I should have just come right out with it. In fact, I should have told him the day before, when I first found out, when the words wouldn’t come to me. I should have for him. This never should have been something I tried to hold on to by myself. I didn’t really understand what it was I thought I was doing by holding it in. I told myself it was so I could figure out what I wanted to do. But what did that even mean?
How did I think I could possibly figure out how to move forward with this new reality in my life without including the father?
And this was what came of it. Matt wouldn’t speak to me. I didn’t know exactly where he was or what he was doing. The house felt oddly empty and silent. It obviously wasn’t the first time I had been alone there, yet now the quiet felt oppressive.
I was torturing myself with the circular thoughts spiraling around in my head. One second I was lambasting myself for keeping the pregnancy a secret even for the short time I did and scolding myself for thinking I needed to figure it out for myself. The next I was reassuring myself I did the right thing. This was stunning, unexpected news, and I had the right to take some time and think it through, to process it and get it into my own mind before I needed to talk to anybody about it.
And that was exactly what I was doing. It wasn’t like I’d gone around telling everybody in Portland I was carrying Matt Anderson’s baby but just didn’t get around to letting him in on it. I hadn’t told anyone. Clearly, Hannah had her suspicions. She was the one who’d brought me the pregnancy test, after all. Even if it was just out of an abundance of caution and to rule out everything, she had at least an inkling it was a possibility.
But no one had confirmation. No one had heard me say the words “I’m pregnant.” Even I hadn’t heard myself say those words.
But as soon as I had fully reassured myself of that, I was right back to questioning and blaming myself.
After a while, I figured Matt wasn’t coming back to the house to talk things through. Part of me had held out hope he’d just gone out to take a walk or drive out his aggression but would come back and we’d be able to sit down and have a real discussion. When half an hour passed, I thought maybe it was a long walk. This was a really big life detour he was processing, and maybe that necessitated a longer walk to get it to settle into his brain.
But twenty minutes after that, he still wasn’t there, and I knew he wasn’t coming back anytime soon. There was no point in me sitting around the house. It was only going to make me feel worse. I needed something to distract me, to keep my mind occupied so I didn’t just spiral into my own state of overwhelmed.
I got dressed and left for the bar. Technically, I was on the schedule for the night. Hannah and Jordan had already told me I didn’t need to come in until I was feeling better, and probably had my shift covered, but it was the only place I could think of to go. Matt wasn’t scheduled for the night, unless they changed it, so I wasn’t going to show up and run into him.
On the way to the bar, I realized my car was getting uncomfortably close to being on empty.
The gas station was on my way to the bar. It only took me slightly away from the main road, and I had it filled up and was on my way again in just a few minutes. The package of crunch donuts now sitting on my passenger side seat may or may not have been my first pregnancy craving. Now was probably as good a time as any to decide if I was one of those women who ate everything and then blamed it on the baby.
I got to the bar, ate two of the donuts, and headed inside. Hannah was standing behind the bar talking to Jordan, and her eyes widened when she saw me coming toward her. She reached in front of her to touch Jordan’s arm, and he glanced over his shoulder.
“Chloe,” he said, sounding shocked to see me. “What are you doing here?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What do you mean what am I doing here? I work here.”
“Have you talked to Matt?” Hannah asked.
I shook my head. “Not for a couple of hours.”
“Not since he left your house?” Jordan asked.
“Yeah. How did you know he left?” I asked.