Griffin
Time passed in a dark blur. The only thing keeping me active was my daily weekday routine of getting up, showering, and going to work - all of which I completed with barely enough energy to keep standing.
It wasn’t until Rafael stopped me in the hall that I was forced to put on some semblance of normalcy, though judging by the look on his face, I obviously failed.
“Dude,” Rafael said. “What happened? You look awful.”
I didn’t want to talk about it in the middle of the office hall where it could be heard by lingering gossips, so I merely shook my head.
“Tell you at lunch,” I mumbled.
But Rafael grabbed me before I could leave. “No, Griffin. I’ve seen you at your lowest before, and this looks suspiciously alotlike it. I’m not waiting until lunch. We’re talking about this now.”
If I had more energy, I might have irritably snapped at him to go away and stop pestering me. But I felt like a tranquilized animal. All I could manage was a weak nod as he hurried me to my office and shut the door behind him.
“Tell me,” Rafael asked. “Does it have something to do with Jake?”
I visibly winced at his name, and Rafael’s expression sharpened. He shot up from his seat.
“Did he tell you?” Rafael demanded.
“Tell me what?” I mumbled.
Rafael hesitated, then said, “Tell me what you know.”
I was too exhausted to argue with him.
“Jake didn’t take a morning-after pill when we had unprotected sex. He might be pregnant,” I confessed.
The gears turned in Rafael’s brain. He paced around the room, gesturing with his hands as he spoke. “Wait. Okay, hold on, Griffin. I met Jake the other day. We ran into each other at the pharmacy.”
Through the haze of depression, I barely registered what he was saying until the mental image formed in my mind. “Huh?”
“Yes. He spilled everything to me. The fact that you had sex again, and that you didn’t use a condom.” He gave me a sideways look that might have been an admonishment if I weren’t so down in the dumps right now. “But he didn’t know what to do about it. He bought both the pregnancy test and the pills, like he was confused about which direction to go in. Like he didn’t know whether he wanted the baby or not.”
I nodded, remembering what I saw in his bathroom. But I still didn’t know where he was going with his tale.
“And… I told him about Heath,” he admitted.
The pain of hearing his name during my current turmoil made me flinch like I’d been struck.
“I know that,” I muttered. “Jake told me you filled him in.”
“I’m really sorry. I know it wasn’t my place.” Rafael spread his arms. “But don’t you see? He didn’t take the pill. That’s good news! You should be celebrating!”
His words sounded like alphabet soup. None of this made sense to me. If he was throwing me a metaphorical rope, I couldn’t reach it stuck in the bog of my dark emotions.
“Griffin,” Rafael said urgently, grabbing me by the shoulders. “That means hewantsto keep the baby!”
With a prickle of irritation, I shrugged him off. “No, he doesn’t. I know that for a fact.”
“What?”
“He’s said it a thousand times,” I told him. “He doesn’t want a romantic relationship, and he sure as hell doesn’t want kids. He’s made that clear. For you to insist he wants to have a baby now is just ridiculous, and frankly, doesn’t make me feel any better.”
Rafael’s brows furrowed. “Griffin, you’re not listening. Jake didn’t take the pill!”
“And?” I countered. “He still has time. Just like Heath did. He could even wait until the baby’s further along, and - ”
