Alyna and I are in the Beverly Center because she thinks the Bloussant is working and wants to see if a C-cup swimsuit will fit her. We’re holding hands as we walk into a store called Everything But Water and I’m ready to spend up to thirty minutes staring at Alyna’s tits as she tries on different bathing suits, but instead I get one mind-shattering second of staring Casey right in the eye as she looks up from a swimsuit rack to see Alyna and me walking toward her.
Casey doesn’t waste any time with pleasantries. She says, “Who’s this?”
I’m too stunned to speak. I wonder what the odds are of a terrorist attack on the Beverly Center occurring right now.
Alyna takes over. She says, “I’m Alyna, his girlfriend. I think we met once before. I think it was actually in the Beverly Center, too.”
Casey says, “His girlfriend, huh?” She shoots me a look. “Yeah, I remember that. That was like back when we were engaged. So what are you up to?”
I think she’s talking to me so I respond, “Nothing.”
Casey looks at Alyna and says, “So what do you do, Alyna the girlfriend?”
Alyna says, “Oh, I’m a senior at UCLA.”
Casey says, “Wow, you must be all of eighteen years old.”
I say, “She’s twenty-one.”
Casey says, “That’s just great. So what are you going to do when you graduate?”
Alyna says, “I don’t know yet. I haven’t really given it much thought.”
Casey says, “Well, good luck with that.”
We all stare at one another for a few awkward seconds, then Alyna says, “Look, I’m going to go try on a few suits. You guys should catch up.”
Casey says, “Yeah, we should catch up…because we haven’t talked to each other in such a long, long time.”
Alyna says, “Nice meeting you again,” then heads off to the back of the store, out of earshot.
Casey looks like she wants to kill me. She says, “A girlfriend? I’m guessing she doesn’t know that you’re going to be a dad, right?”
I shake my head.
Casey says, “A fucking girlfriend?!? And she’s twenty-one. We’re going to have a baby. How could you get a twenty-one-year-old girlfriend?”
“I like her.”
“Do you love her?”
The only thing I want to do less than have Alyna find out about my unborn child is have a conversation about my feelings for Alyna with Casey. I shrug my shoulders.
Casey says, “That means you don’t. Look, I don’t want to make like a big scene, so here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to break up with that little slut. Then next Sunday, my mom’s going to be in town. You’re going to go out to dinner with us and apologize to her for the last time she was out here and you’re going to tell her that everything is fine between us and that we’re going to get married just like we planned.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Then your new little girlfriend is going to find out that you’re about to be a daddy.”
I’m too scared to think it through rationally. I’m too horrified by the entire situation to realize that I could lie to Casey now, not break up with Alyna, and figure out something else later. I’m too terrified of letting Casey get her way and too filled with rage to think straight.
I say, “Fuck you.”
Casey says, “Have it your way.”
As if on cue, Alyna walks up from the back of the store with a bathing suit in her hand. Casey looks at me and musters up all of her Groundlings training as she says, “You bastard. I can’t believe you didn’t tell her that I’m pregnant with your child.” Then she slaps me and walks off into the mall, leaving me to stare into Alyna’s eyes, which tell me she’s already questioning every minute of our relationship.
Alyna says, “Is that true? Did you knock her up?”
I want to lie, but not to Alyna. I say, “Yeah.”
Alyna says, “That fucking sucks.”
“I know.”
“Will she get an abortion?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Fuck. That really fucking sucks.”
She stands there and repeats, “That fucking sucks,” a few more times, not in reaction to my life being ruined but in reaction to a relationship that could have been something really amazing getting flushed down the shitter right in front of her.
In the car on the way back to her apartment, she says that she really has fallen in love with me, but she can’t deal with a kid being thrown into the picture. She breaks up with me. Luckily she’s too distraught at the thought of our relationship ending to realize the logistics of Casey’s pregnancy and my knowledge of it mean that I have been in contact with her beyond anything I’ve ever admitted.
When we get to her apartment, she hugs me and kisses me and says good-bye. I think about telling Alyna that I don’t love Casey and I don’t want anything to do with the baby in her gut. But the entire situation seems too far beyond repair. There’s no point.
As she gets out of the car, she cries a few tears and says, “This really fucking sucks,” one more time.
As I watch her go up the stairs to her building, my sadness at the loss of Alyna turns quickly to unbridled rage for the cunt who took her away from me.