“Har har, shut up.”
Mason tried to figure out who was paired with who, but gave up trying and just observed in silence for a few minutes.
“What’s your stance on kids?” He probably shouldn’t have asked. The answer didn’t matter much, as far as their non-existent future was concerned, but it just came out of his mouth.
Xeni sighed and shuffled on to her back. Mason kept his arm draped over her waist. She kept her eyes on the screen. “Not for me, I don’t think.”
“Another thing we have in common.”
She turned and looked at him. “Really?” Her voice sounded hopeful, like that information changed something for her.
“I love kids, don’t get me wrong, but after Palila was born, I seriously consider getting a vasectomy.”
“Real eye opener, huh?”
“I think the older I get, the less important it seems to me. I’m not hung up on carrying on a family name, which,I know, blasphemy, but you have to raise a person. Seems like a lot of pressure.”
“I was pregnant before, twice.”
“Wait, can we pause this? I want to hear you and the fake babies screaming is a lot to compete with.”
“Yeah, sorry.” Xeni laughed before she rolled over and paused the show. Some guy on the screen was in the midst of tossing his fake baby a good twenty feet in the air. “Better?”
“Much. I can actually hear you.” Mason couldn’t resist pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. Xeni sighed and inched closer.
“So, yeah. I’m sure it’s got to be some sort of reproductive abuse when your partner refuses to wear condoms whether you’re on the pill or not. Anyway, I miscarried the first time before I figured out what I wanted to do and then terminated the second time.”
“Neither sounds fun,” Mason replied, gently caressing her forearm. Xeni smiled a little before she looked back up at him.
“I was grown or whatever. It was my senior year of college and I was afraid to tell my mom, but I felt like I had to tell someone, so I told Sable.”
“How did she take it?”
“Great. Like always. She was thecoolaunt. She flew out to L.A. and took me to the clinic and we had a little staycation at her hotel until I felt better.”
Mason watched the emotions playing over her face. He wondered what that must have been like for her, the fear, the stress. What must be going through her mind now, knowing that her birth mother had been with her in that moment all along. He thought about everything he’d been though in his early twenties, what it would have been like to have any family members to rely on.
Xeni reached down and toyed with his knuckles before she spoke again. “After she left, I felt—I felt strange. I didn’t regret it or anything, but I felt stupid. Like I knew better than to get pregnant in the first place, especially when I knew I wasn’t ready.”
“Doesn’t sound like you got pregnant alone.”
“Sure didn’t,” Xeni said with a mirthless laugh. “But yeah. There was this period of time where my brain couldn’t really process it ’cause my ex didn’t want to talk about it and no one else really talks about it. Like, way later, I found out a few of my friends had also had abortions, but we still only just kind of acknowledged it. We didn’t talk about it. So, I became weirdly obsessed with pregnancy and childbirth.”
“Trying to understand it all better?”
“Yes, I think that was it. I think I wanted actually know what would happen if I decided to have a baby ’cause no one really talks about that either. After I watched, like, four hundred home births on YouTube, I was fascinated by childbirth and kinda realized it wasn’t for me, but it also kinda made me want to be a doula.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I wanted to help pregnant people with everything surrounding childbirth. Pregnant people and new parents need more support.”
“You never thought of doing that instead of teaching?”
“Well, I can’t now. I’m an heiress. I have to spend time designing and constructing my money bin.”
“Ahh, Scrooge McDuck. A true Scotsman among ducks.”
Xeni looked at him for a moment, her eyes narrowing. “Your energy really fucks me up.”
