Free Self Destruct by K. D. Carrillo

up with her?  Today? Why?” she fired questions at me.  “Simple, she wasn’t who I wanted.  She hasn’t been someone I’ve liked for a long time, but she and I have a sordid past and I couldn’t seem separate myself from her.”
    “I’m not like a rebound am I?” Becca asked quietly.  “No Red, you could never be that. I haven’t felt anything for Vanessa in five or six years.  I never loved her.  I only felt responsible for her.” 
    Becca looked off in the distance weighing my words.  I knew she was apprehensive, but I hoped she would stick around after all of the darkness I had to unveil.  “So what now?” she asked, returning her gaze to me.  “Now I tell you a story, and you tell me if you still want to give us a try.”  She nodded, and that was my cue to begin.
    “Vanessa and I started dating senior year of high school.  We had the same friends, were in most of each other’s classes, and our parents ran in the same social circles.  She came on to me at the beginning of the year.  I was a teenage boy, and she was beautiful.  Our parents were busy with business and endless social obligations, and they gave us a lot of space.  Too much space for teenagers with hormones running wild." 
    I studied her face, but she hadn't turned away from me yet.  " Our relationship moved too fast.  We had sex without a condom one time.  Neither of us were virgins, so we should have been prepared.  But we were young and stupid.  Things stayed hot and heavy between us for the next month.  Then the bomb dropped.  She was pregnant.
    I stood beside her of course.  I was prepared to put my life on hold and figure ou t what the best thing to do was. I felt enormous guilt for that one mistake. I realize now I should have given myself a break.  She pressured me not to use protection, and swore she was on the pill. 
    Vanessa tried to hide her pregnancy for the rest of our senior year.   I thought after school ended we would tell our families and get their advice and help, but she refused to tell anyone. 
    I was a wreck.  I declined my admission to Gonzaga, because I thought I needed to work full-time.  Finally my dad confronted me, and I spilled the entire mess.  He agreed not to tell her parents. 
    Obviously they were going to find out .  She started showing sooner than I expected. She had to tell them, and I was sure she would, but I was wrong.  She never intended to tell them. 
    She hadn’t been getting prenatal care, something I was too naïve to know she was supposed to.  She went into labor early, and delivered a premature little boy.  I loved him instantly, and he seemed to be doing fine despite his rough start.  Actually, he was perfectly healthy.
    I thought everything would work out.  It had to right?  I was his dad, and he was perfect. 
    I left to get some things she said she needed from the store. While I was gone, she signed away our parental rights, and he was adopted without me getting to say goodbye.  I never saw his new parents, heard what they named him, nothing. 
    I wanted to leave her right then.  Just walk away and never come back, but I couldn’t be that heartless.  I was dying inside and figured she must be hurting too.  I tried to talk her out of it, but she refused.  She said she couldn’t be tied down to a baby, because she was going to NYU.  I demanded to see him, but she wouldn’t tell me who took him. 
    We broke up afterwards, but she changed her mind about seeing him again.  Apparently her parents found out about the pregnancy toward the end and set-up the entire adoption. 
    It was their idea to do it behind my back.  She told them she wanted him back and they said if we were still together, and making something of ourselves when we graduated from college they would hire a lawyer to get him back.
    Things weren’t hor rible between us all the time, but it was a bad time for me in general.  My grandparents died in a car accident before my son was