He Did, Of Course

short fiction

The first thing I did when I found out the news was chug a seven dollar bottle of rosé. Then I smoked a cigarette butt I found hiding in my trash can and fucked my downstairs neighbor. I figured it was fine, considering my intended plan and all–that being said, I didn’t tell him I did any of that.

I was, in many ways, naive, for thinking I’d have the power just because I was older. That was never the case with Gabe. We were in the same Race in Film class. I remember when I found out about his early graduation and obscene SAT score, thinking, why would you choose to study something as fucking stupid as movies with a brain like that?--I never asked that, I was sure he had gotten that question enough from his other hook-ups and selfishly, I wanted to stand out. He was precocious–a term I’d never thought I’d use, never wanted to use, to describe a lover of mine.

He looked like some strain of Balkan, and was possibly Jewish. I never asked about that either, not out of desire to seem aloof, but it just would not have mattered to me either way. He was big-eyed, big-nosed, and small-mouthed. Every part of his person was a different shade of beige or brown. He was the kind of person that looked easy to draw, but you’d never get it quite right if you tried. I made the first move, of course.

It was on the day we watched Colin Farrell’s The New World. In the discussion afterwards, most people were just echoing things our teacher, Ms. Streicher, had already said, talking about “white savior complexes” and “historical inaccuracies” and “calculated microaggressions”. Once a lull entered the conversation, Gabe, very coolly, raised his hand, as if he didn’t really care if he was called on or not, as if people didn’t need to hear his thoughts for them to be valid.

“Yes, Gabe, what would you like to offer?”, Ms. Streicher asked.

He cleared his throat and straightened his back.

“Well, people are reading her broken and forlorn nature as a metaphor for her racial otherness, but I see it as the opposite. Her race is a metaphor for her internal otherness: she’s emotionally Native American. In that way, and honestly, all ways, this is a love story. A love between a broken girl and a lonely man, and I don’t think enough people are recognizing that.”

I didn’t agree with him, or at least, I don’t think I did, but I found his obstinance to acclimate to the rehearsed liberal culture of the class admirable, sexy even. And it was definitely unexpected–such a romantic response. I momentarily fantasized us doing roleplay in bed, me, Pocahontas, him, John Smith, pumping behind me and pulling my long, dark hair while whispering sensual words in my native language. But then I felt bad, and stopped thinking that. Ms. Streicher, of course, didn’t like this and called his observation “grossly negligent to the entire point of this class”, but I mostly stopped listening after that.

After class, I went up to him. Tapped his shoulder, said his name in a confident tone as if we were already friends, and told him I liked what he said. He said it was mostly a joke, and I laughed like I knew it was. We found a seat on a nearby bench and talked for a bit–with mostly him talking–chiding our “woke” peers and verbally masturbating over the main actress in the movie. Our class was at night, and by the time our conversation reached a natural conclusion, it was nine o’clock, so I coyly suggested he walk me home since it was a city and all, just to be safe, of course.

He didn’t even need me to invite him in, he showed himself around my apartment, as if it were naturally his. He said he knew the guy who lived below me, told me that he was an absolute asshole–I told him I used to date the guy in response, just to make him jealous. He made courteous small talk with my roommates as I poured us two glasses of red wine. I filled mine substantially higher than his and took a large swig when he wasn’t looking. We went to my bedroom and talked–he asked about my family, I asked about his ex-girlfriends, he asked about my major, I asked about his favorite sexual position, only after my third glass of wine, mind you. But, of course, after that, there was nothing to do but fuck. He was the perfect amount of toned: not too small like a twink, not too thick like a gym rat. He had a big dick and no concern over whether or not I was getting off–it was hot. He routinely called me a “dirty whore” and slapped my ass, or lack thereof, without me needing to ask, which I appreciated. Afterwards, he patted my stomach, kissed my forehead, and made his quiet and respectful exit.

We spent the next six weeks like that: hanging out after every Thursday night class to talk and drink and fuck. Once I suggested that we hang out on a different day, but then he became very serious and stern and told me about the “importance of emotional boundaries”, so I did not try again, which I was fine with, I was more than used to casual sex being the standard. That was just college for you–and city college at that. He did open my worldview quite a bit, though. He got me into reading Slavoj Zizek, got me into saying the word “retarded”, got me into unprotected sex. It was on the seventh Thursday night that I realized, laying alone and naked on my bed, granules of his cum marinating inside me after another poorly timed pull-out, that I hadn’t gotten my period.

I stole a pregnancy test from my roommate’s bathroom. As I was waiting, I looked in the mirror as if I were watching a character in a movie and thought do something poetic, say something memorable, cry for fuck’s sake–I did none of the above.

I hate to admit it, but I had willed this to happen: I had. After every hang out–I don’t know if it was post-nut clarity or something more sinister and less inevitable–Gabe would grow detached towards me, and it always seemed so cruel and so certain. I never felt sure that there would be another hang out, until he’d walk me home the following Thursday, all smiling and joking, as if nothing had changed. Because of this, I wished to get pregnant. Well, wish isn’t the right word: but it was a concrete and consistent intrusive thought. I did not want to trap him with me through pregnancy, no, I just wanted the assurance I’d see him again–and an abortion would, sadly but surely, assure that.

After getting drunk and letting my downstairs neighbor–who actually turned out to be a very lovely guy–come into my recently-used vagina, I called my mom and asked her to schedule it. She only did this after sobbing wordlessly on the phone for four minutes to the point of dry-heaving–I let her divulge in this comfort, only speaking to say “it probably would have been retarded anyways”.

I stayed up all night doing “research” on the “topic” and kept coming across the word surgical. Surgical, really? That seemed a little dramatic. It’s not like I was getting my appendix out or doing something actually morally depraved, like getting a boob job. One site said to seek professional medical help if I “still feel pregnant” a week after the abortion. What does that even mean? I did not even feel pregnant now, what would I have to compare it to? I only noticed that time had passed through the sun rising between my blinds. I immediately got ready–picked the dried mascara off my undereyes, sprayed either dry shampoo or deodorant on my underarms. I called Gabe on my way to my seven a.m Horror Film class.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

He sounded unaffected. I could picture him scraping dirt out under his fingernails and flinging it at the phone screen.

“Listen, we have to talk, I–”

There was a smacking sound–either he was clicking his tongue or slapping his thigh, I didn’t know which I preferred.

“Ugh, God. I thought I made myself clear with you, I don’t want anything serious, and that doesn’t make me a bad–”

“No, shut up, Jesus.”

I was drunk on no sleep and had no time to shower so my crotch was itching with semen and spit, the latter of which wasn’t his fault, but made me angry nonetheless.

“I’m pregnant, Gabe.”

He coughed. Then laughed. Then went silent.

“But you’re on birth control”, he argued.

“No, uh, no, I’m not. I never said I was.”

He coughed again. I thought I could hear a girl giggling in the background.

“But I pull out every time”, he affirmed.

I couldn’t believe how stupid he was being for a supposed smart guy. It sounded like he was trying to stifle a laugh and then I weakly made out someone saying “bitch” in the background. I hung up, texted him the address and time for the appointment, and sprinted to class to keep my body from crying. I fell asleep ten minutes in and was awoken by a tall, pale man with green eyes. He kindly tapped me awake and I asked where everyone went, upon seeing an empty classroom. He, strangely, just muttered “you’re beautiful”. I told him “not now” and left. When I got home, I masturbated to his face, took an Ambien, and fell asleep for twenty-two hours.

The appointment was the following Tuesday–I would have to miss a midterm on 1960’s gialli for it, which I didn’t mind too much. I didn’t abstain from drugs or alcohol or cigarettes or sex or whatever that weekend–I was simply doing my due diligence to help the doctors move the process along. Saturday, I went to a Greta Gerwig-themed rave and rolled on molly and ate out a forty-year-old woman dressed as Lady Bird. Sunday, I went to a frat party and gave a married guy head in a nearby port-a-potty and stole the host’s unopened bottle of Fireball. Monday, I skipped my classes, and drank that Fireball while chain-smoking in my bedroom and stalking Gabe’s Instagram. I saw that two blonde sluts had recently followed him. I blocked both.

I kept peeing, once every hour it seemed. Every time I’d get the tension in my bladder, I’d forget my current circumstances and have a fearful thought of wait, am I pregnant?, and each time I had to force myself to remember. But by Tuesday, I had fully remembered–I guess the word would be “known”--that I was pregnant. My breasts seemed monstrous, my brain wanted to kill me, and the smell of my roommate’s prosciutto made me want to barf. I’d never seen her buy prosciutto before–I think she did it on purpose.

When Tuesday came, I got an Uber to the clinic to see Gabe standing outside, looking guilty, which was not a good look on him. He hadn’t reached out to me since I called him. He was wearing a suit and tie, his hair was gelled back. I suppressed a laugh.

There were no geriatrics wielding graphic photos of dead babies loitering outside. No unemployed men calling me a “dirty whore”. Just Gabe, who was definitely thinking it. As I filled out forms, he kept straightening his posture, straightening his tie, looking around. I wondered who he was trying to look good for.

The lady doctor kept talking me through it, but I tuned her out the same way I do with Ms. Streicher. I didn’t want to know what was happening, I wanted her to be in control, and it felt selfish of her to put any more than she had to on me. I tuned most of what was happening out, actually. All I really remember is the cold of the salad tongs inside me, cold of the crunchy sanitary sheet below me, cold of the bubbly nurse’s stare through me. Cold cold cold.

Afterwards, Gabe walked me back home–it was the first time I’d ever seen him nervous and uncomfortable, and I almost wished he had the abortion instead of me, so I could be the nervous, uncomfortable one. He always got the best roles.

“So.”, he began, with no clear indication of where he was going.

“So.”, I mimicked.

“Do you ever want to have a kid?”

I couldn’t believe he just asked me that. It was not right timing. It was not right.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

His hands were in his pockets. I felt an urge to fish one out, hold onto it. I put my hands in my pockets, too.

“I think I do. I can definitely see myself with a daughter.”

I cringed at the thought of him being a father to a daughter. I cringed at the thought of him being a father.

“Me, too”, I heard myself say. I continued.

“I always thought if I did have a child, it would be a girl. I think I could be a great mother to a girl. It would be hard but I think I could be really good at it.”

He remained silent, but not even in a rude way, he just seemed preoccupied. He looked around as if he was seeing everything for the first time, garishly clear–at the sky, the sidewalk, me, his shoes. Or maybe that’s how I was seeing the world and I was just hoping he saw it that way, too.

Once home, I downed three Advil, and Gabe tucked me into bed. He put two tall glasses of water by my bedside, plugged in my phone, and placed a towel underneath my butt “just in case”. He left shortly after that, which was for the best–we didn’t need either one of us getting attached just because of this.

It’s not that I felt “full” before, but I felt strangely empty, an unprompted kind of emptiness, an emptiness that feels heavier than its former counterpart. I don’t like feeling things that I didn’t know were possible to feel–it’s annoying. I bled brown goop and the cramps would occasionally resurface, but I remedied with strategically placed maxi-pads and the rest of that Fireball.

I don’t know what it is about cinnamon-flavored whiskey, but I felt inclined to check my blocked accounts and unblock the prettier-looking blonde. Her most recent post was with Gabe–a high-resolution photo where he was topless and, for some reason, soaking wet, and she was kissing his cheek with a beer in hand. Her breasts were spilling out of her black satin dress, much bigger than mine, even when I was somewhat pregnant. If she ever got pregnant, she’d have all the men at her feet, I thought.

I asked one of my roommates–the one that actually liked me, or maybe pretended to–if she was pretty, along with a refill on my glass of water. My roommate said that she looked like me. I appreciated that, not only for the comparison to a woman who has achieved my crush’s affections, but for saying it like that: “she looks like you”, instead of “you look like her”. The implication that I came first, whatever that means, was something I treasured for days. I checked Hannah’s more provocative posts’ likes and told myself “if he liked it, you should kill yourself”. I’m not actually suicidal, not everything I say to myself is true in a surface-level sense, and these kinds of thoughts of divinity have proven both pervasive and inevitable during times of severe insecurity, best to hear them but not listen to them, which is ironically the attitude Gabe held towards me—guess we had that in common. Anyways. He did, of course, like every one.

She was also a film major, but a successful one: a rarity. She was doing a paid internship at MUBI and was self-funding, directing, and starring in her third film, a slice-of-life short exposing the abject underbelly of white feminism through the perspective of a myopic white woman. Her bio read “Gen Z Lena Dunham”. Her profile picture featured her smoking a blunt in a thrifted wedding dress outside of a 7/11. I hated her but I wanted to be her, and I hated myself for thinking the latter.

I thought, for a moment, about her dying. Not graphically, not viciously, but just the absoluteness of it, the entrancing concept of her just not existing. But if anything that’d be worse, he’d mourn her forever and she’d become this beautiful dead girl, this idyllic idea of young tragedy and a fuzzy symbol of lost love, and I cannot compete with that–no one can. He’d have to actively reject her for me to be happy, but that’s too convoluted for intrusive thoughts—they feed off of impulse and certainty.

I felt a hot zap in my stomach, as if a finger was scraping, trying to find its way out. Hannah and Gabe. Hannah Hannah Hannah. I had always thought Hannah would be a really pretty name for a daughter. Oh, well.