“It is,” I told him. “You're going to come with me, right?”
I could see his face churn through a complicated set of emotions. Then, he shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, that would be fun,” he said, his very voice sounding guarded.
I frowned, but I didn't want to ruin a good day of surfing with serious conversation. Instead, I pointed to the next big wave. “That's the one,” I told him. “Let's go!”
By the end of the day, Christian was pretty bruised up, but we were both still laughing, so I counted that as a success. Still, he groaned as he sat down on the sand. “You are a punishing teacher, and surfing is a punishing sport!” he told me.
I laughed. “You were nearly getting the hang of it by the end, though,” I told him. “That was great!”
“'Nearly' is the operative word, though,” he said with a grimace.
“That's better than me,” I told him. “I bet in one or two more times of surfing, you'd start to have it down. It took me ages to be able to stand up on a board.”
“Thanks,” Christian said, lifting his beer toward me in a 'cheers' gesture. “And seriously, thanks for taking me out here. That was a lot of fun, for all that that was a lot of hard work.”
We both fell silent for a moment, and I could tell from Christian's expression that there was something he wanted to say to me, that same serious thing from before, come back to haunt us.
Before he could give voice to whatever it was, though, Lino came up to us, shaking the water out of his hair. “Hey Gretchen, hey Christian,” he greeted, a bit smile on his face. “Man, the surf was great today, huh? Normally I'm over at the Cove working on some more difficult things, but every once in a while, it's so nice to come back to our roots and just coast some of the baby waves, don't you think?”
“I was just teaching Christian how to surf,” I told him, trying to keep my voice neutral. I couldn't help shifting subtly closer to Christian, though, and I was relieved when he draped an arm around my shoulders.
“Cool, cool,” Lino said, nodding. “Yeah, I saw you out there, man. You're leaning a little too far back, away from the waves, but that's only natural if it's your first time. It's only natural to be afraid of the waves and whatever.”
“I'm not afraid of the waves,” Christian said, bristling a little.
“Nah, man, we all have to be afraid of the waves a little,” Lino said, as though he were a surf guru. “If we didn't respect the waves and Mother Nature, well, that's how people get killed out there.”
“Actually, undertows and-” Christian began.
“Enough,” I interrupted, holding up both hands. I turned to Lino. “Look, I'm glad you had a good day surfing; we did as well. And I hope you had a good Christmas with your mom as well. But if you don't mind…”
Lino looked taken aback at my abruptness, and when I glanced over, Christian did as well. But fortunately, Lino took the hint and finally walked off, back to his surf buddies.
“Well, that was interesting,” Christian commented as the other man walked away. “You want to explain that one to me?”
I sighed and buried my face in my hands, trying to press away the migraine that I could already feel coming on after that whole meeting. “Like I said, Lino is my ex,” I told Christian, trying to shrug it off.
“There was clearly something more to it than that, or you're more of a bitch than I realized,” Christian said. “I guess it's not the latter, so I'm wondering about the former.”
“He got me pregnant,” I finally cried. “We'd been together for a while at that point, and when I found out that I was pregnant, I was so happy, Christian. I was sure that we were going to get married and be one happy family, I guess. Him and me, and our unborn daughter.”
“I take it Lino didn't see things that way?” Christian asked, his expression already darkening.
I shook my head miserably. “Not at all,” I told him. “He wanted me to have an abortion. I refused. I told him he could leave us if that's what he wanted, but I wasn't going to get an abortion. He told me that I was being selfish, but it was my child as much as his. I had every right to decide if I wanted to keep her. Especially since it was my body that she was going to be popping out of.”
Christian sighed and began to rub my back, the touch soothing. It gave me the strength to continue.
“I refused to have an abortion, but still, I had a miscarriage. I know that those things happen, I know that now, anyway. I didn't know that before, I guess. It was surprising to me, afterward, to learn just how many women miscarry.” I took a deep breath. “And Lino was happy about it. He was glad that I had miscarried the baby because it meant that he never had to worry about taking responsibility for it. For us.”
“That's horrible,” Christian said, his shock clear in his voice. He didn't even sound particularly angry like I might have expected from him. Instead, he just sounded upset. On my behalf.
“Yeah, it was pretty rough,” I said, dashing away a few tears that had fallen. “Lino and I fought over it. Finally, he told me that he just couldn't stand to be around me anymore. Said that I was too emotional and that he should never have slept with me to begin with. Said that it was my fault that I had gotten pregnant, that I must not have taken my birth control pills properly or something like that. He said a lot of horrible things. That's neither here nor there now, though.”
I looked up at him, needing him to see the truth of things in my eyes. “I was devastated for a long time,” I told him. “And that's part of why Mina was so uncertain about letting me get into things with you; she's just worried about me, as a good friend should be. And I love her for that.” I glanced down. I didn't want to admit to him that what I felt for him was ten times what I had ever felt for Lino. He would be leaving soon enough, and it wasn't fair to either of us to start professing our love or anything like that.
“Come here, you,” Christian said, pulling me even closer and resting his cheek on top of my head. “I can't even imagine what you've gone through,” he told me. “That must have been so difficult, and you're so brave to have gotten through that and stuck to your beliefs the whole time. That's amazing.”
“Thanks,” I said softly.