by Alice Carina
"That was the only night you were outside and I couldn't find you when I looked for you, so I know it must've happened on that night, right?" She finally looked at me, and my wide eyes and fear-struck face were all the confirmation that she needed. "But I know you wouldn't just go for a one-night thing with a stranger," she nodded to herself, "so, it was definitely someone you could at least talk to."
She paused and focused her attention on me, waiting for me to fill in her blanks, but I couldn't.
"Is it Emmet?" She suggested, "Did he make you feel bad and you finally gave in to him? It would explain why he's being so mean to you if he doesn't want the baby."
"No," I shook my head. "Josslyn, please don't do this, I can't."
"Was it Chad?"
"No!"
"No, of course, not, he wasn't at that party. Was it someone from class? Older than us? Younger than us?"
"Josslyn, please stop."
"Why are you trying to protect him?"
"I'm not, I just..." I'm protecting you. I didn't want to lie to my sister more than I already was, but I couldn't choose to go with the truth either.
"I know it was one guy, Katie." She stepped closer to me. "If you would just give a name, whoever it is, it would make everything better. The rumors would stop, dad would have somebody to direct his anger at, and you wouldn't have to go through this alone. You didn't get pregnant on your own, so you shouldn't be pregnant on your own. This," she pointed to my stomach, "is as much his fault as it is yours. Whoever the guy is, he's going to be a parent too, not just you, so technically, he's pregnant too and the consequences should be on the both of you, not you alone simply because you're the one who shows."
"I..." I shook my head, there wasn't anything that I could say, so I tried to move around her, but she stepped in my way.
"Do you love him?"
"What?"
"Do you love him?"
I'd never thought about that before. Did I love Kyle? Had that night been long-time-coming? I tried to think to the time before he got me pregnant, when I watched him and my sister get to know each other and carefully fall in love while pretending not to. I sometimes envied what they had, how they clicked so perfectly together, how the worst people to everybody else were the best for each other. I envied my sister for finding somebody like her, but I never envied her for him, I never wanted him, I wanted somebody like me, somebody who was perfect for me, and Kyle wasn't.
While I didn't love him, I didn't hate him either, and I didn't want to put anybody else through all the bullying and judgment I was going through. Even if I got frustrated or angry enough at him to want to bring him down with me, my sister would go down with him, my sister who loved me enough to avoid stressing me and who wanted a name – any name – to take the blame from me, I couldn't do that to her, so I shook my head and moved around her, and something about my expression stopped her from following me.
*
I woke up too tired that morning even though I'd had more than eight hours of sleep for no reason other than that I was pregnant. I took my time getting up and getting ready for school that I didn't have time to prepare any lunch or grab anything with me on the way out to Chelsea's car. I didn't even remember that I hadn't brought any lunch until it was Lunch time and I realized that I had to go into the cafeteria for the first time in many, somewhat-peaceful days.
I thought about skipping Lunch altogether, but I had to eat something to take my medicine, just the thought of missing it made me feel sicker than I had in a while. Even if it wasn't for the medicine, I was constantly hungry, it was an actual struggle not to sneak food and risk getting called out in class. At home, I was constantly eating, and when I couldn't at school, I was constantly thinking about it.
"Why can't you just sit in the cafeteria with everybody else like normal people?" Chelsea asked me after our joint class.
Because I'm not normal anymore. I stopped being normal when I did the most normal thing. Ironic, isn't it?
Chelsea was the only person in school who still actually talked to me. Kyle hadn't once spoken to me since that night he asked me not to tell Josslyn about us, and Josslyn – under Bernetta's or Patty's instructions – avoided me at school. Even though Chelsea still drove me to and from school and talked to me – either because of her mom's instructions or because my running away and coming back on a gurney had truly scared her – we weren't like we used to be. Chelsea was usually loud and talkative and cheerful and outrageously demanding, but she was treating me as if her words would break me. I wanted her to demand to know about the father, to ask me where I'd run off to and how I ended up in a hospital, I wanted her smiles when she saw me okay and around each day to be real, I wanted her to talk to me openly in front of everyone, not quietly when there was barely anyone around as if she was afraid somebody might see her with me but also afraid to let me out of her sight.
"I don't like crowds," I shrugged. There was nobody else willing to give me a chance or a friendly smile but her, so I took what I could get, even if it wasn't real and embarrassedly hidden.
"But the restroom smells so bad," she whined.
"I know, that's why you don't eat there." I wasn't welcome in the classroom with my teachers or in the cafeteria with my peers, so I ate my Lunch while hiding from them all in the restroom.
Chelsea said that she would've sat with me but the smell bothered her too much. I knew that she was secretly glad I wasn't tagging along with her across the halls and sharing her table. She was like Josslyn, she was obliged by our years together and her concern for my health to acknowledge me, but preferred not to socialize with me publically where it could backfire on her; there was no father to share the blame with me, so naturally there was enough shame to go around for anyone who mixed with me and nobody wanted it.
"Do you want me to get you something?" She offered. I didn't want to ask her for anymore favors; she was already doing more than I expected her to by offering me rides and occasionally talking to me, but I also didn't want to be seen with a tray of food where everybody would comment on how fat I was and how I should stop eating and living.
"Could you?"
I waited outside the cafeteria door for Chelsea to buy my lunch, but she didn't come back alone.
"Give that back!" I heard her yelling before the doors slammed open and out walked Emmet with at least ten other kids behind him.
"Katie!" He pretended to be shocked to see me. "How are you?"
I quickly dropped my gaze, prepared for him to get over with his humiliation for the day so that I could go on my way.
"I saw Chelsea over there carrying two trays; she said she was getting you one. Now, what kind of gentleman would I be if I let a girl struggle with two trays on her own? So, I decided to bring you your tray, for old times' sake."
I saw his shoes move closer to me and the tray came right under my nose. There was a dish of sloppy pasta, a piece of cake, and an open can of yogurt.
"Here, take it," he pushed it towards me. "You need to eat. The baby needs to eat. In fact, why don't we feed the baby directly?"
Before I could take the tray from him or make sense of his question, he flipped the tray upside-down over me. The pasta was scolding, the yogurt was freezing, and the cake got stuck over my big, round belly. I couldn't breathe, or move, and I barely registered the sounds of laughter over the pulsing in my ears.
I slowly looked up, frightened and disbelieving. What did they want from me? Did they want me to die? Did they want my baby to die? Did they want to kill us?
My eyes found Kyle's face in the background. He was laughing alongside his friends but quickly dropped his head when he met my gaze.
I could've just pointed at him, I could've screamed it right there and then in front of everybody and watched all of their smiles drop, I could've thrown the food that was disgustingly-slowly sliding down my body at him so that he could join me in the mess we both created and both deserved to suffer for.
Kyle began to blur, everybody be
gan to blur as their laughter filled my ears, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to hold anything back anymore. I couldn't make them laugh even more at me; I couldn't let them know how they got to me. I spun around so fast I had to fight the dizziness as I ran away from them. I heard someone call my name from the crowd, but I kept running until I reached the girls' restroom and collapsed on the floor. I couldn't see if anybody else was there, and my little run had made me too tired to care.
For the first time since I woke up in the hospital and found out that my baby was alright, I cried. I cried because my baby wasn't going to be alright, because I wasn't alright, because nothing was alright and nothing would ever be alright.
I felt the door open beside me and somebody walk in, but I couldn't look up or save my pride by stopping.
"Katie?" The voice was familiar, but I couldn't think of anything.
Slowly, the person came down to the floor and hugged me closer, and I instantly knew him. He didn't say anything or ask me to stop or move, he just held me, and whether he was holding me up at the highest point I'd ever risen to in a Ferris wheel or in the lowest point I'd ever slumped to on the pink tiles of the girls' restroom of the building's bottom floor, he made it alright to cry until I was all out of tears and I knew that things would have to be alright eventually.
"I'm sorry," I quickly pulled away when I came to my senses and realized that I'd been holding onto Chad too tightly and crying all over him when he should've been having Lunch or doing anything that didn't involve him being inside the girls' restroom.
"It's oka-" I pushed myself up against the wall before he could finish. He swiftly got up himself before I was fully up and tried to steady me.
I couldn't think to thank him or speak as I walked over to the sinks to wash my face. I just wanted him to leave so I wouldn't have to look at him again.
"Katie?" I didn't know why, but I couldn't look at him.
"I'm sorry," was all I could say as I splashed more water onto my face.
I knew I looked pathetic from where he stood, just a weak girl with a stomach almost too big for her to carry standing near a pink wall that had the newest and most degrading rumors sprawled on it in all shades of lipstick. He was silent for a while as I walked over to the tissues and pulled a few to wipe my face. He was probably waiting for me to turn around and face him, but I never did.
"Is this the bad thing you told me you did?" He asked hesitantly. I nodded once as I scrunched the tissues in my hands and the silence stretched for another while. "If you ever want to talk about it, or about anything..." he sighed. "I'm here for you."
I waited for him to follow his words with alaugh or a jab or an insult, but nothing came. When the bell rang and I finallyhad to turn around, he'd already left.
In Return
I woke up at a random hour at night. It was becoming a new pregnancy or stress habit. I would suddenly wake up in the middle of the night, fully alert and feeling active, but by the time I forced myself back to sleep, I'd have to get up too tired for school. I woke up that night with immense discomfort. I just wanted to be able to sleep on my stomach for at least one time per week, was that too much to ask for? I twisted from side to side to no avail, so I hoped that a glass of warm milk would help.
I struggled for a few seconds like a back-flipped turtle before I managed to pull myself off the bed. I paused on the stairs when I noticed that the lights were on and my parents were still up, too late for their usual bedtime.
"Yes, you do,"
"No," my dad snapped. "You know what? I don't want to talk about this anymore."
"We have to," my mom sounded desperate.
"No, I don't want to do this anymore."
"Do what? Be a father? This isn't exactly the kind of job you can quit."
"This isn't a job either." They were both struggling to keep their voices low and still deliver their points efficiently. "I didn't sign up for this."
"You think she did?" My mom fought back. "But yes, you and I did, we signed up for everything and anything when we decided to have kids, but Katie didn't make that decision."
"Of course, you would know."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"This is all your fault." My dad accused. "I might've messed up a few things in my life, but this one is all on you."
"How is it my fault that our daughter got pregnant?"
"Because you're the stay-at-home mom!" He spoke the words like an insult that explained everything. "I work and take care of things outside, but you were the one who chose to stay at home and take care of the girls, and you did an awful job."
"Hey!" I heard a thud; mom must've stood up or dropped something from her hands. "I work, too, you know. You work outside, I work inside, and my work is not of any less value. You get the money, but I turn it into food and clothes and heat. You might've bought this house, but I made it a home. You think your clothes just magically show up in your closet washed and dried and ironed and folded after you throw them on the floor? You think the fridge and the oven search their own recipes and make you new food so you don't get bored? You think the floor wipes itself and the curtains wash themselves and the furniture and entire house just cleans itself by itself? I have back pain and my hands wrinkled twenty-years before they should have from taking care of this house and I-"
"Okay, okay, calm down." My dad's voice was calmer and I heard his footsteps as he approached her. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that." Mom must've been crying; dad never apologized or backed down from a fight unless she was.
"You work outside, I work inside," my mom spoke after some silence, "but it was up to the both of us to raise them."
"Well, then, we both did an awful job."
"No, no, we didn't," my mom insisted. "They're good girls, Jeffery. Katie has always been a straight-A student, she's a genuinely nice person, she volunteers for charities every summer, and everybody loves her."
"If we raised such a good girl, how did she get pregnant? Huh?"
"Because she's a teenager; hormones, curiosity, peer pressure, puppy love, take your pick."
"Good girls don't fall for any of those."
"Are you saying I wasn't a good girl?" Mom challenged. "I mean, what were we expecting? That our girls would wait until they were married?"
"Yes, I would very much have preferred that."
"Well, so did our parents, but we didn't wait. This is perfect karma."
"We were different."
"Just because I didn't get pregnant? That doesn't make any sense; I could've gotten pregnant without doing anything more or less than what I'd already done with you."
"But if you had gotten pregnant, you would've known it was mine." Dad sighed tiredly.
"You really think she doesn't know?" I could almost see my mom shaking her head. "We raised a girl so good, she would rather take the blame on her own than make somebody else suffer with her even if he deserves it. She ran away so we wouldn't suffer. She's a good girl."
"We were different." Dad changed the subject. "We were in love."
"Maybe she is, too." Mom suggested.
"No, she's not, she doesn't even have a boyfriend. I thought it might've been that guy she once brought home, but Josslyn said it couldn't be him. I've been watching her and making Josslyn watch her, too. She doesn't have any guy friends or talk to any guys, for that matter."
"Maybe that's the problem."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean she's a teenage girl," my mom sighed. "Girls that age look outside their homes for attention and confidence. Josslyn goes out with guys and has many friends and is open with us about everything, but Katie's always been shy. She wouldn't even talk to me about that boy who dumped her because he liked Josslyn better."
"He what?" My dad interjected protectively.
"My point is, Katie doesn't talk much about her feelings, and I wonder if we ever did anything to make her think that her feelings and experiences were secondary to her sister's. I wonder if by complaining abou
t Josslyn all the time and praising Katelyn too much in comparison, we put her on a pedestal that scared her, that made her feel like she couldn't come to us because then she would get knocked off from too high a place and would get hurt."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that Katelyn is a teenage girl who doesn't have many friends and always shied away from boys probably because of how much her sister didn't. We always compared them as opposites. She must've thought we expected her to be Josslyn's opposite even when it came to boys and didn't want to disappoint us. I'm saying that a girl her age must've felt so lonely and isolated."
"She got pregnant because she felt lonely?" My dad sounded incredulous as he tried to make sense of what mom was saying.
"Or because she didn't want to be so lonely anymore." Mom offered. "Maybe she wanted to be more like her sister to stop feeling so lonely, but she didn't have her sister's experience to begin with and didn't know how to protect herself from getting pregnant."
"So, you're saying it was just one guy on one night that she didn't know how to be safe at?"
"Yes," my mom's voice was almost victorious that she'd finally gotten through to him.
"You don't know that for sure,"
"I know our daughter."
"Then why don't you ask her, Kareen?" My dad challenged. "Why don't you just talk to her about all of this?"
"B-because..." She hesitated. "Patty said we shouldn't push her. She clearly went through a lot more than she was willing to tell the police on the streets. The last thing she needs right now is more stress. She hasn't fully healed and-"
"That's just an excuse and you know it." Dad interrupted. "You will never ask her, Kareen, because deep down I know you're scared that you're wrong, that you don't know your own daughter-"
"Our daughter," mom corrected.
"Fine, I think you're scared that you don't know our daughter at all, that she isn't what you thought you-we raised her to be, that we didn't raise her as well as we thought we did and we both messed up and now our daughter is pregnant because of you, or because of me, or because she's always been-"