Wicked Chemistry

by R. L. Kenderson

  “What?”

  “The morning I was hungover. I took my pill, but then I threw up.” I felt like I was going to cry. “Just my luck. Throwing up is the cause of my … throwing up.”

  “When was your last period?”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. “February.” It was now the beginning of April. I hadn’t had a period for all of March.

  She took my hand and squeezed. “Look, we don’t know anything yet. Don’t worry about it until you know. I’ll buy a pregnancy test after work and bring it over to you.”

  “You’re going to help me?”

  “Eden, of course. I told you that I would be here for you. I might not approve of your actions, but you are still my friend. I still love you.”

  I sniffled. “Thank you.”

  She looked at her watch. “We’d better get back, so we can clean up our food.”

  “What are we going to tell Connor?”

  “That it’s none of his business. It’s a lady issue.”

  I laughed because it was better than crying. “That always works.”

  About twenty minutes after school got out, Becca walked into my room with a pregnancy test.

  “That was fast.”

  “I just went down the street to the corner drugstore. For some reason, it’s easier to buy one of these when it’s not for you.”

  “I bet.”

  “You ready?” she asked me. “Let’s go do it now.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Eden, I know you don’t, but not knowing isn’t going to change anything.”

  “I know.”

  She waved me toward the door. “Come on. We’ll go use the small restroom that doesn’t get as much traffic.”

  I reluctantly got out of my seat. I took the test and hid it under my cardigan. Once in the restroom, Becca leaned against the door, so no one else could come in, and I unwrapped the packaging.

  Or I tried to. My hands were shaking.

  After reading the directions, I held the stick up. “Okay, here I go.”

  “Good luck.”

  Peeing on the stick was easy, and as I put the cap on, I watched the white strip slowly get wet from one end to the next. The pink line telling me the test was working lit up right away, and then another line also showed up.

  “What the fuck?”

  “What? What’s wrong?” Becca asked. “Did you mess up?”

  “No. It’s already showing a pink line.”

  “Isn’t it supposed to?”

  “Yes, but it’s already showing a second one.”

  “Oh shit. It hasn’t even been a minute, much less three.”

  I cleaned up and walked out of the stall with my positive pregnancy test to show it to Becca.

  “You really are pregnant.”

  “Oh my God, Becca, what am I going to do?” I threw the test in the trash and washed my hands.

  “You could always get rid of it.”

  Instinctively, I put my hand on my pelvis. “No way.”

  Becca smiled sympathetically. “Well, now, you know that you want to keep it.”

  While that was true, I had no idea what I was going to do about Mace.

  “What do you mean, you’re not going to prom?” I asked Mace.

  “I mean, I’m not going to prom.”

  “Mace, it’s your senior year.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, so?”

  I sat down at the kitchen table and rubbed my temples. I was already stressed out about my pregnancy news. I didn’t need this, too. “It’s your senior prom. You only get one of those in a lifetime. All your friends are going.”

  He laughed. “It’s just a dance. Besides, I can’t take the person I want, so why go?” He came and sat beside me. “Are you okay? I feel like you’ve been off the last few weeks. Is something going on that I don’t know about?”

  Just that I’m pregnant with your child. You’re only eighteen, and I could ruin your life with two little words.

  “I don’t want you to give up things for me or because of me. First, spring break; now, prom. What’s next?” And this was why I hadn’t told him yet. I feared that he might give up college, and no way was I ever going to let that happen.

  Mace smiled. “Nothing’s next.”

  I cupped his face and stroked his cheek. “Promise me you’re still going to go to college.”

  He laughed. “Of course I am.”

  “Then, we’ll put this conversation on hold. I need to get to work. And you need to go to school.”

  At noon the following day, I made my usual trip to the restroom. Sometimes, I threw up, and sometimes, I didn’t. Today might be one of the lucky days where I didn’t, but I was queasy, so I was being cautious.

  When I went into the restroom, I noticed Amy Kendrick in the corner. She was facing away from me, but her shoulders shook like she was crying.

  I had noted this morning that she looked unhappy, and I had tried to offer her something to eat, but she’d refused.

  “Amy?” I cautiously approached her.

  She jumped and looked over her shoulder. “Oh, hi, Ms. F.”

  “Sweetie, are you crying?”

  She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “Yes.”

  “Are you okay? Did someone hurt you? Are you sick?”

  “Just my feelings.”

  “I’m sorry; you lost me.”

  “Just my feelings are hurt.” She smiled and turned around. “Nothing else.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She shook her head but then proceeded to open up about what was bothering her. “Everyone is talking about prom. And I don’t have a date. And the person I really want to ask me never will.”

  “Who’s that?”

  She blushed.

  Oh God, please don’t say Mace.

  “Logan.”

  Inside, I sighed with relief. Then, I felt bad for her. “I heard he’s going with Cindy.”

  “Yeah. Cindy with the long blonde hair and the big boobs.” She blushed again. “Sorry, Ms. F. About the boob comment.”

  I hid my smile. “It’s okay. You’re not wrong. She has something many girls are jealous of.”

  “At least you have a butt. I look like a twelve-year-old boy. It’s no wonder that no one has asked me.”

  My heart went out to Amy. It had never really occurred to me that someone super thin would be insecure about their body. It was something I had wanted my whole life. Something that my warped senses had made me believe was what every girl wanted. I scolded myself for my ignorance.

  “I had the opposite problem as you in high school. I was on the other end. I was heavy, and no one asked me to prom either.”

  She looked at me with hope in her eyes. “So, what happened?”

  “I hate to tell you, but I went with friends. There wasn’t a boy who secretly crushed on me and asked me out at the last minute or anything.”

  She looked defeated.

  “But I did have fun. Even though it was just my friends and me, we danced and didn’t let our dateless selves suffer.”

  She smiled.

  “Do you have some friends you could go with?” Please say yes.

  She nodded. “I think so.”

  “High school is rough, but it does get easier. I promise.”

  Until you get pregnant with your student’s baby, that is. I cringed. That sounded horrible in my head.

  “Are you going to be there?”

  I smiled. Not on your life. “No, I was at the homecoming dance.”

  “Darn. That would have made it better.”

  I felt special, knowing that a student liked me enough to want me to chaperone the dance.

  As we said good-bye to each other, a plan began to form in my mind.

  I had the perfect thing to do to help Amy and to get Mace to go to the dance.

  I needed to try to persuade Mace to ask Amy to the dance—as a friend, of course.

  It was going to take some convincing because Mace didn�
��t want to go anyway. Also, despite his nice personality, there was still a social hierarchy at the high school. Mace was at the top, and Amy was at the bottom.

  But, if I could prove to him that it would be one of the greatest things he could do for someone, I thought he might do it.

  Mace: No.

  Me: You didn’t even think about it.

  Mace: I already told you, I’m not going.

  Me: But it’s for a good cause.

  I winced at calling Amy a cause, but I wasn’t above using everything I had.

  Mace: Why is this so important to you?

  Me: Because it is.

  Mace: I’ll think about it.

  I grinned.

  Me: Thank you.

  Mace: But only after you tell me why it’s so important to you.

  Mace: And don’t say just because it is.

  I really didn’t want to tell Mace, Mr. Popular Football Star, that I had been a dork in high school. It was so embarrassing.

  Me: I’m afraid, if I tell you, your opinion of me would lower.

  Mace: Never.

  I took a deep breath.

  Me: I’ll tell you tonight.

  Mace: Then, I’ll ask her tomorrow.

  Mace: But you owe me.

  Me: Like what? You’re a high school senior who doesn’t have a job, who drives a truck under five years old, and who never needs money.

  Mace: Playing ball and school are my jobs. Besides, I don’t want anything monetary.

  Me: Okay, what?

  Mace: I’ll let you know. But I think it’s going to involve you sucking my cock.

  The bell rang, and I jumped in my seat.

  Mace and I had been texting before class started, and I looked up at him and slightly shook my head to tell him no.

  Mace laughed silently and nodded.

  Buzz.

  Mace: It’s happening, babe. You, on your knees, swallowing me whole.

  I tried not to smile as I put my phone down and stood up. “Okay, everyone, today, we’re going to talk about one of my favorite things. Genetics.”

  The class assignment the night before had been to do the reading in the book for school today. I went over what they had learned in their textbooks, and then I went to the whiteboard.

  “Let’s do some examples. Can anyone give me the hair and eye color of two people, so we can see what their kids would inherit?”

  A student in the middle raised his hand. He had bright orange hair, and I hoped he picked two redheads as the parents.

  “Eugene?”

  “I say two redheads.”

  Yes. I grinned at my luck.

  I made a square on the board and drew a cross in the middle. “Let’s do hair color first.” I wrote red in each little square. “Because red is a recessive gene—and the most recessive of all the hair colors—each parent has two red-haired genes.” I pointed to the large square. I put Father next to the top row and Mother next to the bottom row. “So, no matter what gene I pick, they would end up with a redheaded baby.”

  “Better not marry a redhead, Eugene,” someone yelled.

  “Michael,” I said, and he shut up. “Okay, Eugene, what color eyes?”

  “Blue for both.”

  I had been hoping for something more complicated, but that was what I got for letting the class pick. “That’s going to be just like the red hair.” I showed the students the same example on the board. “So, a redheaded, blue-eyed person having a baby with another redheaded, blue-eyed person is going to have a baby with red hair and blue eyes. Anyone else want to give an example for us to do?”

  Mace raised his hand, and as I called on him, I had a feeling I’d regret it.

  “Mace.”

  “I pick a blonde hair, brown-eyed mom.”

  I swallowed. I had blonde hair and brown eyes.

  “And a brown-haired, blue-eyed dad. What’s that baby going to look like?”

  I quickly turned my back to the class and faced the whiteboard.

  I knew he had no idea I was pregnant, and he was probably messing with me a little. Or playing on my impregnation fantasy. But it was all too real now that I was carrying his baby.

  I erased what was on the board and drew several new boxes with four squares in each. I put the father on the top with his blue eyes and the mother on the bottom with her brown ones.

  “This one is a little more complicated. The father has two blue genes because we know it’s the most recessive. We know the mother has at least one brown gene because she has brown eyes. But, since brown is the most dominant gene, we can’t know more unless we know what her parents have. We know that one of them has a brown gene, or she wouldn’t have one, but we don’t know about the other parent.”

  “Let’s say the other parent has blue eyes.”

  He remembered my father’s eyes.

  “Okay.” I wrote blue in the mom’s other box. I showed the class that every child this couple had would have a blue gene from the dad and a possible blue gene or a possible brown gene from the mom. “Their baby has a fifty-fifty chance of having brown or blue eyes.”

  And I couldn’t help but wonder what the little person in me would have.

  “Let’s do hair. It’s very similar. Let’s say the grandparents gave the mom a red-headed gene and a blonde-haired gene. And the father has a brown-haired gene. And let’s say he also has a blond gene.”

  I met Mace’s eyes. I remembered what his mother looked like.

  “It’s pretty much the same thing.” I wrote all the information on the board. “There’s a fifty-fifty percent chance their baby would have blond hair or brown hair. They won’t have a red-headed baby because there is only one recessive red-haired gene. So, all together, they have a twenty-five percent chance of having a blond-haired, blue-eyed baby; a twenty-five percent chance of having a blond-haired, brown-eyed baby; a twenty-five percent chance of having a brown-haired, blue-eyed baby; and a twenty-five percent chance of having a brown-haired, brown-eyed baby.” I turned around to the class. “Any questions?”

  My phone buzzed, but no one said anything.

  “Okay, I’m going to give you some examples. I want you to work them out, and then we’ll see if you’re right.”

  I wrote the scenario on the board and went to my desk.

  I turned my phone over and unlocked it.

  Mace: I have a question. When can I knock you up to see which twenty-five percent our baby is?

  That evening, Mace didn’t pressure me to tell him why I had wanted him to ask Amy to the dance, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to say anything. I loved how he didn’t push me, but at the same time, I almost wished he would, so I could get it over with.

  I was lying in bed, waiting for Mace to meet me there, and I knew it was time. He slipped in behind me and wrapped his arm around my waist.

  “Back in high school, I was far from popular.”

  Mace squeezed me but didn’t say anything.

  “I didn’t date anyone because no one ever liked me like that. I’ve always been a bigger girl, and it didn’t help that I had no self-confidence.”

  I paused and took a breath.

  “My senior year, I had class with a guy, Parker Larsen. I soon had the biggest crush on him. He wasn’t super popular but definitely steps up from me. We got paired into groups for an assignment, and he was assigned as my partner. I couldn’t believe my luck.”

  Mace kissed my shoulder.

  “I never expected him to like me back or anything. I was just happy to be close to him. And, even though I knew we would never hang out outside of our project, I thought we were becoming friends of sorts. We would laugh and have fun while doing the work.”

  I took another deep breath. I didn’t want to tell this part.

  “One night, after we finished a good chunk of work, he kissed me. I was stunned and on cloud nine. My parents were gone, so it was just the two of us, and things started to go pretty far.”

  I noticed Mace’s breathing had started to qui
cken, and I realized how my story was sounding.

  I squeezed his arm with my hand. “Don’t worry. He didn’t rape me.”

  I felt Mace relax.

  “Anyway, so we were making out. Parker was the first guy I had really kissed. He was the first guy I had done anything with. He touched my breasts and got me to touch his penis. He wanted me to go down on him, but I had no idea what I was doing, so I just used my hand to jack him off. I felt so proud of myself for giving him an orgasm. I, me, Eden, had given him that pleasure. After he got off, he suddenly had to leave. I didn’t even really think, What about me?, or anything. I was a sex novice.”

  I didn’t want to keep going because what had happened next was the worst part of the story.

  “A couple of days later, I went to the library to finish up my assignment with Parker. He was in the back with his group of friends, and when I came out of the stacks, they all looked at me. One of them—I don’t remember which one—asked me if I had really given Parker a hand job. I was mostly shocked that his friends knew and that one of them had had the nerve to ask me about it. I think I nodded my head. Looking back, I wish I had denied it, but I didn’t.”

  Mace pulled me closer.

  “After I confirmed what had happened, they all high-fived Parker, and one of them started scribbling in a notebook. He looked up at the group and said, ‘Orgasm from a fat chick. That puts you in the lead, Larsen.’ Someone else said, ‘You should have fucked her. Double points.’”

  “Oh God,” Mace whispered behind me.

  “Parker looked at his friends and then at me and said, ‘Gross. It was hard enough to get a boner for her to touch me with her hand.’”

  “Oh, baby.”

  “I ran out of the library as fast as I could. I was devastated. Devastated. I thought Parker and I’d had a connection, even just as friends, but he had just used me for some stupid contest. I ended up finishing the rest of the project myself because I never wanted to face him alone again. He actually had the nerve to call me to try to get the assignment done together. As if what he’d done to me was no big deal.”

  “Please tell me he died from syphilis or something.”

  I chuckled. “No. The last I heard, he’d moved away. I don’t know what else happened to him.”

  Mace rolled me onto my back. The room was dark, so I could just barely make out his face, but I couldn’t read his expression.