by Alice Carina
I felt that I was going to drive myself insane with frustration, so I decided to take another shower, and halfway through it I decided to turn it into a bubble bath, just so that I would take longer doing something, but I had to come out of the bathroom eventually.
I stopped by my mirror like I'd done earlier in the morning and, instead of freaking out about my baby like I'd done, I sat down and started talking to her, or to the reflection of her home in me in the mirror.
I told her that I was young and stupid and had no idea what was happening to my body and emotions because of her, but that I was trying my best to hold it together for her. I told her that I was scared of giving birth to her and asked her to come out swiftly and with as little pain as possible if she could. I told her that I didn't know anything about babies save what I'd been forcing myself to read for the past few weeks and forgetting, but that I was going to do the best that I could for her. I told her about school and how mean everybody was, and I prayed that she would have more friends than I did who would be true to her and support her through everything, and I asked her that if it chanced and she turned out to be popular, to be nice to those like her mom who weren't and just needed somebody – anybody – to be nice to them. I told her about Chad, how nice he was and how he'd gotten his friends to stop bullying me and how much I missed him and needed him and how difficult it was to return his kindness and thoughtfulness by my own and let him go. I told her that I had no idea where my life was heading or if I would ever make any dream I'd ever had come true because of her and how I was hoping she'd be worth it – while confessing that I didn't know if she'd really be.
Then I told her about me. My favorite colors and foods and places and memories and activities and dreams and hopes. And I told her that she was a part of me, and she was bound to share some of those, and that I would love to have her for a friend and enjoy them together.
Boredom had truly driven me mad as I sat in front of my mirror talking to my unborn child, but I just needed someone to talk to and I figured if I had to carry her inside me for nine months and give birth to her, the least she could do was listen to me.
While I did feel better afterwards, there was still nothing for me to do and I was all out of things to say. I lied down in my bed again, hoping to force myself to sleep even though I'd slept most of the day. Sleep wouldn't come, but I stayed in bed, knowing that it would have to come at some point.
I turned from side to side, pulling the covers over me then pushing them aside then over me again. I slipped momentarily out of consciousness then stirred awake and tried to force myself back under too many times, groaning and coughing and pulling at my hair throughout the night.
I was puffing and whining as I was turning to my other side when I felt my phone buzzing behind me.
I froze.
Carefully, I turned around and stared at my phone. It was on; the screen was lit up and it was vibrating. Somebody was actually calling me. I slowly reached out for it and brought it closer to my face, my eyes quickly adjusting to the light when I read Chad's name.
"Hello?" My hand and voice were shaking. Did he dial me by accident? Did he miss me? Even if he did, I had to push him away before he got too involved... But did he miss me?
"Katie!" He sounded relieved. "I was worried you wouldn't pick up."
"I-is everything okay?"
"Can I see you?"
"What?" He wanted to see me? Now? I moved my phone in front of me to check the time.
11:54 PM
"I'm already in front of your house. Please, I just want to talk, can you come down?"
I didn't know what he wanted, but seeing him a day after we ended our friendship wasn't going to do us any good. I didn't want him to feel bad for me and I knew I wouldn't be able to walk away from him again, not after the day I'd had without him.
"I don't think that's a good idea..." I trailed off.
"Please," he stressed. "I'm not leaving. If you don't come down then I'll just knock on your front door until your parents wake up and let me in."
"You wouldn't," I gasped at his threat.
"I need to talk to you. Please."
Pulling a robe around my body, I held my breath as I tiptoed down stairs and snuck into our backyard.
Chad was standing under my window. One hand was holding a bouquet of flowers, the other was nervously rummaging through his hair.
"What are you doing here?" I whispered when he looked at me.
"For you," he extended the flowers to my face and I carefully took them from him, confused.
"What are you doing here?" I repeated.
"It's almost twelve," he chuckled, like it didn't even make sense to him. "Every year, I text you at exactly twelve so that I'd be the first to wish you a happy birthday. It didn't feel right to just text you after what happened."
"Chad..."
"I know you're mad at me for the way I reacted and the things I said." He took a deep breath. "I didn't mean it; I didn't mean to punch Kyle or to yell at you or to make you feel bad, I just-"
"I'm not mad at you,"
"You're not?" He blinked at me with surprise.
"No," I shook my head. "You had every right to get angry and disappointed with me. I'm angry and disappointed with myself. Look, I know that you feel bad for me after everything I dropped on you that I've been through, but you don't have to apologize or try to be my friend anymore. Trust me, if I could yell at me or ditch me, I would."
"But I don't want to,"
"Then what do you want?" I demanded, feeling ridiculous as I waved the flowers around.
"I want you," he snapped then cursed to himself as he took a step away from me.
We were both silent as he ran both hands in his hair before deciding on something and suddenly turning back to me.
"I've known you for years, Katie, and I-"
"No," I interrupted him. "You don't know me. You know the old Katie, the invisible virgin who was good and polite and - while never loved or popular - was liked and respected, or tolerated and overlooked in the least, who never would've done this," I pointed my hands and the flowers to my stomach, tears easily falling now when I was trying so hard to hold them back, in contrast to the afternoon when I was trying to provoke them and they promised a draught.
Even I didn't know myself anymore. I wanted to be the old Katie again; invisible and a virgin and good and polite and liked and respected and tolerated and overlooked, the Katie who would've never gotten pregnant, the Katie he knew, the Katie I knew.
I tried to hide my face with the flowers. That day was just too much, too long, too slow.
"Do you still like dolphins?" I heard his calm voice over my sobs, instantly halting them.
"Yeah?" My voice was squeaky as I tried to hold back my tears long to see him.
"Is your favorite color still blue?"
"Yes," I pulled the flowers away and wiped my face with my sleeve, not sure what he was getting at.
"Do you still like vanilla?"
"I've been craving vanilla with fish fingers lately..." I confessed and he chuckled, "But yeah,"
"Do you still like volunteering for charity?"
"I don't think I'll be able to anymore..."
"But do you like it?" He pressed.
"Yes, why are you asking these things?"
"If you could go back in time, would you still have slept with him?" He winced at his own question.
"No," I lowered my face, feeling like I was betraying my baby.
"If you'd known that he was still with Josslyn, if you hadn't seen her with someone else, would you have kissed him?"
"No,"
"If you were doing something and you knew that it was going to hurt somebody, even if they deserved it, would you still do it?"
"No, that's why I haven't told them the truth..."
"Do you still like to paint each toe a different color?" He was trying to hold back a smile.
"I can't really reach my toes anymore, but yeah."
"
Are daisies still your favorite flowers?" He nodded to the bouquet in my hand with a smile.
"Yes," I pulled them closer to me.
"Then you're still the same Katie I've always known." He concluded. "One mistake that you didn't even know was a mistake doesn't change who you are. One bad thing that you didn't even know was bad doesn't make you a bad person, Katie. It might change the way you look, or the way you feel, but it doesn't change the way I see you, or the way I feel about you."
I felt my heart drop to my stomach and pulse it larger and larger so that it would swallow me whole.
"You can't still see me the same," I refused to let myself hope. "At least not after you found out it was Kyle." He flinched at his name.
"That wasn't about you," he shook his head. "I was already so angry with whoever had done this to you and abandoned you that I just needed a name to take it out on. When I found out it was Kyle," his hands went back to his hair, his soft, soft hair. "I couldn't stand it. He left you and he let his friends bully you and was torturing you by always being around you and so happy while you were so... I don't know. I just couldn't stand him doing that to you." He took a step closer to me. "Or maybe it didn't matter that it was him, maybe I would've lost it on any name you'd given me..." He took another step closer. "Maybe I just couldn't stand the idea of another guy – any other guy – touching you."
I shook my head, trying to deny the words I'd always wanted him to say; I couldn't let myself hope. He couldn't have liked me, he couldn't still like me, he could never like me, he just couldn't...
"I know that we hardly talked face to face, but you've been my best friend for so long, Katie." He looked at me and his eyes twinkled so beautifully under the moonlight that I had to look away. "You told me to go back to my normal friends for all the reasons that I want to be around you. I wouldn't mind going anywhere with you and I don't care what people say, I have the most fun just texting you than hanging out with my normal friends, I feel good and happy with you, and you're the only one I can be myself around. I'm not okay without you."
"Don't..." I whispered, it was so hard hearing him say those things, things that I'd dreamed and fantasied and prayed he'd say one day, why couldn't he have said them just a few months before?
"You wanna know what my normal friend and I talk about?" He asked me, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We talk about school and games and girls and all the other things that will be gone in a few months or years. But it's different with you. I can talk to you about anything, about real things, things that my normal friends would laugh at me for. I can talk to you about my dreams, my plans, my family, my worries, my feelings... But I've kept from you the feelings you had the most right to know."
"I'm pregnant," I emphasized.
"No, you're Katie," he shrugged. "Pregnancy is just something that you have, like a headache, or a shirt, or a part of you like a nose, it's not who you are."
"I..." I started, but I lost all words when I looked up at him to stress whatever point I had in mind and lost it when I noticed how close he'd gotten.
"You were right about one thing yesterday," he told me. "We shouldn't be friends anymore."
"Chad..." I tried to stop him.
"Tell me you don't like me back," he challenged. "Tell me you don't feel anything when you look at me," he lifted a finger to my chin and tilted my face up to meet his so I was forced to look into his eyes, the eyes that I'd been dreaming about looking into that closely for years. His eyes were so close. "Tell me you don't feel anything when I touch you," he moved his fingers across my cheek, brushing away a stray tear and my hair out of my eyes. His face was too close. "Tell me you don't feel anything when I kiss you," his words were lost on my lips as he kissed me.
He actually kissed me.
Chad kissed me.
The moment his lips touched mine, my knees and elbows went numb and I dropped my flowers. A second later, my whole body followed as I lost my balance and fell into his arms.
I'd been dreaming about kissing him for so long. It was a fantasy that I went back to whenever I was bored or particularly hopeful and filled it up with secret desires of intimacy and connectedness. I'd gotten so used to fantasizing about him that a part of me never wanted it to actually happen and be lost from me forever, but he crushed all my expectations and set the bar way higher than I'd managed to dream up over the years in a single moment.
There were sparks and butterflies and magic that I recognized from my wishes before that fateful night. In just a few moments, he restored my faith in romance and I fell back in love with every love story I'd ever read. With just one kiss, he restored me back to the girl who believed in the magical flair of romance and intimacy and healed my heart that had been aching to get it back.
He pulled away what felt like days later, but it was still too soon.
He kept his head bent, his forehead on mine, his eyes on mine, his lips so close to mine.
"So, where does this leave us?" He asked softly.
"I don't know," I answered just as breathlessly.
"How about we go on a date and find out?" He asked and pecked my lips again.
I couldn't talk so I nodded against his forehead.
He kept his arms around me, pulling me as closely as my never-more-frustrating-than-at-that-moment stomach allowed. We stayed like that for a while that felt like days, but it was still too soon when we eventually remembered that our parents could wake up and find us missing, so we forced ourselves apart.
He bent down and picked up my flowers and gave them back to me with a wide smile, a smile that I hadn't seen on his face in a very long time, and I mirrored it with a smile that I hadn't felt on mine in even longer.
He took my hand in his and walked me around to my door.
"Happy birthday," he smiled when I turned to him and bent down to peck my lips.
"Thank you," I stood on my toes and kissed him.
"Goodnight," he mumbled when we finally pulled away.
"Goodnight," I whispered back, then he bent down and kissed me again, and again, and again.
When I finally made it up to my room, I stillcouldn't breathe. I rushed to my window to make sure it hadn't all been a dreamand he was still down in our yard, smiling up at me. I stood there hugging mydaisies and watching him walk away, he kept turning around and smiling at meuntil I couldn't see him anymore, but I could still feel his lips on mine as Iwent to sleep.
Your Fault
I woke up just as early as I'd done the day before and I didn't want to go back to sleep, not because I'd had another nightmare or wasn't tired, but simply because I couldn't wait to be awake and with him again.
I looked at my clock, it was still much too early to talk to him or expect a text from him confirming that the previous night hadn't been a dream. I knew it wasn't; I'd had dreams about him before, and none could've measured up to the reality I woke up so eager to live again.
I'd gotten used to intense emotions; my pregnancy turned weariness into exhaustion, sadness into grieving, boredom into malaise, and discomfort into tears... But I'd never gotten to experience the other side of it, not until last night. Excitement turned into enthusiasm, hope into expectation, joy into exhilaration, and happiness into complete bliss.
Everything was heightened; the warmth his words had spread through me, the memory of his lips on mine, the desire to feel them again, and just the feeling of being alive and having a right to be alive and actually enjoying being alive. I'd never felt that way before, not even before my pregnancy.
I wasn't sure if it would always feel like that or if it was simply because I was pregnant and my emotions were set on the highest level, but I chose to enjoy it while it lasted, I chose to enjoy everything while it lasted.
I bounced off my bed and almost skipped down the stairs, eager to eat, to smile, to wait for him to wake up to talk to him, to kiss him again, eager to see where we could go from there, eager for my baby to come, eager to keep feeling eager, just eager. I wondered why I'd never ta
ken advantage of my own emotions and started my days with things that made me particularly happy and left the rest in the hands of my hormones that would heighten the simplest provocations and carry them out throughout the day.
I found mom leaning against the kitchen table with a steaming cup of coffee in front of her, a perfect replica of the day before.
"Good morning," I smiled at her.
She looked up at the noise with wide eyes, but she didn't say anything.
Not even my own mother's coldness could deflate me. I wondered if he kissed me every day if I would ever feel upset about anything again, or at least for the remainder of my pregnancy when my feelings were so easy to influence.
I opened the fridge and my eyes were skimming over its contents when I heard my mother's low voice mumbling something. There was nobody else in the kitchen, so I hoped that she was actually addressing me.
"Did you want something?" I turned to her, opening the fridge wider in case she wanted me to grab her something, but her eyes were on her coffee.
"Is he the father?" She asked, her voice low and distant, her eyes remaining on the untouched cup.
"What?" My arm trembled and the door slid from my hand, the fridge automatically closed.
"Is he the father?" She asked again before her eyes snapped up to mine with an intensity her voice failed to carry. "The boy you were kissing last night," she demanded, her frenzied eyes turning to my stomach, "is he the father?"
My heart dropped. How did she know? If she'd been in the yard or staring out the window, why didn't she stop us? Did she want me to say 'yes'; to comfort her that the baby had a father who wanted to be in the picture? Did she want me to say 'no' because whoever the father was he was already rejected by her? My mother was a very early, very deep sleeper – I knew that Josslyn had been counting on that fact when she said she'd be home shortly after midnight, so how could she have possibly known?
"I thought you were sleeping," I stupidly mumbled, wanting nothing more than to go back to my room and start avoiding her as keenly as I did dad.