In my nervousness my hands started to shake and instead of pressing the button that I needed to press to answer the phone, I pressed the button to drop the call. I winced briefly at my own stupidity and hit myself in my forehead gently. Quickly I pressed the redial button on my phone and waited breathlessly for Jeff to pick up the other line.
"Hey," he said. "Thought that I lost you there for a minute. Everything all right?" I laughed. Was anything all right? I mean was it really?
"Yeah, I'm sorry," I started off. "I'm no good at phones. My mom used to say that I was technologically impaired. I can never figure any of this stuff out. I must have pressed the wrong button or something. Sorry, I'm rambling. Did you, um, you know. Did you get the chance to talk to your parents yet?"
"Yeah, of course," he told me. "That's why I'm calling you back! They said that they shouldn't rule it out, but they want to meet you. Don't be worried, though; they're super nice. I think that they want to meet you and make sure that you're a good kid and everything. But don't worry, you are. They just haven't met you yet. But don't be nervous for any of that, they said that even if we can't take you in then they would probably be able to find someone at our church, or at least through our church, that can help you. But about meeting you. My dad owns his own business so it's pretty easy for him to make his own hours. Would you like to meet him today? I mean, since you're staying home from school and everything. He could go over to Emily's house at some point and meet with you. What do you think?"
"What do I think?" I asked him. "I think that making friends with you back in kindergarten was probably the best decision that I've ever made in my life. I mean, if I could stay with you guys, or if your parents could find someone who would be willing to take me in for a while, at least until I could get back on my feet, I don't even know how to express my gratitude!"
I could hear him laugh into the phone. "We're just being good Christians," he told me. "We're doing what Jesus taught: love thy neighbor and all of that good stuff." He laughed some more at his summary of the Bible, and I'll admit that it made me chuckle a little bit to myself. Maybe I would have laughed more if more people viewed that as the Bible's most important message.
"No," I told him. "That's not being a good Christian. Or if it is, then most Christians have absolutely no idea what it means to be a good Christian. I've had so many people who have claimed to be good Christians telling me that being bisexual was wrong and against the Bible, and now I had my own parents kick me out because I'm pregnant. Your parents are so amazing. Please, let your dad know Emily's address and tell him that I'll be at home all day and that he should come by at any time. Oh my God, I don't even know how to thank you. You're literally saving my life. I can never repay you for this."
"It's not about that," he said. "It's not about keeping score and who owes whom what. It's not about religion, I think that this is being a parent, and doing whatever you can to parent any child. Anyways I'll let my dad know to stop by, and I'll text you an idea of what time he thinks he might be there. Listen, before I go, I wanted to say, for whatever it's worth, I think that what your parents did is terrible, and I hope that my dad can help you or at least find someone else who can. I'm gonna go now. Are you okay? Do you need anything else?"
"No," I told him. "You've already done so much. I know I keep saying this, but I'll never be able to repay you for this. Have a good day at school and tell your dad that I'm so excited to meet him."
"It's my pleasure," he said, and then he hung up his phone. I looked out the windows. The first lights of morning were starting to peek through the clouds. I was so excited that I went to see Emily's mom. I jumped up from the bed and ran down the hallway to tell her the good news. I knocked politely on her door and then I heard a faint "come in."
"Hey," I told her once I had entered the room. "Sorry, I don't mean to keep you any, but I wanted to let you know that I might have found a place to stay. I mean, it's still a maybe, but I think that it can work. I wanted to let you know."
"Oh," her mom said. "I mean, that's great. It's fast. Are you sure that you trust them? Who is it? I mean we don't mind having you here and you're welcome to stay here for as long as you need." I smiled a little.
"Thank you," I told her. "But it's okay. I know that it would put a huge financial burden on your family to stay here, I overheard you and Emily talking about that last night. But it's okay! One of my oldest friends, Jeff, he said that his parents would be willing to meet me and see if they can take me in for a while, at least until I can get back up on my feet. I'm going to meet them today so we can get a feel for each other. Is it ok if he comes here to do that? I don't have any way to get to his house."
She nodded. "Of course," she told me with a smile. Anything I can do to help you."
I smiled graciously. "I want to thank you so much for all your generosity in offering to let me stay with you," I continued after a moment. Your daughter means so much to me and knowing that you would help me like this really lets me know that you're in her corner. So, thank you."
"Oh sweetie," she said, pulling me into a big hug. "Of course! Of course. I'd be willing to do anything for you, you know that. When you and Emily were dating I really started to think of you as family. And yes, money is kind of tight right now and that would have made you staying with us very difficult, but I don't want you to think that you can't stay here because we don't want you and don't want the very best for you. We do, we both do. But I really am so happy that this is all going to work out. And in the future, don't hesitate to call me up and ask for advice, or to swing by every once in a while, to let us know how you're doing. We care, we really care."
"Thank you," I told her with her arms still wrapped around me in a big hug.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Emily
I tossed and turned all night, and I couldn't imagine that anyone else in the house was sleeping soundly either. I tried to find a comfortable position on the couch, but it simply didn't seem possible. It was hard to see Lexi have to go through all of this, and especially without the support of her family. All night I kept picturing her there as she was in the road: shaking, crying, lost, and alone. I wished that I could comfort her, but I knew that there was nothing that I could do for her now. Her life had been hard since she was a little girl; she didn't deserve to have to deal with this, too. It was too much for one person.
I was nervously awaiting the morning when I would have to let her know that she couldn't stay here. Although it was beyond our means to host her, it still felt like a betrayal. She had already been abandoned by her family, it seemed so cruel to not let her stay here with us.
These thoughts kept me up all night. I was worried about Lexi. Having a kid is hard enough as it is. But when the mom is a teenager, the father isn't involved, and the mom has no support from anyone, no money, and no job, well it didn't seem possible. That upset me most of all. I tried to figure out how she could keep her child, which she so desperately wanted to do. She had no money, and that was the bottom line. It had to be, even though it broke my heart.
I must have drifted off at some point because I woke up to hear my mom and Lexi talking. It was still dark, but the clock on my phone said that it was already five forty-five in the morning. My mom would soon be leaving for work, which meant that I would soon have to play bad cop with Lexi and tell her that she had to leave yet another home. It broke my heart to think about it. She had played an important part in my life for so long, I couldn't imagine breaking her down like I was about to.
Soon after, my mom descended the stairs and quickly checked on me before heading out the door on her way to work. I don't know why, but I instinctually pretended to be sleeping when my mom came by to check on me. I closed my eyes and tried hard to breath slowly. She rubbed my hair for a minute before kissing me softly on the top of my head and then leaving the house.
Then I sent a text to Lexi, who I could hear rustling about in the top level of the house. I asked, "Hey, you up?" As if I didn't alre
ady know. Soon came the reply. "No," she had written, making me laugh out loud. When she heard my laugh, she began to laugh herself and then came downstairs to see me.
"Well you're in a good mood today," I told her, honestly impressed with her ability to stay positive in light of all of her setbacks in life.
"Yeah," she told me as she swept in for a kiss on the cheek. I didn't know what to do. We had never discussed getting back together, but I wasn't opposed to the idea. After all, I still cared about her, and she really needed someone in her court. "I'm feeling pretty good," she said as she rustled my hair and walked past the couch I was still lounging on, unmotivated to get up.
I followed her movement across the room. I had expected her to be devastated after the events of last night, but she seemed to be back to her old self already. "Why so cheery?" I asked her. Something was up.
"Remember Jeff?" she asked me. Of course I remembered Jeff. He was one of her best friends, and the only one who she talked to about me when we had first started dating, back when she was still in the closet. He was a good kid. Funny, if I remembered correctly. I nodded, and so she continued. "Well, his sister had a baby when she was only a teenager, did you know that?" I nodded my head but I must have had a puzzled look on my face because she went on.
"Well, I told him what was going on," she said with a smile. "He told me that what my parents had done was awful, and then he offered to let me stay at his house!" She was so excited, but I was nervous for her. How did we know that this would actually work? Were his parents on board with this whole thing? And it wasn't just a place to stay that she needed. She needed food, maternity clothes, doctors, medicines... I didn't know exactly how much money all of that would cost, but it was going to be a lot. Like a lot a lot. The kind of money that we didn't have. The kind of money that no one would be willing to spend on someone who wasn't family. The kind of money that I wasn't about to expect Jeff's family to kick in for a stranger, even if said stranger was a friend of their son's.
"Excuse me?" I asked, hoping that I had somehow heard her wrong, that she wasn't going to try to move in with strangers.
"You heard me," she said, looking earnest. "I mean, it's not a sure thing. But Jeff talked to his dad. He's going to come by today and meet me, see if I'm trustworthy, and then he'll either let me stay with their family—they have had an extra room ever since Jeff's sister and her baby moved out—or they'll help me find some other family through their church who would be willing and able to take me in and help take care of me." She was such a head in the clouds kind of girl, it meant that she always had high hopes, only to have them dashed.
"That's so much money," I tried to explain to her. "I mean, it's not just the house, or the extra room. It's also money for all your new maternity clothes, money for all the extra food that you'll be eating, money for all the medical bills. I mean, pregnant women are in and out of the doctor's office practically every other day. And that's not to mention how much all medicine that you need is going to cost, plus all the money that you're going to need once the baby is born. A crib, food, clothes, diapers! I mean, they can't be willing to give you all that money. It's thousands of dollars. I don't think that they really understand what they're getting into."
"But they do!" she shouted, trying to assure me. "They really do. Their daughter went through all of this. They probably still have the crib, and all the baby clothes, and probably even maternity clothes for me. And the sister and the baby have already moved out, so they would have been spending all that money on food anyway. And for all my medical bills and things like that, Jeff said that I can probably work in his dad's store, so it's not like a handout or anything. They really do know what they're going through, and they care enough to do it all anyway. They care about me, and they care about my baby. I have never even met these people, and they already seem to care about me more than my parents do. They're willing to take me in and care for me and my baby."
"I don't want you to get your hopes up!" I shouted at her. I immediately regretted being so harsh with her, but at the same time she really needed to hear it. It was the truth, after all. "You always do this. You get your hopes up as something goes wrong and then it doesn't work out for whatever reason, and then you're left devastated and I'm left here to pick up the pieces. And it's going to happen again with this, I know it!
"Miracles don't exist," I told her. "And this seems like you're expecting a miracle, if you think Jeff and his family would actually be willing and be financially able to take you in and to care for you and for your baby. But it would be a certifiable miracle. Like call the Vatican to have them come and check this out sort of miracle. It won't happen. No one is that generous. There's no one who will do this for you and then expect nothing in return. No one is that nice."
She looked at me like she was going to cry. "Why can't you be happy for me?" she asked as her eyes started to well up with tears. I felt completely heartless for having made her cry. "You can never hope that something is going to work out right. You have this awful need for things to breakdown and that way when they do you won't be sad because you were right. But I'm not like that! Things work out! Miracles happen, miracles can happen every day, and this could be one! But it shouldn't have to be a miracle that someone is willing to take care of someone whose blood doesn't run through their own veins. People aren't bad, no matter what you think. People are good. Jeff's family is good. They're good Christians but more than that they're just plain good people. And they want to help me. There's nothing so miraculous about that. And you know what, maybe you would be a whole lot happier if you could open up your eyes and see that the world isn't the dark and scary place that you've made it out to be in your mind."
Although she was speaking at a normal level it felt as though she was shouting because of the force of what she was saying. Her words cut deep into me like a knife. Just moments ago, I had thought about getting back together with this girl, about letting her have my heart, but no. If she and I were such opposites, then I guess it wasn't meant to be after all.
"I'll be in my room," I said as I stormed up the stairs. I could hear her crying downstairs, which I couldn't bear, so I plugged in my headphones. I was only ever trying to help her; I didn't see why she wouldn't let me. Whatever, she had to make her own decisions.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lexi
I couldn't believe that Emily had said that. Then again, I could. I really could. She was always such a negative person and honestly, she always had been. It was one of those things that I had thought in the beginning that I would eventually be able to overlook if I only loved her enough, but I couldn't. Maybe it was because I didn't love her enough, or maybe it was because we weren't compatible. Whatever, it didn't matter now.
I focused myself instead on getting ready to meet Jeff's dad. What was I supposed to call him? Sir? Mr. Stanton? Whatever his first name was? I hoped that he would introduce himself when he first came in so that he could tell me himself what he wanted to be called. Then again, I could ask Jeff. I pulled out my phone and wrote out a message. "Hey, sorry to bother you," I typed. I waited for a moment for the response.
"Hey," he responded. "No bother at all. What's up?" I thought about what I should ask him and how I should word it. I didn't want it to come across like I needed hand holding or that I was so worried about the minutiae of it.
"What should I call your dad?" I asked him finally.
I sent the message and only a few seconds later I received a reply reading "daddy-o."
I laughed out loud but I sent back the emoticon >:( to voice my displeasure.
"It's okay," he wrote back after a few minutes of nothing. "He'll probably tell you that you should call him Chris, but if you want to you could call him Mr. Stanton when you first meet him. Just to be on the safe side. But really, don't be worried about this. He's a super nice guy and he honestly wants to help you out. So be yourself, he'll love you. Anyway, good luck today. My dad said that he would probably be by the house at a
round ten-thirty. I have to go to class right now (you know how Mrs. Waverly is about kids having their phones out during class) but I'll talk to you during lunch to see how it went."
He seemed fairly confident, but that did little to soothe my nerves. What if Emily was right? What if no one really would take me in? What ifs danced through my head in a horrific parade, one right after the other. I felt myself grow nauseous, although maybe that could be morning sickness, or it could be my anxiety acting up. It was a mixed bag with me.
I looked at my watch every few minutes to make sure that I would be ready when Mr. Stanton, Chris, whatever it was that he would end up having me call him, was going to arrive. Time seemed to be going very slowly, so I busied myself in the kitchen. I thought about what I should make for Jeff's dad to impress him, and then I decided on churros and chocolate, which I had made at Emily's house so many times before. It wasn't very healthy, but it was sure to swing his opinion positively in my favor. After all, who could resist mouthwatering pastries covered in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar and then smothered in a creamy chocolate sauce. My mouth watered thinking about it.
I started to gather the ingredients that I would need from the pantry and the fridge. I mixed the ingredients together expertly, first the dry ingredients and then the wet ones as my mom had taught me to when I was a little girl. It broke my heart to know that none of my siblings would be swarming around me this time trying to get first crack at licking the spoon or pinching little quantities of the sugar and cinnamon mixture. I had to stop mixing the batter for a moment as it made me so sad, but I forced myself to carry on. I was doing this so that Jeff's family would agree to take me in. I had to worry about myself first, and then I could let myself worry about the babies.
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