About a year ago, I had my first and only one night stand. I'm not particularly proud of the incident, though considering the number of hangups I had to get over in order for the event to occur, perhaps I should be.
I did not intend to have a one night stand; I intended to have a memorable start to a long and fulfilling relationship. Cathy's actions after the fact (not answering my phone calls, my letters, my emails) made it quite clear that this was not what she wanted.
At the time, this hit me quite hard, primarily because it was the third time in a row a woman had rejected me over a Christmas break. Was there something in the smell of mistletoe that made females snap to their senses and realize they were wasting their time with me, I wondered. Something in the concept of Santa Claus, perhaps.
I got over it, though, the way I always do when there are no other options. My own personal acid test for "getting over X" is the ability to later have my heart broken by Y, Y != X. Since there have been many such Ys, Y != Cathy, I feel I have earned a psychological clean bill of health over the mater.
Or so I would have told you (had you asked, had you known) up to a week ago. The details are convoluted, but suffice it to say that I found out from a friend of the parent of a friend of Cathy's that over the Christmas break while she wasn't speaking to me, Cathy had an abortion.
I have no idea how I feel about this. The word itself has been repeating over and over in my head, a black hole among my mental furniture. All the little dialogues: "Did we use enough protection? Well, no, I didn't wear two condoms." Or "Am I sure I was the cause? Well, no, I didn't follow her every waking moment of the previous month, but she had confessed that she hadn't been getting any, and I see no reason why she would have lied."
[Why did I use the word "cause"? Why do I refuse to even think the six-letter f-word?]
My mental numbness is not the tragedy, not the confession here. No, that role is reserved for my emotional impotence. From the second I heard the news, I have wanted to call up Cathy and say something. Something comforting. Something as simple perhaps as, "I'm sorry."
But I don't, and here's why: somewhere in my soul, I'm still just a little bit angry at Cathy for rejecting me, for not telling me she was (to use a word that still registers high on my personal shock-o-meter) pregnant, for not even telling me she was getting an abortion. It's pathetic, it's shameful, but it is the way that I feel and I can do nothing to rescue her from the killfile of my heart.
God save us all.
-Thomas C Names have been changed to protect the imaginary