by Ted Evans
I threw it in my bag and then looked out of the window. I just wanted to think about something else rather than my situation. Anything was better than that.
“Rita,” I whispered, but she didn’t hear me so I said it louder. “Rita, do you think that you’ll get over it eventually?”
She didn’t need me to elaborate. She knew exactly what I meant by that statement. “I’m healing slowly. Being at home. Working in the pharmacy, even if it’s not the most thrilling job in the world has helped.”
I nodded. “And your friends, do you think that you’ll get them back?”
She shook her head. “I found out that they were my friends when I was popular and I was some kind of status symbol to them. When I became broken, they didn’t want to know me. And the ones in college—” She laughed, “I don’t even remember their faces. All we did was party, get high or get drunk. I wouldn’t really class them as friends.”
I sighed, “I suppose.”
Her fate seemed so sad and I wondered if mine would be the same.
“But I did get some new friends when I went to rehab. Ones that I could connect with and I wouldn’t swap them for a bottle of gin any day.”
That made me laugh, she had a way of making the most dire situation, funny.
“What about you? What about your friends?”
I cleared my throat. “Apart from Chanel, she’s my bestie, and Hazel and Rebecca, I don’t have that many friends.”
She laughed, “You have three and one’s a bestie. That’s a lot more than most. You see your problem, Adele? You need to look at the positives more than the negatives. That’s the only way that you‘re going to get through this thing. Trust me.”
I took a deep breath as she pointed and said, “Is that it?”
I nodded as I thought about my home. The one where I’d find out if I was going to be a mom or not.
“Yes.” I wrapped my arms around her as I quickly let go off the seatbelt. “Rita, I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
She laughed, “You would have been stuck in New Moon City without me.” Rita pulled me back and said, “Anything you need, just give me a call. Okay?”
“Are you sure that you’re not my fairy Godmother?”
She sighed, “No, someone helped me just the way that I helped you, and I always used to chase after them. Giving them things, like cakes. Biscuits. Anything to show my gratitude and then one day they said to me, ‘You know how you can help me the most?’”
I shook my head, but a chill ran down my spine listening to her story.
“‘Pay it forward. Do the same for someone else. Help someone the same way that I’ve helped you.'”
I wanted to know more about this person, did they work in a pharmacy too? I shook my head at the idea of it. It wasn’t the point of the story. The main point was what she had just said, she was helping someone the same way that someone had done with her when she needed it. I could do that, but then for now I had to help myself.
“Rita…”
“Adele, it’s going to be okay.”
I nodded as I grabbed my bag off the floor and then opened the door. I closed the door and stood on my drive as she waved at me and her car went into the distance. I didn’t know what to do, until I thought about Mom not being at home. There was only one thing that I had to do and it meant peeing on a stick and finding out the truth. Back at the diner I could have done it, at least Rita would have been there to comfort me for those initial freaking out moments. Now, I was alone. I hated the idea of knowing. The thing that rushed me into the house was the need to pee. I dropped my bag by the door and then ran up the stairs with the test in my hand. I was going to find out one way or another. My heart started beating out of control. I couldn’t get over how scared I was, but then it had nothing to do with just finding out if I was pregnant. It had more to do with what I was going to do after it confirmed what I already knew.
***
Somehow getting up to the bathroom holding the test in my hand had dried up my pee. I was dying to go before, but once there, I wasn’t able to do it. Call me crazy, but it was like the test had dried up all my pee. I paced up and down thinking that I should go downstairs and get my bag. I shook my head knowing that I was just delaying the inevitable.
I managed to open the packet, read the instructions, and then I decided to pee. I sat on the toilet waiting for the flow.
Nothing!
Then someone rang the doorbell like crazy!
Holy crap!
I didn’t need the pressure of trying to pee, finding out if I was pregnant, and someone seeing me at the same time. I decided to focus on peeing. I finally had the guts to pee and I was going to do it, but whoever was at the door was starting to make me feel nervous.
One minute I was getting up and the next I would sit back down on the toilet. I wasn’t even focused on the fact that I had the stick at the back of me.
Shoot!
I needed to put it in the middle of my legs. I moved my hand and then tried to pee at the same time, but it was splashing everywhere and I wasn’t even sure how much of it was actually getting on the stick compared to the rest of the bathroom.
“Errh!” I screamed out as I tried to control my pee and stop it from splashing anywhere else. That’s when I heard my name being called out.
“Adele! I know that you’re in there.”
Oh, so now he wanted to talk. I hated him, not only for making me pee all over the seat, my hand, and the floor, but because he was the last person that I wanted to see right after the river that I’d held inside of me stopped.
“Shoot!”
I took the stick to see if at least in the mess I’d made, I’d at least peed on it. I sighed as I saw the stick going into action. I didn’t even see what it was doing as I put it down on the toilet and then began to clean. What would Mom think when she came in and smelled my urine all over the bathroom. God, it stinks! It was as if the scent was so damn strong that it was almost poisonous. I decided first thing first, I would hop in the shower, clean up, go to the closet and then clean the bathroom. I’d use paper to clean it and then use the mop with a whole lot of bleach afterwards to drown the smell. I nodded as I thought about my task, ignoring the fact that the prick was outside. He could wait. The same way he made me wait in New Moon after our sexy time in the hotel.
Chapter Four
I grabbed some tissue and started clearing up the remains of my piss. I flushed the toilet and did everything robotic like about my trip to the bathroom, but, this wasn’t a quick urinating session. I’d done it with a purpose and now that it had gone, I found myself feeling emotional one minute and crying like a baby. Like the one inside of me. And the next, I found myself taking deep breaths, trying to clean up with tissue any piss that had splattered onto the floor.
The instructions had said that I needed to run the stick under the pee for a couple of seconds. I hadn’t peed in so long that I hadn’t counted it right. I’d tried counting a second or two and then it’d been three, or maybe it was four?
Again the doorbell was going, but this time not just the doorbell. I could hear him yelling outside. The one that’d dumped me like a piece of trash on the curb. He wasn’t going to go away. I needed this time for myself just so that I knew what to do next.
I stopped crying, and once again, started cleaning.
Cleaning and then crying.
All the while he was yelling my name as if his life depended on it. I took a deep breath trying to compose myself before opening the bathroom door. I knew that there was only one person at the door. He was screaming out my name like a man possessed. I couldn’t believe that he was all of a sudden worried about me.
“Adele! Please, I didn’t mean it. I just want to make sure that you’re okay. I know you’re there, open up the door!”
I was so damn mad, I started walking down the stairs, and the more he kept repeating the line, I decided that I would head back up again. He left me like a jilted bride at t
he altar. He didn’t give two hoots about how I was getting home, and now he was acting as if he was so concerned about me.
Too little too late.
I grabbed the test from the bathroom sink and went back down the stairs again. If he thumped any harder, then the whole door would drop and Mom would have my guts for dinner. Not only for getting knocked up, but for letting him break the damn door.
“Coming!” I shouted as I tried to calm myself down and get down the stairs in one piece. As soon as I opened the door, he started waving his arms.
“Shit, Adele. You scared me. I thought that you were walking back home or something. I went back, and you weren’t there.”
Really, Liam, I was at the diner for about an hour after he left. I wondered if he managed to go home, kiss his bike for staying away from it for a night, before heading back to get me. There was no way that he would leave his bike the way that he left me. God knows he loved the damn thing more than anyone else, especially me.
“I even came back with the tests. I thought that we could do it together.” He waved the bag that he bought from the pharmacy. The one that he dumped me at so that he could do what? Fuck knows. I didn’t care right then. I just wanted him off my front doorstep, before all my neighbors knew that I was pregnant before I even had a chance to tell Mom.
“We need to know if you’re…”
He shrugged as if he was talking to a stranger. Did he think that in the midst of it, I’d forgotten that there was a chance that I was pregnant?
I was trying to calm down before I spoke, but I didn’t have the chance when he did all the talking for me. He just seemed to like the sound of his voice. I was holding onto the door. He couldn’t see the test that I was holding in my hand.
“Are you just going to stand there, or let me in?”
I shook my head and handed it to him.
“Here! Get on your bike and think about that!”
He took the test and then dropped it. I slammed the door in his face. I didn’t wait for him to say another word, but I was sure that he picked it up. I headed back up the stairs, and all I could hear was silence on the other side. He knew that there was no need for me to do the test. I’d done it already, and now he knew the results.
My tears no longer fell as I crept onto my bed and put on my headphones. Music became my sanity for a while until I fell asleep. No longer did I think about the test or even Liam. No one else mattered right then. All my dreams and aspirations had been put to the test, and in my confusion and the emotional roller coaster that I’d gone through the last few hours, they’d taken every piece of energy out of me as I closed my eyes and fell asleep.
***
I woke up a couple of hours later. Music was still playing in my ears and night was soon approaching. I wondered where Mom was at this time of night, but then part of me didn’t care. The longer she stayed away and I was alone, the better.
As I picked up my phone, I saw a few missed calls from Liam and the same number from Chanel. It was as if she was calling every fifteen minutes or something, because on cue as I was about to redial her number, she called.
“Hey,” I whispered as my throat was dry and I was still feeling a little sleepy.
“Adele. You okay?”
I could lie to her and tell her that I was great. On top of the world, but I was far from it.
“Do you want me to come over?”
That sounded like music to my ears. I got off the bed and then started heading down the stairs. The same place that I went when Liam was banging on the door like a mad man.
Chanel was quiet. I knew that he’d probably told her. He was probably shouting it from the rooftops as he rode around town on his precious bike.
“Adele?”
I paused as I opened the door and switched on the light.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Good, so do you need me to come over? I don’t mind. I wanted to come over, but I didn’t know if you wanted to be alone or not.”
I nodded as I looked down at the ground, the same spot that Liam had dropped the test was empty. He’d picked it up. He saw it and knew the answer to his question. I was pregnant.
“I could do with a friend,” I whispered as I choked on my words.
“Good, because I’m on my way.”
I hung up, closed the door and sunk behind it waiting for her to turn up. It would take her a few minutes. I hugged my legs, feeling so alone. Something that I didn’t feel like being right then.
Chapter Five
I didn’t know how long I sat by the door, but from the moment the doorbell rang, I didn’t hesitate in jumping up and opening it.
“Chanel!”
She smiled as she hugged me. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have left you like that at the Prom. I never knew. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to ruin Prom for you.”
She pulled back and said, “You kidding me? You didn’t want to ruin Prom for me.”
I nodded as I ushered her into the house and then closed the door behind her.
“You’ve been sitting here in the dark. Adele, why are you doing this alone?”
I couldn’t tell her that I did part of it with a complete stranger. She wouldn’t understand, part of me wondered if I knew what was going on right then. Everything seemed to be out of my hands, and the craziness seemed to be taking it over because I felt as if I was someone different. A person that I’d never been faced with was coming out of me, and I didn’t like it. Not one bit.
“And your mom, does she know?”
I shook my head and then laughed nervously. “I don’t even know where she is.”
Chanel walked up to me and then took my hand and led me to the kitchen.
“I’m going to make you a sandwich or something. I bet you haven’t eaten. Your mom’s with Henry. Think she stayed the night.”
“How do you know?”
She hesitated as she opened the fridge door, then said, “Because Liam came to see me. He told me about being a jerk. Leaving you. I wish you called me. I would have been there in a heartbeat.”
I sighed, “But you were at the hotel too. I just didn’t want to spoil…”
“I wish that you would stop saying that. You were dumped on the street. Why the hell didn’t you call me?”
I sat down on the breakfast stool, thinking about all the reasons that I said I wouldn’t call her and realized that she was right. I should have picked up the phone to call her.
“I wasn’t thinking straight. I mean I didn’t expect Liam to leave me. I even waited on a bench, hoping that he’d stop being so angry and turn back.”
She stopped making the sandwich and came by my side. “You poor thing.”
I nodded as she wrapped her hands around my shoulder.
“Just promise me, anything like that, Adele, you’ll call me. Or even one of the girls if you don’t get a hold of me. Okay?”
I nodded and smiled at her, thinking that it was in the past. That was nothing compared to what I had to go through right then.
Curiosity got the better of me, “What did Liam say?”
She coughed. “That he was a jerk and now you’re not speaking to him.”
I shook my head. “So, he never told you about the baby?”
She nodded as she passed me the sandwich. It was weird because I wasn’t feeling hungry at first, but seeing the egg, mayonnaise, radish sandwich in front of me, soon made me change my mind. I picked it up and started to devour it without hesitation.
“How’d you make it so quickly?”
She laughed, “Spending too much time in the kitchen with my mom. You want another?”
I nodded my head as the sandwich started to curb my hunger. One that I never knew existed until then. She passed me a glass of juice and the moment it quenched my dry throat, the sandwich went down a treat. I started to talk and ask the questions that were running through my mind from the moment she’d said that she was coming over today.
�
�So does Mom know anything?”
She shook her head as she made herself a plate and then sat down next to me.
“Don’t think so. She asked if the Prom was good. Told her that it was and then she wanted to come home. Liam told her that you were tired and that’s why he dropped you here.”
I nearly choked on that last line.
“He said that he brought me home?”
She shrugged. “Seriously, Adele, what did you expect him to say? Oh, I dumped her on the curb and came home alone?”
I sipped the juice and thought about it. She was right, the likelihood of him telling the truth was pretty slim.
“How come you went to his house anyway?”
She smiled. “Dunno, maybe I have a sixth sense, but Dwayne was dropping me home, and you know Liam and his bike. Well, his bike was down, not upright. So, Dwayne commented on it being weird that Liam’s bike was down. I agreed with him and said, maybe Liam had such a good time last night that he forgot. Dwayne said that there was no way that Liam would dump his bike on the ground like that.”
She took a deep breath as she continued the story, “So, he went inside and then Liam called me. He said that he wanted to talk to you, he did a shit thing and could I talk to you.”
“I thought that you said he called you?” I said trying to make heads and tails of what happened from the time Liam came here to when he left.
She nodded. “He did after leaving the house. He talked and told me everything. All the gaps that he missed out when we had our first conversation.”
I wanted to know what happened. Was Liam sorry about the way he behaved? Sorry or just trying to get out of things?
“So, what else did he say?”
She smiled as she took my hand. “He wanted to make sure that you were okay, and I knew the moment you called me that you weren’t okay. I was coming around anyway because he came to my place like two minutes before you called me.”
