"Is there a Nathan here?" asked a nurse.
"Yes, that's me," I replied.
"Molly wants to see you."
I was sitting in the waiting room playing Angry Birds on my phone to distract myself, thinking back on how all of this had started: simple goodbye sex. After all, I had needed a proper parting with all of Molly.
I had tried to memorize every mole, scar, curve of her hips, and how her right breast was a little bit bigger than her left. I thought about the heavy moans and the sound of her thighs clapping. Afterward, I fell asleep. I held her in my arms, hugging her stomach. Her wavy, bleached blonde hair somehow got in my mouth, and woke me up. Molly was still asleep; she was such a silent sleeper I had to check her pulse just to make sure she was alive. I ran my fingers through her messy, bedhead sex hair. My mind played a constant reel of all our good moments, like when we decided to dine and ditch in some small town restaurant on our summer trip to Texas.
Every time I would get close to asking a girl to come home with me I could hear Molly's voice saying "slut." Then I glanced down at the ugly blue, puffed up bruise on my shin, from Molly. She had thrown one of her black stilettos at me, after stealing my phone and reading my texts with Rachel. Rachel was just some girl I used to hang out with in high school. She even had a serious boyfriend, but Molly didn't care.
"Nathan, it's not you I'm worried about, it's those other sluts," Molly had said, while looking for more ammo to throw at me.
In every relationship there's one person who is better looking than the other. Nobody likes to admit this is true, just like a mother doesn't like admitting she favors one of her children over the other. But Molly always thought I was more attractive, like I was dating down or something. I could tell she felt insecure, simply because she was maybe fifteen pounds overweight. I thought the extra weight looked great on her, especially since most of it went straight to her ass. My baby had back! But my friends always gave me shit about it. They would say things like "Call of Duty is great, but I'd much rather play Call of Booty," or, "When you grab her ass, does your hand sink in like memory foam?"
When she finally woke up, we embraced each other in a solid bear hug, pressed our lips against each other (I tasted her signature Burt's Bee's chapstick one last time), and then she just left. That was that.
And so the cookie crumbles…
My friends were eager to take me out downtown. The next three weekends in a row we hit up every bar possible. I forgot how much I loved getting drunk, breaking random things, and going buck wild with my crew. Molly always tried to limit my drinking because she didn't like how much of a shitshow I was. But all my friends are just as bad as me, if not worse. We drank mostly at the parking lot bar, aka the handle of whiskey we stashed behind a dumpster. I flirted with a lot of cute girls and got a bunch of phone numbers. Earlier in the day Molly had texted me, "hey we need to talk." Every time I would get close to asking a girl to come home with me I could hear Molly's voice saying "slut." I just wanted her raspy voice to go away. I thought maybe if I talked to her and had this one last "talk," I could get some much-needed closure and start bringing women back to my bachelor pad.
I took one more slug of Jack Daniels and pressed "Crazy Bitch" on my contacts. The phone started dialing. There were only two rings before Molly picked up. Oh boy, I thought to myself, bad sign.
"Nathan?" Molly said in a confused tone.
"Hey, Molly, did you miss my anaconda?"
"…What? …Nathan, I'm pregnant!"
Pregnant, what the fuck?! I dropped my phone against the pavement outside the bar. The battery fell out, the screen cracked, and the phone shattered into pieces. At least that one lasted longer than my last shitty phone.
So that's how I ended up joining the smartphone world and buying an iPhone. I was absolutely killing it at Angry Birds when the nurse so politely interrupted me in the waiting room to take me back to see Molly.
Molly was weird about not wanting me to see the birth of our child. I couldn't understand why though. Obviously I had seen her vagina plenty of times. I mean, none of those times had I witnessed a baby's head popping out of her, but still. To be honest, I felt relieved not having to see my sweet child popping out of the area I had pounded for years. It was such a strange thing to think that a baby was going to emerge from her fun parts. I couldn't imagine watching porn or even looking at a vagina again after that.
As I walked to the room, I couldn't help but feel like I was on the path to something great—an exciting adventure, a new life (literally). I imagined how many people had made this same walk and I felt as if the walls were closing in. My palms began sweating, and I started to smell my Old Spice deodorant (thank god I at least had time to put that on). I hesitantly crept into the plain white room that smelled of cleanliness and fresh unused condoms (got to love life's irony). I could hear beeping noises and Molly's cries. I wondered if they were happy or sad tears, then I saw the look on her face and quickly realized something was wrong.
"I'm… I'm sorry, Nathan." Molly could barely get the words out between her sobs. Her tears look like giant raindrops; I watched each one fall from her face. All I wanted to do was help, but I was powerless.
"Sorry? Moll, what happened?"
"I had a stillbirth."
There was a long pause, then all of a sudden I heard a baby crying in the room next to us. Molly began crying even harder.
"The baby didn't make it…. What am I supposed to do with this ladybug onesie? What am I supposed to tell people when they ask if I had the baby yet?? How am I supposed to tell my mom what happened? Her first grandchild… I don't know what to do…."
I thought to myself, Say something great, say something profound.
"You know, Marilyn Monroe had a miscarriage… She's one of your idols, so now you're kind of like her I guess."
Out of all the things I could have said, really?
Molly laughed a little and I saw that beautiful smile, dimples and perfect pearly whites exposed. "Just hug me you idiot!" she said jokingly.