Falling Into Us (39 page)

“God, Becca. I don’t—I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m doing better now. I’ve been seeing Dr. Malmstein again.”

“That’s your therapist? The one you saw after Kyle died?” She said it so smoothly, so calmly. I admired her for it.

“Yeah. I wasn’t going to go, for a while. I sort of shut down for a few months.”
 

I wasn’t stuttering. I still spoke in the stilted, scripted way I used to, but it was an improvement. It was almost like having Nell here needing me as her friend had given me a purpose for fluency even Jason couldn’t provide.

“Shut down?” Nell asked.

“Yeah. I basically stopped talking. For, like, two months. Jason made me start going to therapy.”

“Well, I’m glad he did. I’m glad you didn’t cut.”

I breathed out slowly. “Me, too.” I peered at Nell. “How are you, Nell? Really.”

She leaned back and burrowed deeper into the bed and the nest of thin pillows. “I don’t know yet. I lost the baby. I was pregnant, and I was afraid. I couldn’t tell him. I should’ve. I just…I couldn’t. I kept worrying what he would say, how he would react. If he would still love me, if he would hate me for tying him down with a child. Now…I know I should’ve known better. I should have told him, should have trusted him.”

I couldn’t breathe. Could she know? She wasn’t looking at me; she was picking a loose thread of the scratchy, loosely woven white hospital blanket. “What—what’s going to happen? With you and Colton?”

“He doesn’t like being called ‘Colton,’ you know. Well, by anyone except me. He goes by ‘Colt.’” She combed her fingers through her hair, wincing at the way her muscles stretched, still feeling pain. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. We’ll be together. I’ll probably stay here for a while, a few weeks at least, until I heal. Physically heal. I’ll probably end up seeing a therapist myself. God knows it’s long past due. Colton and I…we love each other. He gets me. I know lots of people aren’t going to understand, though. How can I be in love with him when he’s Kyle’s older brother? I struggled with that for weeks. I fought it so hard. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to let go—I didn’t want to accept love or let him in. I knew somehow that he’d force me to open up.”
 

She pinched the bridge of her nose and breathed out, then met my gaze. “You know I never cried for Kyle? Not once. I refused to let myself feel anything, refused to grieve. That’s why I cut. It…it let out the pain, gave me something else to think about, something else to feel besides the ache for him.” She breathed deep, let it out, repeated the process. I saw her pain in the furrow of her brow, the contained quiver of her chin. “It still hurts. I still think about him…I still see him die in my dreams. But I know—I
know
—I can’t keep living stuck in that loop. The only way out is through. As for this, losing—losing the…the baby? Same thing. The only way past the pain is through it. You can’t escape it. You can’t ignore it. Pain, grief, anger, misery…they don’t go away—they just increase and compound and get worse. You have to live through them, acknowledge them. You have to give your pain its due.”

“Listen to you, sounding so wise.” I tried to laugh, lighten the mood with a joke, but it fell flat.

She winced. “I’m not. God, I’m
so
not wise at all. I just know pain. That, what I just said, it’s what Colton’s been showing me. He’s been through it himself, through so much. We’re going through this together.”

“I’m glad you have someone to go through it with.”

She turned her eyes to mine. “I’m pretty sure I’d be dead without him.”

“Do you need him to be okay?”
 

She shrugged. “Yes and no. I know what you’re worried about. It’s not a codependency thing, I promise. I need him, yes, because he’s…just everything. But I know now that I have to keep living, regardless of what happens in life. I’d be a mess without him, but I would like to think I’d cope as best I could.”

“But you don’t have to be without me,” Colt said from behind us. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I moved out of the way, felt Jason’s arm come around my waist. He held a Styrofoam cup of burnt coffee in each hand, and I took one from him. The coffee was really, really burnt, but I sipped it anyway.

Nell glanced at me. “I’m really tired. I’m gonna sleep now. Come back tomorrow?”

“We’ll be here,” I said.

As we left, Colt’s broad, muscular form was bent over Nell, kissing her, brushing her hair away and tugging the blankets around her. He turned to glance at me, his blue eyes piercing mine. I smiled at him, trying to let him know I supported them. I didn’t totally understand how they’d gotten together, how it had happened, but it didn’t matter. I’d heard the love in her voice when she spoke of him, and I’d seen it in the way they looked at each other, in the way he kissed her.

We were halfway home when a thought struck me. “How’d you get here? I have your truck.”

“Now she wonders.” Jason laughed. “Bob drove me. I told him it was a family emergency.”
 

“Thanks for coming.”

He glanced at me as he shifted lanes around a slow-moving semi. “It’s Nell. Of course I’d come.” Silence for a moment, and then he broached the subject. “Are you going to tell me what’s been eating at you for the last two months?”

I felt my heart start to hammer out of my chest. I tried to calm myself with forced deep breathing, but I only succeeded in making myself hyperventilate. I felt Jason’s hand on my back as I leaned forward to put my head between my knees, my head bumping against the glove box.

“Breathe, baby. It’s okay. Breathe. Deep breaths, okay? Slow down.” His voice washed over me, soothing murmurs.
 

I sat up and shook my hair out of my face, focused on breathing and scripting out what I was about to say. When I was under some kind of control, I turned to Jason. “Maybe you should pull over.”

Jason lifted an eyebrow in question but did as I said, swerving across two lanes of traffic to the exit ramp. He pulled into a McDonalds parking lot, put the truck in park, and then turned to me. “What the hell is going on, Beck?”

I took several deep breaths, forced my eyes to his. “I…I’m…I’m pregnant.”

He blinked at me several times, his expression not altering for the space of several seconds. “You’re pregnant?”

I nodded. “Yes. I took four tests.”
 

“How long have you known?” His voice was carefully calm, precisely modulated.

“I’ve only known for sure since yesterday.”

“But you suspected before that?”

I nodded. “When we had sex, that first time after so long without it? I realized just before I fell asleep that I’d…I’d forgotten to take my birth control since…since Ben’s death. I just…forgot.” I couldn’t look at him. I stared at the dashboard, the specks of shadow cast by the sun through the windshield. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Why are you apologizing?” He touched my chin, tried to turn my eyes to his, but I pulled away. I didn’t want to cry, but I was going to. He seemed mad, and I was so afraid. “Hey…look at me, please.”

I wanted to throw open the truck door and run, but instead I focused my tear-blurred gaze on his too-green eyes. “I’m scared, Jason. I’m so scared.” My voice shook, shuddered, cracked. “You seem mad. I don’t want you to…to leave me. I know we didn’t t-talk about th-this. We—we’re not r-r-ready f-for this. I know we-we-we aren’t. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but I—I was scared.”

I heard the
click-zip
of his seatbelt unlatching and sliding away, felt his hand drift up my arm to my cheek. He pulled me toward him, and I lunged into his arms. “Baby,” he whispered, his voice a fierce but tender rasp in my ear. “Becca, baby, I’m not mad. I’m not. I’m surprised, yeah. I had no idea. You’ve been acting…odd lately. Getting sick and stuff. I was worried you were gonna tell me you had cancer or something. Don’t apologize.”

“And then…I found out about n-n-Nell, and I got even more afraid. What if…what if that happens to me?”

“It won’t.”

“I couldn’t…I couldn’t handle losing anyone else, Jason. I feel like I’m barely hanging on as it is.”
 

“This is us, okay?” Jason tilted my chin up and kissed me softly. “I love you. This is a surprise, yes, but I’m not mad. I’m not sure what all exactly I’m feeling, but mad isn’t any part of it.”

Scant centimeters separated our lips. I felt so vulnerable, so needy. “Promise? I just…I was so scared you’d be upset that I let this happen.”

He nuzzled my cheek with his. “No, baby. No. You were so messed up after everything happened with Ben. It’s not your fault. It’s not…this isn’t a ‘fault’ thing. It happened, and that’s how it is. We’ll deal with it one day at a time together, okay?”

“I just…you should know now that I’m keeping it. No matter what.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

He stank of sweat and cut grass and gasoline, and his lips smeared sweat on mine when he kissed me, grease on my skin from his hands, but I wouldn’t have pulled away from him for anything. I clung to him with every fiber of my being, needing his reassurance.
 

We were having a baby.
 

SEVENTEEN: Breaking the News; Competing Voices

Jason

Two months later

I sat on the edge of the couch, my palms sweating. Becca sat next to me, her fingers tangled in mine, squeezing hard, telling me she was just as nervous as I was. This, telling her parents she was pregnant…it was terrifying.
 

By contrast, the NFL Scout Combine earlier in the year had been a cakewalk. My performance at the Combine plus my record made me an easy shoe-in for a first-round pick. I’d been talking to agents for a while and had one lined up, paperwork in order and terms set. Now I just had to wait for the draft next year in April, but it was looking like the New Orleans Saints were the most likely team.

I shook my head to clear it of football thoughts. Enzio and Leena de Rosa sat on the love seat opposite us, Enzio’s arm around his wife’s shoulders, his thick fingers tapping an idle rhythm on the cushion.
 

“Mom…Father,” Becca started. She glanced at me, then her father. “Dad, I mean. I…Jason and I have something to tell you.”

Enzio and Leena glanced at each other, exchanging some kind of silent communication. Their eyes contained the shadows of long-term sadness. In the months since Ben’s suicide, they’d changed. They’d invited Becca and me over for dinner on numerous occasions, and seemed to be genuinely taking an interest in us, and in me. Becca had seen this change in them and had consequently been making an effort to repair the strain on her relationship with them. She’d even gone so far as to start calling her father “Dad” instead of “Father” as she had for so long.
 

Becca dug a small envelope out of her purse and handed it to Leena, whose eyes widened as she withdrew the ultrasound pictures. “I’m pregnant,” Becca said.

“How long are you?” Leena asked in her thick accent, then cleared her throat. “I mean, how far along are you?”

“Four months.” Becca’s eyes were shifting from her mother to her father and back, assessing. “I won’t find out the gender for another few weeks, though.” She said the last part for her father’s benefit, I figured, since her mother, as a pediatrician, would know that.

Enzio cleared his throat, sitting forward. “This was…unplanned,
sì
?”

“Yes, sir, it was,” I answered.

“And what are your thoughts regarding this…unforeseen development?” he asked me.

I drew a deep breath, choosing my words with care. “It may have been unforeseen, sir, but it’s not unwelcome. I love your daughter with all my heart. I think you know that by now. I will be with her every step of the way. I will take care of her and our child.”

Enzio nodded. “Perhaps once I would have demanded you wed her
immediatamente
, right away, yes? But…now? She is happy with you. This I have seen. She has never been without. You do love her, I have witnessed this. She is…my only child, now. I only want to see her happy.” His voice broke and he looked away, clearing his throat again and blinking hard. “I worry, of course, that this will interfere with her plans for a career, but that is her choice.”

“Mr. de Rosa…Enzio, sir, that is completely her choice. I want her to do what makes her happy. I will do everything in my power to make sure she finishes her degrees and has a career, if that’s what she wants.” I paused, then continued, “I don’t know how much you know about my plans for after college, but I’ve been scouted by the NFL for the last few seasons, and there’s no question of my going pro. I will take care of your daughter, and I’ll do it well. Money won’t…won’t be an object.”

He nodded and glanced at his wife, then back to both of us. “And marriage? Have you discussed that?”

Becca spoke up, answering for us. “Yes, we have. We’re not officially engaged, but we are getting married. I hope you’ll approve, and that you’ll be a part of the wedding and our lives.”

“Of course we will,
figlia
,” Enzio said. “I know…I know I was often very strict with you, but it…I only wanted the best for you. I am only sorry for it taking the…the death of your brother for us to—for
me
to realize…” He seemed to run out of words then, and he trailed off awkwardly.

“What your father is trying to say is that we are all of us family.” Leena rose and glided to the couch where Becca and I sat, drawing her daughter into her arms. “I love you, Rebecca. I can’t believe I will be a grandmother!”

Enzio sat back against the cushions, looking stunned. “And I…I will be a
nonno
. Amazing.”

We discussed, or rather Leena and Becca discussed, plans for baby showers and wedding location ideas. No one brought up my parents, which was fine by me. I hadn’t spoken to them since the day I left with Becca, and I had no intention of that ever changing. I wouldn’t reach out to them, either of them, ever. I hadn’t thought of them in a very long time, but all of this talk of weddings and babies somehow brought Mom and Dad to mind. I wondered what they would think of me being a father. I wondered if Dad would approve of me playing for the Saints. Probably not. Whichever team I chose wouldn’t be the right one, most likely, and I wasn’t fool enough to seek his approval anymore.