On the bus ride home I replay the appointment in my head. It went pretty much as I expected—except for the birth-control prescription. I wasn’t ready for that. But I understand why Dr. Abernathy assumed I needed it. A girl doesn’t get pregnant by holding hands. I shove the piece of paper to the bottom of my pack and get back to worrying about Jen.
I arrive at my locker way before the start of afternoon classes. Lately I’ve been avoiding people, but today I have no choice. I need to talk to her. The thing is, she doesn’t show. She isn’t there at the end of the day either, and I wonder if she’s been at school at all. I ask the girl with the locker on the other side of hers. She says Jen was there in the morning.
Maybe she went home sick or had an afternoon appointment of some kind or a field trip. I consider calling her on her cell, but what I have to say isn’t something I want to share over the phone.
“So how did your appointment with Dr. Abernathy go?” Dad asks at supper.
I just about choke on my mashed potatoes.
“Ed, really.” Mom clucks her tongue. “That is hardly an appropriate topic for the dinner table.”
My father looks confused. “Why? I’m just asking if Emma is on the mend. I would think you’d want to know too, Miriam.”
My mother starts to reply, but I jump in. “I’m fine,” I say with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. “Dr. Abernathy gave me a clean bill of health—and a prescription for some vitamins. He thinks I might be a bit rundown.” I want to change the subject, but I know my dad must have seen my bloody sheets. I have to explain them somehow, so I say, “The doctor said that sometimes heavy bleeding—”
“Okay, okay,” he interrupts. “I don’t need all the details. But you should listen to the doc, Emma. Maybe slowing down a little isn’t such a bad idea.”
“Oh, Ed, you heard Emma. She’s fine,” my mother says. “Don’t make such a fuss.”
Dad sighs, and that’s the end of the conversation. We carry on with supper.
But it’s a different story when we’ve finished eating. Dad takes his dessert to his man cave, and Mom and I start cleaning up. I’ve just begun loading the dirty plates and cutlery into the dishwasher when she says, “So what really happened with Dr. Abernathy?”
I look up and frown. “I told you. He said I’m a bit rundown, but otherwise I’m fine.”
She glances toward the hall to make sure Dad is out of earshot. Then, in a hushed voice, she says, “Did he talk to you about…” She pauses. “Birth control?”
My mouth literally drops open.
Placing a finger beneath my chin, she closes it. “It’s a little late to play the shocked card, Emma.”
Which shocks me even more. I know my mother realized I was pregnant and that I miscarried, but I can’t believe she is bringing up the subject. Until this moment she hasn’t even acknowledged that anything happened.
“Well?” she prods.
It’s my turn to look toward the hall. “Yes,” I hiss. “He gave me a prescription for birth control pills.” And suddenly I’m not sure my mother has been as tight-lipped as I’d thought. She may not have spoken to me, but... “Was that your idea?” I say. “Did you ask Dr. Abernathy to do that?”
At least she has the decency to look embarrassed. “We may have talked,” she mumbles.
“About me. Behind my back,” I say, forgetting to keep my voice down.
She scowls and glances toward the hall again.
“I didn’t see that I had a choice. You clearly weren’t taking precautions. Someone has to look out for you.”
“I don’t need to take precautions,” I protest, “because I’m not having sex!”
My mother winces. “You don’t have to be vulgar. And keep your voice down. If your father finds out about this, he will be very upset.”
“Did you hear what I said, Mom? I’m not having sex.”
She grits her teeth and closes her eyes. “Stop saying that. You were pregnant, Emma. You had to have been having—relations.”
“Relations?” I hoot. “That sounds so clinical. If you can’t say sex, why not go for sleeping with someone, being intimate or making love?”
“Emma!”
I ignore her and push on. Instead of tiptoeing around the topic, we might as well get it right out in the open. “The truth is, I wasn’t doing any of those things, Mom. I didn’t take any precautions because I didn’t have the chance. I was raped.”
There. I’ve said it.
She doesn’t gasp or spin around. She doesn’t hug me or even look at me. She doesn’t even stop wiping the counter, and I wonder if she’s heard me.
I say it again. “A boy raped me. He forced me to have sex.”
I can only see her profile, but her jaw tightens. When the counter can’t get any cleaner, she tosses the dishcloth into the sink and turns to look at me. I can tell she’s trying to organize her thoughts.
Finally she says, “That’s a serious accusation, Emma. I understand how you might have been caught up in the heat of the moment and changed your mind when it was too late, but that’s not rape.”
I shake my head vehemently. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t change my mind. I never wanted sex. He attacked me. He held me down. He forced me.”
She puts a calming hand on my arm. “Okay. All right. Don’t get all worked up. Just tell me what happened. Where were you?”
“In his car. He was driving me home from volleyball and stopped on a secluded road and—”
She frowns. “I thought you went to the games with Jen.”
“I do. At least, I used to, but she left without me that night.”
“Why would she do that?”
I lower my eyes. “Because we liked the same guy, and he was paying attention to me.”
“The boy who drove you home?”
I nod.
“So did you lead him on?”
“Mother!” I squeak. “What is wrong with you? I flirted with him. Yes. But that doesn’t mean I wanted to have sex.”
“Well, obviously he got a different message.”
I can’t believe my ears. “Are you defending him?”
“No, of course not. I just think maybe you got in over your head without realizing. You’re a pretty girl, and—well—you do dress provocatively sometimes, Emma. You have to know boys are going to notice.”
“I don’t dress any differently than other girls. And anyway, it shouldn’t matter how I dress. What I wear doesn’t give a guy the right to rape me! I told him no, Mom. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. Why isn’t my mother sticking up for me?
She hugs me and murmurs, “Of course it counts. He was wrong. But there’s not much we can do about that now. What’s done is done. It’s a hard lesson, but I’m sure you’ll be more careful in the future and not allow yourself to end up in that situation again.”
She holds me at arm’s length and smiles. “You need to put it behind you, sweetheart, and get on with your life.”
“That’s easier said than done,” I tell her. “Everyone at school is talking about me. They all know I was pregnant and that I lost the baby.”
“How?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “They just do. And it’s awful.”
“I’m sorry, Emma. I know that must be hard on you, but try not to think about it. In less than two years you’ll be finished high school. If you work hard on your studies between now and then, it will help take your mind off what happened. You’ll be so busy you won’t notice what people are saying. And it’ll mean you can get into any university in the country. Then you can leave the past behind and start over.”
As my mother continues to paint pictures of my future, I tune out. I don’t feel her hands holding mine either. I am numb. I know she loves me and she means well, but it’s as if she’s lifted the corner of the living room rug and swept me and my problem under it.