“I know it’s not about your weight. I’m just trying to make you see that
this
doesn’t change anything.” He gestures back and forth between his stomach and hers.
“This. This?” she repeats with emphasis. “You can’t even say the word and you think it doesn’t change anything. I’m pregnant, Lon. Pregnant. Not
this. Pregnant
.
”
Her child-bearing hormones in full swing, the sharpness of her tongue has grown in proportion to her belly.
“Pregnant. We’re pregnant,” he says, proof that he can accept the actuality. “How…how far along?” His shoulders rise and fall arduously with his lungs forcing air in and out, the information not exactly soothing, his body reacts with an understandable amount of anxiety. Hastily loosening the top button on the collared shirt beneath his sweater, he finds some relief.
“About five months, according to the doctor.”
“September, October, November…” Lon counts off on his fingers.
“And
I’m
pregnant,” she interrupts his calculation. “We’re not pregnant. I’m pregnant.” Her face contorts again as if she may cry. “I’ve ruined my life. I haven’t even finished school yet.” She grips her forehead in her hand momentarily. “I’m pregnant. You’re fine. Your life doesn’t have to change, Lon. That’s why you need to go.”
“And that’s why you didn’t come back to school this semester,” he’s still putting things together. “You can’t quit, Brie. That’s not like you. We can do this.” He exhales forcefully. “It’s not going to be easy, but we can do it.”
“I’m not quitting. I’m just not going back until I get everything figured out.” Now she paces. “I need some time to absorb this. I need to prepare. I have no idea what to do with a baby.”
“I can help,” he encourages.
“Do you know what to do with a baby?” her tone persnickety with the question, already knowing the answer.
“Well, no. Not exactly. But I can learn.” His brow flexes, his eyes wincing, thinking about how his life, their life, will change drastically. “I only have one more semester left. I’m done. Degree in hand this summer. I can have a job lined up before I graduate. We can get an apartment together. We’ll get married. Put you through law school.” He calculates the heavy To-Do list, releasing his pent-up breath much like a physically exhausted horse, the sides of his cheeks deflate. “It’s not going to be easy. But Pop always said, ‘nothing worth doing is ever easy.’” He forces a smile in her direction as if to say
everything’s going to be okay,
regardless if he believes it to be true.
“You don’t have to do that. I’ll stay right here with my grandparents. I’ll have all the help I need.” She thinks of their ample resources. “You need to continue on with life. As you know it.” She sees no point in both of them sacrificing their futures.
“How? What?” Lon is completely confused with her logic. “Why do you think I could go on…would want to go on with life as I know it when you’re here with our child?” He walks to her, dropping down to his knees in the grass, dress pants and all. Lifting her shirt up, he gently rubs her stomach, his lips kissing its most rounded bump beneath her belly button.
“Lon,” she cries at a whisper, his sweet actions causing her buildup of tears to fall. “Please, just go.”
“Not without you.” He looks up at her through dark, long lashes, his steel blues one hundred percent devoted. “I want you. And I want this baby.”
“You sweet boy.” She strokes his handsomely square jaw. “You don’t even know what you’re saying. What you’re committing to.”
“I’m not a boy, Brie. And I know exactly what I’m committing to.” He stands, holding her hands in his, the wheels of his mechanical mind spinning in an attempt to line up all the nuts and bolts of their creation. He rubs his thumb over her left ring finger, currently barren. “Come with me. It might take some time.” He looks around at her grandparents’ abode. Everything is first-class, from the extravagant home to its fastidious landscaping to the posh vehicles sitting in the drive. “But I swear to God, I’ll die trying to give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
A quiet cry escapes the lump in the back of her throat where it feels like she’s about to choke on her heart as she swallows her reply to tell him that he
is
everything she’s ever wanted. Instead, she pulls her hands from his and steps back. The look on her face morphing from affection and reverence to one of forced recantation.
“You don’t have to ‘die trying.’ It’s not yours. The baby. Please, just go.” Her bottom lip quivers fighting off more tears.
“What do you mean, it’s not mine,” his question really not a question at all. “Who else’s could it be? Brie, baby, you don’t have to do this. Lie to me to try and save me.”
“I’m not lying,” she retorts adamantly, her chin jutting out in an attempt to make herself feel the commanding gesture.
“Oh, no?” Lon grins at her disbelieving, unwilling to be stirred by her denial, surely her way of trying to protect him. “I was your first, Brie. We were together all last semester. The only time we’ve been apart is over Christmas break. And not by my choosing,” he reminds. “It can’t be someone else’s.”
“But it can. And it is. Just because you were my first, doesn’t mean you were my only,” she forces the lie from her tongue. “You say you’re not a boy. That you’re ready for this.” Her hands protectively circle the growing bump beneath her t-shirt. “You live in a frat house. You smoke pot…daily. For stress relief.” She rolls her eyes. “You don’t even know what stress is.” A patronizing chuckle releases as she thinks of the responsibility having a child brings. “And you expect me to jump in your arms and trust that you will provide a life for us? Just go, Lon. Leave!”
“You’re not going to run me off, Brie.” He stands firm, believing that she is still looking out for him. “I’m in it for the long haul.”
She shakes her head, preparing for the low blow.
Can she find the words?
“This child I’m carrying is not yours. I don’t want to break your heart. I really don’t.” Tears stream over the apples of her cheeks as her lips crackle with their moisture in finishing her confession. “But it’s Johnny’s. I’m so sorry. I know I said I didn’t, but I did. And it’s his. I don’t want it to be, but it is.” Her crying uncontrollable now, she hugs her stomach trying to hold her abdomen steady.
“Brie, don’t say that.” Lon’s face contorts painfully, stepping toward her.
She thrusts her arms out, keeping him at a distance. “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth.” Raking her hands briskly across her face, she recoups, her manner uncharacteristically malignant and purposefully so. “You have no responsibility to me. No claim to this baby. Consider yourself lucky.” Her teeth grind painfully. “Now, go.”
He steps away from her, his knees buckling slightly, he catches himself. “You’re lying. Tell me you’re lying, Brie.” He waits for her to verify his claim, his lungs hungrily consuming air cause his shoulders to rise and fall arduously, for a much different emotion this time.
She shakes her head, her arms steadfast, protectively wrapped around her abdomen as she backs away toward her grandparents’ house.
“You’re lying, Brie. I know you are. And I’m not leaving until you change your story!” he yells after her, the door akin to her sentiments, shutting him out.
Forty-eight hours later, Lon returns to Baton Rouge and LSU. As Sunday evening rolls around, he is propelled to return to the grind for classes bright and early the next morning. Brianna’s news stirs a sense of urgency within him to perform well and graduate on time.
Stepping out from his Scout parked on the lawn of the fraternity house, as usual, per the limited street parking, he shakes his head at the scene. One would think it is Friday night. Music blares in competition with obnoxiously intoxicated voices billowing out into the air.
“I have to find a different place to live,” he mutters, considering Brianna’s immature ‘boyish’ image of him. Pondering the relevance in her statement at the current scene, he would be hard-pressed to argue differently.
His embellished attire smudged and haphazard after donning it for the past forty-eight hours, nothing sounds better than a warm shower and a clean bed. He leans against his Scout momentarily, thinking about the way in which he spent his weekend, wondering how in the hell it all went down as such.
He traveled to Monroe to bring Brianna back with him, not to find out she was pregnant and surely not to spend all weekend camped out in front of her house waiting for the chance to talk to her, to win her over.
“I can’t believe she didn’t come out after all that time,” he talks aloud, revisiting her resistance to have contact with him. Not to check on him. Not to bring him food (his stomach growls, a reminder of its hunger). Not a blanket. Nothing. “Not even once. Either she’s being stubborn as hell. Or it’s over. She wants nothing to do with me.”
He looks up at the sky in search of the Milky Way—a sign, their sign. The lights of campus are too full to see anything except for the moon. Even at that, it’s barely a sliver. Feeling rather defeated, he rips the disagreeable sweater from his body (once a show of good faith to her grandparents that he came to their home and their granddaughter properly), letting it fall to the soiled ground behind him as he makes his way into the house.
“Castille!” His ears are barraged and annoyed with unison voices welcoming his arrival. “Bout time you got here, asshat. Where the hell you been? Castille’s so pussy whipped.” The infantile sentiments abound, common fodder amongst the college male sect, usually followed up by equally sophomoric physical greetings—fist bumps, high fives and the like.
Lon does not return their salutations, his mind completely preoccupied, he advances up the stairs to his bedroom. His first order of business, ever-pressing, a hit off Mary Jane (having gone the whole weekend without her), and then to get cleaned up.
“You look like shit, man,” the voice of Johnny Vito escapes at the top of the stairs as he comes from his room tucking in his shirt and readjusting the zipper on his jeans. Chi Omega One and Two trail loosely behind him, their clothing and makeup equally disheveled.
The tone grates Lon’s ears and his ego. Although he doesn’t truly believe Brianna that Johnny got her pregnant, the premise alone is enough to sicken and enrage him. Especially given the fact that Johnny would love nothing more than for that to be true, to have some connection to Brianna that Lon does not. Every muscle in his body grows painfully taut as he nears the top of the stairs in closer proximity to Johnny.
“What’s the matter,
Rapunzel
didn’t let her hair down?” Johnny’s smart aleck sense of humor releases with a cocky smirk, knowing his frat brother went to Monroe to
rescue
Brianna from her grandparents and bring her back with him.
Lon’s hands are quicker than the eye in latching onto Johnny’s shirt collar, heaving him up against the wall. “I am so sick of your goddamn mouth,” Lon spews through gritting teeth.
Johnny smiles, having been waiting for this moment since their last fight five months ago in the front yard where Lon bested and embarrassed him in front of Brianna. Johnny stares at Lon as if he is channeling some sort of energy, his body growing powerfully resistant.
Lon watches the pale blue of Johnny’s irises begin to flicker—an iridescent glow—exactly like the one he and Brianna experienced the night they made love at his parents’ house after burying the skull.
“What the hell have you been up to?” Lon’s question escapes as more of an accusation, his mind sharply remembering Brianna’s concern that she saw their commingled, bloody spit glowing emerald green in the dirt.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Johnny’s voice grows distorted as he retaliates, his body now uncharacteristically stronger than Lon’s, his system delivering.
With strength like he has never known, he grabs Lon by his shirt collar heaving him down the stairs. And with one giant leap, Johnny clears the banister and is atop Lon on the floor below.
“Did you see that?” Chi O One cries to Chi O Two, both frightened yet titillated by the supernatural feat as they crouch behind the stair casing.
Lon and Johnny grapple end over end, their flexing frames destroying the coffee table in the middle of the living room. Beer bottles clank and clack, tipping over, fizzing and frothing, their contents soiling an already questionable carpet.
“What the hell’s wrong with you two? Cut that shit out! We’re going home if you asshats are gonna fight.” Random sentiments are released from fellow partygoers simply there to unwind before classes begin again in the morning. “We didn’t show up for this shit.”
A few brave spectators join forces, helping to break up the two, finally pulling them off one another. Still bearing scars from their last tussle, both Lon and Johnny now have a few more to add, their elbows rug-burned, their faces and hands dinged up.
They stand across from one another in their respective corners, separated by a huddle of frat brothers and friends. The music now muted, the crowd unusually quiet, the only thing you can hear is the labored breathing and snuffing of Lon and Johnny as adrenaline continues to course through their amped veins.
Johnny maintains his smirk, feeling vindicated that he can compete with Lon, surely besting him if he fully unleashed his newfound strength and abilities.
Control is everything,
the words of Dr. Godfrey ring in his ears.
Timing, my boy. Not until it is time.
Lon’s eyes are glued to Johnny’s, looking for that glow—the one he witnessed at the top of the stairs. It is gone, for now. His new dress shirt completely ruined, hangs open as his musculature hulks out from beneath it. Every cell in his body as hungry as his lungs for air, his shoulders, ribcage and abdomen expand and contract, the conditioned muscles reminiscent of a human anatomy chart.
“If you don’t live here, get the fuck out,” Lon’s low burning tone is enough to prompt non-residents to oblige. Within minutes, the house clears out. A few frat brothers remain in position between them. “We’re good,” he says flatly, dismissing the
referees
to their rooms. “What was that? Upstairs? Your eyes?” Lon begins once he and Johnny are alone.