Beautiful Illusion (12 page)

“
I
t’s just
I’ve been so woozy lately, and I can’t keep anything down,” I said.

Dawn, my doctor whom I’d had since I was a teenager, smiled, the wrinkles of her face framing her pretty dentured smile. “Well, we’ll get you fixed right up.” She gently touched my hand, then turned to the small clipboard she was holding in the other. “How long have you been feeling like this?”

“About a week and a half now. Maybe two.”

“Do you have a runny nose or a cough?”

I shook my head.

“Did you eat anything unusual the day before you got sick?”

“Not that I remember.”

“What about sexual intercourse. Have you started a new relationship or been with anyone recently?”

The question was rather jolting coming from Dawn, and I immediately felt embarrassed. Given that she knew me from the time I started going through puberty, telling her about sex feel a little weird. But she also had a point. Maybe I had caught some STD from that asshole Nick.

I sighed. “Yeah, but it’s been a couple weeks now.”

“And how many encounters did you have?”

Oh god. I didn’t even want to think about it. I closed my eyes and tried to count the amount of times that Nick and I had sex. We made love at least twice a day, sometimes three times.

“Maybe 20 or so. I’m not sure.”

“Wow, so you’ve got a new boyfriend then?”

“No, it was a mistake.”

She scribbled a few notes on her clipboard then looked back up at me. “What about anal sex?”

I slapped my hands on my legs and my eyes went wide. “Oh god, no!”

Dawn chuckled. “Why not? Anal sex can be just as enjoyable as vaginal sex.”

My jaw dropped as I stared at my doctor. “Dawn! I can’t believe—“

“What? Don’t be a prude.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, and Dawn joined me. Dr. Smith was close to 70 years old, and there she was encouraging me to have anal sex. Maybe I was a prude after all.

“We just never got around to it…”

“Okay, okay,” Dawn said as she put a calming hand on my shoulder. “Did you use protection during intercourse?”

My heart sank when she brought that up, and it had been something that was lurking in the back of my mind. A few days into our little fling, I had asked Nick if he was clean, and he assured me that he was, but given that he was a womanizer, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had lied.

“Not every time…”

Dawn nodded but didn’t question me further. She pulled her stethoscope from around her neck and checked my heartbeat, then looked inside of my throat, eyes, and ears.

“Well, let’s just get your blood taken and we’ll see if you have any sort of infection or pregnancy.”

“Pregnancy?” I asked and laughed a little. There was a no way I was pregnant. There was that first night where Nick and I had sex and were totally careless and caught up in the moment, but every other time, Nick had used a condom or had been sure to pull out and be careful when he hadn’t. And me? Pregnant? I just couldn’t imagine. No-freaking-way.

“Well, you told me that you had unprotected sex, right?”

“Well, yeah, but there was only one…” I shook my head frustratingly. “There’s no way I’m pregnant!”

“When is your period, Angel?”

I started thinking in my head and didn’t have an answer right away. I was cursed with irregular periods that would sometimes come every 3 weeks, or sometimes every 5. I chalked my odd cycles up to having a lot of stress from managing Flutterfly.

“You know, don’t worry about it,” Dawn said as she stood from her chair. “We’ll find out shortly if you’re pregnant or not. Come with me.”

Dr. Smith led me to the laboratory, and the whole time I was walking there and even while they were pulling blood out of my veins, I was thinking about how long it had been since I had a period. It wasn’t something that I thought about often and I just let them come as they came, but it had been a long time. In fact, I was beginning to realize it had been more than 5 weeks, maybe even 6.

Fuck me.

The doctor left me in a small patient’s room while I waited for the results, and the entire 45 minutes I was there, I was on edge, and counting the days in the calendar, trying figure out if I was actually wrong about being overdue with my menstrual cycle.

“Well, I have good news and good news,” Dawn said when she finally reentered the room.

“Only good news?” I clenched my hands together in anticipation.

She looked down at her clipboard as she sat in a seat in front of me. “Well, the good news is that you don’t have any viral or bacterial infections, and your cholesterol and other blood tests came back just fine.” She looked up from her clipboard and raised her eyebrows. “And the other good news is that you’re with child.”

“Oh god!” I said a little too loudly. I leaned over and placed my head into my hands. “Please tell me that you’re joking.”

“Angel, I joke about anal sex, but I don’t joke about babies.”

“Oh god!” I said again.

“I’m guessing from your reaction that you weren’t prepared…” Dawn sighed. “If you need any support, we’ve got plenty of—“

“No, I’m fine,” I said defiantly as I pulled my face out of my hands. I stood up from the patient’s table and looked towards the door. “Can I go now?”

“It’s up to you Angel. No one is holding you here captive. Candy at the front desk can give you a follow-up report.”

I didn’t say bye or thanks as I usually would. I loved Dawn, I really did, but I was in too much of a tailspin, and I could feel myself on the brink of wanting to vomit, cry, or both, the same as I had been doing intermittently the last couple weeks.

I left the doctor’s office and didn’t even stop by the front desk to get my report.

I hopped into my car and sat there for a moment, trying to process everything that was happening to me. Rick. Nick. Now a fucking pregnancy? With some sort of womanizing pickup artist? How the hell was I going to make Flutterfly grow when I had a baby inside of me?

I screamed loudly, and I hoped that no one could hear me with all my windows rolled up. I had always wanted to be a mother, but I always promised myself that I wouldn’t end up being a single mom, that I’d wait to have kids until I met the right guy. But I ended up meeting the wrong guy—a fucking pickup artist—and now his child was inside me.

Good job, Angel. Good fucking job.

It’s hard to explain what it’s like to go from being on top of the world to being completely miserable in just a matter of weeks. I was lost, scared, and hurt, unsure of how my future was going to play out. I was going to have to figure out what to do with the baby all on my own. And as much as I was hating Nick, hating who I knew he was, I couldn’t deny that I missed him and wanted more than anything for him to be there right then at that moment, holding me and comforting me the way that only he knew how to do.

* * *

I
t was getting late
by the time I made it home. I must have sat in my car for hours, and then drove to the park and walked around, breathing in the fresh air and contemplating what the doctor told me. It gave me a chance to gather myself and think about the future.

I still wasn’t sure if I would keep the baby, but after my alone time outdoors, the prospect didn’t sound so bad. After all, my mother had been a single mom and she was able to raise me just fine. It would be difficult, but if I kept the baby—which was a still big if—I would buckle down and do what I had to do, just like my mom had done. I had already graduated college, started my own successful business, and this was just another obstacle that I knew that I could handle. While it certainly would be convenient, I didn’t need a man to help take care of me or the baby.

Once I had parked at my building, I locked up my Prius and started through the parking lot towards my apartment. I was only a few steps to the main sidewalk leading towards the stairs before I heard a voice that sent shivers up my spine.

“Angel!” he called out.

I turned around to see who it was, but I already knew who it was. Who else had a voice like his, so smooth and warm that it made everything he said sound like melted chocolate dripping off his tongue—even when he was yelling? Nick ran towards me, but I simply turned back around and increased the speed of my walk.

“Angel, wait!” he yelled when he was just a few steps behind me.

“What do you want?” I snapped.

“I want to talk. Why haven’t you been answering my calls, my texts?”

“I don’t have anything to say to you, Nick.”

“Please, just tell me what happened.” He reached out to grab my shoulder and I jerked away.

I reached the first of the iron steps that led up to my third floor apartment and started making the climb, wishing that my building had a guarded entrance, or better yet an elevator—anything that would bar Nick from following me.

“You at least owe me an explanation,” he said as he followed me up the stairs.

“I don’t owe you anything!” My feet slammed into the iron, creating a loud dinging sound each step of the way.

“What is wrong with you?” he stressed, his voice sounding tired, like he was truly hurting inside.

I reached my apartment door and started rustling in my purse to find my keys, and when I pulled out my keychain, I studied the keys with confusion. My door key was missing.

“Where the fuck is my key?” I cursed. I glanced back to see Nick just standing there holding the key to my apartment between his thumb and index finger for me to see.

“Give me that!” I shouted and swiped the key forcefully out of his hands. “Now is not the time for your stupid magic tricks!”

I turned back around and rammed the key in the door, and as I turned the doorknob, I took one more glance back, but Nick was gone. For a moment, I thought maybe he had quickly rounded the corner somehow, but when I pushed the door to my apartment open, there he was, already standing inside.

“I’m not leaving until you give me an explanation, Angel.”

“How the fuck did you…?” I gritted my teeth and could feel blood rushing towards me head as my anger rose, but then I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down.

Nick just grinned, like it was all a game, like he hadn’t lied to me about person that he was, like he hadn’t used me like a toy. That just pissed me off even more, but I could tell that he wasn’t going to leave unless I started talking or called the police.

“I know who you are,” I said as I kicked off my shoes. I walked towards my living room couch, but I didn’t sit down. Instead, I just stood there with my arms crossed. “You’re no different than Rick Jackson… Mr. Enigma.” I let his nickname slither off my tongue, like a snake’s final word before striking down its prey.

“I told you to call me N—“ He stopped mid-sentence, like he suddenly realized what I was trying to say, and he just looked at me, stunned like a deer in the headlights.

“That’s right,” I stressed. “Master pickup artist. I saw the website, the classes, all the little tricks you teach your guys to get girls’ numbers.” I shook my head sarcastically. “I even saw the videos of you in the club picking up women. And one of those women you tried to get was me.”

“Angel…”

“Don’t ‘Angel’ me, Nick… or Enigma… or whatever you’re calling yourself. As far as I’m concerned, you and Rick are one in the same. You’re both fucking liars.”

“I didn’t lie,” he stressed.

“Not telling me that you… you… I don’t even know what to call you. An expert manwhore? Not telling me is no different than lying. I trusted you, but I was no different than all those other little girls you swindled at the club.”

“You’re not the same, and you just don’t understand.”

“What is it that I don’t understand?” I pointed my finger towards my apartment door. “You’ve got 5 minutes, and then I want you out.”

I
should’ve known all
along what set Angel off. After all, Enigma, my alter-ego was scattered all over the internet. Who knows how she found out? Maybe she did one of those reverse image searches on Google or maybe one of her friends saw my pictures and told her. But whatever the method she used, she knew now, and I was stuck with the collateral damage.

After my talk with Cobra, I excused myself from the class and asked Cobra and Ziv to finish things up at McMillan for the field training, then headed to Angel’s apartment in Santa Monica. I wasn’t in the right mindset to do any more teaching, and I needed to talk to Angel to get my head straight.

It wasn’t that I didn’t plan on telling her sometime about my pickup classes, but it just didn’t seem important. For the most part, I had felt like I left that part of me in the past when I found her, and I also knew that nothing that I had done as a pickup artist was wrong.

I was helping men have better lives.

Sure, I had told little white lies to women in the past, but I wasn’t a liar—not like Rick Jackson at least. To hear Angel compare me to that scum of the Earth hurt. No, I was
nothing
like him.

And I wasn’t a manwhore either. I was single man, and I knew better than anyone how to get girls, but I wasn’t bringing them home every night—even though I could if I had wanted—nor did I leave them with unrealistic expectations.

Even so, why didn’t Angel see that she was different? I hadn’t even thought about another girl since that night I brought her home from Anaheim. As far as I was concerned, every other girl I had met in my life had just been a distraction up until the day we met.

“What is it that I don’t understand?” She pointed her finger at her apartment door. “You’ve got 5 minutes, and then I want you out.”

For the second time in my life, I felt desperate. The first time had been when I was trapped in the water tank during my maiden magic show, and this time felt exactly the same. Everything was slowly slipping away, and I was getting swallowed by darkness, only a few moments left to make my narrow escape. The harsh tone of her voice, and the coldness in her eyes told me clearly that I really only had one chance.

“I love you,” I said, making sure she could hear the strength and certainty in my voice.

It was the first time in my life that I said those three magical words to a girl, but I meant it, and if she kicked me out of her apartment before I could say anything else, that was the one thing I needed her to know before I never saw her again.

She lowered her pointing hand, and the rage in her eyes softened a bit, but she didn’t speak, nor did she move from her angry stance.

“When I was growing up, I was obsessed with magic,” I continued. “I’d watch old videos of Houdini and David Copperfield every night and read books on how to perform simple illusions. But my fascination with learning these new and interesting things was killing me, and I didn’t even know it. I had no friends, and no one was interested in the socially awkward kid who sat in the corner of class reading
Magic Magazine
. I was lonely and rotting away…”

Angel’s eyes followed me as I walked across her room and leaned against one of her walls.

“It wasn’t until high school when one day I was walking down the halls, and I saw a couple of jocks leaning with their backs against their lockers, smiling as all the girls fawned when they walked by. At that moment, I thought of how unfair it was that guys who had no other talent than running across the field and slamming their head against someone else were oh-so-happy, so adamantly desired, yet I wasn’t. I knew that I was better than them, that I had more to offer... So I decided to make a change.

“I didn’t stop loving magic, but I found a happy balance between doing what I loved, working on my myself, learning how to blend in socially, and just being the kind of guy that women were actually interested in.”

Angel snorted. “So basically you’re faking your whole personality?”

I raised one of my fingers. “I didn’t say I’m faking anything. I simply didn’t understand what women wanted, but now I do.

“Not every guy is as lucky as me to have realized early on that a life of loneliness isn’t a life at all, and working on your social skills is just as important as any other thing that you can do as a man. There’s lots of guys out there who are alone, desperate, and women won’t even give them a chance. They’re good guys, and some of them are great guys, but women won’t talk to them because maybe they don’t know how to dress, or maybe they just don’t know how to initiate a conversation.”

Angel looked me up and down. “You teach men how to get sex from multiple girls.”

I laughed. “No… I teach men how to not be invisible to girls, and when the women realize that they’re talking to a fun, charming guy, sex is just a simple byproduct. And women should be thankful that my guys aren’t shitty assholes like Rick Jackson.”

“It’s not—“

“But,” I cut her off. I wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but I knew my five minutes was running out. “Somewhere along the road, I lost my way and became just like the superficial force that I was fighting against. Girls became pretty faces, 8s and 9s, 9s and 10s, and it was more about outdoing myself rather than finding someone or something that fostered the happiness that I was searching for to begin with.”

I unglued myself from the wall and peddled forward until I was right in front of Angel.

“But then I met you,” I said. I stuck my index finger under her chin and lifted it so that she was looking me in the eye. “You made me forget everything else. You made me fall in love with you.”

I tugged at my index finger a little, pulling her closer to me as I leaned down, losing myself in her light blue globes. I lowered myself, my lips met hers, and I felt the familiar softness of her lips and the smell of her breath that I had been craving so badly since the last time I saw her. I wanted her. I wanted Angel more than I had ever wanted anything in my entire life.

But then she pulled away, leaving me alone and feeling dejected. She licked her lips, crossed her arms and looked down at the floor.

I sighed. “I guess that means my time is up?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“What?” If there was one thing I wasn’t expecting her to say, that was it. And I wasn’t quite prepared.

“I’m pregnant, Nick.”

“Are you sure? I mean, we were careful.”

“Not the first time, and there were a few times after that where maybe something happened. But it doesn’t matter, because I went to the doctor today, and they told me I’m pregnant.”

Suddenly my ears were burning, and I felt a little lightheaded. I looked towards the ground while I tried to process the information. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

Angel raised her eyebrows and motioned to her couch.

“Sorry, it’s just unexpected is all.”

“Well this is what happens when you have sex, Nick.” Angel moved to sit beside me.

I closed my eyes, and for a brief few seconds all of my possible futures passed in front of my eyes. I envisioned myself holding a little baby girl, then holding a little baby boy and Angel with me every step of the way. They were good images, happy images, and no matter how many times I reprocessed them or tried to alter the outcome, I only saw myself smiling and enjoying life. It wasn’t the same me, but it was me. It was someone that I knew I could be and wanted to be.

“Fuck it,” I said as I opened my eyes.

“Fuck it?” Angel asked. “What does that mean?”

“It means I fucking want to be with you, and I can’t think of anything more amazing than having a baby together.”

Angel reared her head back and looked at me in disbelief. “Are you serious? You’re sure you want to be a part of the baby’s life?”

I huffed and turned, placing my arm around the small of Angel’s back. “I don’t just want to be a part of the baby’s life. I want to be in the baby’s life with you. I want us to be together and do
this
,” I motioned towards Angel’s stomach, “together.”

Angel sighed and placed a hand over her mouth. She swallowed and blinked, and then she blinked again, and by the third blink a trail of tears streamed out of the corner of her eyes.

I grabbed on to her hands and pulled them onto my lap. “Is that okay with you?”

She was still blinking, and the trail of tears was still running down her face, but she didn’t make a sound. She just looked down at her hands, and then she nodded and swallowed and nodded again.

I pulled at her hands, yanking her closer to me, throwing my arms around her body. She squeezed me back, and in that moment a weight that had been sitting so heavily on my shoulders for the past couple weeks was suddenly lifted.

I finally had my girl back.