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Maybe they can watch cartoons together. Ride bikes. Build sand castles. Because that’s about all Miles Haas is qualified to do as a parent beyond donate the sperm.

It was an angry thought, but it made me sad too—the image of Miles playing with our child. Because he’d probably never do it. Even if I had the baby, I didn’t see him moving up here to take an active role in a baby’s life. More likely he’d fly in from San Francisco or New York or Amsterdam or wherever he was living and awkwardly pet the baby once or twice a year, and then he’d fly out again, and go back to his free, fun, sexy life.

And it would hurt. God, it would hurt.

I once fell off a roof, losing my footing on some slippery shingles and bouncing off a prickly shrub before hitting the ground hard. I broke my arm, cracked a few ribs, and had scratches from that fucking bush all over my body. It was growing needles, I swear to God. I was drunk at the time, of course, and didn’t feel too much when I landed, but the next day—the next month—I was in a lot of fucking pain.

That was nothing compared to what I felt after leaving Natalie. Nothing.

I would jump off a thousand roofs, bounce naked off a thousand prickly bushes, break every bone in my body willingly, if I thought it would ease the pain of pushing her away.

I couldn’t write. I didn’t feel like eating. I had trouble sleeping.

Sleeping! How can you fuck that up?

But every time I got in bed or lay on the couch, I thought of her. Didn’t matter if my eyes were open or closed—I saw her in front of me. Didn’t matter if I was alone or in a crowd—I could smell her. Didn’t matter what I ate or drank—nothing came close to the sweet taste of her, and nothing could erase it from my memory.

I spent long hours holed up in my apartment, watching cartoons or porn, not wearing pants, eating cereal with a plastic spoon and drinking beer, trying to convince myself that this was the good life. I jerked off to her constantly, but since I’d had the real thing, even that wasn’t as satisfying as it used to be. It made me even madder at myself that I’d fucked things up, although I still did it—the self-service equivalent of an angry hand job.

I called my friends to go out, but the ones with girlfriends seemed content to spend their nights in, and the ones without just wanted to troll for an easy fuck.

I was over it. I only wanted Natalie.

Finally, I broke down and called her. Got her voicemail. I tried to be casual and make jokes, but maybe I came off as pathetic or desperate, because she didn’t call me back right away. Ten days went by. The ten slowest, saddest, most agonizing days of my life.

I had to face it—she didn’t want me.

And why should she? Nothing had changed in her eyes. I hadn’t changed, although I wanted to. I just didn’t know where to start.

Should I show up on her doorstep? Admit I’d lied about California? Tell her I was in love with her and wanted to try one of those relationship things? I had no fucking clue. But every day without her was more miserable than the last, with no end in sight.

And then she called.

At the sight of her name on my screen, my body reacted like I’d just sniffed two lines of cocaine. I came alive instantly, my heart beating hard and fast. For a second, I debated making her leave a message and calling her back later, but then I thought, fuck it, I’m through playing games. I was unhappy, and she could make it better.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Miles. It’s me.”

“Hey, you.” I smiled and leaned back on the couch. “Took you long enough to call me back.”

“Sorry. I’ve been busy.”

“Yeah? I’ve missed you. What have you been doing?”

“Um, working. Painting the house. Helping Skylar with some wedding stuff.”

“Cool. When’s the wedding again?”

“September twenty-fourth.”

“That’s right. I’m supposed to go to it, I think.”

“That’s OK, you don’t have to. I know those things give you hives.”

Had I said that? I couldn’t remember. Sounded like me, though. “I might brave one, if you want me there,” I said, feeling like the biggest person ever.

Silence.

What the hell? Was she still upset with me? “Natalie? Do you want me to come to the wedding?”

“Um, before we talk about that, there’s something I have to tell you.”

Oh fuck. She got back together with the Douchebag.

I braced myself. “You’re back with Dan, huh?”

“No.” She paused and took a shaky breath. “I’m pregnant, Miles.”

I had to have heard that wrong.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Like, with a baby?”

“Yes. Like with a baby. Your baby.”

I held the phone away from me and stared at it in shock. I had a baby? What the hell was this?

“Miles?”

Slowly, I put the phone to my ear again. I’d never had an out-of-body experience before, but this is what I imagined it would be like, where everything around me, even the air I breathed, felt foreign and wrong. Was this real?

“Miles? Did you hear me?”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah…but I don’t understand.”

“Not much confusion about it. We had sex. I got pregnant.”

Silence.

I had no fucking clue what to say. This had never happened to me before. What did she want to hear? Sorry? Congratulations? There were any number of possibilities but none of them seemed right.

I finally found my voice, and of course I said the wrong thing. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she snapped. “I wouldn’t have called you otherwise.”

I closed my eyes. A sweat broke out on the back of my neck. “Natalie, don’t be mad. I’m just…I need a minute to take this in.”

Actually I needed more than a minute. I needed the world to stop turning right now. I needed a pause button—no, I needed a stop, rewind, and do-over button. Why the fuck had we had unprotected sex? I never had unprotected sex!

“Didn’t we… I mean, aren’t you on the pill?”

Yes, I’m on the pill. What do you think, I lied to you about that? I don’t know what happened, OK? I thought I followed the directions just like always, but it didn’t work. Your super sperm broke through the barrier.”

Absurdly, I felt proud of my super sperm for exactly two seconds before reality sank in again. And fuck, I kept saying the wrong things. “Sorry…I’m just…” I sat forward and tipped my head into one hand. “I don’t know what to say, Nat. What are you going to do?” God, now I’d just made it sound like it was her problem. I didn’t mean that, I just—fuck, this was hard! I needed a script!

“I don’t know.” Her tone was cold.

“What do you want me to do? Tell me and I’ll do it.”

Silence.

“Nothing, Miles. I don’t want you to do anything. The whole thing was a mistake. We were a mistake.”

“But—”

“Look, neither of us planned this, Miles. This is the worst possible timing for a pregnancy and the worst possible combination of factors. We’re young. We’re not married—we’re not even a couple—you don’t want kids, you’re moving across the country, I own a business, and I will have to answer everyone’s questions for the next nine months if I go through with this pregnancy, not to mention the next eighteen years.”

Oh my God. Nine months. Eighteen years.