by Amira Rain
“Nope. Don’t ‘zombie out’ on me again.”
“What?”
Sunshine was now sitting on Kayley’s lap, and she looked up from scratching his head.
“Don’t ‘zombie out’ on me again. Don’t start acting like you don’t care about anything again, because for a second there, you were acting like you do care about something. You were at least acting like you care whether you’re pregnant or not and what might have happened to you, so I know you’re still capable of caring.
So, if you care whether or not I go to pick up some pregnancy tests with you, just say so, and I’ll go with you.” Pausing, Kayley gave me a little smile. “It’s not that hard. Just say, ‘I care that you go with me, Kay, and I want you to go.’”
I couldn’t help but return her little smile, giving my eyes a slight roll. “I care that you go with me, Kay, and I want you to go.”
I at least wanted to care, and wanted to want her to go; I was sure of that, anyway.
After moving Sunshine from her lap to the bed, she extended a hand to pull me up and out of bed. “Come on. Let’s go grab a few pregnancy tests, and let’s pick up some of that rainbow confetti ice cream while we’re at it…that kind that my mom calls ‘celebration’ ice cream. I think we’re both going to want some after you take a couple of tests and they come up negative.”
“But—”
“Which I really think they will, Syd. I know you’re nervous about all this, and I am, too, a little bit, but I’m starting to think that this is all just some sort of a big mistake or something…some weird medical mystery that some doctor can help you figure out after your tests come back negative.”
I wasn’t so sure about that.
CHAPTER TWO
About two hours later, Kayley and I sat silently on my bathroom floor, each of us with a pint of rainbow confetti ice cream. Between us on the hardwood floor sat two pregnancy test sticks, both of them positive.
Kayley was eating her ice cream quickly, although mechanically, as if to overcome her shock with doses of sugar and “confetti” at precise ten-second intervals. I was more like picking at my ice cream, feeling just as frozen as the treat itself.
After watching both tests turn positive, with Kayley right by my side, watching too, I’d become strangely weak-kneed and had slowly sunk to the floor, completely unable to stop myself. Kayley had soon done the same across from me, setting the test sticks in the middle of the bathroom floor between us for some reason, as if to highlight the biggest difference between us now. I was a pregnant teenager, and she was not.
After a few moments of us sitting on the floor, silently avoiding each other’s gazes, Kayley had mumbled something that sounded like sorry, but I hadn’t responded. That was when she’d reached into a large paper grocery bag on the floor and had produced the two pints of ice cream, complete with bubblegum-flavored hard candy “spoons,” which were part of the packaging.
A picture of a grinning kangaroo wearing oversized sunglasses printed with the words party time was also part of the packaging. While I continued silently picking at my ice cream, glancing down at the pint every so often, this grinning kangaroo almost seemed to be mocking me. Even the kangaroo’s tiny grinning baby, who was peeking out of its mother’s pouch, seemed to be mocking me.
Kayley was maybe halfway through her pint, and I’d taken maybe a half-inch off the surface of mine, when I just couldn’t take any more silence, or sitting.
After putting the lid on my pint and tossing the candy spoon in the trash, I got to my feet. “I guess I need to go to the police now…and I should probably do it as soon as possible so that the police can get to the bottom of this as soon as possible…so that no other girl gets hurt.”
With her hazel eyes maybe as wide as I’d ever seen them, Kayley slowly rose to her feet, staring at me. “The…the police? Well, why in the hell—”
“Because obviously, I was raped at the frat party. Obviously. And the sooner the police figure out who did it, the better. You want me to care about something? I guess this is it. I care about the fact that some other girl might get hurt by whoever raped me. She might get pregnant, like me, if I don’t go to the police.”
“Let’s just think about this for a second, though. Let’s just think about this. You have no proof that you were ever raped, so—”
“A baby isn’t proof enough?”
I’d stood up a little too quickly, and suddenly, the effect hit me, something like a tidal wave of dizziness, lethargy, and nausea all at once.
Before Kayley could respond to what I’d said, I braced a hand against the sink, wincing. “Oh, gosh. Just give me a second. I don’t want to fall and crack my head open. It’s just a wave of dizziness and feeling sick. I think I just stood up too fast.”
“Here.” After putting her ice cream and candy spoon back in the grocery bag, Kayley came over to the sink and turned the water on cold. “Splash. Just splash all over your face and throat, and even your ears. Do it for as long as you need to until you feel better, but keep the water on freezing cold. This is what my mom does whenever she feels nauseous, and she swears it works.”
I did as instructed while Kayley leaned against the wall, scrolling through her phone, beside me. And within a minute or two, I did actually feel better. At least better enough to shut off the faucet and stand up straight from my lean over the sink.
Once I’d patted my face dry with a towel, I turned my focus back to Kayley. “I really think I need to go to the police. If I wait, then whoever raped me could do it to someone else.”
Looking distinctly uncomfortable for about the hundredth time since she’d come over to my house earlier that afternoon, Kayley pocketed her phone and seemed to hesitate in responding.
“Look. First things first. First, I think we need to confirm that you are actually pregnant. I know you just took the two tests, but everyone knows that home tests can be inaccurate. I think we need to get you to a doctor’s office or a clinic or something, and get you a real test. Then, we can go from there…whether that’s me telling your aunt and uncle with you, or—”
“Or going to the police.”
“I was going to say or me talking to my mom with you.”
“But why do you seem opposed to me going to the police? It just seems like—”
“First things first, Syd. First things first. You need to have a pregnancy test given by a doctor or a nurse. We’ll go to the women’s clinic in Moxon. I’ve heard that pregnancy tests there are completely anonymous; you don’t even have to give your real name. They do them on a donation basis, too, so it won’t even cost you much, and you won’t have to use your aunt and uncle’s insurance. Okay?”
A bit reluctantly for some reason, I said okay. This would be our second trip of the day to the anonymity of Moxon. It was a Michigan city of about fifty thousand people, twelve or thirteen miles southwest of the small town of Ford, population roughly two thousand, where Kayley and I lived. Moxon was where people from our school went when they wanted to buy condoms or pregnancy tests, or attempt to buy cigarettes or alcohol, without running into their parents, their parents’ friends, or their pastor.
During the drive to Moxon in my car, Kayley and I didn’t talk much at first, which was starting to become not unusual for us. Normally one to talk a mile a minute, asking question after question before I’d even answered the first, Kayley had seemed a bit quiet and distant as of late. Maybe the “zombified” personality she’d claimed I’d had for the past year was rubbing off on her.
However, maybe halfway to Moxon, after playing on her phone for a while as I drove, Kayley finally set her phone down and asked me a chatty sort of question. “So, what do you think about PewDieCake’s new video?”
Lost in thought about my two positive pregnancy tests, I tried to pull myself out of my own head but found I could barely comprehend what Kayley had asked me. “What?”
“You’re subscribed to him, right? On VideoTube.”
Finally understandin
g what she was talking about, I nodded, keeping my gaze on the road. “Oh. Yeah. I think so. I think I’m subscribed to PewDieCake.”
“Well, then, what do you think about the new video?”
I didn’t know. I didn’t even know if I’d seen it. My mind was currently such a jumble of thoughts that I couldn’t remember what I’d had for breakfast that day. Or lunch.
When I didn’t respond after a couple of seconds, Kayley went right on ahead as if I had. “Well, here’s my take. See, the mainstream media people are freaking out, because PewDieCake has a way bigger audience than they do. He has like, fifty-five million subs right now.
The mainstream media people are scared of this, because it means they’re irrelevant as far as bringing news and entertainment and stuff to younger people, now that VideoTubers have gotten so big. So, the mainstream media people are just trying to attack PewDieCake and take him down in any way possible. That’s why they said all that junk about him being a Nazi or whatever.”
Kayley didn’t seem like she was going to continue, and I almost hoped she wouldn’t.
However, after a few seconds, she looked at me and spoke just a single word. “Well?”
I had a feeling she wanted me to issue some sort of a response about PewDieCake, but I just couldn’t think of one, or at least not much of one. So, I said the only thing about PewDieCake that I could think of.
“I like PewDieCake.”
Kayley made a sound between a sigh and a snort. “Yeah. I do, too. That’s why I said all the stuff that I just did. Were you even listening? Or, is this just one of the many things you don’t seem to care about lately?”
Now it was my turn to snort, which I did loudly before glancing over at her. “I’m about to take a clinic-administered pregnancy test in about ten minutes. Like the ones we took at home, it might be positive. Do you really think that PewDieCake’s VideoTube career is the first thing on my mind right now?”
Kayley shrugged. “I was just trying to lighten the mood a little…just trying to make some conversation.”
Knowing that that was the case, I almost felt the need to apologize, but I didn’t. I didn’t even know why. I supposed that I just didn’t care to.
We drove the rest of the way to the clinic in silence. Kayley scrolled through her phone. This was our typical way of spending time together as of late. It felt comfortable to me. I liked the silence. It meant that I didn’t have to struggle to articulate how I was feeling, in response to endless questions. It meant that I didn’t have to work hard to make small talk, or focus on any small talk that Kayley was making. It meant that I didn’t have to pretend to care about any VideoTubers, or dramas that were happening at our high school.
When we’d first met, in seventh grade, Kayley and I had more or less matched each other in terms of chattiness. Maybe I was a little shyer, but not by much. Within a year or two of being good friends, we’d become best friends, and then high school had come. We’d remained best friends, although Kayley had teased me sometimes for liking to read at home maybe just a tiny bit more than I liked to go out and socialize.
At first, her teasing had amused me. “Sorry for being literate!” I’d usually teased back, rolling my eyes. “You say, ‘literate,’” Kayley had probably said. “I say, ‘boring!’” Something like that. She was always saying things like that.
Then, when my mom had been killed in a car accident our junior year, leaving me an orphan, I’d become even more bookish. Quieter. I just started liking to stay at home, which was to say, my new home, at my aunt and uncle’s house. I just liked to read, draw, and sometimes watch movies by myself in my room. I started feeling uncomfortable when other people were around, even if those other people were my friends. Even if those other people had been my friend since seventh grade.
I started to feel like there was no one left on earth who could make me smile or laugh. I started to feel like there was no one left on earth who I found interesting. I started to feel somehow set apart from everyone else. This, in turn, made me feel like there was something seriously wrong with me.
At the beginning of senior year, in art class, we were all instructed to make some sort of a collage with water color paints and magazine clippings. The clippings I used were a combination of flowers and storm clouds that I’d cut out of some nature magazine. It wasn’t until I was completely finished with my project that I realized that how I’d pasted the clippings on my poster board was in a way that formed words.
In flowers and storm clouds, in an indistinct sort of way so that a person might not even have been able to tell, I’d spelled out Set Apart. Instantly embarrassed that my subconscious had apparently seen fit to have me design this message, I’d tried to put my art project in the trash, but my teacher hadn’t let me. She’d gone on to give me an A+ grade for my project, even displaying it in an exhibit at the Moxon Crossing Mall, to my complete humiliation. Kayley and I had visited the exhibit together, and for whatever reason, Kayley hadn’t really spoken to me for three days afterward. Kind of to my relief.
Now in the present, getting out of my car at the women’s clinic in Moxon, Kayley was offering me a little smile. “Hey. Lighten up, Syd. The doctor is going to tell you that the home tests were messed up for some reason. The doctor is going to say that the official test actually says that you’re not pregnant. Then, we’re going to go out tonight. We’re going to finish celebrating your birthday. Okay?”
My birthday. I’d forgotten the reason that Kayley had even come over to my house in the first place that afternoon. It was my eighteenth birthday. She’d brought me some kind of a humorous card and a wrapped gift, which was a makeup palette. Eyeshadow, I was pretty sure, although I honestly couldn’t remember. While opening it, my thoughts had been focused on my need to take a pregnancy test.
Now, recalling that it was my birthday, I tried to smile at Kayley in return. “Right. It’s my birthday. Let’s go inside and hope I get some kind of a gift.”
I knew I wouldn’t. I had no idea why I’d even said that.
*
When the nurse began to give me the results of my pregnancy test, I cut her off for some reason.
“It’s positive. Yes. I know.”
As if trained to stifle all signs of sympathy and humanity, the nurse winced, but only for a fraction of a second, before looking at me with an expression that was perfectly neutral. “It’s positive. You’re correct. You’re pregnant. Our blood test is virtually a hundred percent accurate.”
Back outside the clinic in my car, I just sat in the driver’s seat, unable to put my car key in the ignition. It was as if my hand just wouldn’t follow the command being given to it by my brain.
Beside me, Kayley just sat quietly at first, but after a few moments, she spoke in a quiet voice. “Look. Maybe you don’t want to let the baby’s dad know. I get that. Maybe you just want to take care of things on your own. Or, if you want to keep the baby, or put it up for adoption or something without the baby’s dad knowing, I’m sure your aunt and uncle can send you to someplace where—”
“I was raped, Kayley!” I’d practically spat the words at her. “I had to have been. I don’t even know who did it. I don’t even know who the baby’s dad is! All I know is that he raped me. Don’t you care?”
Tears had suddenly sprung to my eyes, and I hastily wiped them away before continuing.
“I was raped. Get it?”
“Look. I know all about ‘regret sex.’ Trust me, sister. I’ve—”
“Get out.”
Eyes wide, Kayley just stared at me for a second. “What?”
“Get out of my car. Call your mom. Call a cab. I’m going to the police to report that I was raped.”
“But, Syd, just listen. There’s no way that anything could have happened to you at that party without you waking up. That’s just—”
“Get out.”
“Crazy.”
I looked at Kayley for a long moment. “Please get out of my car. I’ll wait to leave unti
l someone picks you up.”
“Sydney, for God’s sake. Just listen. A lot of people at our high school have had ‘regret sex.’ Like, a lot. And sometimes, people just want to forget that it ever even happened. Sometimes, people just want to outright lie about it, and pretend like it never even happened. I totally understand. So—”
“Please get out of my car, Kayley. Call your mom, or a friend, or a cab.”
“But—”
“Please. Right now.”
“But I’m on your side, Syd. Really. I know what it’s like to really want a guy, and then you do it with him, but then the next day, you think, ‘What was I thinking?’ Look. You don’t even have to tell me who it was. We can just tell your aunt and uncle that for privacy reasons—”
“You have three seconds to get out of my car before I call the police and tell them that I’d like to drive in to report a rape, but someone’s stopping me.”
Kayley suddenly glared at me, snorting. “You’re seriously going to try to get Brian and all his frat brothers in trouble?”
“No. I’m going to tell the police that I’m pregnant; I don’t know exactly how it happened but that I have a pretty good idea; and then they can investigate from there. If their investigation ultimately gets Brian and his frat brothers ‘in trouble,’ that’s not my problem.”
For the first time in a minute, dead silence prevailed in the car, but just for a second or two. Then, Kayley grabbed her bag and began opening the passenger side door, glancing over at me.
“You’ve really been an extreme bitch since your mom died, Sydney. And I don’t even care if that’s mean to say.”
She slammed the car door. I just sat. Quiet. Motionless. With the tears that had recently welled in my eyes now completely dry, I fought a bizarre urge to laugh. Maybe even laugh myself sick, until tears welled in my eyes once again. I wasn’t even sure why.
Outside my car, Kayley soon had a phone conversation with someone, repeatedly tossing her long brown hair over one shoulder in a haughty sort of way. Just beyond where she stood, a row of saplings that bordered the entrance to the clinic’s parking lot swayed in a stiff breeze.
