Before their visit was over, Taylor drove Aria around in the flamboyant car that Dan had bought him. He told her to pick a song and blared it to show off the impressive sound of its speakers. “Don’t be a stranger!” he yelled, when she got out to walk toward the store.
“Don’t worry, you’ll always be my Boo,” she yelled back, waving.
As Taylor drove away, he watched Aria through the rear-view mirror. The envy that he felt for the love that she claimed to have found made him resent the circus of his life. Even though some form of mutual caring had grown out of the life that he and Dan were forming together, it was not love. It was not the love that Aria had found. It was a relationship of mutual use and transaction.
The love between Omkar and Aria was the inosculation of two trees whose roots had grown separately until they were destined to touch. His and Dan’s, on the other hand, was a crooked rose.
CHAPTER 35
Her periods had been late before. In fact, they had never been regular to begin with. But there was something inside every woman that worried whenever there was reason to believe there might be occasion to worry.
The possibility of being pregnant had been a nagging disquiet in the back of Aria’s mind for the past two weeks. It had grown into enough of a worry that she had considered stealing one of the pregnancy tests at the store. Aria didn’t want Omkar to be involved unless she was absolutely sure. But it didn’t feel right to take anything from the family who she was now becoming more and more a part of every day. So, she set up an appointment and took a bus to a non-profit healthcare center that offered free pregnancy tests.
The insulation of the room that the medical assistant had put her in to wait was fortified enough to make the room feel lifeless. Occasionally, she could hear the voices of doctors and nurses passing by as they discussed the patients who were waiting in other rooms. To distract herself from the isolation, Aria tried to memorize the anatomy of an ear, which was displayed on a medical chart that had been framed as if it were decoration.
The double knock on the door when the doctor finally came back made Aria jump. The doctor started talking before she had even closed the door. “Hi there. The test was negative, so you’re not pregnant. I am a little concerned that you say your periods have always been so irregular, though. Some woman have good success evening out their cycles with oral contraceptives. The clinic can prescribe some for you if you’re interested in trying that out and seeing how it goes?”
“I’ll think about it,” Aria said.
“Well, is there anything else that you need help with today?” the doctor asked.
“No, I’m good,” Aria responded.
“OK then. It was good to meet you today, you have a good rest of your day,” the doctor said, shaking Aria’s hand before exiting the room. Aria followed her out, but went the wrong way, and eventually had to be redirected back through the labyrinth of the office to find the door where she had originally entered.
Instead of taking the bus back home, she went to the public beach where she and Omkar had gone on their first date. She didn’t call Omkar to tell him to meet her there when he was done with school for over an hour. Instead, she watched the waves, trying to make sense of the deluge of her mixed emotions. It made no sense to her why she could feel so much dread at the idea of being pregnant, but when the doctor had given her the good news, it hadn’t felt like good news at all. She chided herself in her head. “What the fuck, Aria … If you’re knocked up, you don’t want to be, but if you’re not, you want to be. What the fuck is that about?” When the doctor had given her the news, it had felt like a loss even though there had never been anything there to lose in the first place … A loss of closeness or belonging, maybe.
Aria felt bad about herself again. The potential of pregnancy had made her realize the extent to which her life wasn’t in order. The life she was living did not even remotely resemble a life that a child should be brought into, and that bothered her now, more than it ever had.
It wasn’t a baby that Aria wanted; she was conscious of that. She had seen so many girls like her, who had been deprived of love growing up, having babies to try to fill the hole within themselves. They imagined that if they had a baby, there would be someone to finally love them unconditionally and be with them and give them a sense of belonging forever. But it was a fantasy. The minute the baby was born, that fantasy would prove false. Somewhere in the physical wear and tear of motherhood, they would realize that motherhood was a one-way street of having to fulfil the baby’s needs even when no part of them wanted to. If these mothers made it past the phase of infancy and managed to enmesh their children
