Neither of us spoke.
“Fucking. Whatever, guys. Why don’t you guys get married? I don’t fucking care anymore.”
She looked to each of us, waiting for us to say something.
“Brooke...” I started. She raised her eyebrows and leaned toward me.
“What, Natalie?”
I didn’t know what.
She threw a hand in the air. “Natalie, will you come inside and sleep with me? Aiden, I think you should go home.”
I resisted the urge to look to him, and instead wordlessly followed her inside. She didn’t say anything else, either. We went into the dark room, crawled into the bed and the night was over. She probably fell asleep immediately. But I felt like I was up all night.
I listened to Aiden close the front door, to the sound of his car starting and pulling out, and then silence for hours.
* * *
“I’M SO SORRY,” said Brooke the next morning as we drove out of Eric’s neighborhood. “About last night. It’s so humiliating...I don’t even remember what I was upset about. I just remember yelling at you. For talking to Aiden, I guess? I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“God, he’s gonna be so pissed.”
I didn’t know that he would. Not after what he had told me. How he wanted to break up with her. I hated knowing that he had said that and not feeling like I could tell her.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said, going with the pat answer.
“I hope so. If he breaks up with me over this...” She shook her head, and I felt a stab of sympathy for her. Until she kept talking. “If he breaks up with me, I’ll have...like, what, six days to get a date for prom?”
* * *
I WAS IN a relatively irritable mood for the next week. For the first time all year, I was busy. Some of my stress came from the fact that I knew I would hear back from the culinary schools this week, some of it from the tests I had to study for, some from the fact that I never heard another word about Aiden and Brooke’s potential breakup. From either of them. She had been busy, and we had hardly chatted except in the morning when she drove me to school. Aiden was too swamped to drive us. According to Brooke.
Friday afternoon, I finally got a chance to sit and do nothing. Everything had been turned in. The only thing left between me and graduation was prom, a couple of exams and the ceremony itself.
My dad came home from running errands a few hours after I got home from school and surveyed the scene.
“What on earth is happening here?”
I was curled up in a ball on the couch, tears streaming down my face watching Titanic, with half of a box of Oreos and an empty popcorn bag in front of me.
I sniffed and had a sip of the lemonade I was drinking. “It’s the saddest movie, and you know the whole time that they’re going to reach a tragic end!”
“You girls and your crying over movies.” He put down the two bags of groceries he came in with.
“Hey, I never usually cry over movies.”
He gave me a look, and then came over and sat down in the armchair next to me.
“Is there anything you want to talk about, Nat?”
“What do you mean?” I wiped a tear from my cheekbone.
“I mean that...I want to know what’s going on with you. You’re—” he did the so-so motion with his hand “—off.”
“Off?”
“You’re not yourself. You’ve been getting sick, and now you’re crying....”
“I’m fine. It’s a really stressful semester, that’s all. Everyone’s busy and stressing out. It’s not only me. Seriously. Girls who usually dress nicely for school and wear jeans and cute boots and stuff, they’re all showing up with their hair up and glasses on, looking like they haven’t slept in a month.”
“You don’t seem to be having that problem. You’re sleeping half of every day away lately.”
“It’s normal senior year stress, Dad, it’s fine.”
He sighed and then glanced at the coffee table. His eyes locked on my cup. “Is that lemonade?”
“Yeah?”
He blinked a couple of times and then leaned forward in his chair. “Natalie, I’m just going to ask...there’s no way you’re pregnant, is there?”
My immediate response was to laugh. “God, no. Are you kidding? Me. Hah.”
But then something started to prickle under my skin. My heartbeat quickened. My eyes blurred.
My dad’s voice sounded miles away. “When your mom was pregnant with you, she couldn’t get enough of lemonade and cookies.”
“I think I hear my phone ringing upstairs.” I stood up quickly and darted up to my room.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
OH, MY GOD.
Oh, my God.
When was the last time I had had my period? I hadn’t even thought about it. I had been so entirely consumed by the Aiden and Brooke thing, the “next year” thing and our senior project...I hadn’t even noticed.
Hadn’t I had it last month? No...not really. I’d bled for maybe an afternoon and that was it. I hadn’t really thought anything of it.
It was like watching a reverse video of a mirror being shattered. Everything was suddenly flying into place, and I was stuck staring at my own reflection and thinking, How the hell did I not realize this, and what the hell am I going to do?
I’d been sick constantly. I was tired all the time. My boobs had been looking, as Brooke put it, “seriously awesome” in bras. And now I couldn’t remember my last period. I started crying and collapsed onto the floor.
My dad knocked lightly and then pushed the door open. I was too horrified to stop him or to hide my tears. I fell into deep sobs, and allowed him to help me off the floor and into the edge of the bed, where I fell into his side and cried. I felt him take in a deep breath, but he said nothing.
I was in a blind, red-eyed haze as I buckled into the passenger seat in the car and was driven to CVS Pharmacy. He didn’t make me come in, and returned after a few minutes with a bag. I had resumed crying while he was inside, and cried even harder when I saw that he had purchased a bag of my favorite candy as well as three different pregnancy tests.
I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t even think about the details of what this meant. Even as I did the tests, I knew what they would say. Positive. And then positive again. And then once more. Positive.
My dad let me stay alone in my room and didn’t force me to talk about it right away. He always knew what I needed. He was such a good father.
After an afternoon in shock and hiding in my room, my dad called me downstairs, where we sat down at the kitchen table and had a talk.
“Natalie, how did this happen?” He spoke softly.
I shrugged. I couldn’t look him in the eye. “I don’t know. I went to one stupid party.”
“The one...that was a while ago, back in February, right?”
“The day after Valentine’s Day.”
He did the math in his head. Three months. In this context, it was not simply three months. It was a trimester.
“I guess you didn’t use protection then, or did you?”
“I don’t know.” I shouldn’t have said that. The expression on his face made me immediately regret it.
“You don’t know?”
“No. I drank a lot. And you know I don’t drink, ever. So I kind of...blacked out and don’t remember.”
“Do you remember...sleeping with...”
I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than I did, but confessing all the sleazy, classless details out loud and to my father was doing the trick.
“Eric.”
“Eric? I’ve never even heard you talk about an Eric.”
“That’s because I don’t really hav
e much to say about him.”
My dad exhaled. “Have you thought about what you want to do?”
Neither of us looked at the other. I knew this was going to be a sore subject because of my own mother.
“I haven’t...I mean I didn’t even realize until today...”
He nodded and massaged his jawbone. “All right. Well.” Finally I met his gaze, and the disappointment and sadness I saw there made my throat tight and my heart hurt. I knew exactly why he was mad. Exactly why he was upset.
“Daddy, I’m really sorry.”
“You don’t need to say sorry to me, Natalie, you have no one to apologize to.” The volume of his voice was rising. He rarely yelled or got angry, but I knew that this was the one thing that could do it.
“I’m not the same kind of person as Mom.”
“No, you’re not. But this is how it happened to us.”
“How it happened? How I happened. I made the same mistake as you guys.”
“No.” He said it loudly as he stood and crossed to the kitchen sink. “I did not say mistake, Natalie.”
“Yeah, okay, but she did. Didn’t she? I know you remember when I was ten years old, sitting right up there.” I pointed at the top of the stairs. “I remember you telling her to shape up or ship out, and I remember that she blamed you for me, because you were the one that didn’t let her get an abortion.”
“Oh, sweetie...” He put his hands on his hips and stared at the floor. “This is why I’m upset with you, Natalie. Not because you’re a teenager who got yourself into trouble. But because I hate that you’re going to have to wrestle with this choice. And that it’s so loaded, because of your mom. And me.”
My eyes were filling with tears. “That’s why I have no idea what the hell I’m going to do, Daddy. Because I was almost...well, I was almost never born. And...that would have been Mom’s choice. And now I have that choice.”
He came to my side, pulled me up and hugged me as only a daddy can. “We’ll figure this out, Natalie. It’s going to be okay.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE NEXT MORNING, it took me a minute to remember the very real truth.
I was pregnant. I, Natalie Shepherds, notorious good girl, was pregnant. I was a pregnant teenager.
I climbed out of bed and looked in the mirror. It took me a full minute to get up the courage to really survey myself. Finally, I picked up the edge of my T-shirt and looked at my body from the side.
Yes, I had been feeling bloated and fat. But I had also been eating constantly, and—though not anymore—been drinking. I’d figured it was bad habits that were making me feel bad. It was clear now that I had been in some serious denial. The small bulge that had formed in my lower abdomen made the whole situation undeniably real.
I dropped the edge of my shirt, feeling a little faint. I had no idea how I had let this happen. The inarguable reality of it made me feel numb.
And today, not twenty-four hours after finding out that I was pregnant, I had to go to prom. Where I would not only be a pregnant high schooler, but a pregnant prom queen nominee.
* * *
IT WAS FOUR in the afternoon, and Brooke had just led me upstairs and dropped her robe. She was standing in her bathroom in nude stockings and a bra, looking a hundred pounds thinner than I felt. Her hair was back in a sleek, tight, Heidi Klum–ish ponytail. Even without makeup, which she hadn’t applied yet, she looked gorgeous.
“So your hair,” she said, “what are you going to do to it?”
“I figured I’d leave it up to you.”
She popped her hip and looked thoughtfully at my hanging, straight black hair. “I’m thinking controlled-messy—loose tendrils and side bangs. It’s going to look good. Especially since your dress is so retro.”
I had been really excited about my dress. Brooke had picked it out for me online last week and insisted I get it. My dad had approved, and it had arrived a few days ago. It was ivory, with a formfitting top and a loose skirt. I was glad of this, since I was now overly aware of my stomach.
Brooke’s dress was a tan-gold color. It was strapless and tight on top, very tight on the waist, with a mild-tutu-type thing happening on bottom. It was one of the many things that might look bad on a hanger but looked incredible on Brooke.
I allowed her to do my hair, as I always did, and then she started in on my makeup. She was in high spirits, laughing and chatting as she applied subtle fake eyelashes to my eyes, buffed foundation into my skin, stood back and looked at me, did a few more things...and this went on and on.
Finally she turned me toward the mirror.
I almost didn’t recognize myself. I had let her do my makeup a million times, but never to this extent. Usually just eye shadow or eyeliner she wanted to try out on me. But I looked...like someone not pregnant. Someone who looked like they might be nominated for prom queen and possibly win.
The type of girl boys fall in love with, and the kind that Brooke had told me I could be.
“You look hot, right?” she said proudly. “I like the hair the best, you look like a 1940s movie star. Okay, now stop admiring yourself, I only have half an hour to do my makeup and that is really pushing the limit.”
I sat down on the toilet lid and watched her start in on her own fake eyelashes.
“Okay, so I need to tell you something,” I said.
“What’s up?” She held a set to her upper lid and let it dry.
I watched her for a second, feeling the tears start again in my throat.
“What are you doing!” she squealed. “Nothing can be worse than ruining all that work I did!” But she seemed to see on my face that, yes, something could be worse. “Natalie, what’s happening?”
I couldn’t summon speech at first. She waited patiently until I finally sputtered, “I’m f-fucking pregnant.”
I fell into a sob and heard the words echoing around the room.
Brooke’s voice was soft and quiet. “You’re what?”
I nodded into my own hands.
“Oh, my...oh, my God, Natalie. How is that possible?”
“That one night...the S-Stupid Cupid party at Alexa’s.”
Brooke kneeled on the ground next to me and pulled me into a tight hug. “Eric?”
I nodded, and she let me cry into her shoulder for minutes on end.
When I finally composed myself, she pulled away and moved my face so that I could look at her. “It’s okay, Natalie.” She still seemed stunned, but like she knew she needed to be the dependable one for once. “It’s going to be fine.”
I nodded. I had no idea how that was possible, but I had to believe she and my dad were right.
She got me dressed and ready like I was a doll, lifting my feet to put them into heels, fixing my hair and makeup again, putting my jewelry on me. She tore her stockings kneeling on the bathroom floor with me, I noticed. She took them off without saying anything, and tossed them before finishing her own final touches.
It was going to be a long night.
* * *
WE ATE AT Maria’s Cucina, an Italian restaurant, where I could find almost nothing that sounded appetizing to me. I usually loved Italian food, and I wasn’t sure if it was the stress of the night or a symptom of my current condition that was doing it. I ordered fettuccine Alfredo, since Brooke agreed to have some. She was only getting a caprese salad, because she didn’t want to feel bloated.
Eric was deep in sports talk with Aiden across the table from us. Bethany was with Reed, who was about the last person I felt like spending time with. Really, I could do without either of them. Alexa was with Sam, Reed’s friend. I guess they had worked things out.
While everyone was talking, Brooke kept tossing glances my way, then looking at Eric. I avoided her gaze each time, but people started to notice that we wer
e both quiet. Alexa nudged me and asked if Brooke was okay. It was more noticeable that she was being quiet.
“She’s fine,” I said, and then turned to Brooke. “Bathroom.”
“We’ll be right back,” she said to the table.
We went into the big stall, and I crossed my arms at her. “You can’t be quiet and weirded out all night.”
“How can I not be?”
“Because it’s not your problem.”
“Of course it’s my problem. If it’s your problem, then it’s my problem. You know that. It’s always that way.”
Aw, Brooke.
“Yeah. I know. But look, I’m really...I’m okay about it.” This wasn’t true at all, but I needed to say it. “This is prom. I intend to have a good time. And frankly, you’re bringing me down.”
“Nattie...”
“I mean it!” I tried to look as genuine as I could.
“It’s...it’s too weird! Are you going to tell him?”
“Later. Maybe on Monday. Or tomorrow. Or any other time. But tonight is prom. And you’ve been dying for this night your whole life. So stop worrying about me. We have plenty of time after tonight to do that.”
She nodded and then unzipped her clutch. “Okay, well, if you’re sure, then I’m pretty sure this is a night that calls for a drink or two. For...for me anyway.” She withdrew her silver flask and took a long, multigulp swig.
Ordinarily, this would have been annoying to me, something I would try to stop her from doing. But tonight, for once, I would rather she be buzzed and not thinking about real life. I wanted her to have fun...and not stare at me all night.
* * *
AT THE TABLE, Brooke poured more of the flask’s contents into her Sprite, downed it in about five minutes, then ordered and refilled another. It didn’t take long to see the effects. She was back in the conversation, talking loudly and cheerfully. By the end of dinner, she had emptied her flask, and she and everyone else were having a ball.
Aiden, Eric, Brooke and I took Aiden’s Jeep. When we pulled up to the school, Brooke reached into her overnight bag and pulled out the rest of the bottle.
Anything to Have You Page 18
