My good girl and me was happy as goldfish till she got pregnant. She would handle it. We agreed. This was where the smart money was. She was in two-year college, and we was both busted. Who could pay for a car seat? I caught the bus to work
But she switched up outside the clinic. I tried to talk reason, but she wasn’t having it. Her cheeks was red as welts, but she didn’t cry.
“I thought you were better than this.” She left me outside.
I tried to get us back to the way things were supposed to be. We always made out on her mama’s couch. We did that one more time—I brought beer and nacho chips over—but the next time I stopped by her mama said she was gone and that I shouldn’t come round again.
I saw my girl years later. I worked a gas station register by the highway. She still had those baby-fat cheeks. I bet she changed her hair a million times since last I touched her, but her hair was the same again as it was before.
She had a boy hanging round. He wore cleats and knee socks. There was a grass stain on his jersey.
I kept eying her, but she wouldn’t look at me. She circled the racks and went to the automatic doors. They whooshed open, then closed, then open. She pulled that boy by the arm.
“Don’t stare at that man,” she said. “We don’t know him.”
Outside, a man pumped gas into their car, and they all rode off together. I went to the window. They crossed the intersection and rolled onto the on-ramp. Their car disappeared into traffic, floating away.
- The Places I Couldn’t Go - January 31, 2016
