Dex: Hey please answer.
Dex: Wow. Still no response five years later.
Dex: You must be busy.
Dex: I’m sorry. I’m trying to be funny, but none of this is funny.
Dex: Please don’t let me wait five years to hear your voice again.
Dex: I need a friend right now, Nash. Please. I need you.
How canI not answer that?
Jane:I’m here.
Dex: I’m sitting here holding her and Jesus, Nash. I wish this happened with you.
Readinghis message feels like someone pushing a hot poker through my chest. I immediately call him up.
“Jane?” he breathes into the phone. His voicehurtsme. The hot poker twists and sets my insides on fire.
“Please don’t say things like that. That’s not fair to me,” I choke out.
“I’m sorry, but I miss you. You know I still love you and—”
“No. Stop,” I sob. “You saying I miss you doesn’t mean you’re coming back and your ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean you’ll leave her and be with me, so stop giving me any kind of hope that we could be together again, ever,” I blurt.
“Fuuck,” he sighs. “Damn it, Nash. I don’t want us to end.”
I want his words to be true but there’s so much between us now, I don’t know how to get back to him. I don’t know how this can’t be the end of us. Maybe my mother is right and I need to be the voice of reason.
I clear my throat. My tone is soft and I’m sure he can hear me crying, “Please, please don’t hate me for asking this again, but did you, did you take a paternity test? Are you one hundred percent positive she is your child?”
There’s a brief pause. An exhale. “I asked her for a paternity test. She screamed at me and told me asking was the same as calling her a whore.”
“Oh. Wow.” What else could I say?
“So,” he says slowly. “Monday, I filed papers for a court-ordered DNA test. I had to do a bunch of paperwork and they had to collect the DNA, but I wanted…I wanted it all documented, the results. I did it…I did it for you, because you asked me.”
If I didn’t ask him about it, would he have just gone along and jumped into being a dad and a what? A boyfriend? A husband, maybe? How much could he really love me if he could easily brush me aside for someone else? I’m too much of a chicken to ask him. I’m too relieved and happy he got the test done. My gut instinct keeps saying that none of this is true. That me and him belong together and Stephanie is his past, with no hold on his future. I must be a fool.
“How long does it take?” Hope bubbles up and out of my lips in a gasp.
“It could be a few days to a few weeks. The results come in the mail. I don’t want her tonotbe mine, you have to know that. Right? She’s the sweetest, most adorable little…I’m so in love with her already.”
“Oh, Dex. I’m sorry you’re going through this.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry, Jane. But I could really use a friend. A friend who I love to see naked,” his raspy laugh echoes through my body. He hasn’t really thought any of this through, has he. He really doesn’t realize if he’s choosing to be a family, I’m out of the picture. Stephanie wants a husband, not someone who sleeps with other people in his spare time. I’m so confused.
“Come on, stop. We can talk like friends, but don’t give me false hope. Please. How’s the writing?”
He hesitates for a moment. I can tell he’s having a hard time not saying the things he wants to say to me. “Uh…right. Um, Pippa’s book is coming along, and Gail has me writing articles likehow to fuck up great relationship by having a baby with your exandterrifying things you don’t know about newborns.” He chuckles, but it’s low and full of pain.
“Wow. Can’t wait to read the first one,” I say dryly. I don’t know what else to talk about, sticking to what he’s writing is the only thing I can think of that’s a safe topic. “What’s terrifying about newborns?”
“They could sleep with their eyes open, staring at you. Creepy as hell. And they have the soft spot on their heads that pulses and bulges and it look like their brain wants to jumps right out of it. And did you know little girls can also sometimes shoot piss right at your face when you change their diapers?”
I force myself to giggle. “Yeah, I didn’t know any of that.”
