Fate Interrupted

42. Out Racing Pain

Gio

I can't breathe. I can barely feel my body. My stomach keeps dropping and dropping—like I'm in free fall. My thoughts spiral out too fast to catch, so I bomb out towards the setting sun, going twenty over the limit.

Fuck. Fuck, Fuck.

She doesn't give a goddamn shit how I feel about it! How does she think I'm supposed to be a dad? Look at me! Look at what just happened. She doesn't get it. For me or for the kid. Do you think being a normal teenager is hard? Huh? She has zero clue how difficult it could be to watch your child go through life being bipolar. ZERO!

My brain flicks on my autopilot mode, and muscle memory navigates me through a series of turns through the wooded headlands.

'I'm having this baby, Giovanni, with or without you.' The words slam into my brain over and over—slashing ragged holes through my heart like shrapnel. I push the pedal down more as I come out of the curve, blood rushing in my ears. Or is that the wind whipping against the car? So hard to tell. I'm not even over my last manic episode. Fuck. My blood pulses forcefully in my neck as my thoughts race on.

She'd just do that? Just leave me? Just like that?

I'm not that important after all. She got what she really wanted. Especially now that she sees firsthand what a freak I am. I'm second now if anything to her, and she'll resent me more and more when I fail to be a good parent.

Fuck! I bang the steering wheel. I'll spiral completely out of control if I lose her! This is what I've been fucking afraid of deep down all along—getting her back, feeling secure like everything is peach fucking perfect again, and then it all getting snatched away like it always fucking does. My life goes up in flames—again! I'll spiral completely out of control. I will. I'm so goddamn stupid for attempting this! I knew it. I called it. Relationships don't fucking ever work out for me.

"RAHHHH!"

I yell—as loud as I fucking can—pounding the steering wheel to try to turn the anguish into anger, but it doesn't work this time. It's too much. Tears push over the edges of my eyes and slide down my cheeks. I try to wipe them away, but they keep coming, and my vision blurs with the wetness. Quickly, I pull over on the side of the highway and fold against the window, letting myself be wrecked by sobs—years of deep, suppressed emotions about Ren and my dad flooding out.

It's dark in the car when I finally pull myself back together—feeling washed out. I don't know what to do. Where to go. I pull back onto the road and drive on. Purposeless, like a faded autumn leaf drifting down a river of highway.

As I near the turnout to the secret beach, I realize I do know where I'm going. Of course. My body always knew when I should come here. I just have to think it all over, and this is the perfect place to undo my overthinking loop.

Pulling to a slow stop, I park and exit the car. The clouds cover the moon, but I've been here so many times it will be easy to get to my secluded spot—or at least I thought so. In the darkness, the waves crash harshly against the blackness of the cliff. I feel the spray carried in the wind, like chilling pin pricks, on my neck. The heavy rain a few days ago has made the loose grit on the sandstone slippery, and I almost slip and lose my balance twice, but I get to my usual rock and stop. Sitting down, I draw my knees to my chest as the waves crash angrily somewhere in the darkness.

My dad, Ren, and the baby are all tangled up in my mind. At either side of the gnarled knots is a loose end, and each end is an outcome: Alone or Together. Both make my heart pound.

Alone.

I know quite well what that looks like.

Family.

That's what I could have again. But as alluring as that sounds, it also scares the living shit out of me—so much so that I felt like running away.

My dad ran away. Just like I'm running away.

Would I really want Ren to get an abortion? It's so hard to know what's right. As much as I wish I could change the past because all my fears of the future still stand... the answer deep down is... no. No, of course not. I don't feel like it's the right thing to do. I never have, and I've faced this before. I was ready to step up to the plate back then, and, shit, we were practically babies ourselves.

I have a chance to step up again, this time as a man. I can be better than my dad.

Little by little, Ren's words begin to sink in as I rerun our full conversation in my mind. I'll be the dad that sticks around. If they end up bipolar like me, I'll be there to teach them how to deal with it. My mom knew nothing about it... but I do. And Bella would be such a great mother...

She's at home right now. Alone. I should get back to her.

A zing shoots around the edges of my stomach, and I can't tell if I'm nervous or excited as I feel the beginning of something solid coming together in my soul. I look up as if waiting for God or the Universe to give me some sort of obvious sign, and I'm propelled to speak out loud into the void.

"If the moon breaks out of the clouds—right now—then everything is going to be okay."

I wait.

And wait.

And then I stand up.

"What the fuck am I doing," I mutter. "Get your motherfucking ass back home."

I scramble back down the cliff, jump in my car, and speed off back to the house.

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