x heart x fingers [3/5]
Step five: I need to run dry
I need to run dry It surprises Jess when she starts enjoying talking about baby stuff.
To people who aren’t Gunz, of course. He’s still just as weird and annoying as he always has been, although he’s been less of a douchebag lately. Stephen tells her one day, “You know you don’t have to keep the baby, right?” She doesn’t even punch him that time. Like… she can’t just get rid of it now, you know? It’s her baby; it’s hanging out right there allegedly growing fingernails and hair and this weird waxy cheese stuff to protect its skin. And even if it’s totally gross and revolting and makes her have to pee all the time, she kind of likes it. She gets this feeling of total lady-solidarity now when she sees other pregnant women at the supermarket and always wants to fistbump them if it wouldn’t be super weird.
Gunz showed up the other day with more baby crap from his mom and she didn’t even try to argue with him. She just went, “Tell your mom thank you,” and sighed at him and then he gave her this look and left for work. He shows up, like, all the time like that now. And it’s weird because she doesn’t even have the energy to be irritated with him anymore. She accepts his weirdness as graciously as possible.
He still hasn’t dropped the obsession with seeing her stomach, either. He asks for pictures all the time and this one time he sent her pictures of himself trying to look pregnant, ‘4 solidarity’, he claimed in the text. If anyone ever tells him she laughed, she will hunt them down and kill them. But it was pretty funny, in a ‘he’s trying way too hard’ way. It’s not like she has them saved to her phone so she can make herself feel better about getting fat. That would be weird. But when four months pregnant rolls around, she finally starts showing so she sends him a picture of her stupid stomach.
He texts back right away. ‘BALLINNNNNN!!!!!’ Facepalm. She’s having a baby with a guy who refers to things as ballin’. So embarrassing. If he tries to touch her belly the next time she sees him… But of course he will because he’s Gunz and he’s into weird shit like that. He keeps referring to the baby as ‘the little baller’ and, seriously. Seriously. At least Stephen asks before he starts rubbing her belly.
It’s really annoying that there’s nothing to do now that she isn’t allowed to play her drums for the baby’s health.
“Stephen,” she whines from her spot on the couch. “I’m bored.”
“Go bother Bdales or something.”
“I don’t want to. Brian’s boring. All he wants to do is shop for baby things and sing Disney songs to my uterus.” She flips through all the channels on cable, but all that’s on right now are shitty talk shows where Maury Povich tells people that they’re not the father. She wishes someone would tell Gunz he’s not the father, even though he kind of… is. Definitely is. And, like, what kind of justice is her getting pregnant after sleeping with him? She should get a medal or something for performing a public service.
Stephen rubs the top of her head. “Go bother Gunz, then. You haven’t told him you hate him yet this week.”
“Yeah, I did. I texted him in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep because I had heartburn. He asked me for pictures of my stomach so I told him to fuck off.” When she checks her text messages she has three from him, so she’s like, ‘what the fuck is your deal.’
Gunz is like, ‘… seriously?’
She’s like, ‘yeah, why do you keep hanging out now, like i don’t get it?’
It takes a few minutes for him to reply to her text this time. ‘idk maybe you should come over and i’ll explain…’ Which is obviously a poorly veiled play to get her to hang out with him, but she’s having a pity party for herself and Gunz can always be relied on to inflate her ego a little bit. Also, she hasn’t really seen him since she met his parents because finals just ended and he tends to cram for them - since he doesn’t, like, go to class - and then he gets really drunk and crashes for a few days. Double points for Jess because she can make herself feel better and make Gunz miserable by saying he can’t drink in front of her. Yeah, sounds like a good way to spend her afternoon.
So she takes the van and drives over to his house.
He’s just sitting around in his sweats being a bum. “Seriously, Gunz, you couldn’t even put on real pants for this?” she sighs, rubbing her hands over her growing stomach like she’s been doing a lot lately. The fact that she’s not wearing real pants either - seriously, she’s pregnant, she’s allowed - doesn’t come up. She’s actually kind of annoyed that he’s sitting around playing on his laptop or whatever it is he does.
“I could make a comment about how hanging out with you tends to lead to no pants but you’ll hit me,” Gunz says wearily.
“That requires way too much effort right now. Move over,” Jess complains, shoving him half-heartedly after she’s found a decent spot on the couch. It just happens to be inconvenient because Gunz is all up in her personal space then; like he keeps giving her these weird looks and sighing at her. “So are you going to tell me what’s going on, or…?”
Gunz shakes his head and goes, “Seriously, Jess. How can you not know?” He’s looking at her like people don’t usually look at her. She doesn’t understand. And he reaches out to feel her belly and, this time, she lets him - just rest his hand there for a second and feel it, the corners of his mouth turn up a little bit and then he says, “Does it kick yet?” She shakes her head, skin suddenly too warm and disagreeable.
“It looks like an alien.”
He just looks so goddamn happy about the whole thing. It’s idiotic. “It’s awesome.”
“I have to pee, like, every ten minutes. This is the worst thing ever.” At least the nausea is finally gone. That part sucked. She basically just wants to complain about being pregnant for a little while and Gunz, while irritating, is a fairly captive audience until he gets bored or drunk enough to find something else to waste his time on. Although. He’s actually not drinking right now. Well, no, he’s drinking Gatorade. What the fuck.
“No, letting Bdales be the kid’s godfather would be the worst thing ever.”
Okay, Jess has to laugh at that one. It’s slightly endearing - very, very slightly, like if Gunz was the last human being on earth she probably wouldn’t even kill him for a food source - how much he hates Brian. “That is true,” she agrees. “Brian would be a poor choice.”
“I swear to god if he starts singing Circle of Life in the delivery room I’m going to kick him out,” Gunz adds. The sad thing is that Brian probably will. He’ll totally hold the baby up and go Simba and then break out the Disney tunes. “The little baller needs to have the right start in life and I don’t want the first thing he sees to be Brian’s ugly face.”
“If his first word ends up being ballin’ I will end you.”
“Shhhh, don’t fight it.” He’s still kind of touching her stomach but she’s over being opposed to it since everybody does it. Strangers in the parking lot at Walmart want to touch her belly, so she figures the father of her child is entitled to doing it at least once. Touching her stomach, that is. Not the other thing. Definitely not that. It would almost be a nice moment if he weren’t so… Gunz.
“So, uh, are you going to tell me why we’re suddenly hanging out like normal people?”
He just gives her that look again and shakes his head. “You really don’t get it.”
“Well, no, that’s why I’m asking you. Like you’re not even drunk right now, so what the fuck, Gunz, what are you even doing with your life.”
“… Trying to be responsible and supporting you in your not drinking? And, like, I don’t want our kid to grow up with its parents hating each other, you know? So I just thought… I thought I could at least try.” Then - before she can figure anything out, what the fuck - he kisses her on the cheek and she gets this weird feeling in her gut that feels a lot like heartburn. She doesn’t even tell him he’s being gross right now.
Everyone Jess knows is seriously crazy. Her stomach is doing flip-flops all over the place. Flop, flop, flop. “Wait, give me your hand for a second,” she says. She lets him touch her stomach again. “Do you feel that?” Because she’s hoping she’s not losing her shit right now; she’s hoping it’s not wishful thinking on her part so she kind of needs a second opinion.
“Holy shit, is that the baby? Did he just kick?”
“I - yeah, I think? You feel it too, right? It’s not just me?”
Gunz moves his hand off her stomach and hugs her. “Jess, that’s our baby,” he says proudly. “That was so fucking ballin’, you don’t even know. I can’t believe he’s kicking and shit. You need to tell, like, everyone. We should call my mom. Shit, this is so great.” Jess texts Stephen ‘baby kicked, bdales no longer option for godfather’ while Gunz is on the phone with his mother - he even uses the word ballin’ with his mother, dear god - and Stephen sends her back a winking smiley face. Asshole. He’s enjoying this way too much.
They say everything in moderation
But I’ll drink you under the table
Sunday nights Jess listens to the Gunz Show on her laptop and prints out coupons for baby stuff. Stephen’s lying on her bed being cynical.
“Why is he being like this?” she moans as - for the millionth time tonight - Gunz says something idiotic on live radio. She finally sent him pictures of her last ultrasound and he’s only shown them to, like, everybody that works for Idobi radio. True, it’s only ten or twelve people, but still. The contents of her uterus are nobody’s business but her own. And his. But mostly, mostly hers. The baby kicks her all the time now and she can’t decide whether it’s trying to aim for her kidneys or her spleen.
“It could have something to do with the fact that he’s in love with you,” Stephen says dryly.
“Shut up,” Jess protests. “He is not in love with me. He’s Gunz, I’m not entirely sure he even has feelings. And anyway… feelings totally give me heartburn. Don’t talk about them.”
He rolls his eyes and continues reading TFLN on his phone. “You are a dumbass. Bdales is apparently writing a song about you guys.”
“Oh, that’s great.”
“Also, you’re six months pregnant. Everything gives you heartburn. Speaking of which, please call your parents so I can stop lying to them about your whereabouts to keep them from murdering you. I can only tell them you’re at Tay’s so many times before your mother - bless her sainted heart - starts yelling at me and telling me you better not be sleeping with any boys,” Stephen tells her, eyeing her rounded stomach. “You still haven’t told them, have you?”
“… No?”
“Jess. You kind of have to tell them. They’re going to notice eventually, you know, when you show up at the family Christmas party with a fucking baby and Gunz-”
“He is not coming to my family Christmas party!” she protests.
He huffs and swipes the screen on his phone violently. “So you’re going to tell your mother that not only are you pregnant, you’re not even dating the guy who got you pregnant?”
“I - you - shut up, Stephen. Oh my god. Did he really just do a shout-out to me on his stupid radio show? I’m not even having this conversation right now. It’s not like my parents are going to just show up here or something. It’ll be fine. You know. Eventually.”
“If you don’t know, now you know - it’s the Gunz Show. Ballinnnnnnnnn!”
She cannot introduce him to her parents. Christ. She’ll tell them it’s Stephen’s or something. Maybe they’ll even believe it because her mother is staunchly in denial that her best friend is gay, Jesu Christo, such a nice boy. Such a pity his parents will never have any grandchildren.
Ha. Ha ha ha ha. At least her mother won’t have to worry about that.
I’m not just drunk
I really think I’m in love with you
(Okay, I really am just drunk)
It’s a Thursday morning when Jess texts him.
‘let’s go do something, i’m bored.’
But the thing is, Gunz knows that there are only about a million other people she would rather hang out with than him, so he must be her last option. Nonetheless, he replies ‘when, where’ and sits around and waits. It’s not like he’s going to say no and she knows it.
‘right now?’ she says. He takes the subway to her apartment and knocks on the door and waits. “Hey,” she says when she opens the door.
“Hi,” he says. “What are we doing?”
Jess shrugs. “I don’t know, okay, let’s just go before I change my mind.”
He can’t quite get his head around the fact that she actually wants to see him for once. That she’s the one who texted him and she’s not bitching at him or picking on him or telling him all the reasons he sucks. She drags him through Babies-R-Us. It’s not the worst time he’s ever had; okay, he kind of likes hanging out with her and watching her looking at stuff when she’s not paying attention to him. Which is a lot of the time. By the time they stop for lunch, he’s just like, “I don’t get it.”
“There’s nothing to get,” she says flippantly. “I don’t get it either. Just… whatever.”
“But you don’t hate me.”
“Hypothetically, maybe. It’s really dumb how happy you are about hanging out with me.”
He shrugs and pushes the ice in his soda around with his straw. “I don’t know, you’re pregnant and it’s kind of my fault. So.” They’re both avoiding making eye contact. It’s awkward, but it’s not that awkward yet. It’s been a long time since he’s enjoyed someone’s company like this without the aid of alcohol.
Jess frowns at her virgin daiquiri. “Seriously, I can’t even drink. I can’t even see my fucking feet anymore.”
“It’s okay though,” he says.
“What?”
“I don’t know, like, I like you even when you’re not drunk.”
For a second, Gunz is pretty sure Jess is going to hit him. She just stares at him and says, “Excuse me, who are you and what have you done with Gunz.”
“Look, okay,” he goes, spreading his fingers out on the table. “You’re like the only person I’ve ever met who can drink me under the table and you’re funny and cute and, just, I don’t know, I like you.” She’s looking at him like he’s grown a dick on his forehead or something. It’s strange how many people look at him like that these days. For a minute there’s one of those uncomfortable silences that occur after you’ve said too much and maybe shouldn’t have.
“But I don’t get it,” Jess says.
“What, I have feelings!”
“Well… yeah. But you’re also Gunz and you’re not supposed to have them. You’re supposed to be drunk. It’s what you’re known for.”
“… Actually, I kind of stopped when I found out you were pregnant.”
“Why?”
He shrugs again. “Because you couldn’t and it didn’t seem fair and, like, it’s our kid, Jess, I’m not going to sit back and watch you give up a bunch of shit and not do anything.”
“… Okay, this is weird, you’re not supposed to care.” She even lets him pay for lunch and doesn’t give him some huge lecture on feminism and how she can pay for herself, thank you very much, and she doesn’t even hit him or anything. It might be progress; it might not be. There are two and a half months until the baby comes. Fucking surreal.
One more reason I should never have met you
Just another reason I could never forget you
Seven in the morning on a Wednesday, the text comes.
‘CALL ME. EMERGENCY.’
Followed by another. ‘MY PARENTS ARE COMING PLEASE LEAVE THE COUNTRY.’
He’s going to take a wild guess here and guess that Jess still hasn’t told her parents she’s pregnant. Well, fuck. He doesn’t even have to think about the number before he’s punching it into his phone and waiting impatiently for her to pick up. “We’re going to die,” Jess tells him.
“It can’t be that bad. Can it?”
“They’re going to kill me and then they’re going to kill you and we’re not even dating and this is just, this is the worst thing ever and I have to pee and my parents are coming, Gunz. My fucking parents. They don’t even know I’m pregnant. They still think I’m a virgin.”
“Do you need me to come over?” he asks. “I mean, worst case scenario, we pretend to be dating each other until they leave.” He’s not at all opposed to pretending to date her for a couple of days. For the sake of the baby. Yeah, that’s what it’s about. Plus Jess sounds so panicked that he kind of has to do something. He can’t sit around at home all day emailing bands to be on his show when, like, Jess’s parents are coming and they’re probably going to be pissed at her. That would be a dick move.
“… but that’s lying,” she says weakly.
“You could always tell them Bdales is the father,” he suggests.
“Fuck no.”
“So… maybe if they think we’re dating they won’t kill you. That’s all I’m saying.”
She sighs on the other end and doesn’t say anything for a minute. “I guess, but like. We’re going to have to act coupley and shit to convince them. That’s weird. Can’t I just let them kill me instead? It might not be that bad, you know, eternal afterlife and all that stuff-”
“I’m coming over,” he says, quickly stepping out of bed and dressing. “I would prefer not to die this week and, like, I kind of like it when you’re alive, so.”
“Okay, fine. But only because I don’t want my parents to hate me forever. So. Like. How is this going to work? I’ve never pretended to date someone before.” He puts his jacket on and tells her to follow his lead. He has no idea what they’re doing either, but it has to be better than angry parents. It has to be.
<
>