Finding Center (7 page)

Zed

I last a whole forty-eight hours holding the secret all by myself. But Friday afternoon, my head’s too full of things I can’t say to Aly. She keeps having these intense anxiety attacks and I’m sure as hell not going to add to them.

After theater camp’s over, and long before Aly’s out of rehearsals, I’m heading for a coffee with Dan. He’s a math teacher, meaning he actually gets the whole summer off, and while neither of us gets each other’s respective subjects, we get each other pretty damn well. Not to mention, Dan and his wonderful wife Maddie just had a kid. Their son Micah’s just three months old. He’s unbelievably tiny still, but Dan’s completely smitten.

I figure if anyone’s going to get where I am right now, and give insight to where Aly is right now, it’ll be Dan. He beat me to the café, of course, where he’s reading a book on Ada Lovelace. I plop down in the booth across from him. He startles, then relaxes, putting down his book. “Late, per usual, Harrow. What’s up?”

This is how two alcoholics do Friday afternoons. We can’t go to the bar, so we come here. Carmen brings me over a coffee and tells me it’s on the house. I thank her and then stir in sugar and cream. I can’t make myself say the words yet, so I settle for saying, “Nothing much.”

“How’s the leg?” Dan asks, leaning over as if he can see it. As hot as it is, I still wear long pants for work. “Still working out?”

“Sixty thousand dollars of technology proving that you actually do get what you pay for,” I say dryly, kicking him with my left foot. “It’s weird to have to charge your leg though. That’s just...not something I thought I’d ever do. Plug in a battery pack for my leg every night.”

“Like an e-reader,” laughs Dan. “Both Maddie and I are using ours like crazy with the baby now. Never thought I’d have to charge a book, but hey. If it works, it works. Alyona’s at rehearsal?”

If she’s not too sick. “Yeah. The company’s had a bit of a shake-up so she’s trying to be the first in the door and the last out.”

“A little competitive,” Dan says, grinning. “You wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Not at all,” I laugh. I’m as competitive as they get, but I’ve just channeled it in different ways. I lean against the wall, turning my coffee mug around in circles. Better if I just spit it out. “Aly’s pregnant.”

Dan nearly spews coffee all over me. I hand him a napkin and he wipes off the table, then his mouth before finally staring at me. All he can come up with is, “Huh!”

I frown at my coffee. “She’d kill me if she knew I told you so, you know. Keep it quiet, yeah? Don’t tell anyone. I don’t want it getting to Will before she can tell her mom.”

The principal at our school is Aly’s mother’s partner. It’s always a little bit awkward when your boss is also the unofficial stepfather to your girlfriend. And I don’t think we’ll be telling Aly’s parents for a long time, at least until the end of the first trimester. I tell myself that it’s my decision when to tell Dan, not Aly’s, but guilt prickles along my spine as he continues to gawk at me.

“I didn’t realize that was something you two were talking about,” he finally manages to say.

I flush. “Not exactly the most planned of events.”

Dan’s eyebrows went up. “Shit. You’re doing okay?”

I need to do something. I almost want to walk but it’s hot and Dan’s not exactly the most active guy on the planet. I shrug. “Yes and no. Aly’s a bit of a mess.”

Dan sips his coffee. “Didn’t ask about her. Not that I don’t care, but I definitely asked about you.”

I fiddle with my napkin, folding the corners. “I’m terrified. She’s terrified she’s going to miscarry. I’m terrified she’s not stable enough, mentally and emotionally, and we were only just figuring each other out, you know? Two years since we got back together. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not a lot of time. And we fucked up enough the first time.”

“Oh,” Dan says, his voice faint. “I remember. I read it in that article. She miscarried before, right? In the accident? God. Zed.”

“She’s still dancing,” I say. “I hope she can dance for a long while. She’s happier when she’s dancing. It took me a while to figure that out but she really is. It’s just—there are still some days when I can barely keep myself together. And now there’s going to be a kid.”

“First,” Dan says firmly. “You’re going to be fine. I had no idea what I’m doing and I have yet to drop the kid. You figure it out.”

“The timing sucks,” I admit quietly. “I’m restless. Aly’s just figured out stability. We’re both fixing things with our parents.”

“That sounds like
good
timing,” Dan points out. “Restless about what?”

I shrug. I don’t know how to explain it, the way I think about Aly dancing toward me in that studio and not just for what came after it. And it’s not jealousy. I thought it was, but it’s something else. Some other knot in my chest. I’m ignoring it, but I don’t know if that’s working. “No time to figure that out now. I don’t need more stressors.”

“There’s always going to be more stress. If it wasn’t going to be Aly getting pregnant, it was going to be a job offer in San Francisco, or your parents, or her parents, or something. There’s always going to be something. This is just one that’s special. This isn’t just stress. It’s pretty awesome.” He nudges my foot under the table. “Zed. You know what I think?”

“That this was really irresponsible? Who gets pregnant by accident
twice
?” I mutter into my mug.

“Lots of people,” Dan says. “You think Micah was planned? Look, it happens more than we all like to admit in this day and age of highly planned pregnancies. This is what I think. I think you need to tell Alyona that you’re scared and that you’re just as anxious as she is.”

“That is a
terrible
idea,” I say with a snort, looking up at him. “You don’t understand. Aly and I, we can’t
both
be disasters. That’s just asking for trouble.”

“For most of your life, sure. But maybe,” Dan says, “she needs to know that her anxiety isn’t unfounded. I think with me, when I’m all anxious, it makes it worse to think that I’m alone and that I’m being irrational.”

I glance up at the ceiling. She probably won’t even look past the piano in here when she gets home. She’ll go straight up the stairs to our apartment, looking for me. I’m sure that Madison’s been a bitch today and I’m sure that she’s tired and miserable. I’m sure we’ll go through the song and dance of finding food that doesn’t turn her stomach right now.

I’m sure of so many ways to keep her going and not sure at all how to keep myself going, or how to keep us going. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so many conflicting emotions at one time. I don’t even know how to give them names. I’m exhausted from carrying all of them.

So share the burden.
I know where the words are from. I say them to Aly whenever she struggles to tell me something.

I thump my head against the back of the bench. “I’m tired.”

Dan winces and says, “I should tell you it gets easier but it doesn’t. You just get better at it.”

“That’s some sort of relief,” I say after a few seconds. “Alright. Enough about me. How’s Maddie? And Micah?”

Dan’s whole face lights up as he starts to talk. “Alright. Micah’s finally decided to sleep for more than three hours at a stretch. Maddie’s happier and so, obviously, I’m happier. Whoever said
sleeps like a baby
never met a baby.”

I smile a little bit. “Yeah, I’ve never understood that saying.”

Dan grins. “That’s what you have to look forward to, Harrow.”

He keeps talking but I’m barely listening. I’m stuck on how genuinely happy he seems right now. Happier than I’ve ever known him. I hope in nine months I look that thrilled when someone asks me the same thing about my partner and my kid.

Aly

I wake in the middle of the night, short of breath and gripping my shirt where it’s bunched around my stomach. The dream fades, leaving nothing but inky black in front of me. Behind me, Zed slumbers on in a deceptively deep sleep. Most nights as soon as I wake, he jolts awake next to me, his hand sliding over to touch me in a silent question I can usually answer with a soft kiss. But tonight he sleeps, and I wish he’d wake. Three straight nights of nightmares has me restless in my own skin.

There’s nothing on the websites about nightmares. Dr. Ham thinks they’ll pass when I reach the mark where I lost the last pregnancy. I’m five weeks now. Only four more to go. The thought turns my stomach.

I slide out of bed, my bare feet hitting the ground without a noise. Ballet could prepare a person for a life of international crime and espionage. I creep out of our tiny bedroom and into our disproportionately large living room. I close the door behind me and flick on the overhead lights. At the barre along one wall, I close my hands on the warm wood and my eyes flutter shut. In the past week, my world’s turned upside down but when I come here, I am right side up. The mirror still runs floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall. The barre still feels the same against my palm.

I sweep my right foot out to the side, lifting my right hand off the barre. I breathe in deeply and exhale slowly as hand and foot come back to center. In the mirror, I lift my chin and touch both hands to my stomach.

Zed’s convinced me that the websites aren’t going to destroy everything. He’s slipped books from the library onto my nightstand and I hate him a little bit, just a little bit, for it. I don’t hate that he’s right.
So far
,
so good.
I say that every morning when I pee on a stick and I’m still pregnant. Zed’s eyed all the pee sticks in the trash can with uncertainty but hasn’t said a word.

So far, so good.

A poppy seed, the websites said. That’s how big the baby was the day I took the pregnancy test and told Zed. That’s how small it was but we could already know that it was a life. That it was changing me enough to
know
. A poppy seed inside of me. A poppy seed that will soon have an audible heartbeat. A poppy seed that will turn into a
person
.

“Can’t sleep?” Zed asks sleepily behind me. I jerk my head up, looking at him in the mirror. His dark hair’s delightfully rumpled and I touch my own in my desire to touch his. He smiles a little bit and hops to the couch, sinking down onto it. “Can I keep you company?”

“I’m not sure I’ll be much company,” I say, finally finding my voice. I sink into a plié and watch him in the mirror. His eyes follow the lines of my legs slowly and his gaze caresses the sliver of skin exposed between my shorts and shirt. I shiver, my skin prickling with heat. I’m too tired to reach for him right now, even if I want to.

“Mmm,” he murmurs, closing his eyes on the couch. “I’ll be here.”

He won’t fall asleep again. He’s a terrible sleeper. I fool around at the barre and then flick off the lights and crawl onto the couch, snuggling against him. He moves his arm, barely, to make room for me, and then holds me against him. His thumb moves up and down my arm languidly, stirring up heat in my stomach though his body remains soft with sleep behind me.

So far
,
so good
.

“You’re thinking,” he whispers against my neck.

I smile a little bit into the curve of my hand. “About nothing in particular.”

About the end of my career
,
the frightening part where I’ll be responsible for another human’s life
,
telling the company
,
Madison
,
my future.
Our future.

“Liar, liar,” he says, then yawns and nestles his face close to me, boyish and simple and warm. Zed in the middle of the night is one of my favorite versions of him. “Leotard on fire.”

“Doesn’t have the same ring,” I remind him, just like we do every time we tell this silly joke to each other.

“Only because you’re not wearing a leotard,” he says, and then slides a hand around my hip, beneath my shirt and across the still flatness of my stomach. “Which I like. Because then I can do this.”

I cover his hands with mine. “I love you.”

His smile presses into the back of my neck. “I know. I love you.”

I’m halfway back to sleep when Zed sighs, suddenly alert and clearly awake. He whispers my name once, then twice, and finally I yawn and sleepily ask him what’s on his mind. Then he says something I’m entirely unprepared for, and I wake up, clearly, cleanly and instantly. I push myself upright, away from him, and out of his arms. I brush my hair out of my face. His hands rest on my hips, but I don’t touch him.

“What?” I whisper.
No.
Zed.
Not now.
Please.

I wish I could see his face in the dark when he whispers, for a second time, “Marry me.”

I don’t know what to say, but all I can feel is my heart pounding in my chest. I barely notice when he sits up, pulling me onto his lap so I’m straddling him. His hands run down my arms, thumbs on the soft skin of the inside of my elbows straight down to my wrists. He turns both my hands so my fingers point to the ceiling and he kisses my palms.

“I love you, Alyona Miller. And I want us to be a family not just because we live together.” When I don’t say anything, he leans forward, head touching my hands and then letting them fall. I can’t move. “Say yes, Aly.”

I can’t. And I don’t. This is too much. All of this is too much at once and I can’t breathe, the pressure of his proposal pressing down on my chest that already had so little space left in it for more problems, more anxiety, more issues. I don’t know how to say all of this. I can’t sleep through the night from the bumper cars of anxiety in my head. One more thing and my tenuous hold on balance evaporates. I can feel that truth.

So far...so close.
Not good.

“Zed,” I whisper, my heart breaking in half. I’m shaking on his lap here in the dark. I don’t want to say no to him. I can’t remember the last time I said no to him. But I can’t say yes. Not to this. Not now. And not out of guilt.

His hands fall to the couch and I can feel his breath against my skin. We’re both shaking now. He looks up then, and I can’t see his face but I can feel him.
I
can feel him.
I know that there’s some part of Zed that I just shattered and I’ll never ever put all the pieces back together again. My throat’s tight.

He picks up my left hand and kisses my palm again. When I touch my fingers to his face, I touch tears. He whispers against my palm. “Okay.”

“Zed,” I whisper again, trying to figure out how to explain things to him I’ve never said aloud to anyone before in my life.
I
can’t.
You can’t ask me that right now because I don’t know how to talk you through my mind right now.

“Let’s just go back to bed,” Zed says, trying to scoot out from underneath me.

I grip his fingers tightly. “Please let me explain.”

I don’t know if I can. I think I have to try.

“Aly,” he says, and this time his voice chokes up and I panic, feeling the end, like sliding toward the end of a fraying rope. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” I whisper. I don’t feel okay at all. It’s the opposite of how I feel, but he turns away from me and tugs out his legs from beneath me. He doesn’t leave me on the couch though. He finds my hand in the dark and pulls me up after him and I hold him steady when he sways. I cup his face between my hands and kiss his cheeks. They taste of salt.

When we climb back into bed, he rolls away from me, facing the darkness. I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling, and press my hands to my stomach. A poppy seed, with two parents who couldn’t figure out how to say no and yes without crying. Poor poppy seed.