Autumn's gaze finds me. "That she thinks today is about more than just us meeting to talk things out."
She says the words so matter-of-factly, I can't get a read on what her mother's opinion means to her. "Did you tell her she's wrong?" The barista appears in my peripheral vision, sliding Autumn's drink across the smooth stone countertop, mine comes right after it. I pick up hers and hand it to her, before taking mine, then lead her back to the table I sat at to wait for her.
"Yes. She's stubborn though." The corner of her mouth turns up as she talks about her mom.
"She certainly is," I agree, taking a sip of my coffee and trying not to wince at the heat.
"You've grown a lot closer to her since I left," she says, attempting a relaxed tone. She's not fooling me. I know she doesn't like how close I am with her mom.
"I saw her on and off before I became her doctor—when I came home from U of A to visit my dad, and during summer break."
Autumn nods. "I guess I'm glad she had you all this time."
"You don't sound like you mean that."
Autumn laughs. "I do … sort of." She stirs the little wooden stick around her drink. "I'm just jealous. You know that, right?"
"I do." I push up the sleeves of my shirt until they're bunched near my elbow. Autumn's gaze falls to my forearms. Her eyes widen as she looks over my tattoos.
"Those are new," she comments, nodding her head at the ink.
"New to you. Not to me." I can’t believe this is the first time in these past few weeks she’s seen my tattoos.
She nods. "Right." But her eyes don't leave my arms. "When did you get all that?"
"Over the years. It started with you though." I rotate my arm to show her the bare tree, the red and orange leaves floating down to join the pile at the base. I still remember the day I got it—six months after our dorm room blowout, when I realized she was never going to talk to me again, when I knew we were over in her mind. I needed closure, I needed to know what we had was real.
Her fingers lift, covering her lips, and a low, mangled sound comes from deep in her throat. "I had no idea you did that."
"I wasn't in the best place. It was a couple months after the last time I saw you." I raise my eyes to find hers, forcing her to look at me directly. “Look, Autumn … I'm sorry. For everything I said to you. I didn't know it at the time, but I was grieving. It just came out as anger instead of sadness."
She pushes her hair back from her face, then props her chin on her hand. "I understand."
She's letting me off the hook too easily and I don't deserve it. This is her chance to hold me accountable, to remind me of what I said to her. You killed me too. It was a cruel thing to say. I was hurting, and I wanted her to hurt alongside me. I wanted to blame her for everything even though it was our choice. I never spoke up and said what I felt, so it was my choice too. Silence is a choice.
Even though she's not asking for it, I keep explaining. "You left for college right after the abortion, and you just seemed so … composed. I felt like I was the only one who'd had their heart broken. I lashed out."
Autumn flinches at the “A word” and her shoulders shake, just these tiny micro movements. "Maybe on the outside I didn't look like the picture of grief you expected me to be. I was in shock, I think. But on the inside, I was a mess. I took everything I was feeling and tucked it away. I promise you, everything you felt existed inside me too. It still does. Every day I live with the guilt of my choice, whether it was the right one to make or not."
"We made that choice, Autumn. Not just you. We decided together that an abortion was the right choice for us."
She shakes her head again. "That's where you're wrong. We might have made the choice, but I went through with it."
"I was with you in that room when it happened. I was as involved as I could possibly be."
She lifts one shoulder, dropping it back down, and when she looks up at me, I see so much malice in her gaze. This is her moment, the one she’s been waiting for, and I steel myself.
"Until you screamed stop,” she seethes.
Fuck. I’d forgotten that. I’d blocked out most of the procedure and focused more on the aftermath of what we did.
“You started crying and…” I grab for words, fumbling as the memory of Autumn weeping during the procedure resurfaces.
"You can't change your mind in the middle of a fucking procedure, Owen! Do you have any idea what that did to me?” Spittle flies from her mouth as her fist slams down on the table and I flinch. “It's been ten years and I can still hear you screaming 'Stop!' in my head. It broke me."
My face must completely be drained of color, because I feel lightheaded and I can't keep my hands from shaking. "Fuck … Autumn. I'm so sorry. I was just a kid."
Tears line the edges of her eyes and she sets her coffee on the table.
"So was I, and I needed you to be strong. I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” She stands and the chair goes screeching backward, causing every gaze in the place to land on us.
The guilt I feel right now is like a cavern opening in my chest. This whole time I’d been focused on how what I said in her dorm room at Santa Clara might have affected her, but I hadn't given any thought to the procedure.
Autumn bursts out through the door to the coffee shop and I tear after her, heart pounding in my chest.
I rush outside only to be pelted with rain and my gaze scans the parking lot for her mom’s car. “Autumn!” I shout when I spot her jogging to the small sedan.
I run as fast as I can towards her and jump in front of her car door before she can drive away for another ten years. Everything is crystal clear now and I know exactly what I need to say, what she needs to hear to heal the wounds inside of her.
“I only said stop that day because you were crying and I didn’t want them to hurt you. I fully supported your choice though.”
There. I said it. I took the weight off of her feeling like she was the only one who made that choice. It’s a complete lie and I don’t care. I’ll do anything to see her never cry again. What’s done is done, there’s no going back, but I can try to heal whatever is broken inside of her.
Rain falls onto her face, rolling down her cheeks so I can’t tell if she’s crying or not.
She shakes her head in disbelief. “You can't fully understand, because it wasn't your body. If a man wants a woman to have an abortion, he's just a selfish asshole. If a woman wants an abortion, she’s a killer. That is what I live with every day."
You killed me too. That day in her dorm room, I made her out to be a murderer. What did that do to a person? How could I ever fix that?
"Autumn…" Her name rides on a pained whisper. I reach for her and my fingers grip the sides of her waist. "What I said was inexcusable. There was no reason for it. And I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry." My nose burns and my vision swims as rain pelts around us.
Autumn's lower lip quakes but she pulls it in, pressing it tightly to her upper lip to keep from crying. “I have one question for you.”