“I was there that night, remember? Besides seeing you and Chase with my own eyes, he told me, Talia. He told me you got pregnant. He told me how he reacted, he told me about the abortion. Far from his finest moment, I’ll give you that, but then again I don’t think I need to remind you his twin sister had just gotten a life sentence to being a vegetable, thanks to a drunk driver and the three of us not having her back that night. Add that to the years of ripping himself apart with guilt over what he did to you, I think he gets a pass on his knee-jerk reaction to finding out he was gonna be a father at eighteen. Then again, you didn’t stick around to see any of that, did you? So do me a favor, and stop lying!”
She wiped the fresh stream of tears and took two steps toward me. I raised one hand and she heeded my warning.
“He’s not-”
I wasn’t listening to one more lie. “Talia.” I spoke through my gritted teeth.
“Please, listen to me. He’s-”
“Stop! Nothing you say will take this away. Just stop!” I picked up the pool stick and cracked it over my knee before picking up my beer and heading for the couch. I needed a fucking minute. I needed to get away.
“I tried!” She roared back, following me into my sunken living room. “I tried. I went to Planned Parenthood, twice. But I couldn’t make it past the waiting room. Both times I sat there, alone and terrified. No one wants to be a teenage mother, but all I could think of were my parents. They tried forever to have another baby after me—so much so, it freaking killed their marriage. Made them miserable, so miserable my dad felt the need to screw his twenty-five-year-old intern … in our house where his high school daughter could walk in and catch him in the act. I was so mad at him for everything, for hurting my mother, for ruining my high school graduation, for leaving us. Being the spoiled brat that I was, I wanted him to suffer, like I was suffering. I wanted to make him miserable. God, I was so stupid. Do I regret some of the choices I made? Yes, most of them. But sitting there, in that waiting room, that was not one of them. It didn’t matter how it happened, and it never will. I would have never been able to live with myself. I could never go through with something like that. It was my first adult choice and the best choice of my life. I won’t ever apologize for that. He is everything, he’s my son.”
I knew most of what went down with her parents and how it messed with her head that summer, but it didn’t explain a twenty-year lie. “That was one hundred percent your choice to make, Tal. No one should ask you to apologize for that. But he’s not just yours. What about his father’s choice to know his kid, Tal? What about that? There’s no explaining that.” Some lies were inexcusable.
“I told my mother I was pregnant that morning. She cried, she yelled, she held me, she told me everything would be okay ... she was amazing. She promised to stand behind my decision, but demanded I tell the baby’s father. I begged her to drop it. I couldn’t bear the thought of this baby being his … huh, ten thousand dollars and a few years of therapy, I’m still dealing with it. I went to the party that night, more to escape her interrogation. I was emotionally exhausted and more terrified than I had been, for different reasons. I saw Kimi storm off, I wanted to follow her. I should have. But then I saw Chase downing shots. He never drank like that. God, if I could take it back, I would have. It was the biggest mistake of my life, but I had no choice … god, god, god.” Talia covered her eyes and cried, making no sense. Where the hell was she going with this?
I closed our gap and lowered her hands so I could see her face. Her eyes begged to be believed, as if she was telling the truth or maybe she just wanted her skewed timeline to be true. “You’re not making any sense, Talia.” My tone was softer, urging her to keep talking.
“I pretended to be just as drunk. God, the things I said to him, the lies.” She pulled away from me and went to the window. The thought of her and Chase sleeping together made me nauseous, but I wanted her to finish. This wasn’t adding up. “He was one of my best friends, he was the brother I never had, and I lied to him. I used him. I swear on my son, I really thought I had no other option. Please say you believe me, Asher?”
“Tal, I don’t understand what the hell you’re talking about.” I followed her to the window and turned her around. “You’re confusing me?”
“Chase was so drunk, he passed out right away. I thought for sure he wouldn’t remember any of it. I could only hope. There was only one other time I felt even more worthless, dirtier than I did that night. I bawled uncontrollably, completely consumed by guilt and fear and utter disgust with myself—I fell asleep too. At first I thought the screaming was just part of a nightmare ... he was screaming for Chase like a lunatic, demanding to know why Chase let Kimi get in the car, screaming about getting to the hospital, there not being much time. I am haunted by the look in Chase’s eye when he realized what he’d done ... with me … when his twin sister, my best friend ... plowed into a telephone pole. I will never forgive myself for that, ever.”
I don’t think one kid walked away from that Hamptons’ high school party unscarred by the vision of Chase’s father frantically searching for him. I sure as shit didn’t. We all knew instantly it was bad. Just how bad was incomprehensible. But this didn’t answer why she was rehashing this nightmare? We were both there to live it, and have been ever since.
I sat on the arm of the couch and leaned on my knees. “I get how messed up that night was, trust me, I do. We all made mistakes we have to live with and I know how much Kimi meant to you. But what does any of this have to do with why you lied to her brother about having an abortion? This does not justify why you didn’t tell him. It never will. He’s been robbed from a life with his son. You have no choice now. You need to tell him.” My tone was re-approaching irate.
“Tack is NOT his.”
Was she really going to play this game? “I saw Tack with my own two eyes!” I grabbed the back of my head and squeezed. “Goddamn it, Tal!”
“You said it yourself. They all look the same!”
What.
The.
Fuck.
She shook and sobbed. The sounds escaping through her lips were gut wrenching. But not enough for me to feel anything. My breath that had been coming in short, fast bursts, ceased. I was numb and paralyzed. Again. After several long seconds I had to remind my brain to breathe before calmly uttering, “What?” As in, what the hell was she talking about?
She attempted to pull herself together; it was futile. She began to speak almost incoherently through her crying. “The day my parents told me they were getting a divorce, I was beside myself. We were supposed to have our last gig at that place on Mott Street that night, but Constance made Chase and Kimi go to one of those debutant things out of town, so we canceled at the last minute. You wanted to take me to the movies, god, I wish I would have gone with you.” Her tears began to slow, but she was a million miles away. “Instead I decided to try out self-destructive, huh, and guess what … I succeeded. In grand fashion. I went to one of our over-the-top graduation parties—parents rent the club, the whole nine—the ones we swore we’d never go to, we hated that scene. So freaking entitled … so stupid. I had no business being there. I mean really—the one and only time I drank more than two beers, I ended up puking my guts up cuddled on your lap, feeling like death. But that memory didn’t stop me from wanting to drown in self pity that night.” She shook her head, her face expressionless. Her emotions were all over the place. It was hard to keep up. “Let’s just say it didn’t take much to twist my arm. I barely took half of it. But I also didn’t really care. It probably wasn’t even a full effect, but it was enough to send me soul searching. I wound up down on Mott anyway. I loved that place. I loved the acoustics and how our music sounded there. That stage gave off such an intimate vibe. I was always pinned up against your drums, like you were holding me up. I loved how I felt on that stage … confident, invincible, and beautiful.”