Chapter Nine

Weeks Three through Five

 

Rodney's chess games went on, mornings, lunches, afternoons. The district chess tournament was three weeks away. Usually Rodney didn't even mention it until the week before, but this year he couldn't get enough practice. Rodney buried himself in his game, and I buried myself in our photos, and I wondered if either of us would see the light of day again.

When we ran into each other at my locker, or in the halls, Rodney would take my hand, brush my hair behind my ears, and kiss me on the cheek. It was sweet in an aching kind of way, but he didn't make any effort to get me alone, or to go further. And I didn't push him either. Since our night together, a hollow pit gaped in my chest, and whenever Rodney touched me, it seemed to bore deeper.

It was my fault, of course, not only for lying, but for the hanging uncertainty. I could be pregnant, even now, and every cramp, every twinge, every uneasiness in my stomach made me hold my breath. The day before my period I could take the test. And once I knew I wasn't pregnant, Rodney and I could figure out our relationship with no doubts hanging between us.

My mother still wouldn't have a baby, of course. But Rodney was my boyfriend now, and he'd already said no. I hadn't waited this long to be with him just to screw that up.

Days passed. Rodney texted me in the morning about his chess opponents, and in the evening about the editing work I'd done. But when we were together, I'd catch him looking at me out of the corner of his eyes, like he, too, was holding his breath.

 

A week later, Mom came into Dad's office while I was sitting at his desk, working on one of the pictures Rodney had taken of the house his dad was showing. It was an old Victorian, and Rodney had dumped the whole set of shots into our folder, including the boring, full-room shots he'd taken for his dad's work. Rodney must have carted a step ladder from room to room, because the angles in the photos made the house look roomy—something Victorians rarely were.

The second half of the photo set told a different story. The series of art photos showed doorways cut in half, banisters with grooves worn in the paint, the dirty corner of a window with a single, star-shaped chip in the glass. Rodney had taken shots from the bottom of the stairs, focused on the worn dips in the wood where feet had bent them down from decade upon decade of trodding.

I had one of the stairway photos pulled into my editor, and played with the levels, trying to keep the photo bright without the light from the top of the stairs pulling the center of interest off balance.

"Where is that?" Mom asked.

"It's a house Rodney's dad is showing," I said. "He went without me."

Mom looked pensive. "I haven't seen Rodney around the last few days."

I waved a hand dismissively. "He's got a chess tournament coming up."

"So it's not because of what your dad said?"

I looked over at Mom. She hadn't been there when Dad talked to me, so they'd obviously had a conversation about it when I wasn't around. Perhaps several. "No," I said. "It's got nothing to do with that."

"Good," Mom said. "Your dad was worried."

Worried. But not enough to talk to me.

Mom tapped her nails on the desk, like she was trying to work her way up to something.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing," Mom said. "Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to talk to you."

I swallowed. "Did the agency contact you about another birth mom?"

"No," Mom said. "I asked the agency to take me off the list. That's what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. I know you wanted me to keep the baby things in the garage, but I'm thinking of donating them. They aren't doing any good sitting there, and your dad needs the space."

Dad's tools overflowed into all the empty spaces in the garage, but if she wanted to free up space for him, she could have gotten rid of the boxes of old toys or school papers. She didn't have to get rid of the crib.

Mom stood to leave. My heart beat in my throat. If I was pregnant, what then? We'd need those things—the crib, the clothes, the car seat.

It had only been one time. I still felt normal. I couldn't tell Mom I might be pregnant until I knew for sure.

But I couldn't let her get rid of the things, either.

"Wait," I said.

Mom turned around in the doorway.

"Where are you going to donate them?" I asked.

Mom shrugged. "I was thinking of asking at the hospital where Lily delivered. They probably see a lot of young moms pass through who could use the help."

"Let me call," I said.

Mom shook her head. "You don't have to."

"I want to," I said. "You don't really want to know who you're giving the stuff to anyway, do you? You don't want to picture who might be using it, if it isn't you."

Mom closed her eyes, and I cringed. I'd gone too far.

But then she nodded. "Okay," she said. "You can do it."

I let out a long breath as Mom left down the hall, hopefully not to cry in her room. I hadn't meant to hurt her. I just needed her to hold on a tiny bit longer.

And once the test came up negative, we could all let go.

 

On the Monday before I expected my period, I skipped breakfast, not only from nervousness, but because the idea of putting food in my mouth was utterly repulsive. A tightness bore down on my sternum, right above the xiphoid I'd labeled on that week's physiology homework.

It's nerves, I told myself. Morning sickness would make me nauseous. But the power of those nerves kept me far away from the kitchen.

I left a note for Mom saying I had a study session, and then took an early bus to school.

By seven, I walked onto campus. The place was deserted—the only cars in sight were in the staff parking lot. The side door to the locker room was locked, so I walked around to the main gym doors. For a moment I was afraid they would be locked, too, but they swung open, and I moved through the gym and into the locker room without running into anyone.

After opening my locker, I wrapped one of the tests in my gym shirt and carried it into the bathroom. As I went, I tried to come up with excuses for why I was there so early, but I couldn't think of anything. My mind buzzed blankly. I couldn't think about anything but the test.

Pregnancy tests were designed to torment jittery women. I peed on the strip and then sat it on top of the sanitary napkin box, timing it with my cell phone. Ten seconds past. Fifteen. Twenty. It was probably bad luck to stare, but I couldn't help it. All the time I kept telling myself it was going to be negative. It had to be negative. Mom was moving on; Rodney was against it. After this, we could all go on with our lives. No one would ever have to know what an idiot I'd been. No one but me and this little white stick.

After a minute and thirty seconds, two pink lines appeared. I double checked the instructions twice. I checked the time again. I picked up the test and held it upside down. I waited all the way to two minutes, just to be sure. The result didn't change. White spots filled my vision, and I leaned against the wall.

I was pregnant.

All the blood seemed to drain from my body. I wasn't sure how long I stood there, holding the test. After waiting too long, the instructions said the test result could falsely change. But it didn't. Those two lines just kept staring at me.

As I held it, I actually thought about going to a clinic to get rid of the problem. I could just pretend that everything was fine. No one would have to know—not my mom, not Rodney.

I could tell Athena. She'd make the phone calls for me. She'd drive.

But already I could feel myself folding in on those thoughts; I could not become that statistic. I'd heard Mom quote it with tears in her eyes: one million girls a year terminated their pregnancies instead of letting Mom adopt their babies. The way she said it, she probably believed she could have adopted them all.

And here I was, thinking of a child as a problem. What was wrong with me? I'd chosen this. I'd planned this.

Now I had to own it, whatever the consequences might be. And in the end, whatever happened to me, at least Mom would have her baby.

If I couldn't do anything else right, at least I could give her that.

 

While walking to first period I realized I should have waited to take the test until after school. Whatever agony it would have been to wait that long, waiting to tell Rodney was going to be much, much worse. I couldn't tell him in the middle of the school day. He needed time to react—to yell or to hate me or to break up with me.

Oh, please, I thought. Please, please. Don't let Rodney break up with me. That would be the end of everything—our four year friendship, every possibility for the future. How could I have messed with that, after waiting for it so long?

Rodney had a chess game at lunch, so I hid in the locker room and took the second pregnancy test. The two lines appeared again. I shook the test. I squinted at it. But the two lines just stared back at me, unmoving.

This wasn't a false positive.

I knew I should eat, but I couldn't. The thought of putting food in my mouth made my throat close up, and as I walked to Rodney's last period class, I felt so nauseous I was glad that my stomach was empty. And after seeing the tests, I could no longer pretend that it was nerves. Curse whoever called this morning sickness. It was almost three in the afternoon. If my body kept up this way, I wouldn't need to tell Rodney anything. I'd starve to death before I started to show.

No doubt the mortician would find the fetus in the autopsy.

I waited for Rodney outside his last-period trig class, tying the ends of my backpack straps into knots. I promised myself I would say something as soon as he came out. I owed him that.

When Rodney saw me, one corner of his mouth quirked up. "Hey," he said.

"Hey," I said. "Do you have a minute?"

"I have a game with Ryan."

"You always have a game," I said. "Cancel it."

Rodney looked at me. That was the first time I'd ever asked him to skip a game for me, so he must have known I was serious. "What did you have in mind?" he asked.

For once I fulfilled my promise. "We need to talk."

Those had to be the worst four words in the English language, especially when they came from someone you'd been sleeping with. Rodney gave me an uneasy smile. "Okay," he said. "Shoot." People pushed by us in the halls. No one seemed to be paying attention, but I still couldn't tell him here.

"Let's walk," I said.

We walked around the baseball diamond at the back of the school to the bleachers. I was being too quiet, again, and from the uneasy silence, I could tell that Rodney noticed. He walked up the bleachers to the very top and sat down, leaving room for me on the aisle.

"You didn't text Ryan," I said.

"Ryan will survive," he said. "Look, I know I owe you an apology. I've been so busy. But the tournament is this weekend, and after that—"

"It's not about that," I said.

He was quiet for a second. "You're right. I should have talked to you before. I'm sorry."

"No, really," I said. I reached for his hand, trying to connect with him. He took it, but kept talking.

"You just freaked me out with that stuff about your mom, you know? But I should have been honest with you about it. There's no excuse—"

"Rodney," I said. "I'm pregnant."

Rodney's grip tightened on mine. He swayed backward, and I was afraid he was going to fall off the bench, but he steadied himself.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to just blurt it out like that."

"You're pregnant," he said. "Right now."

"Yeah," I said. "I just found out today."

He rubbed his temples with his free hand. "You said it was okay. I thought that meant you were on the pill or something."

"I know," I said.

"But you weren't."

"No," I said. "I'm so sorry."

Rodney pulled his hand away and pressed both his palms to his forehead. His voice sounded far away. "I knew it," he said.

Everything I hadn't eaten in two days threatened to rise into my mouth. Of course he knew. This was what we hadn't been talking about for days. It was so thick in the air we'd both choked on it.

He went on. "You planned this. For your mother. That's what this was about all along."

I could see our short relationship unwinding before his eyes. I hadn't wanted him, only a baby. "It wasn't all about that," I said.

He looked at me, waiting for me to elaborate.

"You're," I said. "I mean . . . I wanted to be with you—"

Rodney rolled his eyes clear up under his eyelids. "Yes," he said. "I'm clearly irresistible."

I couldn't breathe. I wanted him to know what I'd felt, but everything I could say sounded like an excuse. "I'm sorry," I said. "It was a terrible idea, like you said."

He turned to me, staring me down. "Yeah, it was. How could you do this to me?"

My hands and feet went cold. Yes, Penny. How could you? "I didn't think it through."

"Obviously," he said.

I looked up at the sky. I'd given him the worst answer of all, when it came from someone you loved: I did this life-altering thing, and I didn't even think about how it would affect him.

"I was an idiot for not realizing this would hurt you," I said. "But we always said that we weren't serious. We always said we weren't really together. Maybe it was my idea, but you went along with it so I thought that—"

"Of course I went along with it," Rodney said. "What else was I supposed to do? You're saying to me, gee, Rodney, you're so important to me that I don't ever want to lose you, so we can't be together now." He threw his arms open. "Tell me what I was supposed to say to that."

I'd never thought of it that way. "I guess . . . I guess that is what I was saying."

"I know, right? I didn't want to be the guy who wants something so badly now that he throws away what he wants later."

I buried my face in my hands. What he meant was, he didn't want to be like me.

"But this," Rodney said, gesturing toward me. "This has nothing to do with me." Rodney folded inward, knees together, arms resting on his legs. A cold breeze blew between us.

I hugged my arms around myself and scooted closer to him on the bench. I couldn't let him leave here thinking he meant nothing to me. I had to say something, anything, to get him to stay with me.

"I love you," I said.

Rodney's hands fell to the bench, his knuckles striking the metal with a clunk. "How can you say that to me now?"

I wanted to insist that I meant it, but the words wouldn't come. I wanted to mean it. The crushing weight bearing down on me had to mean something, didn't it? "I just want you to know . . . that I didn't mean any of it to hurt you. Being with you meant something to me. I just didn't know how much until after."

Rodney looked up at the sky as a cloud passed over the sun. "It meant something," he said. "But not enough to tell me the truth until after you knew that you had to."

The knife struck so far into my gut that it stuck out the other side. I fought the urge to get on my knees and literally grovel. "I'm so sorry," I said. "Tell me what I can do to make it better."

Rodney examined his fingernails for a long moment. My heart sank. There was nothing I could do, and to illustrate the point, he was going to ignore me.

But instead, Rodney cleared his throat. "You could marry me," he said.

I about fell off the bench. "I could what?"

He flicked some dirt from under his thumbnail. "You could marry me." Then he looked up, his eyes boring into mine. Begging me. Daring me.

The whole world stood still. "You cannot be serious."

But Rodney didn't even blink. "I am if you are."

My lungs constricted, and for a terrifying moment, I couldn't draw breath. I looked at him wide-eyed, but he stared back with that calm steadiness that I so loved about him.

And I knew.

He still loved me. My stupidity hadn't erased four years of history. He was giving me the chance to take it back. We could go on pretending that I got pregnant by mistake. I could marry him, to prove to him that I loved him. To prove to him that I knew I'd screwed up. I wouldn't have to lose him. We could still be together.

Pregnant at sixteen, not for my mom, but for real.

Blood rushed in my ears. "We're too young," I said.

Rodney rolled his eyes again. "That's what you keep saying. And look where it's gotten us."

How could he do that? How could he stare me down, like what he was saying wasn't completely, utterly crazy? "We're talking about a baby, here. You don't even like kids."

Rodney shook his head. "I don't like to babysit other people's kids. That doesn't mean I don't ever want to have them."

That was news to me, but also beside the point. "Okay," I said. "But you don't want to have them now."

"I don't get a choice in that, do I?"

I cringed.

"Jeez," Rodney said. He reached across the bench and took my hand again, his fingers loose in mine. "I'm sorry."

"No, I deserved that."

"Maybe," Rodney said. "But it was still a dick thing to say."

I squeezed his hand. "Where would we live?" I asked. "What would we do?"

The breeze ruffled Rodney's hair. "We could live with your parents, or mine. Finish school. Start that business you keep talking about."

Raise a child. Me, in my mother's house. With a baby I'd intended for her.

My skin prickled. Married even younger than her. A doomed high school marriage.

Rodney moved closer to me, so our arms touched. His skin was cool from the wind. "I didn't mean to say you're the only one involved, here. I did this, too. I'll take responsibility, if you'll let me."

My heart pounded. This was what I wanted, wasn't it? For Rodney to forgive me, to keep him forever. It's what I'd always wanted. It was more than I deserved.

But bile still rose in my throat. Not like this. This would just be another way to cover up for the things I'd done. A commitment to a lifetime of ignoring my lies. Our relationship, warped as it was, wouldn't survive it.

"No," I said. "I can't marry you."

From the look Rodney gave me, I could tell he knew I meant it. I could also tell I would have hurt him less by slapping him in the face.

"Say something," I said. "Is this the end? I don't want it to be. I'll do anything."

Anything except be honest with him. Anything except think about his feelings first. Anything except marry him.

Even I couldn't believe me.

Rodney closed his eyes, like he was trying to hear something very, very faint. I held my breath, afraid the slightest movement would tip us off balance, and we'd fall.

I put a hand on his arm, and he stared down at it, like he didn't know what it was. I held my breath, waiting for him to pull away. Waiting for him to tell me it was all over.

"Do you remember our first kiss?" he asked.

I blinked at him. Of course I remembered, though it had been years, and we'd never talked about it. No one forgets their first kiss, and our first was also the first, for both of us. We were still in middle school. Rodney had just gotten his first SLR for his birthday—a camera way nicer than the point-and-shoots we'd been using to take pictures after school. We'd walked to the gas station and bought fudgesicles from the freezer section, and then went to the park. I'd told him to get out his camera to take pictures of some kids feeding the ducks.

"You wouldn't touch your camera until our popsicles were gone," I said. "You didn't want to get chocolate on it."

Rodney nodded. He focused on something far away in the outfield, or maybe something invisible, far back in his memory. No doubt he remembered every detail of that day at the park, as I did. We'd finished our popsicles, and thrown away the sticks, but still he wouldn't get his camera out.

"You have chocolate on your face," he'd said. Then he'd stepped close to me, and wiped my lower lip with his thumb. He had the slightest smudge of chocolate at the corner of his mouth. I don't know if it was the sugar buzz or the soft brush of his thumb to my lip, but in a rush of electric bravery I leaned in, brushing it with my lower lip. He turned into the kiss at the last moment, and our mouths collided. We stood there in the park, in full view of the pond and the ducks and the bread-wielding children, kissing each other with limp lips, making it crystal clear that neither of us knew what the hell we were doing.

Rodney shook his head slowly, like the memory offended him. "I should have told you then how I felt."

Then? I blinked away dizziness. That's how long this had been for him? How could I not have realized?

I stuttered. "Why—why didn't you tell me?"

Rodney gave me a regretful look. "I didn't want to scare you off."

I hadn't thought it possible to regret the past more than I had already. "You were right," I said. "I would have been scared."

"I should have said it anyway."

I gripped his hand. "You're saying it now."

Rodney's eyes turned hard. "Too late."

My chest burned. I wanted to go back and be that girl again, kissing her best friend and giggling over it. I wished I knew the right thing to say now, the magic words that would transform us back into who we used to be, to give us a do-over.

"Don't get the wrong idea," he said. "I wasn't in love with you then. Just hopeful."

My mouth went dry. I didn't miss the implication, the admission that he was, in fact, in love with me now. It didn't make it better that he wasn't back then. The hope of a thirteen-year-old boy felt like a delicate thing. And what had I done? I'd squashed it.

I spoke quietly, hoping to push him toward happier memories—the ones that would convince him our relationship was worth salvaging. "When, then?" I asked.

He sighed. "You called me in the middle of the night," he said. "After your mother had her last miscarriage. Your parents had a big fight—"

"I remember." The fight had been about in vitro. Mom wanted to try again; Dad wanted to stop. "You stayed on the phone with me for hours. Even after I had nothing left to say." We'd both fallen asleep on the phone; I wasn't sure who had disconnected first. That had been two years ago, in the fall of our freshman year.

"I wished I could drive," Rodney said. "So I could come over to be with you. You sounded so sad, and all I wanted to do was make it better."

"You did make it better," I said.

"And the next day I got sent to the office for sleeping through class."

I scrunched my eyebrows. "I don't remember that."

Rodney breathed out a long, slow sigh. "That's because I didn't tell you. I didn't want it to stop you from calling me again, if you needed to. Because I cared more about what you needed than I did about me."

No. No, no, no. I saw this knife coming. I could have dodged. But instead I sat there. Waiting.

"That's how I know you don't love me," he said.

I hugged my waist. I deserved that. If it hadn't been true, it wouldn't have cut. But it wasn't as if he'd given me the chance to be there for him like that. He didn't call me in the night crying. Rodney didn't cry; he didn't fall apart. He just strode through life with a steady balance.

Rodney shuffled his feet on the metal bench. That sounded a lot like the end of the conversation, but I couldn't let it be.

"I want to," I said. "Does that count for anything?"

He looked at me, considering. I held my breath. I didn't deserve another chance, but I wanted one.

"I don't know," he said. "I need time to think."

I squeezed my eyes shut. The last thing I wanted was to be away from him. But time was a chance. Time was not the end.

Not yet.

He put me first. If that's what love looked like to him, that's what I needed to give him.

"What do you want?" I asked. "And don't say it's to get married and have a kid, because I know you."

Rodney was quiet for a long moment. "Honest truth?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

He turned and looked me right in the eye. I'd never seen him so intent, so focused. My heart pounded, and my head spun, and I wished I could melt into him and hold on tight.

"I want to be with my best friend forever," he said, "and take millions of pictures and be stupidly happy. She's the most beautiful thing in my life. Everyone in the world would wish they were us."

That picture slammed into me like a speeding truck. And for a moment, I could see it—the life he described. But it felt like a dream, or a wish. Something far, far away that I once knew, but then forgot.

I leaned closer to him. "We could get through this," I said. "And still have that. Couldn't we?"

Rodney shook his head slowly, the way I imagined a doctor might when asked to give a diagnosis for a dying family member. "That's not us," he said. "Maybe it could have been, but it's not."

If I hadn't been sitting, my knees might have buckled. This was the status of our relationship: dead on arrival. I should have known that. I'd killed it myself.

I shivered. Like a relative in denial, I couldn't accept the prognosis. I reached out for his arm. "Don't you want anything I can give you now?"

Rodney's hand slid slowly out from under mine. "If I think of something," he said, "I'll let you know."

I bent over my knees. I really was going to retch. Be cool, I thought. Be cool, be cool. Do not let him see you hurl.

Rodney stood, his boots echoing on the bleachers. "You need a ride home?"

"No," I croaked. Breathe in, breathe out. My head started to clear.

"Penny?" he asked. "Are you okay?"

I looked up at him, at his brow etched with genuine concern. Only Rodney would offer to help me after a blow like that. I wanted to hang on to every minute I had left with him. But he wanted time to think, and the sooner I gave that to him, the faster he'd be able to figure things out.

"I'll be fine," I said. "Are you going to call me?"

He looked past me. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know anything."

And then he turned and walked away. The aluminum bench rattled under him with each step. The sides of my eyes tingled like I was going to cry, but instead they just burned.

Rodney never looked back.