Because of You, Well, Us

Chase

Amanda came around to believing me when it came to Kate, and we started dating for real, and not just hooking up. After Christmas, she texted me and said that she wanted to see me when we got back to campus. I'd met her outside her room, and she told me everything she felt. She said she wasn't with Andy anymore, and that what she wanted me as her boyfriend.

She was something. I loved Amanda. I couldn't stop smiling around her. Everything seemed just so... perfect. Maybe a bit too perfect. I wasn't one to believe that relationships came easy. Everything good took work, this wasn't work. It felt more like work relief. I mean, name one couple that's never had a fight. You drawing a blank? Me too.

Not to mention that the whole time Amanda had her fling with Andy, I couldn't stop thinking about Kate, how I had gotten her pregnant, what generally came from pregnancy, and what I would have had done about it. About the baby. About our future as a family.

I would have married her. Either before the baby came, or after it had but I would have married her. Don't get me wrong, Kate's my best friend, or more of was, I just had to stop and think. Married, with a kid or one on the way, before I even turned 20? That felt too crazy! Then again "crazy" seemed like my middle name.

But who was I crazy about? Everything felt easy with Amanda. We seemed so carefree and took everything one day at a time. The most serious things we had ever done? Decide that we wanted to date and say 'I love you.' Even after all of this, we never talked about what we wanted to do after Yale, or if we wanted a future together. Kate and I had a history. It may have been a complicated one, but we knew each other better than any other couple I knew. Being with her seemed so perfect, and in a good way. We acted so similar, but we had different opinions on things, so we would have things to fight about. I knew all of her secrets, and she knew all of mine. Amanda didn't know half as much as Kate did, and I said I loved Amanda.

A few weeks after Amanda and I got back together, I figured I should tell her about getting Kate pregnant. I mean, I said I loved her and she didn't even know one of my biggest secrets. One night, she and I were doing homework in my room. We had study music playing, and I tried my best to focus on reasons the developmental stages for my test tomorrow, but all I could only think about comparing those stages to the kid I didn't have. I found myself calculating for the hundredth time that day how old the baby would have been, and what they could have done. Would they know my voice yet? Would they be able to recognize my face or Kate's?

"Amanda?" I found myself saying before I knew what I did.

"Yeah?" She looked up at me and smiled.

My muscles got tense and my head got a bit fuzzy, "You know Andy's girlfriend Kate, right?"

"Of course I know Kate. Almost all soccer girlfriends sit together during games."

"Right" I scoffed at myself, "Stupid question."

Amanda knew something was up. She stuck her highlighter in her book to mark her place and sat up so she could see me better, "Chase, what's going on with you? You've seemed distant lately. Like ever since we got back together."

"I know, and I'm sorry. I've just had a lot on my mind." I tried gathering up the nerve, and I didn't know why. I trusted Amanda. I knew that she would react rationally.

"Then tell me. Maybe I can help. I mean, that's pretty much what a relationship is."

"You're right." I ran my hands over my face to try and clear my head. "It's just, before you and I ever got together, Kate and I had a thing. It didn't last long." I paused for breath and Amanda cut in.

"I figured something had happened between you two. There's kind of a vibe." He pulled a face to make me smile.

"The thing is, it wasn't just that we slept together." I took a deep breath, "I got Kate pregnant."

I saw Amanda stiffen. "Okay," Her voice sounded even in an almost scary way. "But I don't remember ever seeing a pregnant girl around campus, and there's no baby around here. Did she have an abortion or something?"

"Yeah, something. I wasn't there when it happened, but just after Kate found out, she lost the baby. I think that's why I've seemed off. I've thought about it a lot. What I would have done and stuff like that."

"And what would you have done?" Amanda's voice still seemed too even, giving me an erie feeling.

I barely even hesitated before responding. I knew whatever I said could make her go either way, and that beating around the bush wouldn't work for her, "I would have married her. I would have raised the kid. I would have been a parent." I couldn't tell if Amanda felt okay with this or not. She wasn't giving anything away.

"Chase?" Amanda asked.

"What" I finally dared to look at her. She didn't look mad, which I took as a good sign.

"Do you love her?" She asked.

I sighed, "I know I did at some point, but I also know that I love you." I said, hoping I'd said the right thing. I wasn't sure how to handle this, especially since I had just blurted all of this out without thinking it through.

"Okay." Amanda leaned forward and kissed me. I kissed her back, but she pulled away before too long and went back to studying. We didn't talk much about it after that night, but I knew that she cared. I didn't have to say a word before she changed the channel whenever we watched TV and something about babies popped up. She would squeeze my hand whenever we passed a children's store or someone toting a toddler. Maybe Amanda was perfect. But then, she tried to get me to watch this movie she liked where the main character tries to get pregnant almost the entire movie. I'd gotten a girl pregnant without even trying. I tried to stay calm and just think about this beautiful girl resting her head on my chest, but I found myself thinking about how old my kid would have been.

"Amanda, I don't think I can watch this," I told her after the plot started to unfold.

"Don't be silly. It's a fake movie." She lifted her head to look at me.

"I know, but my situation wasn't fake. Amanda, I almost became a dad, and now I'm not. I can't watch this movie where a woman lives the life I almost had and not feel anything. Don't you understand?" She had seemed so comfortable with the whole situation ever since I told her. I wasn't surprised she had gotten upset, but it still seemed unexpected.

"No, Chase. So what if Kate got pregnant for, like, thirty seconds? She's not pregnant now, and all you can do is move on with your life. That's why I'm here." She leaned her head forward to kiss me, but I pushed her away.

"You make it seem so easy, but it's not. You don't understand." I could feel myself getting angry, "You haven't gone through this. You can't expect me to go through something like that and not have some emotion when I remember it."

Amanda sank into the other end of the couch. She stayed quiet for a minute and looked deep in thought, "Did you ever stop to think that if Kate hadn't lost the baby, we wouldn't be together? All you talk about is how you would have married Kate if she hadn't miscarried. But she did, and now she's with Andy, and she seems happy. Don't you think that you deserve that happiness? That we deserve to be as happy of a couple as Kate and Andy seem to be?" Her voice got small, "Don't you love me, Chase?"

I felt like a jackass. Amanda had stood by me while I went through everything. I knew I had to say something and make her stay so we could keep talking this out, but I couldn't think of the right thing to say. I wasn't okay. I wasn't ready to not think about it. I had been so prepared to completely change my life in those few minutes I thought of Kate as pregnant, and even though it had just ended up as a handful of minutes, getting back to real life hadn't gotten any easier. Maybe I didn't deserve happiness.

I took too long to tell Amanda that I loved her, and I noticed how hard she tried at not crying in front of me. She took deep breaths, but they came out shaky.

"I think I should just go," She said, voice still quiet, "Do you want me to go?" She sat there, waiting for me to respond, and I just sat there, still being a fool who, yet again, didn't realize what a good thing he had in Amanda.

Without saying another word, she got up from the couch, got her movie, and left me alone in my dark room.