Forty-six

~ Vancouver, BC… Concert # 21 ~

By the end of that week we’d flown from Denver to Los Angeles for a day and a half, then found ourselves on another plane flying to Canada. I wasn’t nearly as sick as I’d been in Denver, but the extraordinarily hectic schedule of that week with all of the extra air travel wasn’t helping. I continued to have bouts of nausea although thankfully I’d stopped throwing up.

My lack of vomit however didn’t stop everyone from teasing me about the fact that they thought I was pregnant. At first it was okay, even a little bit funny… but after a day or two it was just tiring. Everywhere I turned someone was asking me how I was feeling and if I was honest and told them that I wasn’t feeling great they’d make smart ass cracks about morning sickness. Someone even went as far as to buy me a pregnancy test and leave it with my mail. That was the straw that broke this camel’s back.

"Oh for Christ’s sake…" I sighed as I opened the manila envelope which contained an EPT home pregnancy test with a note on it.

"What’s wrong?" Kevin asked as he fiddled around on the Internet on my laptop while I opened my mail.

I opened the note that was taped to the test and shook my head reading the note aloud, "’Just take it and settle the bet…’ Who the fuck did this?"

Kevin looked up from my laptop with a concerned look, "Settle the bet? What is it?"

I threw the test across the table at him and he caught it before it fell off of the edge. "I’m NOT pregnant…" I got up and walked to the window looking out over the city with tears in my eyes. "Why can’t they just leave me alone?"

Kevin got up from his seat and stood behind me running his hands over my arms and resting his chin on the top of my head for a moment. He waited until I turned around and hugged him before he spoke again, "I’m not saying it’s right… but you do understand why they all think you’re pregnant don’t you?"

"Of course I do but you’d think they’d trust me. I’m not pregnant… I’ve been telling them that all week, but no one will drop it." I pulled away from Kevin and walked to the couch and sat down with a sigh.

He followed me and sat down next to me. He was looking at me even though I wasn’t looking at him. "How are you feeling today?"

"I feel like shit, Kevin… but I’m not fucking pregnant."

"Are you sure? Or are you just saying that because you don’t want it to be true?"

I closed my eyes as tears spilled out of them streaming down my cheeks. I took a deep breath and shook my head, "You don’t understand…"

He reached out and put his hand on my knee, "Then help me understand."

I tipped my head up to the ceiling trying to stop crying enough to talk and I wiped angrily at my tears. "I can’t…" I looked at Kevin and shook my head, "I can’t have kids.  So, I’m not… Okay? I’m not…"

"Damn…" he pulled me into a tight hug.  "I’m so sorry… I didn’t… Jesus so all of the jokes this week that people have been making must have… oh, honey…"

I sat there feeling comfort in Kevin’s arms for a while just letting him hold me. Neither of us spoke, and I thought about everything until I felt like I could talk about it without sobbing all the way through. I sat up and looked at Kevin and touched his cheek, "Stop looking at me like that… I’m okay…" I smiled. He had that look of "I’ve got to take care of her" on his face. He smiled slightly and nodded. "I found out when I was pretty young. I kept getting really sick and they realized I had this problem which basically makes it nearly impossible to get pregnant. They literally told me, ‘Don’t plan on having kids. Your chances are pretty much none…’ If I ever were to get pregnant on some whim, I most likely would have a miscarriage early on. It was hard at first. I mean I was like 18 or 19 when I found out. That’s when I started my reckless sleeping around. It was kind of like well shit, I’m not going to get pregnant so why not?" I shrugged and shook my head, "Of course it was still a stupid thing to do and I’m lucky I never got struck with HIV… but eventually I came to terms with it. I realized that I just wasn’t going to have kids naturally. If I was meant to be a mom I’d either hook up with a guy who already had kids, or adopt or something. I really was okay with it. But, Kev…" I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. "This week… with everyone joking around about me having AJ’s child… I just realized that it’s never going to happen. I’m never going to have his child. Even if we’re together for the rest of our lives, I can never give him that. For the first time in my life I’m with someone who I can actually see myself having kids with, and I can’t do it…" I was crying again and closed my eyes shaking my head. "I just want people to stop saying it… I can forget it if they don’t say it."

"Does he know?"

I nodded, "Yeah but I guess he forgot… he was the first person I told about it. But it was when you guys were just getting into all of the big stuff. He had so much else to deal with. I mean, he was there for me by all means… but I don’t know. Just the way he’s been talking this week and responding to the jokes, he acts like he forgot. Like he really is afraid that I’m pregnant. Or maybe it’s that he does remember and he’s upset because he knows that it’s not possible that I am. I don’t know. He won’t talk to me about it."

"You’ve tried?"

"Kind of… I try to and he cuts me off saying how I look tired and need to rest." I shrugged, "I usually am tired and feel like hell anyway so I just drop it and go to sleep. We’ve never gotten past ‘Honey I wanted to talk to you…’"

"Well you know you need to talk to him right?"

"Yeah… of course I do."

"But…"

"But I don’t know… it just seems so weird. Before AJ and I were a couple, I would have automatically gone to you or him with a problem. And in the past year I’ve gone to him more because you were busy getting married and stuff… But now that he’s my ‘boyfriend’ it’s almost like I’m afraid to go to him. It doesn’t make any sense. I automatically go to you or Nick now. I mean sure, if it’s a problem with AJ it kind of makes sense for me to go to one of you two first to vent instead of going to him, but I’m sitting here crying to you about not being able to have AJ’s kid. I should be talking to him."

"Why aren’t you?"

I shrugged and shook my head as sat back against the couch and looked across the room. "I really don’t know… I still feel comfortable talking to him, it’s just getting it started which seems hard to do now for some reason. Once we get to talking it’s like old habit and we’re fine. But I don’t just open up and whine to him anymore. I wait until it’s huge and out of control and I have to talk to him." I stopped and thought about what I’d said then looked at Kevin and sat up. "Oh god…"

"What?"

"I just figured it out… Oh, Kevin…" I whined.

He laughed, "What?"

"No…" I sighed. "I’m acting like a girl…"

Kevin laughed and shook his head, "Explain…"

I sighed yet again, "I don’t whine to him on a daily basis anymore.  Kevin you know how much I love to whine… I haven’t been whining to him because I don’t want him to think less of me. I want him to keep loving me and being in love with me… being my boyfriend." I shook my head and groaned, "God I’m an idiot! He fell in love with me… with his best friend. Whining and all. That’s who he wanted. Not this version of me who can’t open her damn mouth and talk to him anymore. Not some girl who censors herself to keep him ‘happy.’" I shook my head, "Kevin! Why didn’t you tell me?"

Kevin was finding great amusement in my rambling and I smacked him in the arm, "I’m sorry… but you’re hilarious."

"You’re fucking supposed to tell me when I start acting like a girl! God!" I smacked him in the arm again and stood up.

"Where are you going?"

I sighed and picked up my key card, my cell phone and my camera, "I’m going to find my boyfriend and turn him into my best friend again…"