the day before
2022
I read a story once where a couple who was volunteering for a year abroad had been in a terrible car accident. They had survived, but no one else in the car had. One of them couldn’t move on and one so badly wanted to. They couldn’t make it work. It had cut them in two. For a long time I hated that story. I hated that they couldn’t make it work after all they had endured; how close they had been to death. They say trauma unravels us, only for us to come back together again a bit differently.
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“I don’t see why you would have her do that, what if you have her grab his hand and place it on her throat?” I asked him.
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“Instead of just sleeping with him? After she confesses she knows he’s been cheating?” He clarified as I gave my edits on the plot twist of the second act.
“Yeah, I mean, doesn’t she want to show that even though he’s cheated and lied, she’s in control, especially of who hurts her? If you’re going to write about a woman who is hurting, make her complex.”
He nodded, as we crossed Park Avenue. After finishing a bowl of Ramen for my birthday, we hunted for soft-serve downtown. The sun was setting and we were making estimates of what people did for work who passed us on the sidewalk. We tended to do this, amidst and in between actual conversations.
“When do you think you’ll finish the second act?” I asked.
“I’m really close, soon and I can picture how I want the third to start,” he said, squeezing my hand.
We both hadn’t expected to find each other. Two sarcastic cynics living in the greater New York metropolis. One of us on each side of Manhattan. Him in Brooklyn, I in Jersey, both of our apartments facing the World Trade Center, two rivers and an island apart. We were so good at entertaining each other, at laughing at ourselves, at letting so much go or rarely bickering. Mat was fourteen years my senior, had gray decorating his sideburns against his inky hair. He was kind and comforting in all the ways I was seeking. He texted consistently, showed interest in me, and was considerate. Mat was fascinating to me, he was an artist during the day and a server in the evenings. I respected his dedication to make his first feature film. I was open to learning about a medium I barely knew. And while I loved movies, I didn’t know movies. He was different from those who came before him and sometimes that’s reason enough to keep going. During our first few months together it felt light and free. There were no biting comments or weird games. We were wildly open about our pasts and what wounds were still being healed. It felt like the first person I hadn’t fibbed to, in order to seem more “put together”.
And as three and four months passed, things became more intense. As I love yous were murmured, parents were introduced and trips were planned, the potential became exciting, yet remained faint. While he chased his dream of writing and directing his first feature film, he had no plans of leaving his rent stabilized 500 sq ft apartment. Nor, ever getting a steady job. Film and hospitality seemed to float him sufficiently enough. And I was still unsure of what I wanted. So I told myself, take it one day at a time. With the weeks easily passing, it became easy for me to push off conversations of the future of what either of us wanted. Though, I did ask him once if he ever considered freezing his sperm since he talked about children so often, and it seemed to test his level of commitment. He replied to the bold suggestion with, “what will be, will be.”
I don’t know why I asked him this, I think the old me might say it was because I wanted to know how he felt about planning a future, even if I was unsure of it. Now, I can see that I wanted to see how I felt when he replied. I wanted to feel his commitment to me deeply, like a promise, warm and true. But I should have known then that my suggestion was just a test of my ego, of my yearning to be wanted and nothing more.
Eventually our planned trip arrived in the first week of June. We went on a joint adventure to Europe for our birthdays, only two weeks apart. Despite moments of fleeting doubt, I pushed on. I hadn't felt so dedicated to the present for as long as I could remember. I wanted more time.
Four days in, we ended up in the hotel room in Paris sick and feverish. Multiple negative Covid tests later, we chalked it up to a flu, fever and body aches holding us from going outside to eat croissants and mosey through winding beautiful streets. One night, wrapped tightly in a hotel sheet and drunk off cold medicine, Mat had turned on a french film that he said was profound, yet heavy. As traumatizing scenes morphed into one another, the film ended with a woman taking a pregnancy test and smiling as it turned positive. And I laid there wondering how she could be happy. She looked so young. As this thought sat in my mind, I remembered I was due to get my period. I looked at the calendar, today or tomorrow it would come. But my fever got worse and it never did. Three days later, we landed back in New York. As I unpacked my bags, I took a test worried at how I could be a few days late. Maybe it was just the fever? After peeing on the stick, I placed it on the counter while I showered. I knew it would be negative.
I went about cleaning and doting on the mess I left in my bedroom. But when I went to throw away the test, it showed two dark lines. I took another, two lines appeared. I took a third, two lines appeared.
I was so scared, my hand shaking as I hit his name on my cell phone. He answered on the second ring, “I think I am pregnant”. I said, coldly, unsure if I’d have the strength to tell him if I waited a second longer. He played the part well, supporting any decision I’d make. Calm, collected and steady every time I sobbed. I could only be two weeks along I thought.
I said I needed time to think that night and I’d call him in the morning.
I kept replaying the night it must have been, the only night we had seen eachother in weeks that it lined up with my ovulation cycle. One mistake and here I was, thinking about something I never wanted to do. I couldn’t hold back tears, I felt nauseous at the idea of it. I lived alone in my apartment and held a decent job, but I couldn't afford child care. I couldn’t afford a two bedroom apartment alone. I think I had maybe eight weeks of leave allocated to me and I knew that I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn't ready to become a mother. I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to be. But I was sure I didn't want to do it alone. Even if we wanted to make it work, he lived in a five story walk up. He worked nights and didn’t have health insurance. The pressure would consume us to make the relationship work. I had felt relieved thinking of not being pregnant, and at that moment I knew I wanted to terminate.
We went to a clinic two days later. It was discreet and unmarked on the east side of Manhattan.
The nurse who entered the room was soft spoken and kind. She explained the options. My thoughts raced and I struggled to listen, “a pill or a procedure.”
“Which do I do?” I asked him, laying my head on his shoulder.
“Whichever you feel more comfortable doing, but it’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.” His presence calmed me, but I was unsure of what he wanted. But we avoided it. He looked to me for the answer and I appreciated this.
I was tearing up, “why are you crying?” he asked.
“Because I don’t want to do this, I know I do not want to be pregnant, but this, I don’t want to do,” I sobbed on his shoulder, grasping his shirt. He rubbed my back and kissed my forehead, “you’re going to be okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
I chose the procedure because I wanted it to be over. And quickly. The doctor injected a nerve blocker into my cervix. Mat increased the volume on the airpod in my left ear to my favorite Adele song and grasped my hand to distract me. I could feel the tube inside me, forcing my uterus to cramp. My right hand was slipping from sweat as I grasped his tighter. The doctor kept saying a few more seconds, you’re almost done. Those minutes felt like hours. When she stuck the internal ultrasound inside of me, she said, “I’m sorry but I have to go back in to ensure we got it all. It’s very hard to see since you’re so early.” I felt relief as the nurse squeezed my left hand and said I was doing well. Mat looked at me and pushed back my hair.
“You’re doing great,” he whispered.
“What are you going to make her for dinner?” The doctor asked.
“I’m not sure, whatever she wants,” he looked at me.
I felt supported and loved, despite how much I hated myself at that moment. He looked like he was holding so much. He was trying so hard to be light and calm, even though I knew he felt heaviness as I winced, squeezed my eyes shut and arched my back.
After it was over, I asked him to look away as I cleaned myself. Bunching the bloody tissues together and into the trash.
As soon as we left the clinic, we walked down Park Ave. The same street we had walked down months before on my birthday. I couldn’t help but compare.
People were walking their dogs and carrying backpacks from work. Everything seemed so typical and it was jarring. I felt like I left a part of me in the medical tray that the doctor fished through like a candy bowl. Evaluating the blood for tissue. As if maybe not all of me made it out of the office.
And then suddenly we were sitting outside at a cafe near Washington square park sharing a Brie and apple sandwich. It was seventy six degrees and sunny. And I wanted to feel like I could enjoy a few moments outside despite the diaper under my dress, collecting the warm liquid. I fought to bite the sandwich and pretended that I loved it.
We decided we should see a movie. Top Gun. And for the night, everything felt like it was normal. We howled at Tom Cruise’s opening scene. We held hands. He bought me flowers. We slept in the same bed, nestled — our minds grasping that the days could get easier.
Two days later I took a pregnancy test, positive. The next day, positive. The next day, I went for a blood test. “This can happen, no need to panic, sometimes the body’s hormones take longer to decline,” the doctor assured me.
After the blood draw, I walked to work. My stomach felt uneasy and I had the urge to buy ginger ale. Instead I found a lemonade with ginger. I sipped it at my desk. Someone opened a Pyrex with grilled chicken. I felt bile rise to the base of my throat. I ran to the bathroom to avoid the smell. Why was I feeling this way?
My closest friends kept telling me “it can’t be. It must just be hormones.” And while I desperately needed that to be true, something felt wrong.
When the doctor rang hours later, I answered quickly, “I am sorry, but your hormone levels are too high, it didn’t work. You need to come in tomorrow for me to see what’s going on.”
My stomach churned. I wanted to throw up. I did not want to do it, again.
I called Mat, sobbing, “can you come? I don’t want to go alone. I’m so scared.”
“I can’t, I have too much responsibility at this job.” He was helping a filmmaker friend of his on a short. The shoot location was 45 minutes north of the clinic. In irony, and not a tad comical, the film was centered on a man who struggled with keeping his job and being a good father.
“I had to call my boss. I had to cancel things and let people down. I am lying to my family, I am scared. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go alone.”
“I’m sorry, I really can’t, you know I would if I could,” he trailed, and I stopped listening. I felt so small to have to ask. I felt even smaller when he said no.
He was working on his best friend’s film. His friend had eaten in my apartment and laughed with me. His friend had no idea what Mat or I were going through. I imagined his friend cared and would want him to show up for something like this. But why didn’t Mat?
I called a close friend who lived in my building and she canceled her day at work, no questions asked. She sat next to me in the uber ride there.
“I guess I am the father now? What the hell is wrong with him?” she asked me. I laughed, but wanted to cry. I was so scared to even process what was happening.
“I wish I knew. I honestly think I would have dropped everything for a stranger.”
“Absolutely. This tells us too much about who he is. If you can’t depend on someone now, when can you? I mean, he really said “too much responsibility” as the excuse? That’s rich,” she scoffed, looking out the window.
She continued to be the person Mat wasn't for me, she questioned the doctor as I looked pale and defeated. Devastated how I could still be pregnant.
There had been so much blood. I had cramped deeply. It felt cruel to still be pregnant. It was so much harder than before. I didn’t know why, a punishment I felt I had deserved.
She stuck the ultrasound back in, “I am sorry, there it is, you’re unfortunately still pregnant,” she pointed to the ultrasound machine and now you could see a tiny circle, revealing the sac, “it’s not viable though, it’s shaped too strangely.”
I wanted to disappear. I didn’t want to do it again. But, I had no choice now, what was left was no longer viable and I had to end it. Suddenly, even though I knew I wanted to end it, the circumstances felt forced. I felt like a monster.
“What do you recommend she do? Which has the better chances? Doing the procedure again or taking the pills this time?” my friend asked, concerned and a tad annoyed at the lack of assurity we felt in that room.
“I recommend the pills based on where the pregnancy is implanted. I know this can weigh on people mentally, but I think this is your best chance.”
I quietly swallowed the first pill to stop the pregnancy hormone. Then, the next morning I placed 4 pills into my vagina, like a tampon. I laid on my bed with a towel under me for 30 min remaining completely still on my back. I hoped that this would work. An hour later intense cramping began, it felt like something was ripping and moving inside me. My friend handed me the painkillers, saying I should take them now before it got worse. Blood began to trickle and then clots, egg sized clots every half hour would dispel and I would feel horribly scared, as if hundreds would come. I shook and cried, each one more painful than the one before. At one point I was in such pain, I woke up on the tile floor in front of my toilet, unsure how long it had been. I was groaning when Mat called.
I don’t remember what I said to him, but I remember he was shouting my name and asking me to breathe, I just deeply groaned. That’s all I could do. I wanted to crawl out of my body. Leave it on the floor and walk into nothing. I wanted to start over. Have a new sheath to be in. This one felt ruined and destroyed, defeated. I wanted it to be over, and I wanted it to work. So I could move on from this. Everything felt opaque in my recollection. But certain things stood out, such as when he mentioned he had to go order lunch for the crew and said he’d call right back.
“I will call you right back, right back. . .” he almost yelled into the phone.
But ten minutes later a clot was coming out and I had to push. I let it ring to voicemail. What was I going to do? Describe it to him? Sound out what it felt like to feel like you are dying? That you almost hope you will? I felt helpless and alone. I hated him for not being close, for being able to get lunch and live out his day as if my world didn’t feel like glass around me. As if everything was just fucking fine.
My closest friends came and checked in on me that day, bringing me ginger ale and crackers, walking me to the bed and the toilet, back and forth. I would waddle, slowly, and as the cramps would take over and blood gushed inside my diaper, all I wanted was him to sit next to me, to help me walk. I felt abandoned, so scared and the person I wanted next to me wasn’t there.
I awoke on the couch after fourteen hours of cramping. It was nearly 11 pm. He had arrived quietly and then laid on top of me, covering me with his body. But all I could do was lay still because it felt as if my body had been mangled under a car, and I didn’t know how to get up, how to use it.
The next morning, I woke up to the news of Roe v Wade being overturned by the US supreme court on my phone. He had left, already back on the film set. I felt numb, angry and helpless.
And as the days passed, we had less and less to say. I sought to talk about the experience, how sad I still was. How awful I felt. How my body felt abnormal and strange. Though I strongly believed in a woman’s right to choose, I was sad about my own experience, the trauma still fresh. His words, body language and demeanor reinforced how he wanted to move past it all.
He asked me to, “be strong and buck up,” two days after.
Buck up? What does that even mean?
I couldn't. I was mourning the life I could have had. The what if’s. But what I lost the most was my hope that he could be my future. Because in the moment I felt most alone, I felt as if any decency was stripped from me. Any normalcy was gone. And how could I laugh again with him? How could I lay next to the one person who was a part of this but chose not to be? It felt like a weird gift. In his choice, finality became so clear and loud, but I didn’t know how to begin mourning the person I loved and the life I had wanted.
Our last dinner alone was ten days after the second abortion attempt, I brought up the movie we had watched in Paris. Saying how it still haunted me, her smiling sitting on the toilet with her positive test. How strange and “dejavu-like” it felt to be days later seeing the same results and feeling nothing. That I still couldn’t believe this all happened.
Biting into his pastrami sandwich, he asked, “what made you think of that? Why bring this up right now?”
Now? My mind felt furious with thoughts. This is all I think about. When I see children on the train. When I shower. When I wake up and have two seconds before I replay every decision that led me to it. I think about how I could have been so stupid. I replay it every second of every day. And not because I wanted to, but because I couldn't not face it.
I made a mistake. I did not blame him for what happened. But I blamed him for not wanting to be there when it unfolded.
I deflated at that moment. Silent and sinking into the chair. And I knew then, that I would never be seen by him. I began to sob and he looked incredibly confused. I knew it was over.
He explained to me that people deal with pain differently. “Some people handle horrific life experiences in different ways,”.
“Are you calling me weak?” I asked. There it was. The anger. Resentment spilling between my teeth.
“That is not what I said?”
“But you keep pushing me to be strong. As if there is a manual for this shit. As if there is a way to feel. You keep pushing me forward and I just want to feel this. I am so sad. I am so deeply sad and all I want to do is talk to you about it. I don’t want to talk to my friends. You’re apart of this whether you like it or not, or even realize it fully. But I can’t keep pretending I am okay to make you feel better. You chose not to show up. And you can pretend that getting through it will help. But it won’t.”
He stared at me, looking lost and sad.
“I have one question that I have to ask you because it is eating at me, how long do you think you’ll think about this film you made? Months? Years?”
He looked at me for a few seconds, saying nothing, then said, “I’m not sure.”
“I will think about this for the rest of my life.” The tears coated my cheeks as I turned blotchy and red.
He apologized during my sobbing, but it didn’t seem to change me. I felt nothing, I felt as if I hadn't ever known him. And I felt sick thinking that I had just had his DNA inside me. That we were so close to being bound forever. And this was how he met me when I needed him most.
In the days after this conversation I couldn’t even mourn because I was so focused on his judgment of my experience. When I peed blood would come and I would tear up. I would have flashbacks to the pain. When I was tucking my comforter in the duvet, brown blood stains still marked the cream fabric. Everything inside and around me was still going through it. I was carrying it so deeply and it was still being released.
When I was alone in the car for the first time I cried to a song that he had played once when cooking dinner during a snowstorm. I could still smell the smoky fish in his apartment and feel the creaky wooden floor under my socks.
In my car, I had courage. I felt contained. In the moments after singing and yelling trapped in my Hyundai, I showed up at his door, buzzing number 35 to walk up the five stories. It was the same apartment, but a very different place. I knew if I didn’t say anything I could see what my life looked like in a year. I knew his biggest fear was not creating a film and my biggest fear is that I’d feel this alone forever and somehow accept it and move on. That it would become a part of how I saw myself.
I thought of words from a dear friend when I described my pain and how I was trying to forgive Mat. That I felt insane. As if my body had stayed behind and my mind was racing ahead. Taking all my energy to stitch them together as each day passed.
“Sadness”, my friend said, “is very internal, surrounding, encompassing, it folds in on you. And you can live in it, with yourself for a very long time. It gets deeper and harder to get out. But anger is much more outward. It has to go somewhere. It flares outward like the sun. If you don’t channel it, you will feel as if you’re going mad because it wants to be released. And I know you’ll do your best to not direct it towards someone, but I want and hope for you that you direct it. Messily and in a human way. There is no thinking your way out of this.”
What was so difficult in walking away is that I still felt like I was carrying the desperation of being seen. I wanted to force him to feel what I felt. To know exactly what it was I endured. I wanted him to hurt. I wanted to transfer it all to him. Instead, I studied his face one last time, trying to ingrain a freckle that decorated his left ear lobe in my memory. I ran my hands through his hair as he lay in my lap, while he grazed my leg. It was the first time I didn’t know if I hated or loved a human more. But when I listened deeply, to my thoughts, the hatred wanted me to stay, to prove something to him, justifying my pain—that it was real. The hatred was childish, wanting to kick and scream to be understood. A tantrum that felt so deep that I feared what I might do. But the love, it begged me to go and the multitudes nearly paralyzed me.
He told me he had so many firsts with me; never loved someone like this, but still struggled to accept it. I told him how he wasn’t broken, but that I was already resentful and I couldn’t forgive him while being so angry. I couldn’t move on in my life while so focused on the one I lost. We quickly ran out of words, knowing it ended weeks before.
Society doesn’t hate anyone more than a selfish and confident woman because it doesn’t understand her. One that knows how to say no to a decent man. One that chooses herself. One that wants to be loved, but doesn’t accept it when it’s muddled when needed most. One that tells her husband she knew he was always lying and places his hand on her neck, showing him exactly what she looks like when she’s being lied to. Sometimes there is nothing left to do than to face each other. As we stare intently, acknowledging one of the most painful parts of existence, that we never saw each other at all— despite having convinced ourselves that we were so close.