by Alice Carina
"Don't," mom interrupted him.
"Is this conversation over yet?"
"No, it's not, we haven't worked anything out yet."
"There's nothing to work out, Kareen. She is already pregnant and she already doesn't know who the father is, we can't stop that anymore, it can't be fixed."
"Maybe-" mom started but dad quickly interrupted her, already knowing what she was about to say.
"Don't you dare say this isn't a problem to be fixed."
"Well, what do you suggest? You never talk to your daughter again and we just stop being a family?"
"I don't know what else to do," he confessed. "I can't even look at her the same. She was my little girl, my perfect, good, little girl, and now she..."
"Now she needs us more than ever."
"What do you want me to do?" His voice rose for the first time that night and mom quickly hushed him.
"I don't know, but we have to at least be able to talk about this. This isn't going to magically go away, you know, unless the baby dies, or our baby dies. Is that what you want? Do you want her to die? Do you want to kick her out? What are we going to do with the baby? What exactly are we going to do? We can't just ignore this entire situation until it's too late."
"It's already too late," he finalized and made for the stairs.
I'd sunk down on them, my body too heavy for my tired legs so late into the night, and I didn't have the time to get up before my dad reached the stairs. I was clinging to the railing, trying to pull my body up when he rushed up the first two steps and saw me. He hadn't looked at me at the hospital or when I came back home, and I never said goodbye before running away so I couldn't remember the last time my father had actually looked at me. His eyes blinked at my tears-pouring ones and he froze in place. He opened his mouth a couple of times to say something, but nothing came out.
Mom noticed that he'd stopped and came to his side, looking just as surprised to see me, but she didn't say anything either.
I finally managed to pull myself up and went up to my room. Nobody followed me. Nobody asked how much I'd heard, what I'd thought, if I had anything to say, or any of the questions my dad had just called my mom out on being too insecure of her own parenting skills to ask.
The following day was Sunday, so I couldn't hide at school. Frankly, I didn't want to. I hoped that maybe they'd talked more the previous night, that maybe after they realized that I'd overheard they sat down and decided on how to phrase their questions, but nobody asked anything. The next morning, mom had that half-smile of hers, from behind which peeked her doubts and mistrust in me, and dad left the kitchen as soon as I walked in, then left the house altogether.
Perhaps they wanted me to come to them now that they knew I'd eavesdropped on their concerns, maybe they wanted me to reassure them of myself and themselves, and when I didn't, they just assumed that it was because their biggest fears had been true, that they had failed in raising me and that they didn't know me at all, but I just wanted them to want to talk to me, to have called me into that little meeting of theirs the night before and asked me, but they didn't, so I didn't.
Since my parents found out about my pregnancy, Kyle – or any other boy – hadn't been allowed at home, much to Josslyn's dismay. My parents had always known about Josslyn's lovers, but now that pregnancy was an actuality and not just a possibility, dad had called a boy-ban. So, naturally, when he'd been gone for more than a few hours with no signs of him coming back anytime soon, Kyle came knocking on our door.
Mom smiled at him, a real smile that she never smiled at me anymore. Josslyn was happy to see him and she pulled him in and started talking to him before he was fully through the door, but she never talked to me anymore. Kyle and Josslyn went up to her room, and my mom trusted them because of talks she'd had with Josslyn but never with me. I wondered if Josslyn accidentally got pregnant by Kyle if people would actually congratulate them on becoming a happy family.
He'd stolen a part of me, and he'd stolen my mother's real smiles and my sister's conversations. My reputation was trampled on day after day by his friends while he laughed with them, and it was all because of him. If I just opened my mouth and said the truth, that would surely stop my sister's annoyingly high-pitched voice and drop my mother's real smile into the real agony I was in and I would steal something from him, too. I didn't know where all that anger came from, but it was there and I was physically shaking with it. I couldn't be under the same roof as him.
Mom was surprised when I told her that I was going out. She wanted to know where to and with whom, she even wanted to tag along, but I told her that I had no idea where I was going, I just needed to clear my head by a walk and that I would stay in the area. She didn't want me to go out alone, but her phone rang, and when she turned around to get it, I left.
I really had nowhere in mind, I just couldn't stay at home, and I felt myself over brimming with the truth that I'd expected to be out by then. I was the only one who knew it and I was more than ready to share it, but nobody cared. Everybody – my family included – had their own idea of what the truth was and was too scared to ask in case it was even worse. I wanted to talk, I just wanted somebody to listen, but no one wanted me to talk, and no one ever bothered to offer to listen.
No one.
Except...
Months ago, I wouldn't have hesitated to text him when I was having a bad day. It was comforting not to have to see the other person or say the words out loud, but still get them out somehow and have somebody else know or care without having to overthink their expressions and tones. He always texted me whenever he was upset, more often than I ever did, but he hadn't in a very long time and I was worried our texting-friendship was over just when I needed it the most. I figured he still owed me for that time I stayed up texting with him till three in the morning when his grandma died, but this was different...
This wasn't about a bad grade or a fight with friends or a lost argument with parents or a broken car or a bad date or even someone dying. This was about... What was it about? What could I possibly say to him? I was pregnant and he already knew that and that was the end of that, there was nothing to say, but before I could push my phone back into my pocket, my fingers had pressed a customary 'Hey'.
I regretted it as soon as it was sent. I'd been humiliated in front of everyone that day and he just felt bad for me. He hadn't meant it. It was just something that he probably felt obliged to say for the sake of the texting-somewhat-friendship we'd once had or his innate nicety that he couldn't hold back even when he wanted to.
I was about to send him an apologetic text, telling him that I'd meant to send the first one to somebody else – as if there was anybody else who'd even offered to talk to me – when his reply came back quick and polite.
Hey, how are you?
It was just a polite thing to say, everybody said it, but nobody had asked me how I was in so long... I should've been just as polite; said that I was okay and asked about him and ended the conversation without calling him out on an unintentional gesture of kindness, but I couldn't type the words.
I actually started crying as I typed down how I was truly feeling - alone and tired and sick and embarrassed that I didn't have anybody else willing to talk to me. I knew it was wrong and unusual and too expectant from someone I had no right to expect anything from, and I cringed as I typed the words but I couldn't delete anything, not even my typos as my fingers rushed to press the letters as quickly as possible and hit send before I regained control over my emotions that my baby had been experimenting with for the past few days.
His reply didn't come as quickly, and I couldn't make myself reread my own text to decide on which part to apologize first. The longer he took to reply, the lonelier and sillier I felt. What was I expecting? That he actually cared and wanted to listen? What could he reply to what I said I was going through? That I shouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place? That it was all my fault and I had to deal with the consequences of my actions like t
he adult I'd been rushing to be? If anyone had sent me a text like the one I'd sent him, I would've just stared at my phone for hours just rereading it without knowing what to say. I would've understood had he never replied, but he did.
He told me that he'd just finished practice and was still around the school if I could meet him.
I didn't want to see him, that had always been the point of our texting-friendship, that I never had to look into his eyes and stutter the things I could barely type, but I had been the one to start the conversation, my text had been very depressed and depressing, and I was close to the school anyway.
As I walked into the school's parking lot and imagined how all eyes turned to me every morning and every afternoon, I lowered my face to the ground. I could feel their invisible eyes shaming me even though nobody was there, and a strange thought occurred to me. What if I was walking into a setup? What if all of the other members of his team where still around? What if they were all waiting for me to get their daily dose of laughter?
I peeked into the open field and saw Chad standing at the far end alone and immediately felt guilty and stupid for thinking that he would do that to me, or to anyone. I took a deep breath and walked into the field, he saw me and started walking my way, too, but I couldn't look at him so I lowered my eyes to the fake green grass.
He was before me too soon, asking about me politely, but I still couldn't bring myself to look at him.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I shouldn't have texted you that, or anything, I was just..."
"Being honest?" He offered.
I finally looked at him. His face was gentle and clear from any judgment, and he looked so handsome that for a moment I was back to that innocent, little girl who had a crush on him and knew she didn't stand a chance but deep down still hoped that somehow she did.
"Do you want to sit down?" He asked, noticing that I was panting from the slow walk I'd had.
I just nodded, and we walked together towards the bleachers. We sat on the very first level and looked ahead at the empty field and the school building rising above it. I could never have done that on a school day, but the silence and the bright fake greenery was actually calming. Just a few months ago I could've sat there on any day that I pleased and enjoyed the view and no one would've seen me, I wondered why I never had.
"Do you want some water?" Chad interrupted the silence.
"Why are you being so nice to me?"
"Why shouldn't I be?" My question seemed to take him off guard and he blinked several times before replying with his own question.
"Because I'm pregnant," I stated matter of factually. It was the first time I personally said the words out loud to someone that I knew. They felt natural, real, accepted, and I wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
His eyes dropped to my stomach, and I realized that it was the first time I had seen him look at it. I didn't know how many times he'd looked at it before without my noticing, but I did know it was the first time he'd done so up close, and I felt it becoming naturally real to him, too. I didn't know how I felt about that, but I tried futilely to suck my stomach in until he looked ahead and we went back to gazing at nothing in particular in silence.
"You know," he started after a few moments, "the first day you didn't show up in school after our da- after we'd gone to the carnival, I thought it was because of me." He chuckled lightly to himself. "I thought that I'd done or said something so wrong that you decided to skip school just to avoid me. But then days and days went by and I kept thinking back to our conversations that day. You'd looked really sad and scared, you'd even cried and told me you'd done something bad... I was so worried that I'd missed something, that I could've helped if I'd pushed more, that you'd gotten into something dangerous and I was never going to see you again. I must've went through a thousand different scenarios in my head every time I tried calling you and your phone was off, but I never expected this." He threw a glance at my stomach, and that time I felt a little jab.
"I'm sorry,"
"I didn't even know you had a boyfriend." He shrugged as he looked back ahead. "That was always a bit comforting, you know? That you didn't say no to me because it was me, but you just weren't ready. I understood that."
"I wasn't..."
"But then you said yes to Emmet. Of all people, Emmet. I never understood how a guy like him managed to be with a girl like you. Emmet is too open with us guys, he tells everything about everyone. I was used to hearing him talk about his girlfriends, but it was so hard hearing him talk about you." He looked at me and my eyes met his and I was suddenly very aware of my heart. He'd liked me, too? "He always used to complain about the things that I liked most about you, and I knew that he didn't deserve you, but you said yes to him. And I was terrified that one day he would come and tell us that you..." He dropped his eyes back to the artificial grass. "Then, one day, he told us that you broke up. He said it was because you wouldn't sleep with him, and I thought that you were..." He trailed off.
"I was..." I blushed.
Then, he asked me;
"What happened, Katie?"
And I told him. I told him everything.
I told him that the only reason I said yes to Emmet was because he was the only guy to ask me in a very long time. My sister and friends and everyone that I knew had someone, or had just left someone. There wasn't much else that girls talked about, and I had nothing to talk about. I felt left out and alone. I told him how Emmet kept trying to change me, how I had tried to change for him, but just wasn't ready for the next step. I told him how getting dumped by my first boyfriend ever and realizing that he'd never really considered me his girlfriend had hurt a lot more than I let on, how frustrating it was to look exactly like the most popular girl in school on the outside but have nothing worth holding somebody's interest on the inside.
I didn't tell him Kyle's name, but I did tell him that he was a close friend's ex-boyfriend, or so I'd thought, which wasn't a lie because Josslyn had always been my best friend. I told him that it was just one night, that I wasn't ready or in love or into the guy like I had been expecting my first time to be, I wasn't even expecting it to be my first time that night. But I just wanted to be like everybody else, I wanted a chance to be like Josslyn so that somebody would want me too, not just her. She was sitting with many people, talking and laughing, everybody loved her, she never spent a moment alone, and at that moment I would've done anything to be like her, so I pretended to be like her, but it was awful and empty and I still felt just as alone and stupid and left out.
I told him my friend and her boyfriend turned out to still be together and how I thought he'd been too drunk to remember, but when I confronted him he made it clear that I meant just as little to him as he had to me, and I didn't have the courage to tell him that he'd gotten me pregnant because it felt like my fault alone. We'd both been there, but it felt only my fault, because he was ready and he knew that he only wanted one night, but I wasn't and had no idea what I wanted.
Then, I told him about the night of the carnival, how I went home and my sister and Chelsea found out I was pregnant and wouldn't let me explain.
"I couldn't bear the looks they gave me. I couldn't imagine my parents looking at me like that, my family, my friends, you..." I confessed.
I even told him everything about my runaway; the long bus rides, the cheap motel, and the smell of Seth's café. I told him Seth's real name and everything that I couldn't tell the police. I told him how nice he was and what a great, caring friend he was to me when I desperately needed him, I even told him about Seth's Teresa and how much I kept reminding him of her.
And I told him about that night. His last night of drinking, her death's anniversary, the cold, the family he wanted us to be, the locked café door, the stairs, the basement, the window, the pain, the blood... And then I told him about the hospital, my dad, going back to school, the daily humiliations, my parents' talk the previous night.
I didn't skip anything, I told him everything.
I cried and sobbed and shrugged and bitterly smiled as I answered his question, but I answered it and I said it all.
He didn't interrupt me, not once, not when my voice got too high and nothing made sense, and not when I paused for too long trying to catch my breath. He just let me let it all out, he asked and actually wanted to know the truth, and I told him the truth and he listened to it, cared to know it, and I knew that he believed me.
"I'm so sorry," he finally shook his head.
"You're sorry?" I sniffed. "You're the only person still willing to talk to me and never did anything. What are you sorry for?"
"For not doing anything," he scooted closer to me. "I can't believe this, the one party I didn't go to..." He shook his head again.
"What would you have done?" Nothing could've stopped what had happened; it was almost meant to be.
"I would've found you, and maybe we would've just talked all night, and you wouldn't have felt so alone... I don't know..."
"I still don't get why you're so nice to me." I was genuinely curious. Even if he'd liked me before, I was pregnant now. We could never be together. He had every right to judge me. I was pregnant.
"I've always been nice to you," he shrugged.
"Yes, but I'm pregnant now." Many people felt alone and desperate but had more sense than to get pregnant, even I was judging myself, so I couldn't understand how he wasn't.
He just shrugged. And something terrifying hit me.
"What do you want from me?"
"What?"
"What do you want from me?" I repeated.
"Nothing," his brows furrowed in confusion. "I'm just trying to be your friend. You seem like you could use one," he tried to joke with an awkward smile.
"But why? What do you want from me in return?"
"What are you talking about? I just want us to be friends like we've always been."
"But I'm not like I've always been," I looked away as Seth's words came out of my mouth for the second time that day; "Nobody does anything without wanting something in return."
