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“Jaybird!” Matty’s voice rings through the apartment as she storms down the stairs. She pauses in the doorway of the living room. “Birdy, are you crying again?”
Jay sniffles and pulls her blanket tighter over her body. “No…”
Matty gives her a sad look. Her hat is in her hand instead of on her head, her uncovered hair poking out in every direction. She’s still growing it out from the pixie cut her mother thought would look nice, but that Matty hadn’t been able to stop complaining about.
“I need more hair around my face,” she’d whine. “I feel too exposed. It makes me look so angular. I feel like fucking Ellen DeGeneres.”
“Birdy…” Matty says. She crosses the room to sit beside Jay on the couch. She has her own dark curls pulled back in a ponytail, and she’s still in her PJs. She’s been feeling like shit for the past week, though she doesn’t know why. Nausea, stomach pain, a roller coaster of emotions that leave her crying at even the stupidest TV commercials.
As she might currently be doing.
“I’m fine,” Jay says. “It’s probably just that my period’s coming soon.”
Matty cocks her head. “Jay… wasn’t your period two weeks ago?”
Jay blinks. “No. Why would I have had my period two weeks–Matty! I thought we agreed you weren’t going to track my period anymore!”
“Clearly I need to!” Matty shouts back. “You’re shit at it!”
“It comes when it comes!”
“Well,” Matty says, “when was the last time?”
Jay tries to remember. Nothing really comes to mind. She’s not the best with time. It’s starting to be measured more in Rivoli plans than actual days.
“I… I don’t know.”
Matty raises her eyebrows. “Jay…”
“What? It’s probably just late!” Jay says. “Don’t act all paranoid!”
Matty frowns. “Bird, if you tracked your own period, you’d probably have realized this already, but you’re usually pretty fucking regular.”
Jay doesn’t like what Matty’s implying. Even as the thought starts to sink into her own mind, all she wants is to hide under the blankets.
“Jay…” Matty says, and her voice is a lot softer now. “You had that guy over a couple weeks back.”
Jay shakes her head. She doesn’t want to think about it. It had been a humiliating experience from start to finish. Matty was her usual, guard-dog self, trying to scare the guy off before Jay could even have sex with him. All she wanted was some goddamn release! But then, she’d brought the guy upstairs, they made out for about five minutes, and then he was already trying to fuck her. Which, she wanted, but fuck, could no one even bother with any foreplay anymore? Then, he finished in about thirty seconds, and–
Shit. Did he use a condom? She didn’t even remember. It had all happened so stupidly fast!
Jay shakes her head. “No,” she says. “No… that was–no.”
“Birdy,” Matty says. “You want me to run to the store? Just to check?”
Jay keeps shaking her head. “There’s no way,” she says. “I can’t be.”
Matty nods, then stands up from the couch. Jay watches as she fits the hat onto her head and moves for the front door.
“Matty…” Jay says. She feels like she’s going to start crying again. She doesn’t know what to say, how to put into words the fear and gratitude and all of it. “Can you–can you get me some candy, too?” she asks instead.
Matty gives her a look of playful annoyance. “Sure.”
Jay can’t stop pacing. Matty got her three different sticks and she peed on them all, placing them on the counter before running out of the bathroom. She’s placed Matty as a sort of barrier now, standing in the doorway to the bathroom so that Jay can make her be the first one to look.
“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” Jay says as she shoves another handful of M&Ms into her mouth.
Matty’s eyes dart from Jay to the candy and back. “You want me to take the candies…?”
Jay takes a step back defensively. “No,” she says, her mouth full. She’s aware she’s stress-eating, but she deserves it. She feels like her entire life is falling apart at the seams right now. And all for what? Thirty seconds of some guy’s dick inside of her? It’s not fair!
She didn’t keep his number. She’d have no way of even letting him know what he’s done to her.
If he’s done it.
God, she hopes not.
“Matty, how much longer?” she asks.
Before Matty can even answer, the alarm on her phone goes off. Jay shakes more M&Ms into her palm and looks at Matty, fear flooding her chest.
“You want me to look?” Matty offers. Jay just nods her head.
“What did we decide again?” Matty asks as she approaches the sink. “Two lines was… bad? Or was it a plus? A cross?” She looks around the room and finds a discarded box. She picks it up and scans the back. “Okay, this one is a plus symbol… I guess that makes sense. Plus for positive results. You–you can’t really do, like, a frowny face. People would probably get pretty upset about that. Well, not the people who don’t want to be pregnant.” Matty’s eyebrows lift. “Or maybe you’d put the frowny face for the people who aren’t pregnant. But then that’d get confusing–”
“Matty,” Jay interjects. “Please!”
“Right,” Matty reaches for the first test and looks down at it. She frowns. “Okay… this one is two lines… we’ll get back to that.” She looks at the next one. “Okay, here’s the one that goes with that box. Plus sign.”
Jay’s stomach twists, and suddenly, she can picture a baby swimming around in there. She places a hand to her stomach and tries not to puke on the hall floor.
“Okay,” Matty says, “the other two are the same two lines thing, so…” She finds another box on the ground and holds it up. “Two lines is… oh,” she says softly. She looks down at all three tests. “They’re–they’re all positive, Birdy. All three of them say you’re pregnant.”
Jay just blinks at her. She looks back down at her stomach. “F*ck,” she says, nausea filling her throat. She drops the bag of M&Ms on the hall floor and moves forward, nearly pushing Matty out of the way so that she can puke in their toilet. “Sh*t.”
Matty hands her some toilet paper and Jay wipes her face clean before leaning back against the wall.
“I can’t believe you’re actually pregnant,” Matty says, and Jay wants to hit her. She’s the one who pressured Jay to look into it, but she didn’t think it was real? They took three pregnancy tests for fun?
“What am I going to do?” Jay asks. She looks up at Matty, still standing in the doorway. She’s in her usual blazer and button-up shirt, the buttons done up sloppily and left low so that her ample cleavage is visible. Jay’s pretty sure pregnancy makes your breasts bigger. It’s the only positive she can think of right now.
“Well, you can’t have a baby, right? I mean, how are we going to play the Rivoli with a baby? Oh! Or could the poor, single mother angle maybe get us some sympathy points?”
Jay groans. “Come on, Matty. I think there are bigger issues here! I can’t be a mom! I’m only twenty-five!”
“Well, Jaybird, that’s not that young. Not exactly going to get you on MTV,” Matty points out. “Wasn’t your mom twenty-four when you were born?”
Jay digs her fingers through her hair. “And I’m pretty sure that ruined her life!” she points out. She starts to tear up again at the thought of her own mother. She can’t fucking do this. Can’t be responsible for another life. She’s barely responsible in her own life! Matty’s the one who pays for things, who keeps track of their lives and holds things together.
Tears stream down Jay’s cheeks, and she starts sobbing. Her entire chest is tight with panic.
Matty drops to the floor and puts her arms around Jay. She usually doesn’t love how touchy Matty gets, but she allows herself to be held right now.
“It’s okay, Birdy,” Matty says softly. She rubs a hand in circles across Jay’s back. “My sweet, sweet Birdy. You’re okay.”
Jay tries to believe it.
“Good morning, Jay!” Matty calls out the next morning when Jay comes down for breakfast. She changed into a different pair of PJs last night and let Matty hold her until she cried herself to sleep. She’d slept fitfully, the fact that she was with child now constantly resurfacing. Now all she wants is a huge bowl of cereal and to not even think about the fact that there’s some weird parasite growing in her body.
Matty clearly has different plans. The whiteboard behind her reads “The Baby Plan!” with a drawing of a pregnant Jay that makes her want to scream at her roommate.
“I thought about it all night, and the way I see it, we have three different options here! Can you play us some music?”
Matty is way too energetic for Jay this morning. “I cannot,” she says, walking past Matty into the kitchen. “I can get myself breakfast while you tell me whatever this plan is, though.”
Matty shrugs. “Good enough. Alright, I’ve ordered these options from what I think will be least to most desirable, but I want your feedback on that.”
Jay gives her a thumbs up as she opens the cupboards. She pulls out what she’s pretty sure is a mixing bowl, but what she uses as her cereal bowl.
“Alright, option one: we keep the baby. We use the fact that you’re pregnant to get the Rivoli’s attention–’wow! Look at her! She’s pregnant and in a band? Well, we’ve got to see them perform, that’s so awesome!’ After the baby’s born, well, we’ll probably have played the Rivoli by then, but we use the baby to kind of further show how cool we are. You teach her piano–I assume the baby will be a girl…” Matty pauses. “What if it’s a boy?” She shakes her head. “Okay, yeah, this is my least favourite plan, because sure we can teach the baby music and that’ll be cool, but the pregnancy alone should be enough to get the Rivoli, and then we’ll be stuck with a baby. You probably gotta feed it and stuff, gotta raise it to not be an asshole… if you do it wrong, it’ll turn out like you–”
“Hey!” Jay freezes with an open box of Trix in her hands. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, it’s not an insult, Birdy!” Matty says. “It’s just that your mother was weird and controlling and judgemental, and she raised a very neurotic mess of a woman who doesn’t seem to know how to keep her legs closed.”
“Not an insult,” Jay repeats.
“I’m just saying, I don’t want to be responsible for ruining this baby’s life.”
Jay pours her cereal into her bowl and sighs. “What’s option two?”
Matty smiles. “Same bit with the pregnancy, but at the end we put it up for adoption. All the benefits of pregnancy, none of the pesky consequences.”
Jay considers this. Something settles in her chest, a sort of certainty. “Option three?”
“Abortion,” Matty says simply. “Sucks that we can’t use the pregnancy to our benefit, but at least we take care of the situation fairly quickly, and you’re back on your feet for regular Rivoli plans in no time!”
Jay opens the fridge and pulls out the milk. She stares across the room at Matty. “Option three,” she says quietly before pouring milk into her bowl. “I–I can’t do this.”
Matty nods. “I get it,” she says. “Honestly, just the idea of being pregnant is kind of freaking me out right now. Of course, this is why I don’t have sex.”
Jay snorts. “Sure, that’s why.”
Matty glares at her. “Birdy, you need to be more careful. Men can’t help themselves, they’re like… insatiable. They see a hole and they have to stick their dick in it. You need to wrap it up! Stop letting men creampie you.”
Something like shame slithers through Jay’s chest.
“You’re lucky we caught this early enough,” Matty continues. “And that we live in a country with strong abortion laws. Everyone say, ‘thank you, Doctor Morgentaler’.”
Jay takes a bite of cereal and cocks her head. “Who?”
Matty gives her an annoyed look. “Were you not paying attention in Law class in high school?”
Jay chews and swallows. “I didn’t take a Law class. You took Law?”
Matty shakes her head. “Yes, I did. And that’s how I learned about the people who fought for your right to cast that creepy little clump of cells and cum out of your body.”
Jay grimaces. “Maybe don’t call it that,” she says. She pokes at her cereal.
“Don’t worry, Jaybird. We’ll get that thing out. Just let this be a lesson. This is what happens when you’re whoring yourself out.”
“It wasn’t even good sex,” she mutters as she scoops up a new spoonful. “Guy kind of sucked.”
“Oh, Birdy.” Matty puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay.”
“Will you–” Jay starts, then lets her sentence drop. She pulls in a deep breath. “Can you come with me?” she asks. “To get it out? How does that even work? Do you just… show up to the clinic? Do you need an appointment?”
Matty cocks her head. “Huh. That’s a good question. I don’t think they just give them to you, but… I’ll go do some research. You just sit and try to relax. I’ll get you through it.”
“Thank you, Matty,” Jay says.
“Of course, Birdy.” Matty leans in and gives her a hug.
“Would–” Jay starts, a thought clicking in her brain. “Would you have really raised my baby with me?”
Matty shrugs. “I mean, as we established, not well, but… I would’ve tried not to kill it. Just because it’s yours.”
Tears start to prick Jay’s eyes again. “I’m blaming the pregnancy hormones for this, but that’s really sweet.”
Matty smiles. “Yeah, I’m always sweet, thanks for noticing. Now, let me go look up how we kill that fetus.”
It ends up taking two appointments. Matty holds Jay’s hand during the first one, and Jay doesn’t even fight it. A nurse gives her an ultrasound–something she never wants to repeat–and explains to Jay how the procedure will go based on how far along she is. She’s early enough that she can take the pill. Jay cries on the way home for reasons she’s not even sure of.
The second appointment, she’s given her first pill, which she takes right in the clinic’s office. She’s sent home with more pills to take in the next two days. Matty sits with her at home as she does so, and within hours, she’s cramping and bleeding. The doctor told her they’d have to have her back in a few weeks to confirm the pregnancy was successfully aborted, but when she passes a large enough blood clot, she’s fairly certain it’s over.
Matty treats her very gently after, and Jay soaks in the positive attention. The two of them tend to flip-flop between loving each other and trying to tear each other apart. As Matty places blankets over Jay and brings her candy and cuddles her on the couch, she’s grateful that Matty’s able to pull out her sweeter side.
It makes her think of how Matty had reacted when Jay reunited with that guy from high school. How Matty had scared him away with how harsh and rough she was. It’s not that she’s a bad person like he’d said. Just protective.
She’s probably right that Jay needs to be more careful having sex. She’s been nauseous the past few days, the cramps worse than a regular period. She doesn’t want to have to go through this again.
Jay falls asleep one night next to Matty on the couch. The warmth radiating off of her puts Jay perfectly at ease, especially as it’s getting colder outside.
In her sleep, she sees herself, her stomach swollen with a baby. She tries to open her mouth, to call out for Matty, but her mother appears before her.
“You didn’t think you could just shirk your responsibilities,” her mother says, a cold, quiet voice that’s more intimidating than if she had just yelled.
Jay shakes her head. “I–I can’t. I can’t be a mother. I’m not–” Jay wants to say she’s not ready, but that implies some sort of moment down the line where she would be ready. She’s not sure she could ever see herself having a baby, if she’s honest. If she and Matty are going to be a successful band, when would she have time for a child?
Jay’s mother shakes her head. “You’re pathetic, you know that? An overgrown child. You need to grow up, Jane. When I was your age–”
“I’m not you, Mom,” Jay spits back. Tears form in her eyes, her throat tightening. “I’m not you, and I don’t want to be. I like my life.”
Her mother frowns. “You still think you and Madeline are going to make it as a band?” She shakes her head. “She’s such an awful influence–”
Jay’s dimly aware that none of this is real. It feels real, it’s a variation of the million and one real conversations she’s had with her mother. But this moment is not real.
She understands her mother was upset with her choice to move in with Matty, her goal of pursuing music as a real, viable career. She was supposed to do something quiet and sensible, until such a moment as she met the right guy and settled down and gave him two children that she raised with a firm but loving hand. Preferably, at least one would be a son. Her own father had been disappointed he was never given a son. Though, Jay wondered if he might not have been let down regardless.
Jay had to basically cut ties with her mother to move in with Matty. Her mother had refused to support her in this endeavour, and her father… honestly didn’t seem like he cared one way or the other, so he’d followed his wife’s lead.
Jay would rather never be a mother than be like her own mom. She wouldn’t wish that on a child. And she doesn’t think she could care for a child. She can barely care for herself half of the time. Matty does most of the maintenance of their day-to-day lives.
And after growing up with emotionally cold and controlling parents… she doesn’t mind so much. As long as Matty’s gentle with her.
“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to,” Jay finds herself saying. “I don’t want to be a mother. I never want to have a baby. It has nothing to do with Matty and everything to do with me.”
Jay’s mother stares blankly at her for a few moments, and Jay feels almost as if she’s won. Then she lunges.
Jay startles awake on the couch, the image of her mother flashing through her mind one last time before it fades. Her judgemental glare.
She presses a hand to her stomach, glad to feel it’s still flat. Tears slide down her cheeks, and Matty stirs beside her.
“Jaybird?” she asks. She looks up with sleepy eyes, half-lidded and dopey. Her lips are such a soft pink, and she runs her tongue across them.
“Sorry, just–” Jay shakes her head. “Nightmare. About the…” She gestures to her stomach, not sure how to say the words.
“Oh,” Matty sits up and puts her arms around Jay. “Poor Birdy. It’s alright. You’re safe now.”
“My mom was there,” Jay says softly.
“Your mom’s a bitch.”
Jay snorts. “Matty…” she starts. “You–there’s no way you’re having children, right?”
Matty raises her eyebrows. “Hell no.”
“And you don’t feel bad about it?”
Matty brushes some of Jay’s hair back from her face. “You’re worried about what your mom would think?” she asks. “Fuck her. You don’t need her. You have the band, you have me. And women aren’t supposed to just be babymakers anymore. Fuck that. I’d get that thing taken out if I could.”
Jay nods. Matty’s wearing her plaid pajamas, the shirt barely buttoned. She feels like home in that moment. Like the only person who could ever matter.
“You take such good care of me,” Jay tells her.
“Someone’s got to,” Matty says. She pulls Jay in close to her, and something clicks in Jay’s mind.
“I love you, Matty,” she says softly, speaking into the fabric of Matty’s shoulder.
“Love you, too, Jaybird.”