“Where are you going?” She looked surprised that he was leaving.

“I’ll be back in five minutes,” he said, looking distressed, without further explanation, and then he was gone. She wasn’t worried. She knew he’d be back. He acted like a kid sometimes.

There was a Duane Reade two blocks away that stayed open all night. He bought a pregnancy kit with two tests in it, put it in his pocket, ran back to the apartment, and sprinted up the stairs. He was still shaking, and there was a look in his eyes she had never seen before. She reached out and touched his crotch, and he took her hand, and then pulled her firmly up from the couch. He still had his coat on, and there was a frightening look in his eyes.

“What are you doing?” She looked puzzled and confused, as he led her into the bathroom, and she followed. “What is this, Ted?” She had no idea what he had in mind or why he had gone out.

“You tell me,” he said in a shattered voice. She reached for him, thinking he wanted to have sex with her, but it was clear he didn’t, and he wouldn’t let her touch him. He reached into his pocket and handed her the pregnancy kit, and Pattie looked startled. “I don’t need that,” she said, laughing at him. “Don’t be silly.” She tried to make a game of it and stroked him through his jeans. He didn’t move an inch and opened the box for her and handed her the test, as her face went pale.

“Do it,” he said in a voice that sounded like someone else’s. He looked cold, and he was shaking. She had tried to destroy his life and had almost blackmailed him into marrying her over a baby he now suspected didn’t exist. He left the bathroom and waited just outside the door. She took a long time, and he could hear her crying. The game was over. And then she finally came out, without the test, and looked at him in despair.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, as tears poured down her cheeks. She looked panicked. They both knew that if she’d done it, the test would have shown she wasn’t pregnant. Now he understood why she had told him she had a headache that afternoon. For once, she was willing to forgo sex, because she didn’t want him to discover that she had her period. But the game was up now. He saw all the life go out of her as they both stood there.

“I love you, Ted,” she whispered through a sob. “I’m sorry.”

“How could you do that to me? Threaten me and tell me you would kill yourself and the baby, that I had to marry you now and not later? What were you going to do when you never got big—tell me you lost it? What a fucking fool I was, and what a bitch you are!” he said, still shaking with rage and relief. “Don’t ever come near me again. Never!” he said as he walked past her to the door, and she ran to him, sank to the floor, and clung to him.

“Don’t leave me,” she said, clutching at his legs. “I love you, Ted.” She was begging him not to go.

“You don’t know the meaning of the word,” he said as he opened the door and pulled away from her. He still had his coat on from when he’d gone to the store. There was nothing he wanted from the apartment. Whatever he had there, he never wanted to see again, and especially her. She had lied to him about being pregnant and tried to destroy his life. He looked down at her with disgust, left, and slammed the door behind him. He ran down the stairs, threw open the door that led to the street, and took big gulps of the cold air.

And then he ran all the way home. He felt like he had escaped from prison. He had broken out. He had gotten one lucky break with the bloody tampon she’d forgotten to flush down the toilet. He wanted to shout as he ran down the street. He didn’t love her. He hated her. She had tried to ruin his life, and he had tried to do the right thing. He had almost given up law school for her, and his life, and she had lied to him and manipulated him. She had used sex to control him and threats of suicide to hold him prisoner. His cell phone was ringing as he ran down the street, and he didn’t answer it. She had lied to him totally. There had never been a baby. Just Pattie with her hooks into him.

He let himself into his apartment and poured himself two stiff shots of tequila and downed them at one gulp as one of his roommates walked in.

“Are we having a party?” he said with a broad grin.

“I am,” Ted said. He already felt better than he had in weeks, even months. He was free.

He poured himself a third shot, and his roommate cautioned him. “Take it easy, buddy. You’ll feel like shit tomorrow.” But he felt incredible tonight. It was strange, suddenly hating someone he was supposed to love and had even promised to marry. But she was never the person she pretended to be. He sat on the couch, watched TV with the tequila bottle between his legs, poured himself shots, and stared into space, trying to absorb what had happened to him.

It was two in the morning when the emergency room at Downtown Hospital called his apartment. One of his roommates answered it and told Ted it was for him. He listened to what they said and made no comment.

“Will she be okay?” he finally asked in a dead voice. He was very drunk but not totally incoherent. He understood what the man had said. Pattie was in the emergency room and had had her stomach pumped. They said she had taken six sleeping pills, which wouldn’t have been enough to kill her, and had called 911 herself. They said she’d be fine tomorrow, although she was on a psychiatric hold for evaluation, since she admitted it was a suicide attempt, and she had told them to call him. It had been a feeble attempt.

“She’d like you to come in to see her,” the attendant told him.

“Tell her I’m too drunk. I’ll come by in the morning.” And with that, he hung up, took a last shot of tequila, and went to bed. He didn’t care about her suicide attempt. It was as fake as their baby that had never existed, and just another manipulation. He understood that now.

He woke up with a huge headache the next morning, but at nine-thirty he was at the hospital as he’d said he would be. He found her room easily, and she was lying on the bed looking sick. A nurse’s aide was sitting in the chair next to her, on suicide watch, and she offered to leave when Ted walked into the room, but he declined. He looked young and handsome and very hung over. But in spite of the excesses of the night before, he felt better than he had in months. Pattie looked considerably worse. They had decided to keep her for another day, until the psych resident saw her. And she didn’t look pleased to be there. She started to cry the minute she saw Ted, and held out her arms to him. Ted didn’t move toward her. He stood just inside the doorway where she couldn’t reach him, and he didn’t approach the bed.

“I’m done, Pattie. It’s over. Don’t threaten me anymore, don’t bother to kill yourself over me, or pretend to. Don’t tell me you love me or anything about our ‘baby.’ I’m done. Finished. I don’t care what you do. You never should have done this, any of it, or pretended you were pregnant.” The nurse’s aide was watching them with interest and Pattie lay facedown on the bed, sobbing. “Get out of my life. You are out of my life. And don’t call me. I’ll send you my papers for the contracts class, and I don’t give a flying fuck if you flunk me. Do whatever you want. What you did is disgusting.” And with that, he walked out of the room, and the door whooshed slowly closed behind him. He could hear her sobbing, but he didn’t care.

It was the icing on the cake when one of the nurses spoke to him on the way out and said how sorry she was that Pattie was back again. She said that after four such attempts, she would probably benefit from in-patient treatment this time. And she guessed correctly that Ted was one of her students. She said that her last two boyfriends had been too. It was indiscreet of her, and Ted’s stomach turned over as he listened. He wondered how many of his fellow students she had done this to, how many times she had pretended to be pregnant and faked suicide to keep them. The thought of what she’d done to him made him feel sick. Pattie was a desperate woman.

Ted called Annie as soon as he got home and told her what had happened.

“It was all a lie,” he told Annie in a dead voice. “She was never pregnant.”

“How did you find out?” she asked. She and Tom were at the breakfast table reading the paper. They had plans for the weekend.

“I just did. She was lying the whole time.” His voice choked as he said it, thinking of all the times she had cried and berated him and threatened to kill herself if he didn’t do what she wanted. He wasn’t even afraid of that now. He couldn’t imagine ever being afraid of anything again, or believing anyone. It was going to take him a long time to trust someone again. “It’s over,” he said quietly. And then he called Liz and told her.

He lay on his bed after that with a pounding head and a light heart, thinking about what had happened. He realized now that he had been addicted to her, she had wanted it that way, and she had used his addiction to control him. It was terrifying to think about it now. All he could think about was how lucky he was that he had found out, and how grateful he was to be free.

“What happened?” Tom asked Annie when she hung up. He could tell that it was something important.

“I don’t know. Ted discovered that Pattie wasn’t really pregnant. He said it was all a lie, a hoax. Apparently, he discovered it last night. He said it’s over. Thank God.” She heaved a sigh of relief and smiled at Tom.

“Well, you can take that off your worry list,” he said as he leaned over and kissed her. “Sounds like he got a lucky break.” She smiled broadly and poured him a second cup of coffee. By then Ted was already sound asleep on his bed, with a smile on his face, sleeping off the tequila.