september
I jumped off the school bus and glared angrily at the mustard-yellow rear, black exhaust belching from it as it chugged away. I’d gotten my license more than a month ago, but I still didn’t have a car. I was the only seventeen-year-old in my class who had to take the bus. It was mortifying. Sometimes it seemed like I’d get one step closer to a sliver of independence, only to have it swiped away from me.
I was sure Mom had planned it that way. “Sure, you can get your license,” she’d said, when really she was secretly scrubbing her hands together in glee. She’d let me win a tiny battle knowing she’d won the larger war.
I kicked a clot of dirt, then turned up the driveway to my house. The air was cool and cloudy, a warning that fall was on the way.
I sighed as I unlocked the door, letting myself into the quiet house. It wasn’t not having a car that was upsetting me. The small, rectangular box buried at the bottom of my book bag felt like it had been burning a hole there for the past three days.
I threw my bag on the couch and rifled through the mess of loose papers and books. I had to stop putting it off.
In the bathroom, I pulled the little white stick out of the box and read the directions. They were brief and simple. Even an idiot could understand them.
Remove the test stick from its individual foil wrapper and take off the cap.
Test directly in your urine stream, holding for five seconds only. Read your result after three minutes.
I held my breath and pushed the stick between my legs. After I’d peed, I set it on the back of the toilet and stared at it. How was it possible for time to slow down, like sap oozing from a tree? Every one of my senses was on full alert: I could hear the neighbor’s dog barking across the street. I tasted salt on my upper lip. And my hands, when I looked down at them, felt like they weren’t my own.
The air in the bathroom was too hot to breathe. I crossed to the window and struggled with its rusty lock. It finally opened with a raspy groan, and clear, cool air swept inside. I swallowed ragged gulps, trying to still my thudding heart.
When I turned around, it was there on the stick, clear as day. It didn’t even take three minutes.
I shut my eyes, gripped my hands against the counter. The back of my throat filled with dread—coppery, dry, scratchy as sand.
When I opened my eyes, it was still there.
Two cheerful, bright pink lines.
I was pregnant.
× × ×
Amazingly enough, my body continued to function. I could breathe. I could talk. I could mow the lawn and do my homework.
But I couldn’t think. I couldn’t plan for the future. I felt frozen.
I avoided Derek. Avoided Madison and Tyler and the rest of my friends. Words dribbled out of me, mechanical and hollow. I kept my head down at school and ducked away at the end of each day. Going to Madison’s play last week had turned out to be a tense, nauseating test of my own acting skills. Derek darted concerned looks at me all night. It was a job trying to avoid him. At least Madison hadn’t noticed anything. She was too enthralled with herself to even realize when I turned down the invitation to have dinner with her family.
I dropped out of swimming, which I’d done every fall since junior high. I quit my volunteering job at the old folks’ home before I even started.
I used homework as a shield so I wouldn’t have to have an actual conversation with my mom. True to her promise, she’d stopped checking my homework and let me just get on with it. She didn’t even make me show her my test grades, which was good, because I wasn’t doing very well.
The problem was, all that studying got me nowhere. I couldn’t focus to save my life. There was no point anyway. I’d be lucky to go to a community college now. Unless I got an abortion. But that wasn’t an option. If my mom had gotten an abortion, I wouldn’t even be alive, so I couldn’t do that to this baby. Still, I couldn’t go to school pregnant. It would be totally mortifying. I’d have to drop out.
I wanted to slap myself. How could this have happened to me? We’d been so careful. I thought about that ad they show in health class: it only takes one sperm. I was that stupid teenage girl who got pregnant in high school. Just like my mom.
Bile rose in my mouth and I rushed to the bathroom, slamming the toilet lid open just in time to vomit forcefully into the porcelain. I puked again and again, my stomach aching, tears streaming down my face.
Afterward, I went to my room and sat on the edge of my bed. I picked up my framed picture of Mom and me. In the picture we were sitting next to a wide, meandering river, ripe summer grass blurring in the camera’s eye as it waved in a gentle wind. We were facing each other, our foreheads pressed together, joyful smiles cracking our faces open wide.
Looking at the picture, you couldn’t see our eyes but you knew we were happy. Our blond hair—mine pale like straw, hers gold like honey—whipped against our sunburned cheeks. Our cheeks were stretched wide with laughter. We were laughing because we knew each other and we were alive and because there was so much to look forward to. She was my mom and I was her daughter, and there was nothing more important than that.
I swallowed a rising bubble of tears. Now we were just familiar-looking strangers. I hated the distance that had grown between us. I hated that it was my fault. I’d lied about so many things, and now I missed her.
I couldn’t tell her I was pregnant. She’d worked so hard to make sure I had a better life than she did, and now I’d ruined it all.
My phone rang, and I staggered down the stairs to where I’d left it on the kitchen counter.
“Hi, Mom,” I answered. My voice sounded a bit shaky, even in my ears.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I just . . . got busy on a calculus problem.”
“Okay, just wanted to make sure—”
“I’m fine,” I interrupted.
Mom didn’t say anything, and I cringed, guilt sliding into my stomach.
“Liv . . .” She hesitated. “Sweetie, is there anything you want to talk about?”
“I’m fine. I just have so many classes and tons of homework. I’m not trying to be mean, I’m just a bit stressed, okay? And I really need to get back to my homework.”
A long, awkward silence filled the line between us. And then a knock at the door made me jump.
“Honestly, I’m fine.” I wiped at tears that had started to cluster in the corners of my eyes.
“Should we get you into some different classes?” She sounded worried. “Maybe it’s all a bit too much.”
The knock came again.
“No, it’s okay. Look, I’ve got to go. Calculus—”
“Olivia, you don’t have to be perfect, all right? Sometimes good is good enough. You know that, right?”
I appreciated her saying it, whether she believed it or not. “I know.”
“Whenever, whatever. I’m here forever. Remember that, okay?”
She hadn’t said those words in so long. My eyes grew hot with tears, and I suddenly wished to be small so I could crawl into her lap and let her make everything better.
“Okay. Thanks, Mom.”
× × ×
When I opened the door, Derek was huddled on the porch. He wore cutoff jeans and black tennis shoes and a blue windbreaker that flapped against his chest in the brisk breeze. I’d never seen him in anything other than his black T-shirt and jeans and his leather jacket.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said.
“No, I . . .” I tried to deny it, but couldn’t. I glanced vaguely toward the pile of homework on the dining room table, but couldn’t bother coming up with empty lies. I was too freaking tired.
I moved out of the way so he could come inside.
“Are you breaking up with me?” he asked once I’d shut the door. “Please tell me the truth.”
“What? No! I’m not—”
“Olivia, stop.” A spark of anger flashed in his eyes, the deep blue darkening. “Why can’t you just be honest? If you’re still in love with Tyler, just tell me and get it over with.”
“Derek.” I laughed out loud at how wrong he was. “I swear to you, I’m not in love with Tyler. It isn’t that.”
I pressed my fingers into my eyes, trying to hold back the tears, but they came anyway, splattering hot against my icy hands.
He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face him. “What’s wrong, Olivia?” he pleaded. “Tell me.”
I tried to speak but the truth stuck in my throat. My teeth were like bars that kept the words imprisoned in my mouth.
Derek took my hands in his. He understood that the more upset I was, the less I could talk about it. “It’s okay,” he said. “Don’t talk. Let’s go for a walk on the beach. Does that sound okay?”
I nodded and dashed at my eyes, pulled in a ragged breath.
We drove to Laurelwood and strolled along the boardwalk past the farmer’s market. Derek impulsively bought me a flame-colored scarf from a portly elderly man bent at the hip like a question mark. He wrapped the slip of silk around my neck and kissed me on the nose. It wasn’t my usual style, the flamboyant red, but maybe that’s what I needed.
“Thank you for this.” I fingered the material at my throat. It was so silky, cool against my tear-warmed cheeks.
We walked across the wet sand without saying a word, the red scarf caressing my throat like a promise. It was low tide, the sea lapping gently at the sand in the distance. The air was cool and damp, the way it gets when the clouds are full of water but it hasn’t rained yet. Lethargic sunshine peeped shyly through racing clouds.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking—” Derek began.
“No, Derek,” I interrupted. “I should talk first.”
He shook his head. “Please. I need to tell you something.”
He stopped walking and turned to face me, taking both my hands in his.
“I love you. I love you so much. But you deserve more than a bum who hibernates in his parents’ basement. I don’t want to be that guy. So I started looking at classes at the University of Washington, and I’ve decided to study architecture. My dad said he’d pay for it, so I’m going to register for winter quarter.”
“Derek, that’s amazing.” I smiled for the first time in what felt like weeks. “I’m so happy for you.”
“I’m just so relieved, you know? Finally something my parents and I can agree on! Maybe if I go to school and get a good job, they’ll respect me. It just, it feels good, you know?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“I mean, I know it’ll be a bit annoying because we’ll live so far apart. But I’ll come home on the weekends, so we can still be close. And it won’t be forever, just a year until you start college too.” His eyes glowed earnestly.
“I’m really happy for you,” I said again.
What else could I say? His parents’ respect meant so much to him. It was what he’d always wanted. How could I tell him I was pregnant and ruin his chance at that? He’d want me to get an abortion. I knew that absolutely.
The implications of that realization crashed onto me, and my smile sagged. I stared out at the expanse of sea, speckled with white froth.
He cupped my face in his hand. It felt warm and scratchy against my skin. A wave crashed close to our feet, saltwater spraying our legs.
“Hey, look at me.” He pulled my face to his, leaned his forehead against mine. “Whatever it is, Liv, it’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”
I rested my cheek on his shoulder. The smooth material of his windbreaker rustled against my skin. Seagulls yelped and whirled above our heads. In the distance a couple was walking toward us, hands clasped, leaning against each other as the sea sprayed at their feet. A mountain of emotions sat on my chest, making it difficult to breathe.
He wound his arms around my shoulders, and I lifted my face, pressed my lips to his. I loved him so much. But I knew with a clarity I hadn’t felt before that I loved our baby, too. I wouldn’t sacrifice the baby to keep him. My mom had given up everything to have me, to give me the life I had. I would do the same for my baby.
Suddenly I was terrified, certain I’d lose him when the truth came out.
I kissed him frantically, my lips frenzied with fear of the unknown. I wound my hands through his hair and pulled him closer to me, but it wasn’t close enough.
A familiar voice came from over Derek’s shoulder, somebody calling my name. For a moment a split in the clouds made it impossible to see who it was, the bright glare casting a glow about the face. But then there she was: Madison. Peter was with her, and they both looked horrified, their faces stamped with a parade of emotions.
Madison’s lovely face was hard, all sharp angles and rigid planes. Her eyes were colored with an intense, unmitigated fury, and her lips were drawn around her teeth in an animalistic sneer. Worse, her face was flamed with hurt, torn open by my colossal betrayal.