Pregnant by My Sister's Boyfriend

by Alice Carina

  A group of guys who'd gotten drunk and vandalized their school after breaking in at night were arrested, forced to pay for the damages, and expelled for a few days.

  A woman who'd gotten drunk and broken into her ex-husband's house and destroyed everything in his kitchen was arrested and sentenced to jail-time.

  A man who was driving drunk and injured several people was on trial and the reporters were mercilessly tearing him apart on TV every night for the past week.

  According to Chad, they all deserved what they were getting. According to Chad, the kids had probably planned on vandalizing the school and gotten drunk on purpose for some sort of courage, the woman had probably been around her ex's house before getting drunk wanting to break in and finally allowed herself to do so, and the man had probably driven around drunk several times and could've caused much more damage. According to Chad, nobody had forced Kyle to get drunk enough to forget that he had a girlfriend or Seth drunk enough to think that he could force me into being his.

  Chad couldn't have been more angry at or scared of Seth than I was; he was the reason I couldn't imagine myself ever going out at night again or stand at a bus stop and the reason I couldn't sleep and my stomach flipped every time I passed by a bakery.

  And yet...

  I couldn't forget that he'd taken me in when I had nowhere to go, how kind and understanding he was when he could've been judgmental and condemned me along with everybody else, how he paid for my food and conveniences as if I were his responsibility when I was no one else's, all our long conversations, his hardships...

  Despite what Seth had done to me, he did it on a drunken night that he'd promised would be his last and to someone who reminded him too much of his past that he saw it reoccurring as a second chance, and he hadn't actually done anything. I tripped down the stairs on my own and hurt myself trying to escape, he didn't actually manage to do anything for me to castigate him for life.

  Wasn't I worse? I didn't only think about being with my sister's boyfriend, but actually got pregnant by him, and I still thought that I deserved a second chance simply because I hadn't meant to, simply because I wasn't thinking straight that night, simply because I was so good before that night and since, didn't the exact same circumstances apply to Seth? Who was I to take away his second chance that he'd been working so hard to earn when I got mine with Chad without trying or earning?

  But Chad couldn't see it that way and that was when we had our first fight.

  He thought that Seth didn't deserve anything from me, least of all my best friend. He thought that Chelsea had every right to know, and I knew that she did, but she'd given up that right when she refused to hear about his past from him, and I didn't feel that I had the right to tell her.

  "You can report him and take everything away from him, but I know that you won't." He tried to keep his voice low as he snuck into my room late at night. "All I'm asking you is not to let him take anything more from you. He already took away your sleep and your comfort and safety and almost your baby, you can't let him take away your best friend."

  "He's not taking her away; she chose not to know,"

  "That's because she didn't know it concerned you. She's going to find out one day and she won't forgive you if she doesn't hear it from you."

  "What if he relapses? What if losing another girl completely destroys him? She chose not to know and he chose not to tell her, I don't want to be in a position where I have to choose something that will change everything for someone else," I tried to explain to him.

  "But you already are," he fought back.

  "Well, I don't want to choose anything, that way nothing can be my fault."

  "Katie..." He sighed as he rubbed his temples. "I... Can I be completely honest with you? 'Cause I don't know how else to do this,"

  "Uh-sure..."

  "This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

  "What?"

  "You don't want to choose anything, but you're choosing to do absolutely nothing. Not choosing is also a choice, a choice that you've made so many times before and it always leads you to more problems and pain."

  "But I..." I didn't know what to say.

  "You lost Josslyn by doing nothing for Kyle's sake and he just walked away. Now you're doing nothing for Seth's sake and he's probably just going to walk away if things go wrong, but you'll be here, stuck with the consequences of your choices while believing that you never made any."

  "I... I just don't want to hurt anyone."

  "Then don't hurt Chelsea."

  "What if she hates me for taking him away from her?"

  "Then she'll be making the wrong choice, not you."

  *

  I walked into school Monday morning to an assault of glares and whispers. There had been many people at Chelsea's party with ready phones and everyone had had the rest of the weekend to form an opinion about us.

  I avoided Chad in the morning by telling him that I needed to talk to Chelsea. I didn't want to do it, but I put myself in her shoes, I would've expected her to tell me had she known something about Chad even if I'd chosen not to know. In fact, she would've tied me up and forced me to know. Had somebody else been through the same thing with Seth, I would've appreciated a warning and thought it my right to know as someone who was close to him, it was up to her to choose what to do with him, not me.

  It was a very awkward conversation since I hadn't told Chelsea what had happened to me on the streets and I didn't want to relive it, but I chose the distraction of the past rather than the pending drama that was currently buzzing through the halls.

  "I know that he's a very kind person when sober and he helped me more than I can ever thank him or forgive him for. I don't think he'd ever do anything to you or anyone else." I continued awkwardly when she didn't say anything. "He didn't exactly do anything, but I just thought that you should know..." Her face had lost its colors several minutes before and she hadn't closed her mouth from its surprised form since I started talking. "Are you mad at me?"

  "No, no," she shook her head, almost as if trying to shake herself from a bad dream. "I-I'm... Thanks for telling me." Her face scrunched up as if suddenly struck and she started crying, but she didn't give me a chance to comfort her as she ran back out of school. I was too heavy and too scared of walking down the crowded parking lot alone to follow her, so I just focused on hiding as best as I could for the rest of the day.

  I decided not to attend any of my classes and just hid in the restroom all day long. It was better than going home and the teachers probably assumed that I was having one of my sick days. Several girls walked in and out while I hid in my locked stall, listening to them sharing and creating the newest gossip about me.

  There's no way that's true. I mean, I saw the photos, but no way that's true.

  Why in the world would he want to be with her? Of all people, her?

  You said yourself that you saw her grab him and kiss him. He probably didn't push her away just to be nice, they've always been friends after all.

  Exactly, maybe as his friend she found out something about him and is now forcing him to date her by blackmailing him or something. It's the only thing that makes sense.

  Do you think he's the father?

  What? No way. He'd never be with her. I'm telling you, it's all a misunderstanding.

  Even if he is the father, he clearly doesn't want anything to do with the baby or else he would've said something before. Why is she forcing him to be with her?

  Whether she got pregnant by him or by someone else, she just doesn't deserve him. He deserves someone better, someone hotter. This makes no sense at all.

  I just wanted to stay hidden till the last bell so that I could go home and be away from them all, but Chad found me during Lunch. He walked into the restroom and stood outside my usual stall until I unlocked the door.

  "You know, this isn't the best date spot in town." He smirked, obviously having heard the rumors and wanting to lighten up the mood.

  "
I'm really sorry,"

  "What's there to be sorry about? I've always wanted everyone to know."

  "I think we can still fix this, we can... deny it? Say we were drunk or something?"

  "Um... I think it's a bit too late for that. People asked me and I said that you're my girlfriend. I didn't think you'd mind since you kissed me in front of everyone." He smiled, letting me know that he wasn't at all sorry about what was happening.

  "How can you be okay with all of this?" I asked, exasperated by his calmness.

  "All of what?"

  "All of the stares and the rumors and the judgment." I felt my face heat up as their words echoed in my ears. "I've been in here all day, not one person walked in without talking about us. The whole school is talking about us. I-"

  "Baby, people talk all the time," he took my shaking hands in his. "I really don't care what people who don't know us have to say about us, as long as I get to be with you."

  I heard his friends trying to dissuade him from staying with me, I heard a couple of his exes saying terrible things about me, I heard people trying to shame me for daring to date and I couldn't understand why.

  Most of them suspected that he was the father, and they hated me more for it. They thought that I was forcing him to be a part of this, but wasn't the father already a part? Wasn't I forced into this too? Wasn't it the father's consequence as much as mine? Shouldn't I have been admired as all women should be for my patience and strength in carrying a child all on my own when I hadn't created it on my own and when it wasn't only my own?

  Hadn't they always known that I hadn't done this to myself? Hadn't they always known that somebody else shared the blame? Why did they hate it so much that that person was possibly good? Wasn't I good before wearing the proof of one bad decision? Shouldn't they have just hated us equally or stopped hating me because I apparently knew who the father was and was just like their mothers or any other pregnant woman in a relationship?

  Their reaction perplexed me as much as our relationship did them, but nothing vexed me more than my own sister's attempt at revenge.

  The rumors had been going on and on for a few of days when my sister decided to put an end to them with her own, except that nobody questioned the truth of her words – she was my sister after all and who could know the truth better?

  She told Bernetta that Chad had always been one of five or six candidates and that the paternity tests had just come back confirming him. Naturally, Bernetta had to make sure that the whole school knew. All the rumors and ideas they had formed about me were suddenly confirmed as true. I was officially the girl who'd been with too many guys to know who her baby's father was; I was officially all of them just with an actual consequence. Even the teachers looked at me differently.

  What hurt the most – which was Josslyn's intention – was that they looked at Chad differently, too. Some looked at him with pity, being tied to someone like me with a baby forever. Some looked at him with disgust for having ever been with me. Some looked at him like he was an idiot for still wanting to be with me after I'd apparently cheated on him repeatedly.

  It hurt when they gossiped about me, but I deserved it, not for their reasons, but for the truth that only the people it could hurt knew, but when they talked about him... He hadn't done anything wrong, he was so good that he was trying to do right by me when I didn't deserve it, and it backfired on him in every way I'd dreaded. Even the teachers looked at him differently.

  I was in the restroom one day, washing off the drink someone had accidently spilled on me in the hall when a group of girls walked in. Bernetta was one of them.

  "I can't believe this fat pig has a boyfriend and I don't." One of them stared me up and down, acting surprised to find me there as if they hadn't purposely followed me.

  "Oh, please, he's not her boyfriend, he's just trapped."

  "Don't you feel guilty about trapping him?"

  "He's so nice and he's always been your friend and good to you," Bernetta joined in, "why are you doing this to him?"

  "He's too good to leave you now, he'll be with you just because he has to when he'd really just rather be with any one of us instead."

  "I wish I'd thought about trapping him like that," one of them chuckled.

  "Couldn't you have just said it was one of the other guys' to spare him?"

  "Yeah, couldn't you have just said the truth?"

  I tried my hardest not to show them that I cared like Chad asked me to, I tried to remember his words that our relationship was stronger than anything they could say, I tried to be strong for him, but a sob suddenly shook me and I started crying in front of them, unable to hold anything back or even move away from them.

  They looked completely baffled by my reaction, as if they thought I'd lost the ability to feel with my reputation. They stared at me with utter surprise for a few seconds before ushering each other out of the restroom without another word.

  I tried my hardest to calm myself before meeting Chad, and I thought I'd done a good job at clearing my face and forcing a smile when he held my hand like he enjoyed doing in front of everyone, but one look at me and he quickly pulled me into his arms. I knew that everyone was staring at us even with my head buried in his chest, and the shame brought fresh tears that I couldn't hide from him.

  "What happened?"

  "It's not important; it'll all end in a week." I said more to myself than to him. Just one more week and the school would be over, and soon after that my pregnancy would be over. It was all going to end soon.

  "It can't end like this," he grabbed my hand and led me into the crowded cafeteria where I hadn't been since Josslyn backed up the worst rumor she could come up with.

  "What are you doing? I don-"

  He didn't stop until we were standing in front of Josslyn and Bernetta and some of their friends who I recognized from earlier in the restroom. I couldn't look at my sister or at any of them.

  He let go of my hand then and climbed up their table. He didn't have to call for anybody's attention. The cafeteria had been quieting down since we walked in hand in hand and everyone had already gone silent by then and was already looking at him, even a couple of teachers and the Lunch lady.

  "There's been a lot of rumors," he dropped a glare at Josslyn, "going around lately. And since you all seem to have an opinion about something that's none of your business, you might as well know the truth so you can actually have a real opinion." He paused and took a deep breath. I couldn't breathe. "Katie and I have been dating for almost a year now. We knew from the very beginning that it was my baby, but I didn't want anyone to know, so she kept it a secret to protect me. Does anybody have anything to say?"

  Just like that, he ended everything Kyle had started. He made it seem that we'd been dating all along and that he was the only possibility for a father and that we were a family. I couldn't breathe.

  The whole cafeteria remained silent, staring at him and trying to get a look at me.

  "For people who haven't shut up about us all week, you strangely have nothing to say to us." He gave them a few more seconds to say something, but no one said anything. I was there and no one was saying anything about me for the first time since they found out about my pregnancy. "Alright then, if you think of anything later that you'd like to say about my girlfriend or my baby, say it to me."

  Then, he hopped off the table and kissed me in front of everyone.

  Avalanche

  The school year ended, but things got so much worse for me.

  I didn't have an obligation to attend school anymore, so I didn't dare leave the house anywhere. Chelsea came to visit sometimes, but our conversations had been strained since the ordeal with Seth. She didn't want to talk about him, and I didn't want to talk about Chad with her in case it hurt her that I had someone after taking away hers before he was even hers, my dad always glared at her and made her feel uncomfortable, and I was too tired and grumpy to make up for it, so she didn't come often. I suspected that she only came when her
mother asked her to check on me. I hadn't been to see Patty since school ended. Chad used to take me after school, but my parents didn't offer and I was too scared to ask.

  I missed Chad more than I ever thought I could. Since school ended, he could no longer use projects or studying as an excuse to leave his house at strange hours and his parents were trying so hard to dissuade him from being with me that he couldn't sneak out often to come see me.

  My mom brought up the food to my room when she noticed how hard it had become for me to climb up and down the stairs, but she never stayed long enough for me to feel comfortable enough to tell her that some of the food had been making me sick or that I was becoming very nervous and anxious from staying in my room alone for so long. Dad went on ignoring me as if I'd never been born. Josslyn went on making sure I wasn't comfortable by inviting her friends over often or playing her music too loudly or sometimes just opening my door and slamming it loudly early in the morning.

  It got to the point where I didn't know if I was feeling so heavy from my pregnancy or all the things I was keeping in.

  I felt the loneliest at times when I got thirsty but felt too heavy to move and didn't dare call out to anyone passing by my door to get me a drink. At times like that, I wished I wasn't pregnant, or had gotten pregnant by my own boyfriend, someone who would've been lying there next to me and would want to get me the things that I couldn't for my sake and the sake of our accepted baby, but I was always alone.

  I was lying on my bed one evening – because there was nothing else for me to do - when I was overcome by a sudden thirst. I tried to ignore it as I watched a couple of videos because I knew that everyone was downstairs, but the longer I tried not to think about it, the more my throat hurt with dryness.

  I struggled to get out of bed and slowly made my way down the stairs, hoping that no one would notice me and deciding to take a whole bottle back up to my room as I'd gone out of breath from just a few declined steps. I made it to the bottom of the stairs just as Josslyn reached them to go up. She pretended not to see me and pushed me with her shoulder, making me stumble against the wall.