And suddenly, it wallops me straight in the gut, putting everything into perspective. Danielle will never know how it feels to be pregnant. She’ll never fall in love or get married or get her heart broken by someone she loves. She’ll never hold her baby in her arms, inhale that milky smell of innocence, or kiss the tip of their tiny snub nose.
Her experiences were stolen from her the first time she injected a drug into her vein because from that moment, she stopped living in the real world.
While I get to do all these things. For both of us. So, how dare I sit here and wallow in self-pity because I have to do it alone.
I scrunch up the Swedish Fish packet and leave it on the soil at the end of the grave. I stand up, and read the words on the headstone:
Danielle Jones, a star that will continue to shine.
“Thanks, Dan,” I whisper. “Wish me luck.”
A warm breeze picks up as I leave the cemetery and head towards the subway station. It feels like my sister is stroking my cheek, and I cover it with my hand to keep her close.
Stepping out of the station at Fifth Avenue, my resolve crumbles a little, and all my insecurities come rolling in.
What if he refuses to speak to me?
What if he calls security to escort me off the premises?
What if he hears me out in his office and laughs in my face?
And the worst one: What if he looks at me like I’m a stranger, like he doesn’t even remember the conversation we had about foreplay, or his advance apology for making it hard and fast.
My cheeks burn as I pace the sidewalk, my feet carrying me directly to the Rinse, the route indelibly imprinted on my psyche.
Perhaps if I hadn’t buried myself in vivid memories of a sheepskin rug and Bash’s green eyes, I might have spotted George sooner and darted inside a store before he could hit me with his best Instagram smile.
“Remy, I’m glad I bumped into you.” He blocks my path, making it obvious that I’ll have to sidestep around him to get past.
“Why?” I don’t want to waste time talking to him. I already know that by the time he’s done, my determination to speak to Bash will have melted into the hot sidewalk and disappeared through the cracks. “What is there to say?”
He blinks like he’s running through a mental list of potential scenarios and pulling out the relevant script. “Don’t be like that, Rem, it doesn’t suit you.”
Wow. Nothing has changed since we broke up. He still sees himself at the top of the mountain and me at the bottom struggling to find a foothold.
“How would you know what suits me? I’m not the little girl you met in high school. I’m all grown up now.” I straighten my spine to prove the point.
I could tell him that I’m pregnant, just to see the look on his face. But as frightened as I am of speaking to Bash, it feels wrong to give this asshole the good news before the babies’ father.
“I think I know you better than that.” He steps closer, raises a hand to touch my hair, and I bat it away.
“Don’t touch me.”
His eyes drift down my body, and he doesn’t even try to hide it. “What we had was special, Remy.” I hear the words, but his eyes are still cold.
“What we had was one-sided. You didn’t care about me.” His name sticks in my throat, so I don’t even try to say it.
“How can you say that? You were my first love.”
I shake my head and try to remember the quote by Charles Dickens. I think. Something about a man being lucky if he is a woman’s first love, while a woman is lucky if she is a man’s last love. I decide that it’s too good to waste on him.
“I got lucky then.”
His forehead creases with confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
A pedestrian, a young man in a black suit and black sunglasses, catches George’s elbow as he walks past. I watch the smile fade, replaced by thin lips and eyes like small black beads.
“Watch where you’re fucking going.” George stares at the guy’s back, a challenge for him to come back and fight it out.
