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Cat and Laila are expecting.
And Jeremy’s happy for them. Really, he is, despite what his initial reaction may show. Despite the way he freezes up when they tell him and Jean over dinner, and clenches the stem of his wine glass so hard he fears it’ll break.
“That’s amazing!” He gets out eventually, and sets the glass down—very, very carefully—in favor of reaching for the girls instead. “Oh, I’m so excited for you. You’ll be great mothers.”
He stops, falters, frowns. “But I hadn’t—I didn’t think you guys were trying yet?”
“We weren’t,” Laila tells him, and glances over at Cat with a twinkle in her eye, “but our cycles synced up, and one thing led to another, and…you guys know how it is.”
She says it with a wink, but Jeremy only feels dread at the comment.
He remembers, in his final year at USC, being sent into heat by Jean’s first rut off the blockers the Ravens had him on. Remembers his offer to help, and Jean’s offer back. Remembers the whirlwind of those three days, the embarrassment that came after.
Remembers—remembers what else came after. The nausea, the bloating, the back pain. Remembers the test he took in the bathroom at his mother’s house, the abortion he got in secret.
But Jean doesn’t.
Because Jeremy never told him.
He’s meant to, really. Tried to bring it up several times now, but no time ever seemed right, and the later it got into their relationship, the less sure Jeremy became of himself.
But Jeremy’s lack of communication is hardly Cat and Laila’s problem.
“Mhm,” Jeremy says, quick, dismissive. He swallows thickly, and draws back, folding his own hands in his lap and squeezing his knuckles so tight they pop.
He would not ruin this for them. Would not make this night about him, or the secret he’s kept for years.
So he takes a breath, and swallows down the lump in his throat, and ignores the searching look Jean is trying to treat him to as he steers the conversation back on topic. “Well, don’t hold out on us. Tell us everything! How you found out, when you found out…”
On the other side of the table, Cat smirks. “Well,” she echoes, “when a mommy and a mommy love each other veryyyy much—“
Laila nudges her gently. Cat rolls her eyes. “He’s the one who asked for details!” She protests, but at the look Laila gives her, sighs. “Alright,” she says, “alright.”
She launches into the explanation Jeremy asked for, recounting the week she spent with her head in the toilet, and the never ending ache in her back, the way Laila could smell the change in her scent almost immediately, and it is so familiar that Jeremy feels ill.
He tries to smile through it, tries to grin and bear it, but then Cat starts talking about plans for the future, and Jeremy makes the mistake of risking a glance at Jean.
“We were thinking about it,” Cat says, and she looks so excited Jeremy feels guilty for being anything but excited with her, “that if you guys get pregnant soon, we can raise our kids to be best friends. Wouldn’t that be the cutest? Little playdates and sleepovers. And we could rent a beach house, and have joint vacations, and—“
Jeremy stops listening. There is an amused smile on Jean’s mouth, and a glimmer in his eye, like he’s considering this, like he wants this, and suddenly, Jeremy cannot breathe.
Did Jean want kids? They had never discussed it, not once in the years they’ve been dating. And that had been Jeremy’s justification. Jean never brought it up, ergo, Jean never wanted kids. But what if Jeremy had been wrong?
“Jeremy,” someone is saying, and Jeremy forces himself back to the present. “Don’t you think?”
The conversation has died. The table has gone silent. All sets of eyes are on him, and Jeremy—Jeremy has no idea what they were talking about. “Sorry,” he says. “Could you…could you repeat that?”
Laila doesn’t.
“You look a little…green,” she says instead, and Jeremy feels his nausea grow. “Are you…?”
Jeremy nods, and opens his mouth, but before he can answer, Cat claps her hands, delighted.
“Oh, maybe our dream isn’t so far off after all,” she says. “I swear I saw that same look on his face the last time Jean knocked him up.”
Jeremy flinches, and the motion sends his foot into the table leg, and his wine glass flying. It lands against his dish with a clank, and splashes burgundy all over his meal and light blue dress shirt.
There are gasps all around him. Jeremy’s chair scrapes across the floor. “Jesus,” he says. “I’m sorry—I—I’ll clean this up, I’ll—let me get a towel.”
He’s moving before anyone can stop him, heading straight for the kitchen while Jean and Laila throw napkins at the wine spilling down the tablecloth and onto the floor. There is a horrified look on Cat’s face as she watches it all unfold, and as Jeremy grabs all the paper towels he can, he can’t get the image of it out of his head.
“I’m so sorry,” he says again when he returns. But no one wants to hear it. Laila takes the towels from his hand, and shoos him toward the bathroom, telling him to take off his shirt and set it on the counter, and to lightly blot, not rub, Jeremy. Do you understand me?
Jeremy does understand her, but by the time he reaches the bathroom, he can’t do much more than shakily undo the first button, and stare at himself in the mirror.
Because he ruined it—the night, his shirt, his relationship. And isn’t that all he’s good for ? How silly of him, to pretend he is more than his worst mistakes. How silly of him to think he could ever be worthy of Jean.
I’d rather lose face than lose your trust in me, Jeremy had said. I won’t lie. Not to you.
And then few months later, what had he done ?
Jeremy swallows hard, and tries to breathe. He cannot break down here. He cannot do this here. This is not his night, and he has already done enough damage.
But how is he to go back out there? Surely, Jean will have questions. Surely, the moment he gets Jeremy alone, he will demand answers. And that is only if he hadn’t already demanded them from Cat and Laila.
Jeremy leans forward and grips the sink until his knuckles go white, trying and failing to stare anything other than panic into his reflection.
It is a failed attempt.
Jean would leave him for this. Jean should leave him for this. Making decisions for them both, lying to him for years. Jean—
is in the doorway.
“Laila sent me with baking soda,” he says, and holds up a yellow box when Jeremy stares at him like a deer in headlights. “You—why is this still on?”
Jeremy doesn’t answer him. He can’t. Jean puts the box on the counter, and reaches to undo Jeremy’s buttons himself.
He’s always been good with this. Quick, efficient. And under any other circumstances, Jeremy would make a joke about it. Would waggle his eyebrows and make Jean laugh. But right now, in this situation, all he says is, “You should break up with me.”
Jean blinks at him, stunned. His fingers freeze on the second to last button. “Because you spilled the wine?”
“Because I lied to you,” Jeremy says, and horribly, feels tears well in his eyes. “Because I got pregnant five years ago, and didn’t tell you. Because I made that decision alone, when I should have made it with you. Because I’ve kept it a secret since then, because I had five years to come clean, and still I—“
“Jeremy,” Jean says, gently, calmly, and Jeremy’s jaw snaps shut. There is sudden understanding in his eyes, and Jeremy feels his stomach bottom out, even before Jean says the words. “I know.”
Jeremy’s jaw opens again. “You—” he starts, and stops, lost. “What?”
“I know,” Jean repeats, and reaches up to tuck Jeremy’s hair behind his ear. “And I’m not mad at you for it, and I don’t think you lied to me. And I honestly—thought you knew I knew? You never brought it up.”
Jeremy gives him a pained look. Jean backtracks, and catches a tear with his thumb, and says, “And now I know why. But I—We weren’t even together then, and even if we had been, decisions about your body are not mine to make.”
Jeremy shakes his head. It cannot be this easy. Not when he’s spent years with this gnawing at him. But when are things with Jean ever hard? Still, though, he is tentative. “So…you’re not mad?”
“Jeremy,” Jean says, and cups Jeremy’s face. “If I said I wanted the child back then, would you have kept it?”
Yes, Jeremy thinks, but doesn’t say. He would’ve hated it, and been benched for the rest of the season, and been scorned by his family even worse than he was, but if it would have made Jean happy, if it would’ve kept Jean with him, then Jeremy would have done it.
But that’s precisely why he’d terminated the pregnancy, isn’t it? They were both so young, and though he’d assumed Jean would want nothing to do with a child, that’s as much as he didn’t want to know if Jean wanted the opposite.
And Jean must get that, because he rephrases. “Would you have wanted it?”
Jeremy swallows, and searches Jean’s face. But even through the blur of his tears, Jean doesn’t look anything other than earnest. His gray eyes are searching, his mouth is curled into a gentle frown.
“No,” Jeremy confesses.
“Then there you have it,” Jean says. “It was your decision, and you made the one that would benefit you best. You shouldn’t have to apologize for that, and I’m sorry I made you feel like you did.”
It couldn’t be this easy. It shouldn’t be. Jeremy’s expression crumbles again, but he tugs Jean into a hug before the tears can fall. He shoves his face into Jean’s shoulder, wraps his arms tight around Jean’s back. “But what about you?” He mumbles. “Did you—would you have wanted it?”
Jean’s arm settles around his waist; his hand settles in Jeremy’s hair. “Not then,” he says, and presses a kiss to Jeremy’s forehead.
Jeremy’s heart speeds up. And Jean must see the way he perks up, because he laughs a little, and knocks a finger gently under Jeremy’s chin. “That is hardly a conversation to be had here, and now.”
Jeremy bites back a protest. Laila appears in the door.
“Everything okay in here?” She asks, and the confusion in her eyes nearly makes Jeremy wince again. He has so much explaining to do, and apologies to make, but right now, he also has a stain to remove.
“Other than my shirt,” he says. “Yes.”
Laila’s expression goes from confused to concerned to annoyed in record time. Immediately, she moves Jean out of her way, and to inspect the mess of Jeremy’s spill herself. “Oh,” she says, “you rubbed it, didn’t you? I specifically said to blot—“
Jeremy laughs. Over Laila’s shoulder, Jean smiles at him softly.