I Make Excellent Life Choices, Obviously

In hindsight, having sex with Sean last night was probably really, really stupid.

I was getting ready for bed last night and had just unloaded my dishwasher when someone knocked on my door. I thought it was Randy so I didn’t look through the peephole.

“What the f-” I was shocked to see Sean on the other side of the door and the sentence caught in my throat before I could finish it. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.

“Okay, please don’t close the door.” He said almost as soon as I had opened it, “I just wanted to get some of the stuff I left here. I moved into a new apartment and figured I would get it so you don’t have to keep looking at it anymore. It’ll take me, like, five minutes.”

I stood there, braless, in my fleece pajama pants with penguins on them and an old, stained t-shirt with my hair thrown up in a messy bun and my feet in fuzzy socks and I suddenly felt self-conscious. It took me moment to say anything.

“No.” I went to close the door in his face before he called out.

“Faith, please!? I at least need to get my spare guitar, okay?” His eyes were pleading with me and when I went to pull the door I caught a smell of his cologne.

“F-fine.” I said stepping aside.

He walked past me with a box in his hand that I hadn’t noticed before and started quickly moving through my apartment collecting things. He grabbed his spare guitar in its case that was in my hall closet, a bathroom bag that was in my linen closet, a handheld video game set that was in the cupboard under my television, and so many other things that I had blocked out had originally belonged to him. He came out of my room carrying an armful of clothes slung over the box and in danger of falling.

“I can get you a bag for those.” I said with my arms crossed, almost as if I was cold.

“Y-you don’t have to.” He said heaving the pile up to get a better grip and panting.

“Sean, I am capable of being an adult, here. Let me get you a bag.”

“Okay.” I went to the kitchen and found a cloth grocery bag. He followed me in there and we stood in silence while we folded some clothes.

The silence got to be too much to stand so I made small talk.

“I heard you were back in town. I’m sorry to hear about the hiatus and your record label problems.” I said folding a pair of pants.

“Yeah, I’ve been here for awhile. Hopefully the hiatus won’t be too long.” He was folding a shirt and was doing a poor job of it so I shooed him away and did it over. He leaned against the counter.

“How is Karen?” I asked almost immediately regretting it and speeding up my folding.

“She’s…fine.”

“Are you guys living together?”

“Faith, we don’t need to do this.”

“It’s fine.” I said shrugging.

“We are.”

“Oh.” I said with my voice tight, “That’s good. Are you excited about being a dad?”

“I’m kind of terrified, actually.”

“My boyfriend has a kid and he makes it look so easy sometimes. I’m sure you’ll be a good dad, Sean.” And I realized that I was truly sincere.

“Oh, you have…you’re seeing someone now?” He said.

“Yeah. You’re not the only one who has moved on.”

“Oh, of course…I didn’t mean to….Faith…I’m sorry how we left things.”
I finished my folding and sighed.

“I am, too, Sean. I wish things had gone differently.” I handed him the bag of folded clothes, “Do you need me to help load this stuff in your car or call you a cab?”

“No, I can do that when I get down stairs.”

“Okay.”

There was an awkward silence.

“Okay, so I should go, then.” He said grabbing his guitar case and the box on the counter.

“Take care, Sean.”

I went in to awkwardly hug him good-bye. He tried to hug me back but with all the stuff in his arms, it was kind of impossible so he just kissed me on my forehead. I looked up with my arms still around his waist and our lips touched. Sean placed the box back on the counter, dropped the bag on the floor and slid the guitar case off his shoulder without breaking contact. I moved my hands up to his shoulders; his hands were in my hair, pressing me to him. We broke apart when things got really heated.

“Uhm.” I said with my fingers on my mouth.

“I…that was….we probably…I should probably…”

“Shut up, Sean.” I said pulling him against me.

We backed into my bedroom as he took my shirt off and I slid off his jacket. He took off his shirt as I unzipped his jeans and took of my ridiculously unsexy socks. In seconds we were on my bed completely naked, his head between my legs. From there everything is a blur. I remember him gripping the head board and I knocked over one of my lamps but we ended up tangled in my sheets panting and laying next to each other at the end of it all.

The realization of what I had just done hit me almost immediately after and with about as much force as a ton of bricks.

“Y-you should go.” I said.

“What? Why? We just had a great time.” He said turning on his side to look at me.

“This can never happen again.” I said pulling the sheets around me tighter and avoiding his eyes.

“I’m still in love with you, Faith.”

“You’re going to be a dad, Sean. You just cheated on the mother of your child. I’m assuming you guys are a couple?”

“It’s…complicated.”

“Meaning she thinks you are but you’re only there because of the thing currently inside of her?”

“Faith, what do you want me to say? I wanted you to be the mother of my children. This….everything…This isn’t what I wanted my life to be like.”

I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest.

“And this is what I wanted for mine? I can’t be with you, Sean. I just spent the past four months trying to move on and I can’t fall back into a relationship with you. This, what we just did, can’t happen again.”

“Faith, we don’t need to tell anyone, this might help us both move on.”

“You should go. Karen is going to wonder where you are, it’s almost midnight.”

Sean tried to touch my shoulder but I got up and left my bedroom and went straight to the bathroom to take a shower. When I came out, he was gone, along with all of his things except a sweater that I found under my comforter which had been thrown on the floor. I slept on the couch since it was too late for me to do laundry and I didn’t want to sleep in a bed that still smelled like him.

I don’t really know what to do.