by Alice Carina
"Where were you all night?" Joss demanded.
"Out," I hesitated.
"You don't say," Chelsea rolled her eyes. "I knew your parents were out and came to keep you company, but clearly you didn't need me."
"Seriously, where'd you go?" Joss asked again. "We've been waiting for you for hours."
"I thought you were with Kyle," I shrugged.
"I was," she glared at Chelsea. "Then, your friend came and made it so awkward Kyle just had to leave. It didn't help that she actually asked him to leave. And then she made me sit with her until you came back."
"Well, she's back now, so you can leave if my company was that horrible to you."
"Not until I know where she was, I tolerated you long enough to deserve an answer." Joss crossed her arms.
"Seriously, though," Chelsea turned to me. "Where were you?"
"Just walking around,"
"And they sell gigantic Pandas around?"
"Oh, my God," Joss squealed, "were you out with a boy?"
"Of course, she wasn't, she doesn't know any boys," Chelsea reminded her. "Where did you buy the Panda?"
"I won it."
"Where?" Chelsea glared at me.
"I think I saw one just like it at the carnival the other day," Joss mused, "but I couldn't win it and didn't want Kyle to try to win it for me."
"You went to the carnival without me?!" Chelsea yelled.
"No, yes, I just..." I was a terrible liar and I was tired from the walk and I wasn't expecting the attention of either when I came back home. "Can we do this some other time? I'm really tired from walking and I just want to sleep."
"Sure," Josslyn was getting up at the same time Chelsea said "No," and stopped her.
"You've been acting really weird lately. It's like I don't even know who you are anymore." Chelsea could never keep anything in her heart. "My mom seems mad at you. I mean, she told me not to tell you but she asked me to stop hanging around you so much and wouldn't tell me why, you don't go out with me or anyone anywhere anymore. I begged you to go to the carnival with me, but you wouldn't because you'd rather go completely alone? What's going on with you?"
"You've been avoiding me a lot, too." Josslyn joined in. "Actually, I think you're avoiding Kyle, you always excuse yourself whenever he's around. Are you mad at me for spending so much time with him? Are we being too romantic around you? Or are you missing Emmet?"
"No, no, no, I just..."
"I know how to get her talking," Chelsea bounced off my bed with a smirk.
My first diary was from when I was between the ages of five and six. It was the only diary I still had. It was silly and full of nonsense and errors that even I didn't understand, but, for some reason, I couldn't throw it away. I kept it in my bottom drawer along with other nonsensical reminiscences of my childhood. Nobody else ever opened that drawer; even I very rarely did. When we were younger, Chelsea would threaten to tear my diary apart as a way of teaching me to open up to her more, but she hadn't done that in years, I hadn't kept anything from her in years. It wasn't going to work that time, nothing could.
Chelsea opened the drawer and pulled something out, but it wasn't my diary.
"No! Chelsea, no!" I screamed and ran to her, but it was already too late.
"This is a pregnancy test result." She stated, staring at the paper in her hands.
"No!" My heart dropped. I went to snatch the sheet from her, but she quickly moved out of my reach.
"It's positive," she stated again. "It has your name on it."
"What?" Josslyn took the paper from her. "This can't be."
No! No! No! No! What is happening? Why is this happening to me? I should've thrown the results the day I saw them. This can't be happening. They can't find out, now.
"Katie? Is this some sort of prank?" Josslyn asked me. Yes, yes, it's a stupid prank; let's all just forget about it. But I couldn't talk. I just stood there, frozen and staring at them wide-eyed. "She can't be pregnant." She turned to Chelsea for assurance. "She doesn't even have a boyfriend. She's-"
Before she could finish, Chelsea walked up to me. I didn't know what she was doing, but she looked about ready to slap me, and I nearly closed my eyes with surrender. Instead, her hand went to my shirt, yanking it up and exposing my round stomach before I realized what she was doing.
Josslyn gasped and Chelsea dropped her arm, trembling.
"You're pregnant," Chelsea stated in the same monotone voice she'd been using since she found my results.
"I-I..." I didn't know what to say, and she didn't wait for me to. She dropped the paper from her hands, walked around me, and left my room. Moments later I heard her slamming our front door behind her.
"Josslyn," I turned to my sister, terrified that she'd already analyzed how I'd been acting around her boyfriend and found out everything. "Please, listen to me." She didn't move. Her eyes kept going from my results on the floor, to my covered stomach, to my face, then back to my results. "I'm... I..." I had no idea what to say. How could I justify what I'd done? How could I explain what was going on when I myself didn't know?
"You're pregnant," she repeated Chelsea's words in the same flat tone that held their confusion, disbelief, and already concluded judgment against me.
"I..." There was nothing to say, and the tears blinded me when I blinked. It was all happening too suddenly and too fast I couldn't keep up. By the time my vision cleared, my sister had already left me, and I faintly heard the closing of her door.
I fell to the floor and reached out for thegiant Panda, squeezing myself onto it because I needed to hold onto something andthere was no one to hold onto me. I buried my face in its big, warm belly,hoping that it would lower the sounds of my sobs, but I quickly fell asleep, orfainted, or just gave up.
Plan
I kept my results so that I could look at them whenever I came close to convincing myself that my pregnancy wasn't real. They were the only solid proof when I ignored my growing stomach and constant sickness. I looked at them almost daily to remind myself that I had to think of something soon, that I had to tell somebody else soon before the people I loved just found out on their own.
Maybe a part of me had hoped that somebody else would see them, that somebody else would know without my having to speak the words. I had left them, after all, in a drawer in my room that anybody could've had access to at any time. Maybe I wanted to see somebody's reaction to the news so I would get an idea of what I was getting myself into. I'd left the results in a very accessible place, I always seemed to have my hand on my stomach lately – even when I was out with Chad I couldn't refrain from constantly touching it, and I'd been asking mom many questions about what it was like for her when she was pregnant with me and my sister. People can't keep secrets, they offer clues to them here and there in hopes of other people acknowledging them so that they wouldn't be secrets anymore, and I was no different; a part of me had obviously wanted somebody to know; I'd made it far too easy.
If I would've been able to select the person who would find me out, I probably would've gone with fate and chose Josslyn or Chelsea. Josslyn was my sister and Chelsea was my only friend, I'd known both since birth and always turned to one or the other for advice and comfort. If I was counting on anybody to understand and help me through this, it was them, and if they couldn't spare me a minute to explain or a heartbeat of sympathy, who could? Who would?
When I woke up, it was almost three in the morning. I woke up with a stiff neck, dried tears, and a decision that seemed long to have been made.
If the closest people to my heart who I was counting on for support and guidance judged and forsook me, there was nobody who would accept or help me.
I picked up my results from the floor and crumbled the stupid paper that asserted my doomed future. I didn't need it anymore; two people had said the words aloud for me in my face and the truth couldn't have been more real or solid or true.
I couldn't imagine the looks of conviction and smirks of belittlement on my
classmates' faces, I couldn't imagine the look of horror and disgust on Chad's, and I refused to imagine the looks of disappointment and devastation on my parents'.
I found myself moving quickly and steadily. I grabbed my phone, ID, earphones, some clothes, my savings, my sleeping bag, some essentials and a book I'd recently bought on pregnancy and shoved them all into my only suitcase.
Hundreds of scenarios went through my head. People pointing at me, teacher whispering about me, my parents yelling at me, possibly hitting me, and, although it was very unlikely, I even pictured them killing me. I couldn't handle the idea of anybody looking at me the way Josslyn and Chelsea had ever again, but I knew it was inevitable now that they knew, they would never be able to look at me any other way and everybody else would soon join them. If I couldn't protect my own secret, how did I expect anyone else to?
But mostly, it was my parents I couldn't face. I was always the good daughter; I got good grades, didn't go out much, didn't ask for more money than I was offered, rarely dated, helped around the house, and never spoke back to or against my parents. They loved me and trusted me to make right decisions and have a bright future and maintain their pride in me for as long as I lived. They saw me graduating with remarkable grades, going to university and getting a good degree, working in something worth sharing with their friends, meeting a perfect gentleman who would preferably ask for their blessing before proposing to me, getting married to someone respectable, and then having kids.
I couldn't break their hearts. I couldn't ruin everything they'd worked so hard all their lives to grant me. I couldn't throw away my future and life and along with it their hopes for and pride in me. I couldn't repay their love and encouragement with a baby at so young an ungrateful age. I couldn't imagine them finding out and looking at me the way Josslyn and Chelsea had and speaking the words aloud so flatly like I was no longer theirs. They would find out the next day from Josslyn; this wasn't a case of rebellion and teenage-secrets to her; this was serious and she would see no other choice but telling them just like I would've done had it been her, and I couldn't be there for that. I had to get away.
I scribbled a small note to my parents, telling them not to worry or contact the police or anything and that I had to leave because I'd done something bad and was trying to handle it like the adult they'd raised me to be, without dragging anybody else into my mess. Then, I slowly walked down the stairs and stuffed the front pocket of my suitcase with some food and left. I closed the door quietly behind me, not wanting to wake up my family but half hoping that they would anyway. They didn't, and I hastily walked away, putting as much distance between me and their house before the sun shone on the truth.
*
I had nowhere to go. I couldn't go to any extended family members without them freaking out about my news and instantly contacting my parents, I couldn't go to any friends because those also had parents who would contact mine, not that I had any friends anymore. It was that night, as I walked alone down the empty streets alone and tried to put as much distance between my baby and my house that I realized how lonely I truly was and wished that I at least had someone to call for advice on where to go.
I left the house without a plan other than to get away, but as the sun rose on my fatigued body, one seemed to have formed on its own. If my parents didn't contact the police, I had all the time and freedom in the world. Even if they did and ignored my safety-note because I was still a minor, I still had some time before I became limited. I could use the money I had to stay at some cheap motel or become someone's roommate while I searched for a job. I'd had summer jobs before and people got jobs all the time, it wouldn't be that hard to do. I didn't need much payment, just something to pay for the rent and some food, but I would have to move further away so that nobody would accidently find me. I would stay hidden until the baby came, then... Then, what? Would I keep it and raise it on my own? Would I have the courage to tell Kyle about it by then? Would I be able to return to my parents and face them with it? Would I give it away and go back home baby-and-problems-free, repeat my school year, then go on with life according to my previous life-plan? I had several months to decide on that, so it wasn't an issue at the time, the real problem was moving further away as fast as I could.
I was thankful for the timing of Josslyn and Chelsea busting me; I left the house on the weekend. It meant that not many people were on the streets staring at the little girl walking between their houses with a suitcase so far away from any airports or traveling means. But most importantly, my parents were late risers on the weekend. If Josslyn didn't tell them, they wouldn't notice me gone until noon, and if they didn't immediately notice the note folded on my bed, they might assume that I'd just gone out and not analyze my absence until late at night, which gave me more time to get away.
However, as the sun rose higher in the sky, so did my weariness and I couldn't take another step further. I walked into a kids' park and collapsed under a tree, hugged my suitcase to me and fell asleep to the sounds of kids laughing and moms telling them not to stray too far. I woke up later in the day to my stomach rumbling. I ate an apple from my suitcase and forced myself back to sleep, knowing that I would need all the energy I could harvest for later that night.
When I woke up again, the sun was just beginning to set. I knew that my parents had either noticed my absence or were about to, and all the distance it took me hours to cover on foot would take a searching party about an hour. I had to keep moving.
I walked until I found a bus station and went to the very edge of the town. I talked to the bus driver and implied that I was going back in, so that in case my parents put my description out and he came forward, he would keep the search local and away from me. He dropped me off at another bus station, and I waited until he was out of sight to walk out of town. Once I was outside, I walked for another hour until I found another bus station and took a two-hour bus ride further into somewhere I'd never been.
I walked around the new streets, amongst new people, and something about the idea of having nowhere to go and not having anybody recognize me was both thrilling and scary. I could be anybody here, and they couldn't judge me because they didn't know me. I could be the new girl from somewhere far away, maybe even another country, I could be the future celebrity, I could be somebody's new best friend, I could be the bad girl everyone had always expected to get pregnant already, I could be anyone and anything, but deep down, I was just a good girl who'd done a bad deed and was terrified and just wanted to go back home.
I stayed at a sketchy motel that didn't require IDs and only took cash. I picked their smallest and cheapest room; a small room in which the small bed barely fit with a tiny attached bathroom that had the shower above the toilet seat. Even so, it cost much more than I had expected. The money I had could only keep me roofed for a few days, I needed to find a job, but I woke up with crippling morning sickness that lasted all day almost every day.
On my third day, I decided to fight against my nausea and go job-hunting anyway. I walked into a restaurant that was hiring and was trying to hold my breath as I spoke to the manager so that none of the smells would trigger my sickness. Everything was going well until she ordered a coffee and the overwhelming aroma made me instantly throw up over her desk.
My sickness was not going to allow me to work at any restaurants or cafés or anywhere with food or smells. I also couldn't work at stores or libraries where I would have to lift heavy things or sit confined to the same space for long hours because that seemed to trigger my sickness more than anything.
I thought about working at the motel I was staying at. It was dirty and unwelcoming, so it was clearly short on staff. I would be able to move around, hide my sickness, and not get in anybody's way or have anybody get in mine. I offered my services to the guy at the front desk who seemed to be the only one working there in exchange for letting me stay in the tiny room that seemed to have been deserted for years and trivial money for food. He looked utterly bored as he told
me he'd think about it, but I went to bed full of hope. However, when the entirety of the next day went by without him saying a word to me and ignoring me like all of the other dwellers as if we'd never talked, I realized that he'd only said what he had to get rid of me and that I still had to get a job because the money I had could only keep me at that motel for two more days.
On my fifth day, when I returned from a failed job-hunt, the guy stopped me and asked me for my name. He looked worried and suspicious.
"Kareen," I lied, giving him my mother's name.
"How old are you?"
"Eighteen," I offered a quick lie. I would be legally free at eighteen, wouldn't I? Or was it twenty-one? Or Twenty-five?
He didn't seem convinced and kept staring at me, almost expecting me to crack under his gaze and confess something crucial. I wondered if my parents had ignored my note and went to the police who contacted nearby motels and hospitals, or if they'd put me on the news.
"Can I see some ID?" He finally asked, making it obvious that he wasn't going to believe anything that I said.
"Sure, I..." I couldn't look at him any longer. "I-it's in m-my ro-om," I stuttered. "I'll g-go get i-it." He nodded and watched me leave.
I stuffed the few toiletries I'd taken out of my suitcase and the foods I'd bought in my bag and ran out of the back door of the motel in a matter of minutes. I didn't know where I was going or how long the few bills I still had left could last me, but the motel was another place I needed to be as far away from as possible.
I walked as fast as I could to the nearest bus station and took the longest one away from wherever I was. I took one bus after the other, falling asleep in my seat until the drivers woke me up, until I was two or three more towns away from home and there were no more buses to take for the night.
The last bus stopped near a café, and the smell was welcoming for the first time in a few days it had my stomach rumbling.
The café was very small. Instead of tables there was just a long counter with several stools below it and one man working behind it. Luckily, there weren't much people inside for it to be crowded. The stool was high and uncomfortable to sit on, but I forced myself to stop wiggling and grabbed a menu from the stack in the corner. The café only sold teas, coffee, and a very limited selection of sweets. I asked for a blueberry muffin and minted tea. The guy took a long look at my suitcase before shaking his head, probably deciding that it wasn't his business and getting me my order.
