was a father and every time I had one, he went away. So, after a while I started accepting that I would never have a father. It wasn’t meant for me. But then that made me promise myself that my kids would never have that issue with me. If I couldn’t have that relationship as a kid, I would damn sure have it as a father. I have known that since I was about fifteen. I’ll figure out a way. I’ll drop out and let you go back. But not keeping a child…I can’t do that to myself. I don’t know how I can live with that.”
Lisa sits there silently for a moment after he finishes. They both do. Then she rises to her knees and hugs him where he sits, holding onto him tightly. There is no answer for their dilemma. No happy compromise. She sits back down and the only thing she can say is, “I don’t know what to say.” Neither does he. They sit there in thought, looking back and forth at one another for a lifetime before she decides to go to bed. He leaves to take a long walk back to his room to be alone.
Jairus gets to his room and quickly falls asleep after being emotionally drained that night. He doesn’t wake up until the next morning when Ovaughn wakes him up because he thinks he is about to be late to his morning class from oversleeping. Startled by Ovaughn, it takes him a second to gather himself and realize he has a class soon. But today that class doesn’t matter much to him. He sits up on the edge of his bed and looks at Ovaughn and says, “Young, Lisa’s pregnant.”
Ovaughn nearly snaps his neck looking at him in shock after his statement.
“What y’all gonna do?”
“I don’t know man. She doesn’t want to keep it.” They spend the next fifteen minutes going over everything that was said the night before between Lisa and Jairus. Only this time Jairus is telling him what Lisa’s thoughts were and Ovaughn is responding with what he knows Jairus’ feelings to be about having kids as if he is having the argument himself. They really did talk about everything over their time as roommates. Everyone opens up to Ovaughn, one on one. He makes it easy to do. The one thing Ovaughn asks Jairus that he has no answer for is how he is going to handle it if she does go through with not keeping the baby. That leaves Jairus in silence. He doesn’t want to confront that possibility or how he will emotionally handle it.
Ovaughn suggests Jairus try to talk to Mr. Carter. He always seems to have a good word of advice for all the players on the team and anyone that he can help. They all still view him as one of their favorite teachers from his health class and working with the basketball team in Ovaughn’s case. By the end of that week Jairus finds his way to see Mr. Carter on his last day of office hours before the week of Thanksgiving. He knows Lisa is leaving the weekend before the holiday and is hoping to get some insight that will help him to talk to her before she leaves. He arrives at Mr. Carter’s office and asks him for advice to help a friend with a situation he is going through. Unfortunately for Jairus, not only does he see through him trying to act like it isn’t his own situation, but he also doesn’t get the type of response he wants. “As much as it hurts, you can’t stop her from making any decision she wants to make. The best advice I can give is to continue to talk to her about his feelings. But you absolutely have to respect her feelings.” Jairus just quietly listens as Mr. Carter continues, “In the end you will have to decide how to handle it emotionally if things don’t go the way you want or how to be the man you're promising you will be if it does go your way. Jairus, one of the hardest life lessons to learn is that you can’t control everything that will happen to you in life. What you can control are your actions and reactions. Those are yours and yours alone.” Jairus doesn’t question his words. He just takes them in and accepts the wisdom being given to him.
Jairus and Lisa talk a few times before she flies to New York for the Thanksgiving holiday. She will be gone for almost a full week, but it feels like the blink of an eye before Jairus and Duc are on the road back to Atlanta again and he is finally telling him about the situation with Lisa. Duc is in disbelief listening to Jairus tell him what has been going on. He feels like being off campus makes him disconnected if his best friend has something so important going on and he has no idea. He responds by doing what he does best, trying to make Jairus feel better about the outlook of the situation by hyping the best-case scenario for him and Lisa. Specifically, how they can have a child and still graduate. He can’t fix the situation, but he can make him feel better about it or at least make him look at the positive possibilities. In actuality every possibility is scary to him, but he can’t let Jairus know that.
Everyone gets back to school that week anticipating the final few weeks of school to go by quickly except for Jairus. He is spending his days talking to Lisa, trying to explain the ways they can make things work with the baby on the way and begging her to keep the baby when she doesn’t seem convinced. He can tell she seems checked out on the conversations and that scares him. They are very emotional about the situation, and he is becoming fearful that his emotions are mistaken for judgement because his friends always tell him he can act ‘holier than thou’ when trying to tell people what the right thing to do is. So, he turns to the friend that he knows is best at weighing all sides of the situation. As shocked as Mike is to hear about the situation and as much as he wants to be able to add some perspective that will help Jairus, he is at his core the same as Jairus. A child from a single parent home who longs for a relationship with a father that he has yet to receive, even if it’s more than what Jairus has. And Mike finds this to be the one situation he is completely biased about, and he agrees completely with his friend and everything he is saying.
Jairus begins to become more and more fearful as he feels Lisa pushing back the more he tries to discuss things throughout that week. That weekend it only gets worse when Lisa finally seems to have enough and cuts him off in the middle of him detailing one of his positive scenarios.
“Jairus, just stop! You are wasting your time. There’s nothing to discuss anymore.”
He looks at her with a confused look, hoping he is misunderstanding what she just says, “What does that mean?”
Lisa goes quiet for a second, then says, “You know what I mean, Jairus.”
His eyes begin to water and all he can get out is, “How? When?” As hurt as he is by the discussion, it's not easy for her either. She has to physically go through it, and it breaks her heart to hurt him, as well. She has to close her eyes to try to hold back the tears. “I took care of it while I was home for Thanksgiving.” She knows it will not be easy for him to hear, and she drops her head as she says it, afraid to look in his direction to see his reaction. She expects him to react to her with disbelief. She would even understand him lashing out in anger. She hopes he will surprise her and be relieved, but she does not think he will go dead silent. He has no questions about what she said. He knows it is real as soon as she says it and all he feels is sadness. He doesn’t say a word. He just sits there trying and failing to hold back tears. When she finally looks up after a long moment of silence, she sees the tears on his face and starts crying herself. She reaches over and grabs his hand and begins to say try to tell him that they will “Jairus, I love you. And one day I plan to be all those things you have been saying we can be. Becoming husband and wife. Building a family. I can’t wait to see the amazing father you become. I want us to have all of that. We will have all of it. And we will be so happy...once the time is right. Hurt, he abruptly interrupts her once he hears that.
“I have to go” wiping his face with his sleeve before quickly leaving her room and leaving her sitting there. She now feels abandoned instead of alone. He now feels betrayed instead of fearful.
The rest of the weekend passes and Jairus informs his boys about what happened, so they won’t still be trying to help him figure it out anymore. Everyone responds the same way. “How are you and Lisa?” Jairus is so deep in his feelings about the situation he can’t bring himself to answer her phone call when she tries to see how he is doing. She doesn’t hear anything from him after he leaves her room until the first class they have together on Monday morning. Lisa walks into the engineering class shortly before the start and sees Jairus and Ovaughn already seated at the back of the class. She approaches and notices Ovaughn tap Jairus so that he knows she’s coming, so she speaks to him first saying “Hey, O.”
“Hey.” It feels a lot more distant than his normal warm greetings, but she understands he is just staying out of it the best he knows how. She turns her attention to Jairus, noticing he still has a melancholy look on his face. “I called you a couple times this weekend.”
He nods his head in acknowledgement without saying anything.
“I think we need to talk about…everything” she continues. “Can we just talk?”
“Okay.” He feels so distant, and she just wants them to walk out of class now and fix things between them. But she knows that’s not where he is mentally, and she’s scared of what happens if she pushes too much when he’s not ready. She leaves him alone and goes to sit on the other side of class trying to give him his space for the moment.
The second to last week of school comes and goes and Jairus still doesn’t reach out to Lisa. He spends the week trying to do things to keep his mind off the situation and talking to Lisa about it just feels like it will make him sad again. She stops calling after class on Monday. Now she is waiting for him to initiate the conversation although she is reminding him every day they have classes together. She doesn’t want him to think she’s given up on talking but she isn’t going to chase after him. He attends the Open Mic night and one of Ovaughn’s games that week. Ovaughn and the team are having a great season so far and seeing his friend do well is one thing that brings him joy right now. On that Friday, when everyone else decides to go out to the club, Jairus finds himself in his room alone deep in thought about anything and everything. He decides to get out of the room and go for a walk around campus to get some air and eventually finds himself near Lisa’s dorm. He has no idea whether she is at home or not, but he is now outside of her dorm, finally willing to talk after a week of silence. He pulls out his cell phone and calls her room. The phone rings a few times and he thinks he must have missed her, but she eventually picks up.
He says, “You busy? I’m downstairs.”
“Did you want to talk right now?” Hearing her sound a bit hesitant, he starts to back out, but she isn’t sure she will get another chance. She tells him to wait, and she will come down and let him in the dorm.
Eventually they get back to her room and sit together awkwardly not knowing how to start such a difficult conversation. Jairus, feeling obligated to talk at this point, starts by saying “I guess I will just start by telling you how I feel. It’s hard for me not to feel like you were just lying to me the entire time. First with telling me you weren’t pregnant and then by not telling me you were going to have the abortion when you went home to New York.” She can only look at the floor as she hears those comments. She knew it was going to be something he brings up, so she remains silent and allows him to continue. “You had to know how deceitful that would feel to me. How it seems like you don’t care about my feelings. How am I supposed to trust anything you tell me now?”
She knew how he would feel and is very sad she is making him feel this way. She is also hurt that he still can’t grasp her perspective. So, she tries to explain in an apologetic tone saying “Jairus, if I thought I had a better option I would never have kept anything from. I love you and I never want to hurt you or deceive you. I swear. I wish I could’ve lived out our lives never doing anything to hurt you, but I was so scared, and I didn’t have any other options.” He quickly replies, “I tried to come up with other options, more than once.” “Jairus, I don’t know why this hits way closer to home for me than it does for you. I would expect that you, of all people, would understand how failing in this way is huge for me with my family history. I can accept not being good enough and flunking out. I could accept not having tuition money and having to go home to community college. I can’t end up the same way as my parents. That’s my worst fear. You should get that. I never felt like I really had any other options. And I know that doesn’t make it easy for you. I just need us to get past this. Once we get past this, I’m going to spend the rest of our lives making sure you know you don’t have to worry about secrets and lies. We’re in this together. That‘s a non-issue. And eventually we’ll have that family you always wanted.” He just sits staring at the wall taking in everything she just said for a moment in an awkward silence.
She is shocked when he responds to the possibility of their future family saying, “How am I not supposed to think about the child I lost when we’re raising those future kids in 10 years?” She is lying on her bed with him sitting on the edge of the bed and as the conversation gets tougher and tougher Lisa just wants to feel loved by him more. They can’t seem to see eye to eye on any aspect of the situation. Or maybe Jairus just doesn’t want to at this point. For a moment, when they both get silent, Lisa sits up and wraps her arms around Jairus wanting to show him affection and intimacy. He hugs her tightly in return as he too misses her embraces. She begins to cry again and tells him “I love you, Jairus” as she normally does. He remains silent for a moment as if he is thinking about his response then tells her “I love too, Lisa.” Physical intimacy has never been an issue for them, and Lisa wants to feel as close as possible to him at that moment and begins to kiss Jairus. He too craves to feel the way he has always felt in their relationship but as they continue to kiss, he starts to think about how their intimacy got them in their current situation. Those thoughts make him pull away from her. He can’t help but think about the lost child. “I can’t do it… I’m just going to leave before it gets too late.” That is the only time she can ever remember him turning down sex. As surprising as his arrival was, he makes an even more abrupt exit. She is left alone in her dorm room hugging one of her bed pillows, beginning to cry at the new thought that they may not be able to get past this.
