Giftchild

by Janci Patterson

  "Carrows," I said. Rodney and I used to go there after shooting all the time, to compare spoils. "I want cheese sticks."

  "Done," Athena said. And she drove out of the parking lot, water spraying behind the car. I was glad she didn't ask why. Taking Athena to do things that Rodney and I used to do together made me officially pathetic. But it was a rainy, lonely kind of day. When the sun came out, I'd try to do better.

  Athena parked in the back parking lot, and we walked along the row of windows that faced into the seating area. As I turned to look in, I caught sight of Rodney, sitting at a table across the restaurant.

  I froze, staring at the sleek brown hair of the girl sitting across the table from him.

  Kara.

  I couldn't breathe. As I watched, Rodney waved his arms in the air, in the way that he always did when he was venting about something.

  To me. He vented his problems to me. I grabbed Athena's arm and pulled her to a stop.

  Kara nodded and took a sip of her drink. She put her hand on the table as she spoke. But she didn't touch him. She just rested her hand near his as he rolled his head onto the back of the booth seat, and stared at the ceiling.

  "What?" Athena said, following my gaze. "Wait, is that . . . ?"

  "Rodney," I said. My chest ached. Rodney and Kara weren't going out, were they? No. Kara kept trying to get me to hook back up with him. She wouldn't do that if she wanted him herself. Besides, she had Ryan. Maybe.

  Rodney rubbed his temples, stretching his eyes wide like he was trying to figure out an unsolvable problem.

  Oh, no.

  He was talking to her about me.

  I came to my senses. Rodney could look up at any time and see me spying on him. I squeaked as I ducked down below the glass and rushed to the end of the row of windows, dragging Athena with me by the arm. I stood again, leaning against the building. Athena stumbled next to me, standing under the eaves of the building. Drops of water smacked the sidewalk in front of us.

  I breathed.

  Athena looked over at me like she wasn't sure what to say. "Do you want to go somewhere else?"

  "Um," I said. We'd have to walk back by the windows, and if Rodney saw me, he'd know I was here, and that I ran away from him. I was getting more pathetic by the second.

  I sank onto my butt on the strip of dry concrete beneath the eaves. My jeans were still wet from the swing, and they clung to my thighs. My vision went bleary.

  I squeezed my eyes closed. I was not going to pass out here. There was no way I would come even close to letting Rodney save me from that again.

  Athena sat down next to me, tucking her feet under her so the rain wouldn't drip on her shoes. "So, are they . . ."

  "No," I said. They were just friends. They had to be, right? I mean, Kara was still all googly over Ryan, and she'd been trying to convince me to get back together with Rodney.

  But that was last month. How much time had they been spending together? Had Rodney been taking her shooting?

  My stomach turned. Even if they weren't together, Rodney wouldn't talk to me, but he was apparently just fine talking to Kara. He was cheating on me as his friend. Friend cheating. It was totally a thing.

  I clenched my jaw. "Go ahead," I said. "Say it."

  Athena squeezed my hand. "Say what?"

  I sighed. "You told me sex would change everything. You warned me."

  Athena's arm wrapped around my shoulders, and I leaned into her, the dampness of my jacket soaking into her fleece. I looked at the car. We were going to have to crawl past the windows on our knees if we didn't want Rodney to see us. I didn't even have to ask. I already knew that Athena would do it for me.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  I looked up at her. "For warning me?"

  She shook her head, sadly. "I'm sorry that you can't go back to being just friends."

  I lowered my head onto her shoulder. "Yeah, well," I said. "I'm ninety-nine percent sure we never were."

  For the next three weeks, I stalked the hallways and the quad, watching for Rodney and Kara. I saw Kara in class, of course, but she'd stopped talking about Rodney and Ryan, which was exactly what she would do if she didn't want to tell me she was dating my ex-boyfriend. I saw her with Rodney in the halls a couple times a week, always with their hands hanging at their sides, or shoved into their pockets. Not touching. Not yet. But how long had Rodney been interested in me, without holding my hand at school?

  Years. That's how long.

  Whenever he saw me watching them, Rodney gave me a nod, and I searched his face for traces of guilt, for some sign that he was totally over me. But his nods didn't seem to change, for the better or the worse.

  If there was something going on, he wasn't going to give it up that easily.

  I managed not to outright stalk them until the end of the third week, when I not-so-casually walked by the chess room at lunch, just to see if they were there.

  They were. In the quick glance I got as I walked past, I saw Rodney and Ryan sitting across a chess board from each other, Kara perched cross-legged on the desk behind them.

  Was she there for Rodney, or for Ryan? I shook my head. It shouldn't matter. Rodney was free to do whatever he wanted. I should be hoping that Kara would treat him better than I had. If I really cared about Rodney, I should be wishing him the best.

  That day after school, I was pulling some books out of my locker when Rodney slapped a piece of paper against the metal door of the locker next to mine.

  "Behold," he said.

  I stared at the paper. I'm not sure if I was more surprised that he was talking to me, or by the big seventy-five written at the top. "You got a C?"

  Rodney nodded calmly. I didn't know how he could do that—just stand there like talking to me was the most natural thing in the world. My heart pounded just thinking about all the ways I might screw this conversation up.

  Chief among them was demanding to know if he was dating somebody else.

  I stayed focused on the test. "I got an eighty one," I said. "I thought that was bad."

  Rodney raised one eyebrow. "See? You finally beat me."

  "I guess," I said. That had always been the goal—a friendly competition that he always won. If I'd scored higher than him before, I would have rubbed it in for hours. Days. Weeks even.

  But now?

  It didn't seem right to be happy.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  He rolled his eyes. "I guess all that studying you made me do had an effect after all."

  I smiled. "You didn't really study with me. You mostly played video games."

  Rodney crushed the test in his fist. "Yeah, well. Auditory learning for the win."

  I swung my locker closed. It had never occurred to me that I might have been helping Rodney just by announcing stuff at him while he played. I always thought he picked up all the information in class. He never seemed to pay much attention to the material when we studied together.

  "Thanks for telling me," I said. "I know you didn't have to."

  Rodney shrugged. "Thought you should know."

  I held my breath. If he and Kara were together, would he think that was something I should know? I busied myself with my backpack, shoving some papers in it at random. I expected Rodney to walk away, then, but he kept standing there, looking down at his wadded paper, like there was something else he wanted to say.

  My heart skipped faster. I zipped up my backpack, stalling, giving him time. I wanted to know. Didn't I?

  Finally, Rodney looked at me, staring straight into my eyes. "So this thing where we're not talking? I hate it."

  My chest fluttered. He hated it? "That makes two of us."

  Rodney looked down at my backpack. His voice was almost reluctant. "I miss you."

  The world fell silent, as if nothing existed in it but him and me. I held perfectly still, when what I truly wanted to do was tackle him in a giant hug and make him promise never to avoid me again.

  I held my breath. If I spoke, I'd
say the wrong thing. This moment would devolve into a fight, which was the last thing I wanted. I could tell from the wary look he gave me that this thought, too, was mutual.

  Rodney gripped his backpack strap. "So, what are you doing now?" he asked. "I mean, for the next couple of hours?"

  Anything you want, I thought. But I bit my tongue. Just because I was desperate didn't mean I had to announce it to him. I shrugged. "Going home, I guess. What about you?"

  Rodney shuffled his feet. "I was thinking of studying in the quad. Want to join me?"

  He didn't have to make it sound painful. But I guess it was painful to be around me, after what I did to him. If he was willing to try, even after everything, I couldn't blame him if it still hurt.

  I kept my voice even. The last thing I wanted to do was scare him off. "Yeah," I said. "Sure. Of course." I pulled out my phone. "Let me text my mom, so she doesn't wait for me."

  Rodney stiffened. "Is she going to be mad?"

  I cradled my phone. This felt like a trick question, and I wanted to answer it perfectly. "I'll tell her I'm studying," I said. "We're allowed to run into each other at school. And we're still at school, right?"

  Rodney sighed. "Sure."

  That didn't seem like it had been the right answer, but it hadn't sent him running, either. I sent the text as quickly as I could. I didn't love lying to my mother, but this tender truce with Rodney was as delicate as a bubble. If I breathed too hard, it would pop.

  We walked to the quad in silence, and not the comfortable kind. And I thought for a terrible moment that this was how things might be with Rodney from now on. Awkward. Uncomfortable. Like strangers—no, worse. Like people who used to be friends.

  But Rodney just sat down at one of the lunch tables and pulled out his physiology book.

  "Here," he said, flipping his book over. "Why don't you quiz me?"

  I couldn't tell if that was a gesture to help me feel better, or a brush off. I turned my book to the nearest practice chart in the exercise section at the back of the chapter. The side-view of the penis stared up at me.

  New unit. Reproductive anatomy.

  Fabulous timing.

  "Maybe we should just study on our own," I said.

  Rodney glanced down at the chapter and his face went pale. He nodded quickly, and pulled his book back in front of him.

  I tried to imagine how this study session would have gone before. Could we have labeled the foreskin without feeling awkward? Would we have laughed our way through? I wasn't sure, now. That old relationship felt fuzzy—like a thing I might have dreamed. Especially since I was sure now we'd never really been just friends.

  "Okay," Rodney said. He pulled some papers out of the back of the book—blank copies of the exercise charts. "Let's each fill these out from memory, and we'll see how much we already know."

  I pulled out my own book. Truthfully, I hadn't even looked at this unit yet. Mr. Moore wouldn't start going over it in class until the end of the week. So I opened my book and glanced at the chart, trying to learn the names.

  I squirmed on the hard bench. Rodney had taken a risk asking to study with me. It was my turn to take a risk back, to open communication with him again. I thought about asking him what he thought of my pictures, but I bit my tongue. If I brought that up, and things went wrong, he might stop posting them. I didn't want to talk about the baby, because that was too close to the heart of things, too tender and uncertain. I needed something around the edges of the problem. Something like letting him know I knew he was hanging out with Kara.

  "I saw you at Carrows," I said. "A couple weeks ago."

  Rodney looked up, his face entirely blank, like he was waiting for the rest of my statement.

  "What?" I said. "I was with Athena."

  Rodney nodded slowly. "You didn't say hi."

  "Um," I said. "Right. We weren't talking."

  He smiled sadly. "Touché."

  My pen hovered over my notebook paper. I looked sideways at Rodney, but he squinted at his book. I'd tried to open the conversation up, so that him hanging out with Kara wouldn't be a secret. But if he didn't talk about it, that was even more uncomfortable than if I hadn't mentioned it at all.

  Finally, Rodney sighed. "I didn't tell Kara," he said, "if that's what you're worried about."

  I sat up straighter. That wasn't what I was worried about, but maybe it should have been. "She knows I'm pregnant."

  "Yeah." He spoke sharply. "And she knows that your parents are adopting the baby. So I left it at that."

  I'd seen the frustrated look on his face as he waved his hands across the table at her. He'd told her something else. I put my pencil down. Or maybe not. Maybe those two facts were enough to justify that reaction. The only difference was, he told her how he felt about it. "I get it," I said. "You need someone to talk to." Someone not me, apparently.

  Then Athena's voice came back to me, loud and clear. I'm sorry that you can't go back to being just friends. I might never be the one he talked to again.

  I wiped my palms on my jeans. "So," I said. "Are you and Kara . . ."

  Rodney turned fully toward me, his eyes widening. "No!" he said, with so much force that I knew he meant it. He rubbed his forehead. "Jeez, Penny."

  "What?" I asked. "It was a legitimate question."

  He cupped his hand, and looked at it as if he expected to find in it the answers that he needed. "It's not really on my mind," he said. "I'm not going to go after someone else while my girlfriend is pregnant, you know?"

  My heart did a cartwheel, and I stiffened, trying not to outwardly react. His girlfriend? Still?

  Really?

  Rodney squeezed his eyes shut, like he'd said something he wished he could take back. I picked up my pencil, breathing carefully, evenly.

  I waited one breath. Two. Three. Four.

  He didn't open his mouth. He didn't take it back.

  He still thought of me as his girlfriend. I let myself smile. This didn't have to be awkward. I reached over and took his physiology book. "Here," I said. "Let me quiz you."

  Rodney gave me a half-smile, looking down at the book. "I may have forgotten what unit was next," he said. "I guess I should have asked you to study last week, when we were still in the lungs."

  I forced myself to laugh. "Yeah, well. Time to grow up, I guess."

  Rodney's face grew serious. He looked at me, his chin tucked close to his shoulder. I turned toward him, our noses inches apart. His eyes met mine; I wasn't ready for what I saw in them: the pain, or the longing.

  Rodney still loved me.

  He held my gaze for a long moment, neither of us breathing. And I tried to answer back with my eyes what I saw in his—I still wanted him, too. He had to know that. He had to.

  But that's the thing about looks—you never can tell if your message is being received the way you mean it to be. So instead I tilted my chin to the side, leaning closer.

  Rodney looked down at my mouth, his teeth barely grazing his bottom lip. Our shoulders bumped together, and I closed my eyes.

  A cold rush of air breezed between us, and I opened them again to see that Rodney had turned away, staring at his hands in front of him on the table. His shoulders were angled away from me, and that message I did get, loud and clear.

  No.

  I clamped my teeth down on the inside of my cheek.

  So much for things not having to be awkward.

  Rodney ran his fingernail over a groove in the table. "I'm sorry," he said.

  "No," I said. "No, you have nothing to apologize for. It's me. I'm the one who sucks at this."

  He didn't deny it.

  I sighed. "It would help, though," I said, "if you could tell me how to make it better. It's hard, not knowing what you want."

  Rodney sucked his lips in, and I kicked myself. There I went again, picking at the wound, when it had only barely begun to heal.

  Rodney sighed. He looked up at the sky, and down at the ground, and then finally, finally at me.

&n
bsp; He cleared his throat before he spoke. "I think it's probably best," he said, slowly, "if we go back to being just friends."

  I gripped the edge of the bench. I wanted to point out that we kissed all the time when we were "friends." But that wasn't what he meant, obviously.

  What if Athena was right? If there was no going back, and he couldn't bring himself to be with me again, what would that make us?

  Nothing.

  I tried not to let that eviscerate me. I should count myself lucky that he still believed we could give friendship a chance. "Are you sure that's what you want?"

  He took a deep breath, his back straight. "Yeah. I am."

  I felt a stabbing sensation, starting in my heart, and angling down through my chest. Maybe I was having a heart attack; maybe I could just die right here, and have it over with.

  Shut up, I thought. Pull it together.

  The groove in the table was growing deeper. It was a wonder he wasn't wearing a hole in his finger, as well.

  I got it. He still loved me, but he didn't trust me. We were too much of a mess; regardless of how he felt, he didn't want me back.

  I could walk away from him now. But Rodney's friendship was worth something, even if he couldn't bring himself to be with me. Whatever we felt for each other, I was still going to have this baby, and I was still going to give it to my mother. Much as I hated it, Mom was right; Rodney couldn't afford to get attached. Besides which, he'd promised my parents he'd stay away. Under the circumstances, I was spectacularly lucky he was offering me friendship at all.

  And though I couldn't see it now, I had to believe that there was some way for the two of us to survive this—to work out our relationship, even if it had to be after the baby was born.

  "I can respect that," I said. "Just don't stop talking to me again."

  Rodney nodded, and pointed toward the physiology book. "So, quiz me?" he asked.

  I handed him a practice sheet and pulled the book between us.

  I'd quiz him all day. Tomorrow. The next day. Whenever. Forever. And somewhere along the line, I'd learn to stop feeling like dying, because we used to be so much more than friends. Somehow, I'd learn to be grateful that I still got to have him in my life at all.