by Lane Hart
I text her back to tell her I randomly ate meat and then slept for hours yesterday and today. She calls instead of texting me back.
“Hey –,” I say when Gwen interrupts.
“You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“You did not just ask me that,” I scoff.
“I’m only asking a simple question that has a yes or no response. So, which is it? Is there a chance, no matter how small that you could be pregnant?”
“You know I haven’t slept with anyone in weeks! Not since Blake.”
“Are you late?” she asks.
Huh. Good question.
“Uh, I’m not sure. Has your period started yet?” I question her since our times of the month have synched up with the twenty other girls on our dorm’s hallway.
“Yeah, like a week ago, remember? We both ate a pint of chocolate fudge brownie. I thought you were PMSing then too.”
“Oh crap,” I mutter as I try to do the math in my head. I know I had a period before Halloween but not one since. And today is around the fourth Thursday in November if it’s Thanksgiving…
“Were you and Blake safe?” Gwen asks while I try to do what feels like a complex algebraic equation in my mind instead of simple addition and subtraction of dates.
Halloween night hasn’t been far from my mind since it happened, no matter how much I try to distract myself with studying. It doesn’t help that Blake keeps texting me every. Single. Day.
“Ah, yeah, I think we were pretty safe,” I tell Gwen.
“You think so?” she exclaims in my ear. “Caroline, did he wear a rubber or not?”
“Well, no, not exactly. But he pulled out, though, and, um, finished on me,” I explain.
“Not quick enough possibly…”
“Oh my god,” I gasp as that small possibility starts to become incredibly important. “What if…what if he didn’t? What am I going to do? Do I…should I get a test from the pharmacy?”
“No,” Gwen says. “Here’s what we’re going to do – tomorrow we’ll both go back to school.”
“Okay. And take a test there?”
“No, I’m going to take you to the campus clinic. They’ll do a blood test, and then we can be sure.”
“Yeah?” I ask through the sniffles as tears fill up and overflow from my eyes.
“I went through something like this last year when I was late,” Gwen tells me. “The doctor’s office did a blood test that was painless, and then I knew I had been worried for nothing.”
“You weren’t pregnant?”
“Nope. It was a false alarm. Hopefully this one is too.”
“Yeah, hopefully.”
“Either way, we’ll get you through this,” Gwen promises.
That test cannot be positive. If it is…I don’t know what the hell I’ll do.
Chapter 14
Caroline
“Oh god, I’m so nervous,” I tell Gwen as I sit on one of the exam tables in the student health office Friday afternoon, waiting for my pregnancy test results. I’m also hungry and can’t stop craving ham, which is insane. I chew on my thumbnail to try and wish away my longing for meat, praying it’s not a strange symptom because I’m knocked up.
“Only about ten more minutes,” Gwen says with a glance at her phone as she paces around the small room, unable to sit still.
The nurse who drew my blood told us it usually takes about fifteen or twenty minutes to complete the test and that if it was positive, a doctor would come in to see me. If not, just a nurse.
I really hope the nurse walks through that door soon.
A woman hurries in a minute later, making me sit straight up as I take in her white lab coat. Nurses can wear those too, right?
“Miss Prince?” she asks while placing the laptop in her hands on the nearby counter.
“Yes?” I answer with my teeth chattering from how badly I’m shaking.
“Here we go,” Gwen says when she comes over and holds my hand.
When the woman looks up at me, I can see the pity on her middle-aged face and know what she’s about to say. “Your test was positive. You’re pregnant.”
“Oh crap,” Gwen says while I remain paralyzed, unable to move a muscle or make a single sound. I’m really pregnant? This nightmare is seriously happening?
“Are you absolutely sure?” Gwen asks for me.
“I’m sure,” the woman, who is obviously a doctor and not a nurse, responds.
“Oh god,” I finally whisper when I let go of Gwen’s hand to bury my face in my palms, too shocked to even cry. All I can do is keep repeating “Ohgodohgodohgod” over and over again. Ironically enough, those are the same two words I remember crying out in ecstasy when I got myself into this mess!
“There are options,” the doctor says, but I’m already shaking my head no.
“I’m not getting an abortion,” I lift my face to tell her. I may not have a fucking clue about what I’m going to do, but I know it’s not that. I stopped eating meat because I don’t like the unnecessary killing of animals, so I could never do anything to hurt this…baby.
I’m having a baby.
Blake’s baby.
“There are other options,” the doctor says. “Have you considered adoption?”
I shake my head no again.
“Would you like me to give you some information about it?”
“Yes,” I agree.
“Okay, I’ll be right back,” she says when she lifts the laptop and starts to the door. “Until you make a decision, you’ll need to take prenatal vitamins. I can bring you some samples to get you started.”
“She’s eating meat,” Gwen blurts out. “Is that okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” the doctor asks with a furrowed brow.
“I’m a vegetarian. Or at least I was for ten years…”
“If you’re having cravings for something you don’t normally eat, that could be your body’s way of telling you that you’re not currently getting all the nutrients the baby needs.” There’s that word again – baby. “It’s okay to give in to those cravings as long as the items are actual food.”
“What do you mean?” Gwen asks for me.
“Some women experience pica, a craving for substances with no nutritional value,” she answers before she slips out of the room.
When she’s gone, Gwen tries to give me a supportive smile. “It’s going to be okay, Caroline. You don’t have to keep it…”
Imagining giving up the baby growing inside of me finally activates the waterworks. I know it wouldn’t be easy to do, but neither is raising a human being who was conceived from revenge.
Blake
I sent my normal apology text this morning like usual, and at lunch I still haven’t received a response from Caroline. I haven’t heard an insult from her since before Thanksgiving and was starting to think that she wasn’t going to ever respond again. But then I see the three dots appear and disappear in messenger on Friday afternoon, Black Friday actually, not that I’m doing any shopping. The dots keep popping up like Caroline is typing and deleting her texts before she finally sends me one.
I hate you.
I frown down at the screen because that’s the worst thing she’s ever said to me, and I know she really means it. She hates me, and she’s never going to forgive me.
Fuck, I would have rather she said anything else other than those three words.
“What are you looking at?” Royal asks from the other side of the sofa where we’ve been bingeing Shameless.
“What do you think this means?” I ask him when I show him my phone. “Caroline was writing shit and deleting it for like thirty minutes and now this?”
He stands up comes over, taking my phone to read it. “Ah, I think that means that you need to lay off of her. It’s been weeks, man, and she’s still pissed. Maybe it’s time to give up and face the fact that you fucked up and there’s no fixing it.”
“You really think so?” I reply as he goes and sits down with the remo
te, pausing the show. “So, I should stop apologizing?”
“It’s for the best. If Aric finds out you’re still talking to her, he’ll lose his shit,” Royal points out. “Besides, you could apologize a million times, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to get the fuck over it,” he says with a grimace, and I don’t have to be psychic to know he’s probably thinking about Hannah. Maybe Caroline can hold grudges like Royal. He’s held one against Hannah for months now with no signs of letting up other than when he fucked her at the homecoming party. I guess you can fuck someone and still hate them, because it didn’t bridge any hard feelings between those two.
My dad doesn’t seem likely to ever forgive my mom either. She’s stopped calling me, and he’s stopped coming home. I’ve seen him once in the past week, which was Saturday morning when he came in reeking of alcohol before passing out on the sofa until Sunday.
I’ve never seen him like this. I thought that he would stop drinking after he got some of his anger or whatever out of his system, and yet it seems to be getting worse.
Still, despite Royal’s advice to leave Caroline alone to avoid pissing off Aric, I’m not ready to give up on her accepting my apology just yet. In fact, I think I need to work even harder to earn her forgiveness if she fucking hates me.
Chapter 15
Caroline
December
“You should be cramming,” Gwen says when she comes back to our dorm room after a study session and finds me laying in a prone position on my bed, staring at the ceiling, the same position I was in when she left hours ago.
“I can’t,” I tell her as my palm rubs over the small speed bump that now protrudes from my lower abdomen. “It’s impossible to concentrate no matter how hard I try. My mind just keeps reminding me that there’s a tiny human growing inside of me.”
“Have you thought about what you’re gonna do?” she asks when she comes and sits on the foot of my twin bed.
“That’s all I think about. I have no fucking clue what I’m going to do.”
“Well, then let’s try and figure it out. Maybe once you make a decision, you’ll be able to study.”
“I don’t think it’s that easy,” I mutter.
“Sure it is,” she says optimistically. “How many choices are there?”
“Two,” I reply.
“And what are they?”
“You already know this,” I remind her.
“We’re thinking aloud! Tell me again, Caroline,” she demands.
“Fine, I can either have the baby and raise it, or have the baby and…put it up for adoption.”
“Okay, so there are just two choices,” Gwen remarks. “Now, we need to weigh the pros and cons of each. Start with pros.”
“Pros? If I keep it, I won’t feel guilty about giving away my baby…”
“What are the other pros for keeping it?”
“Honestly, I think that’s it. I’ll be a shitty mother,” I tell her. “I would have to drop out of school and live with my parents for the rest of my life, because there’s no way I could afford a baby on my own with some entry-level job.”
“What about Blake?”
“What about him?” I ask. “He’s still in high school, getting ready to go off to college and start his life. Even if he decided he wants to be in the baby’s life, then I guess he would have custody whenever he came home from school on weekends.”
“He could also help support the baby financially so you wouldn’t have to live with your parents,” Gwen points out.
“I don’t want to have to depend on my parents or him financially.”
“Okay, any other pros or cons for keeping the baby?” she asks.
Biting my lip, I admit to her, “If I keep it, I may always resent it, you know? For upending my life unexpectedly and forever. That’s not fair to him or her! It wasn’t their fault I got high, screwed around with someone I shouldn’t have, and didn’t make Blake use a condom.”
“Right, but even if it’s not the baby’s fault for existing, you may not be able to help those feelings.”
“I just don’t feel like a mother!” I tell Gwen. “I don’t know anything about babies. I was still in diapers when my brother was born.”
“So you don’t have an emotional attachment to the tiny human you’re growing?” she asks.
“No. I’m just an oven or an incubator for it.”
“Okay, so now let’s talk about the pros and cons of adoption,” Gwen suggests.
“Pros?” I start. “There are a ton of couples who want children, who would give anything to be a mother or father but physically can’t. They would love this baby so much and never regret adopting it.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Gwen agrees with a sad smile.
“I know it wouldn’t be easy to carry the baby for nine months and then give it away. It would probably be the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do. But I think it would be easier than spending the rest of my life pretending that I’m something that I’m not.”
“That’s…understandable,” she replies. “Now one last question.”
“Okay?” I ask while blinking away tears.
“What if Blake wasn’t just a one-night stand you regret?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“What if you two were together and loved each other? Would that change your mind about keeping the baby?”
“Yes, probably,” I tell her. “If we were really together, then I wouldn’t have to do this alone. But we’re not, and we never will be.”
“So it sounds like you’ve made up your mind,” Gwen responds.
“It does?”
“If today was your due date and the baby was coming into the world any minute so you had to make a decision right this second, what would it be?” she asks. “Just say it, Caroline.”
“I would…I would give it to the man and woman who want to raise it more than I do,” I confess.
“You don’t think you’ll change your mind when you see it?” she asks.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod and then lean over to pull the photo I’ve been using as a bookmark out of my chemistry book to show Gwen. “I had an ultrasound this morning.”
“Wow! So this little bean is it, huh?” she asks as she grins down at the black and white image.
“Yep.”
“It’s so tiny for you to already have a bump.”
“No shit,” I mutter. “I also heard the heartbeat, which was pretty amazing. Like it was proof that it’s really a person, you know? But it just doesn’t feel like my person.”
“To you this baby is an unplanned, unwanted accident. There’s no shame in admitting that, Caroline,” she says.
“Of course there is! I’m a horrible person!”
“No, you’re not! You’re a nineteen-year-old girl who is trying to go to college and begin your life. And that’s okay, because there are a lot of people out there who do want this baby right now, two people who love each other unconditionally and are married, a woman who dreams of decorating a nursery and a man who can’t wait to teach him or her how to walk and talk.”
“I feel so…selfish,” I admit to her.
“It would also be selfish to keep this baby instead of giving it to someone who already loves it.”
“So, I’m going to put it up for adoption?” I ask.
“Don’t ask me! This is your decision and yours alone. Well, sort of Blake’s too I guess,” she adds. “Do you think he would want to raise it on his own?”
“No,” I say without having to even consider that question.
“Then it’s your decision, and the only wrong choice is not doing what’s best for yourself and the baby.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I agree with a nod and a deep, calming breath. “I’m going to carry the baby for the next few months, and then I’ll find the family that it deserves since I can’t give him or her one on my own.”
Chapter 16
Caro
line
By the time I come home for Christmas break, I’m only ten weeks along in the pregnancy; but since I was so thin before, I already have a rather noticeable bump if I wear a slim fitting shirt. That’s why I’ve been wearing oversized Hawthorne University tees and leggings or sweatpants on campus.
And now that the semester is over, all of my grades are in. Despite being completely lost most of the semester and dealing with a surprise pregnancy, I finished up with a B, two Cs, a D and an F. I haven’t enrolled in any courses for the spring semester because I know that it’s time to finally tell my parents I’m failing and that I’m pregnant. I can’t keep using Hawthorne as a place to hide and bury my head in the sand.
I was planning to break the news the entire week before Christmas that I was moping around the house, but I kept chickening out. My dad was usually working, and my mom was shopping for last-minute presents. Maddie and her siblings were home all day every day, so I just holed up in my room, dreading what was to come.
It was easier to sleep than try and talk to anyone, even though my dreams day and night all seemed to have taken on rather erotic elements. I’d be dreaming of shopping in the mall, and then I would end up having sex with the security guard who busted into my dressing room. Or I would be in a swimming pool dream with the US men’s Olympic team, and, well, you can guess what would happen next. Occasionally, I even wake up in the middle of a dream about the night with Blake, the last night I was with a man and probably the last time I’ll have sex for a very, very long time. No matter how my dreams begin, they all end the same exact way — with me waking up horny and needing to spend a few necessary minutes with my vibrator. After which, of course, I would be so ashamed it’s even more reason why I hide out in my room.
Since it’s Christmas, the season of giving and hopefully forgiving, I decide to finally break the silence when we all sit down at the table for Christmas dinner. Also, I really, really want to eat some of the ham and turkey my mom made, but my stomach is in so many knots I know I won’t be able to eat until I confess. That’s why I take my time slowly eating a roll until Matt and Mandy run off to the living room to play with their new toys that “Santa” brought. It’s high time that I go ahead and spill the beans.
