by Piper Lennox
The day my period was supposed to start.
I hurried out of the diner. The parking lot, only defined by long, deep scars from truck tires in the ochre mud, clogged my throat with its dust.
I’d gotten my period that month. Definitely. Absolutely.
Hadn’t I?
Owens Drugstore was the only place in Hillford that sold pregnancy tests. It was also owned by Richard Owens, who played internet chess with my dad on Saturday mornings, and whose wife volunteered for all the same church functions as my mother.
Shame clamped my veins shut as I slipped the little pink box into my purse. It eased up, though, when I left a ten on the counter while Mr. Owens rearranged the magazine rack.
I walked to the library behind Town Hall and locked myself in the bathroom, trying not to think about how sore my boobs suddenly felt, or the nausea tumbling in and out of my stomach. It’s all in your head.
Then, suddenly, it wasn’t.
It was right there in front of me, resting on the edge of the sink, in the little plastic window of a little plastic stick.
When Easton finally stepped outside, she held the kitchen door a moment before closing it. That was my first clue something was wrong. Easton never shut the door like that if people weren’t asleep. She let it slam, the rattle snapping across the fence like a whip.
My second clue: she had her headphones on and her arms folded, iPod clutched in one hand. In the other was a plastic bag.
Third: her eyes were red. She’d been crying.
I held the truck door open for her and hurried to my side, then drove down our street in the opposite direction from the party. It could wait.
When we reached the intersection, dusk and fields the only things around us, I cut the engine and yanked up the parking brake.
“What’s wrong?”
Wordlessly, she dropped the shopping bag into my lap, then turned up her iPod.
Inside was a Ziplock. Inside that, a pregnancy test.
It was positive.
In retrospect, there were many things I could have uttered in that moment, all of which would have been better than, “Oh, fuck.” Live and learn.
“I took it right after I left the diner,” she whispered. She turned the iPod back down, but not all the way. I slid one cup off her ear and kept my hand there a moment. How it was supposed to comfort her, I wasn’t sure. I just felt the urge to do it.
“How...far along?”
“I’m almost an entire month late. I should have noticed, I just—I had that big science project that week, and then we went to visit my grandma, so I didn’t....”
Tears skidded down her cheeks. My brain screamed at me to wipe them away; now, more than ever, she needed some kind of proof I was here for her. But all I could do was stare at those two pink lines. It felt like staring into the sun.
“It’s yours, by the way.”
“For fuck’s sake, E, I know it’s mine.” I let my head hit the seat. “You said you were on birth control.”
“I am.”
“Then you must have forgotten a day.”
“I’ve been taking it for acne since I was thirteen. I didn’t ‘forget a day.’ It’s not like it’s guaranteed to stop pregnancy, you know.”
“Then why have you been letting me finish inside you?”
“Let you? Are you kidding me? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I alone was in charge of where you keep your goddamn jizz.”
I hit the wheel with both hands. The horn released a sharp, broken sound into the nothingness ahead.
Easton started to cry again.
My hands raked through my hair, then landed back on the wheel as I sighed. “It’s not your fault. I knew it wasn’t guaranteed, either. Hell, half the people in this town are Pill babies. It was stupid as shit to think it couldn’t happen to us.”
Easton nodded, clicking the wheel of her iPod over and over.
“Okay, well...where should we go?”
“My house, I guess. I know you wanted to go the party, but I’m just not feeling it now.”
“Not tonight,” I corrected. I motioned to her stomach. The idea that there was a baby in there—my baby—was as absurd as it was panic-inducing. “Where should we go to...take care of everything?”
She looked at me. “Why would we do that?”
“Easton, don’t do this. We can’t be parents, we’re barely eighteen.”
“Your parents were seventeen, when they had you.”
“Exactly. So trust me when I say a baby would absolutely ruin our lives, right now.” My arms swept to the intersection. “There’s one of those clinics in the city, I think. Ellie Blackwood went there.”
“Says who?”
“Uh, everybody?”
“Good to see you changing your mind about rumors,” she mumbled, slouching in her seat. She tapped the headphone cup back over her ear, but I slid it off again. No amount of eye-daggers could stop me.
“I’m just saying, that’s one place I know of where you could get...that kind of thing done.”
“Say it, Ford.” She twisted in her seat, shoving the belt behind her. “If you’re going to sit there and pretend it’s our only option, at least have the balls to say it.”
I felt it turn sour in my mouth, if only because I knew how much she didn’t want to hear it. “An abortion. There, okay? And why are you pretending that’s not our only option?”
“Because it isn’t. Like you said, half the people in this town are Pill babies. Lots of people here had kids when they were young.”
“Yeah, and look how well that’s worked out for them.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “Dayton lives in the shittiest house in town. The Campos family went all-in and pumped out seven more, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen them not looking fucking exhausted. And the Littles are on the Thanksgiving and Christmas charity lists, top of the heap, every single year. Is that what you want for yourself?”
“What do you want, Ford?”
“For starters, I damn sure don’t want the life my parents had. And I’m not staying in Hillford. I’ve always said that—as soon as I graduate, I’m out of here. Gone. A fucking ghost.”
“Why? What’s so bad about Hillford? You sound like such a snob when you talk about it that way, you know that? I wonder how your friends would feel if they heard your infamous ‘brain-dead hicks’ monologue, since it includes all the stuff they like to do and wear, all the places they like to go.”
I slammed the wheel again and cursed a string that wrung the anger out of me, but didn’t actually make me feel better. Just made room for more.
“Look,” I said, after we’d passed at least twenty minutes in silence, save for whatever music she had blasting through her headphones, “Caroline just went to live with our aunt, I’m graduating soon—things have finally lined up for me to leave and start my life over, the way I’ve always planned.”
“Like I don’t have plans? You think I want to give up my spot at Hawkins-Bell? I worked my ass off for those scholarships.”
“That’s my point, we both have plans. And it just feels like...like a mistake, to change those plans over something so unexpected. And unwanted.” I paused and traced a cigarette burn in my jeans. “Something we can undo.”
“Maybe for you, it can be undone. Right now your girlfriend—or whatever the fuck you think of me as—is pregnant. One trip to the city and boom, she’s not pregnant, and your life carries on.” Easton cranked down her window and took an annoyed breath, as though I had a cigarette and was blowing it right at her. “But what about me?”
“You won’t be pregnant anymore. Like you said.”
The glare she shot me was worse than anger. She was disgusted.
“You think it would be that easy?”
“I didn’t say it would be easy.” Now that I’d thought of smoking, I had to light one. My inhale was deep, choking, and incredible. “Just that it’s the best option. The only option, the way I’m looking at things.”
“But it isn’t.” She pulled her face back from the window and stared at me, eyes watering again. “I can keep it.”
I hung my hand out the window. The breeze kicked up and ashed my cigarette for me. “Are you going to?”
Her silence made me hopeful. It felt like shit, hoping she’d agree with me—but all I could think about was the money I’d stashed in my mattress, and the suitcase I’d already packed in my imagination. I knew exactly what I’d take with me when school was over, after I’d had however much summer fun I wanted and could make my escape. Clean, seamless, and simple.
“You said...you said you don’t want to change your plans, for something unexpected,” she said. Her fingers wound themselves into the headphone cable. “Where does that leave me?”
“Easton....”
“No, don’t give me that ‘labels’ speech like I’m being crazy. I’m genuinely asking, where do I fit into all these plans of yours? Because if keeping this means they’d change...that means I was never going to. That I was never part of them at all.”
Her voice fractured. The anger seeped out of her; she simply cried.
I flicked my cigarette out the window and unbuckled my seatbelt, immediately pulling her towards me on the bench. While she cried into my shoulder, I smoothed her hair and promised her she was in my plans. Of course she was.
All the while, I thought of what a fucking liar and all-around shitty person I was.
By the time she pulled away from me, her eyes were dry. The raw, pink tracks down her cheekbones were the only evidence.
“I do want to keep it, if you’re going to stay,” she whispered, “because I—I don’t think I can do this alone. If we’re together, I think we can handle it. I really do. I know you’re thinking about your parents, and all the other people who had kids young, but...our lives don’t have to be like that, Ford. We didn’t get to decide this—but we do decide what happens next.” She paused, searching my face. “But I don’t want you to stay if...you don’t really want to.”
Of course I don’t want to, I thought. But the weird thing was, as sure of this as I’d been a few minutes ago, I wasn’t now.
“We’ll be okay, Easy.” If she noticed the fact I didn’t really answer her question, she pretended not to as she leaned back into me. I kissed the ear that wasn’t covered by her headphones. She was listening to Elvis.
We didn’t go to the party that night. At least, she didn’t.
I took her home. Kissed her goodbye.
Drove straight to Bram’s and got so drunk, I forgot all about those little pink lines damming up my path out of this town like two giant, pink logs. Tanner turned me onto my side when I passed out near the woods.
When I woke up, two things hit me: the memory that Easton was pregnant, and the smell of sap weeping out of the bark. I wasn’t sure which made me shoot to my feet and vomit until I could hardly breathe.
Twenty-Four
No one in town was going to know I was pregnant. Not until they had to.
I was determined to stay out of the rumor mill as long as possible. Even if it meant buying an entirely new prom dress, because my skintight one showed the slightest hint of a belly.
It was paranoid, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I took the birthday money I’d saved and bought a ball gown at Coronet Boutique, baby blue.
Ford wasn’t taking me. It was an idea I’d clung to at first, then discarded as easily as he apparently had. The past week—ever since I told him I was pregnant—he’d grown more distant. We were even less of a couple now than we’d been before.
Instead, I went with a group of girls who’d formed a solemn No Dates pact. They offered me champagne in the car, which I stealthily passed to the next girl.
Amazingly enough, I had fun. Bram and his date were crowned Prom King and Queen; he passed his plastic crown around our group and let each of us take a photo with it, all of our mouths stained from punch, most also stained with malt liquor from the trunks of their cars. Tanner requested my favorite song of the week at the deejay booth, when I got too tired of waiting in line in my heels. Hudson, who’d gone stag too, offered me a dance when the group I’d tagged along with, pact evidently forgotten, hooked up with some guys and left me on wallflower status by myself.
Through it all, I skimmed off the sadness that appeared whenever I realized this wouldn’t last. In about seven months, I’d have a baby depending on me. No time for parties and dancing, no money for ball gowns, no places to wear them. For a deep, aching moment, I wished I hadn’t bought this dress, no matter how beautiful I felt in it. A crib, diapers, a car seat: there were a hundred better uses for that money.
Worst of all was the feeling I’d be doing everything alone. No matter what Ford said the night I told him, there was too much he’d said before that. Too much silence in the days after.
Every time the sadness crept back, I pushed it aside and reminded myself that high school was almost over. None of this would last, whether I’d gotten pregnant or not. Friends would be leaving for college, diving into careers, some staying, some leaving; adulthood would hit us all, in one form or another. This was just mine.
When I came home, Ford was waiting in my bedroom.
Rose petals sat like tiny, silk-soft dishes all around the room, cradling the light from the candles he’d arranged on my bureau. He stood against my window in a tie, dress shirt, and jeans, holding a single rose.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered, hands on the doorknob behind me after I clicked it shut. My parents were out on the sleeping porch, so staying quiet wasn’t a necessity. But it still felt like one.
Ford stepped close and kissed me, holding the rose to my chest until I took it. “Kicking myself for not taking you to prom. You look incredible.”
Like a jigsaw puzzle, everything clicked into place. My life wasn’t a mess, after all. I’d just been piecing it together wrong.
He was here. He’d stay.
Glitter cascaded from my dress under his fingertips as he traced the bodice, lips so close to mine I could feel the energy of the kiss we’d just shared, and the buzz of every one to come. I thought there would be so many more.
His hands paused at my stomach. I held my breath.
The heat of his palm felt like it went right through me, to the base of my spine, as he touched the spot I’d been absentmindedly holding all week. I kept trying to imagine the change there would be in my body—the change already happening, enormous and unseen.
He undressed me roughly; glitter was everywhere, stuck to our necks and chests, the soles of our feet as we tumbled into my bed and took back all that distance. When he entered me, gentle but deep, I almost laughed: here I’d thought I wouldn’t get the normal prom experience.
For the first time ever, we didn’t orgasm together.
“I can’t....” Ford’s warning melted into a low groan as he came, and I swore, even though I knew it wasn’t possible, I could feel every ounce of his release as it filled me. It brought me torturously close, but I teetered at the line and couldn’t tip myself over.
He pulled out and replaced his erection with his fingers: three, then four. It was more than I’d ever had, and the blue flame that tore through me summoned a cry unlike anything I’d ever given. After all, it was Ford who was loud. Not me.
When he enveloped me with his mouth, devouring my swollen clitoris in the storm of his tongue, I did it again. My bedroom felt so tiny, filled with so much sound.
I lifted my hips as I came, and Ford moved with me, anticipating every writhing response and uncontrollable shudder, refusing to stop until I collapsed back to the mattress.
“You okay?” he asked, smiling in the candlelight when he saw my tears.
“Yes,” I choked. “Ford, oh, God, it felt so good....” It still felt good. My limbs twitched and shivered long after he pulled the quilt across us.
Also for the first time, we slept in the same bed the entire night, all the way through morning. No silent escapes.
> “...Isaiah Landon...Easton Lawrence...Amelia Little…”
I could hear, through the cheers of the crowd, my father’s voice ringing louder than anything else. As I crossed the stage set up on the football field, hand extending to shake the principal’s and take my diploma, I fought the nausea in my throat.
I was almost ten weeks along, but not a soul other than Ford knew. When, exactly, I’d make the announcement, I had no idea—but it damn sure wasn’t going to be via throwing up on the graduation stage.
The L’s were done before I’d marched back to my seat, waving in my parents’ and grandmother’s vague direction. As I sat and smiled at the students around me whispering, “We did it!” the announcer moved to the M’s.
Like I’d done all morning, I looked at the empty seat behind mine and told myself it didn’t mean anything. Ford was the type to break rules, after all: nothing would stop him from sauntering out of the bleachers, in ripped jeans with a cigarette behind his ear, and leaping onto the stage to get his diploma. And the principal, happy to be rid of his little rat pack, would fork it over, lack of pomp be damned.
“Mariah MacMahon.” Applause. “Justin Maguire.” Applause.
I shut my eyes.
“Ford McLean.”
It was thunderous, the cheers that erupted, the hollers and applause my classmates—and, truth be told, a lot of the parents—unleashed into the sky. If I still had my colors, I knew I’d see jagged red and black lightning, a tangle of charcoal and piercing yellow. I’d once told Ford that everyone liked him, and he’d sneered, “They don’t even know me.” I hoped, wherever he was hiding, he could hear how much Hillford loved him. Even if he couldn’t love it back.
I opened my eyes, knowing I’d still find his spot onstage empty. The next student stopped on the stairs, while the crowd quieted to near-silence.
The speaker coughed into his elbow. “Um...Camden Merritt.”
The show went on. Those of us who held our diplomas, officially free, whispered and laughed and planned for the parties tonight and the rest of summer.