Baby For The Bear

“But it’s enough that we’re not exactly on the same page. For you, this is a time when there’s a thing you’re ready for and a thing you need—and you need someone who’s ready to give it to you. And…I’m not. This was a mistake. You should find someone else.”

For Ken, this moment was as if she had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart. Find someone else? Really? When she was the one who’d somehow reached him in a way that no one else among the countless women he’d slept with had ever done? When she had so quickly become the only one he could even think about? How could she look him in the eye and tell him he should find someone else?

“I don’t think it was a mistake, Sammie,” said Ken. He tilted his head towards the bedroom. “We spent most of two days in that bed in there, and half a day and a night in my bed, and not one time was a mistake. Not one time out of all that was wrong. Not when it was that good. Not when it was that fu*king incredible for both of us. When has anyone ever fu*ked you the way I did? When was it ever anywhere near as good for you as it was with me? I’ll tell you this, Sammie: You’re the best I’ve ever had, and I’ve had plenty. That’s no lie; I’ve never had it like I’ve had it with you. And I’m sorry, to me that’s got to mean something. I asked myself whether it was because we were trying to get you pregnant or whether it was just you or just us. And you know something? I don’t care. It’s something I want. It’s something I don’t want to give up.”

“The s*x isn’t the problem, Ken. You’re right, that’s been the best. The problem is everything else we both need. You need to be a father. I need a life. Those things, they don’t match up.”

Ken hung his head for a moment. This was getting them nowhere, but he still refused to let go. He still wanted to hang on—with the tenacity of the bear that he was. “You’re right about one thing,” he allowed. “You’re not twenty-five yet. I’m almost thirty. And my needs are changing. One thing about me is definitely changing: I need to feel the way I’ve felt with you. Since we started going to bed, I’ve felt myself becoming someone I never was before. And it’s someone that I liked: someone who’s not into fu*king around all the time, but wants to stay with one person. You want to talk about needs? That’s what I need.”

“But you still need to be a father, and I’m not ready to be pregnant. It wasn’t that long ago, I was a kid myself. I want to know what it’s like to be just an adult for a while, before I become a mother—even in this way that we’re talking about. This is the wrong time, for me, Ken. I keep coming around to that. I’m not the one you need.”

He shook his head at her, despairing that she was either unable or unwilling to understand. He desperately needed her understanding and he didn’t know how to get it. “You’re so wrong about that, Sammie. I do need you. I really do.”

Samantha’s lip quivered in a way that tore Ken to shreds inside. More than anything he wanted to come around the coffee table and gather her up in his arms, and hold her and kiss away every last one of her doubts—and then strip the two of them, lay her down on that sofa, and show her exactly how much he needed her. But he stood his ground until it finally became clear to him that this visit to her apartment was not going anywhere he wanted to go. And Ken Brecker at last did something that he had never done in all his life. He gave up.

Instead of giving voice to his defeat, though, he said one last thing.

“You know where to find me, Sammie.”

With a lump in her throat, Samantha watched him turn and go back to the door. She watched him open it and stand in her threshold, looking back at her with a sadness unlike any other sadness that she had ever seen. Then he closed the door and she sat still with the sound of his retreating footsteps in the hall.

She stayed still, there on the sofa, imagining what was about to happen outside: Ken walking back to his car, getting in, pulling out of the parking space in front of her building, driving off into the night—without her. And she glanced over at the doorway to her bedroom, where she would be spending the night—without him.

And Samantha Vance began to cry.