We had no business on that road. The interstate would\u2019ve been quicker, she reminded me, but I didn\u2019t want to push the car. It was a piece of shit. She reminded me of that too, and now it was overheated and dead on a surface road, the sun high and hot and baking the asphalt and the low brown buildings around us. She sat in the passenger seat and thumbed at her phone and wouldn\u2019t look at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour brother\u2019s on his way,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t respond and I looked up and down the street. There was an appliance repair place on one side of the road and a long row of orange self-storage bays behind a tall fence on the other. Past where we sat in the steaming and popping car there was a boarded apartment building and at the corner, sticking out over the sidewalk, was a faded plastic sign with a pool table and the word \u2018beer\u2019 on it in black block letters.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wanna wait in the bar?\u201d I said, gesturing down the road. She said nothing. \u201cIt\u2019s probably air-conditioned,\u201d I added.<\/p>\n
She kept staring at her phone, motionless except for her thumb, the triple band silver ring I had given her flashing in the glare with each swipe. She stepped out of the car and slammed the door. She slung her purse over her shoulder and pushed her hair behind her ears and marched towards the bar saying something about the wasted appointment not making any difference.<\/p>\n
She was beautiful, even mad like that, and it hurt, her being mad at me. She had not wanted me to buy the car. She wanted me to be reasonable, to buy something that might show that I was taking things seriously. She was right too, about missing the appointment. She was ten weeks pregnant and we had plenty of time to legally do it. She was ready to be done though, and she was beautiful walking away from me down that hot sidewalk, sweating a little, yanking on her purse strap, grinding her heels into every step as though she could push more of the world between us with each footfall, rotating the whole of her existence away from me and my piece of shit car.<\/p>\n
I crouched down in the half a foot of shade next to the car and waited on her brother.<\/p>\n
We had debated the thing for a week. Our way of debating was for her to get worked up enough to say something she believed and then for me to doubt it. I guess that\u2019s what I do that annoys her so much. Maybe I hadn\u2019t ever been certain of anything and so I didn\u2019t know what it was like. She was certain now though, that she didn\u2019t want a child. I was stupid not to see it for what it was. She didn\u2019t want my child.<\/p>\n
I saw her brother turn down the street and I stood up and waved. He pulled up and only just cracked the window so as not to let the air conditioning out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere\u2019s Kate?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s in the bar,\u201d I said, pointing down the street. \u201cBe right back.\u201d<\/p>\n
I jogged down the street and pushed open the door, daylight painting the dark space in greens and browns, dull hues not meant to be seen. The door closed behind me and for a moment I couldn\u2019t see anything. My eyes adjusted to the absence of light and I saw the pool tables and the long bar and a man sitting at it with his back to me and the bartender bent over a sink with water running into it. I didn\u2019t move from the door and both men turned to look at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWoman just come in here?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d the bartender said. \u201cThat\u2019s her beer.\u201d He pointed to a dark bottle down the bar sweating onto a cocktail napkin. \u201cHer phone rang and she walked out. You paying?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at them both for a long time and then fumbled a few dollars out of my wallet and put them on the pool table nearest me. I turned to the door, studying the floor as I went back outside. The brightness hit me in a reverse of what going inside had been like. I squinted and readjusted to the glare and looked up and down the street but there was no one except her brother, idling in the air conditioning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She was ten weeks pregnant and we had plenty of time to legally do it. She was ready to be done though, and she was beautiful walking away from me down that hot sidewalk, sweating a little, yanking on her purse strap, grinding her heels into every step as though she could push more of the world between us with each footfall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[2412,3635,3636,105,165],"class_list":["post-20221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-abortion","tag-breakdowns","tag-heat","tag-relationships","tag-unrequited-love","writer-harris-quinn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20221"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20675,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20221\/revisions\/20675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}