Jake

30 0 1

by me-and-the-ground

by me-and-the-ground

We had nothing to say to each other. After fighting off and on for a year straight, Peyton and I finally broke it off, and it was a long time coming. I mean, I still loved her, but our relationship exhausted its welcome. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I got too lazy or too comfortable in our relationship. Maybe I neglected her needs. Maybe we just weren’t mature enough. Maybe I wasn’t mature enough. Or, maybe, we just weren’t meant to be forever.

She won’t speak to me, and I don’t necessarily blame her. I wasn’t the nicest to her. I didn’t take her out. I didn’t ask about her day. I didn’t smile at her anymore. I didn’t admire the small wrinkles that would form on her forehead when she laughed anymore. I didn’t make her laugh anymore. I didn’t love her enough.

It was our last week of senior year. In one week we would be out of high school and into the real world. I got a photography gig at a studio in the city, so I didn’t apply for college. Peyton, however, had her choice between UC Berkeley and Stanford. We had broken up before she officially decided, but she always had her heart set on Stanford for as long as I’d known her. The day after graduation was the day I left. I left the comfort of my parents’ suburban home to the new, and kind of scary, world of the city. I picked out a small studio apartment which I could just barely afford, honestly. It wasn’t much, but it was my own. No more parents hovering over me. No more “You’re grounded”. Shit, I could eat ice cream for breakfast if I wanted. There wasn’t enough ice cream in this world to fill the emptiness I felt inside of me when I lived in that apartment.

Fast forward four years, and I was still in that dingy little apartment. After three years of drunken one night stands, I knocked a stripper up. She made shit money at Melons, funnily enough that’s where we met, and my piece of shit boss stopped paying me weeks before she told me she was pregnant. With the economy the way it was, it was a joke to find another job. I was fucked. Traci-Lynn, the pregnant stripper, moved in as soon as we were sure I was the father. I took a paternity test. Twice. This apartment went from being my shitty little bachelor pad to a home for two broke bastards and one poor, unsuspecting child.

My son, Truitt, was born in the winter. It was a natural birth and he weighed in at six pounds, seven ounces. He was an even sixteen inches long. He was small but he seemed like the perfect baby, and I fell in love with him instantly. Traci-Lynn couldn’t breast feed, so we opted to feed him with formula instead. On the first day after he was born, I was feeding Truitt when his breathing became very laborious and his lips started to turn blue. I slammed on Traci-Lynn’s bed until I finally found the button to call the nurse. I rang it twenty times before someone rushed in. They looked at the baby and immediately took him from me without saying a word and rushed off. I waited hours for them to come back. Traci-Lynn screamed at me the entire time, telling me if I hurt her baby she was going to sue the shit out of me.

Several hours passed by and soon it was dark out. The fluorescent lights in Traci’s hospital room were slowly going out, therefore slightly flickering every once in a while. Finally, a doctor rolled Truitt in a basinet into the room. I saw his little chest bob up and down and I breathed once more. The doctor told us that our son had a heart defect. He called it ‘ventricular septal defect’. He kept telling us about different procedures and different medicines we can put him on so he can be a normal kid just like any other boy would be, but at that point I tuned him out. I couldn’t focus. My baby was sick, and I felt at fault. Traci-Lynn sure as hell thought it was my fault too. The doctor assured us that sometimes these things happen and aren’t necessarily genetic, but Traci-Lynn refused to believe that. From that point on, Traci hated me with everything she had.

I had to take out so many damn loans the next few months to pay for Truitt’s procedures, doctors’ appointments, and medicine. I love my son, please don’t misunderstand. It’s just difficult to keep spiraling into deeper and deeper debt when all the doctors keep saying is “I don’t know why these treatments aren’t helping, let’s try another.” I love Truitt, but I wasn’t prepared for this.

Truitt was ten months old. He was sitting in my lap while I read to him and he pointed out different animals. We got to the animals that begin with D before he suddenly went limp in my arms. I screamed at Traci to get the keys and get the fuck to the car. We rushed to the hospital. Traci was in the back with Truitt, yelling at me that if her son was hurt she was never going to forgive me. I went 110 miles per hour down the highway the entire way there. By the time we arrived to the hospital, Truitt had stopped breathing entirely and doctors took him immediately.

After waiting all day and throughout the night, a doctor came out and told Traci and me that our son had gone into heart failure. They had to perform surgery to try and repair his heart, but they couldn’t save him. Traci-Lynn started swearing at me and beating my chest with her clenched fists. I just stood there, frozen. My son died. It was my fault. Traci-Lynn never let me forget that.

Traci moved out the day after Truitt’s funeral. It was just as well, I never loved her. I didn’t want anything to do with her. When she left she took most of what I owned, but I didn’t care. I had my picture of Truitt and that was all I cared about. I went into a deep depression. I stopped going to work and was soon fired. I lost my apartment and was forced to move into my parent’s basement. The first five years after high school were absolute fucking hell. I hated my life. I hated my soul. Yet, after five years, I couldn’t help but fucking wonder if Peyton’s life had ended up so hellacious as well.

I severely doubt it.