“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she says flippantly. She shifts around the blanket covering the hospital bed, checking to make sure she hasn’t forgotten anything. “I’m getting rid of it anyway, so I figured there was no point.”
My eyes widen. “You are?”
“It’s no big deal,” she tells me, heading for the doors. Theo is on the other side, leaning against the wall and picking his nails. He raises his eyebrows at me when Ash continues walking and talking without pause. “They have these pills you can take that will make it seem like nothing more than a really bad period.”
For some reason, I can’t imagine it will be that easy for her, physically or emotionally. Ash has always had a maternal side. When her mom got pregnant with her little brothers, she was so excited that she wanted to become their full-time nanny.
“Is the baby Joseph’s?” I ask. “Does he know?”
She continues walking, through the waiting room and out into the parking lot, Theo and I trailing behind her. “Yes, it’s Joseph’s,” she says like it should be obvious. She runs a hand through her hair. “And of course he doesn’t know. I’m not going to tell him.”
I bite my bottom lip, unable to help but feel a pang of sympathy for Joseph. But none of this is up to me, and I probably shouldn’t be prodding her in front of Theo. I know Ash, and despite her faux indifference, she’s carefully taking in our every reaction to her words.
I lightly touch her shoulder, stopping her before she can get in her car. She turns around and looks at me. Her blond hair is sticking to her face, sweaty and wispy. Her brown eyes are a store after hours when everyone has already gone home. I won’t be getting through to her right now.
“I’m going to drop Theo off,” I say. “And then I’m coming over.”
She shrugs, like it doesn’t matter to her either way. But I know Ash desperately wants me to come over so she can tell me everything. The unfiltered version, without the eyes and ears of someone else nearby. She gets in her car and drives away. I hope she’s feeling better, that she’s not too dizzy or nauseous to take herself home.
I unlock Mitten Chip, and Theo and I climb inside. I’m driving, thank God. No ritual would be able to ease the amount of anxiety I’m experiencing, so I might as well not aggravate myself by sitting in the passenger seat again. I pull out of the parking lot, my mind far away.
Theo sighs. “Are you all right?”
“No. This is all my fault.”
“Unless you somehow knocked up your cousin, I don’t see how that could possibly be true.”
“I stopped, Theo. I stopped one of my rituals. In the bathroom at school. And what happened to Ash is a direct result of that.” My voice cracks. I am filled with so much guilt, I don’t know how I will bear it.
“I know you’re serious,” Theo says. “And I know you believe it, but you must know it’s not true, Willow. That’s mad.” His tone is gentle, and for some reason it eases some of my guilt, though only slightly.
My shoulders sag. “I honestly don’t know what to think right now.”
“Is it really so bad? Your cousin being pregnant?”
“Well, considering she’s nineteen years old, not in a serious relationship, and doesn’t have her career in order yet ... I’d say yes. It’s pretty bad.”
He’s silent. My keys jingling in the ignition is the only sound in the car. Theo’s cologne wafts through my senses again, somehow reminding me there are other people in the world with other problems. Problems they’ve somehow managed to overcome. It’s a lot to get from a whiff of cologne, but I’m past trying to understand my train of thoughts.
“Would you want to know?” I ask, breaking the silence. “If your on-again, off-again girlfriend was pregnant with your child, would you want her to tell you? Or would you rather her have an abortion? So you’d never ... you know. So you wouldn’t have to deal with any of it.” I don’t know why, but of all the things contributing to my anxiety, Ash keeping the baby a secret from Joseph bothers me the most. Maybe it’s because my own dad wasn’t really present in my life, even before he died. And he knew about me. So, if a man actually wants to be in his child’s life, I guess I feel like he should have every right.
Theo takes a deep breath. His eyes search the windshield. “Yes. I’d want to know.”
After I drop Theo off, I take Iris the Pomeranian and Taco the chihuahua around the block. Iris is my favorite dog, mostly because she closely resembles the one I envision in my happy place: small and fluffy, though she’s white instead of black. I take Taco home and sneak Iris a treat before dropping her off, her seventy-year-old owner’s hand shaking as she waves goodbye. Then I go straight to Ash’s house.
Aunt Christie lives in a development only a few blocks away from ours. She moved to California first, giving my mom even more of an incentive to follow when my dad proposed. Apparently, they never wanted to live farther than a few miles from each other. Unfortunately, Ash’s dad died in a car accident when she was in middle school. Aunt Christie remarried after that, but recently divorced, much to the dismay of the twin boys she had with her ex.
Ash’s little brothers are fighting when I get inside. Chris has Dean in a headlock, and Aunt Christie is nowhere to be seen.
“Hey! Stop fighting, you two.” I separate them as best I can. They don’t even acknowledge me. Though they’re my cousins, the large age gap between us prevents them from showing an ounce of interest in me. Dean crosses his arms, and Chris runs to his room.
“Are you ok?” I ask Dean.
“I want chocolate milk,” he says, shrugging my hands off his shoulders and opening the fridge.
I sigh and walk to Ash’s room. She’s lying on her bed, texting, when I come inside. She sees me and sighs, putting her phone down. The chinks in her emotional armor begin to crack, and her eyes become moist.
“Willow,” she says, her voice catching. “I don’t want to be pregnant.”
I sit down on the bed with her, pulling one of her decorative pillows into my lap. Ash’s room is messy most of the time, but right now it’s neat. A sure sign of how stressed out she is. Her walls are white, accented with teal curtains and an abundance of silver pillows. I play with the tassels attached to the one I’m holding. “I don’t want you to be, either,” I admit.
She sniffs, and her tears spill over, running down her cheeks. She wipes at them, rolling her eyes at herself.
I lean over the space between us and hug her. Her shoulders shake with her effort to restrain her sobs. But eventually she lets them break free, and I sit with her while she cries. Every ounce of resentment I’d harbored toward her for keeping this a secret melts away, and I’m grateful I listened to my gut. That I came over tonight, so she won’t have to be alone.
She pulls away, wiping her eyes again. Her mascara is everywhere, and I briefly consider getting her makeup wipes from the bathroom. But she asks me, “What would you do? If you were me?”
I bite my lip. It’s hard for me to imagine being in her shoes. I haven’t been intimate with anyone since Daniel. I can’t even fathom what it would be like to experience pregnancy. What I would do, or how I would plan my life around such a change is beyond me. I shake my head at her. “I don’t know,” I admit.
Her lips thin into a line. “You don’t think I should have an abortion, though.”
I sigh. “That’s not for me to decide.”
Her eyes flash. “Willow. I want to know what you think. I don’t want you to be disappointed in me.”
“No matter what you decide, you know I’ll support you,” I tell her. I rub my hand across my face. “But I guess if it were up to me, I’d want you to tell Joseph and get his opinion. Make the decision together.”
She looks away. “I tried. But he’s been ignoring my calls since our fight yesterday.”
“What were you guys even fighting about?”
She sighs. “I wanted to get back together with him, but he’s been giving me the cold shoulder for dumping him before I went on vacation. And I f
inally lost it.”
I can imagine what Joseph probably thought of Ash’s convenient timing for their breakup, but I know for a fact that he’s crazy about her. He has been ever since they had their first date at the end of senior year. I wonder how he’d react if he found out what she’s hiding.
“Ash,” I say. “How long have you known?”
“I found out last night after school. I took a nap, and when I woke up, I got an alert from my period tracking app, telling me I was late. So I took a test.” Her voice trails off into a whisper. “It was positive.”
“What about your birth control shot?” I ask her. “Aren’t you still getting it?”
She purses her lips. “My last appointment was supposed to be the day after I left for Hawaii. But I rescheduled it. I thought it would be fine.”
“And you slept with Joseph?” I whisper, afraid her mom or her brothers will hear from outside the door. “Before you left?”
She nods. “The day before.” She bites her lip, considering her thoughts. “And lots of times before that.”
Despite everything, I snicker. Ash cracks a smile, and together, we start laughing hysterically.
“I’m so fucked,” she says, holding her stomach as she cracks up.
This makes us laugh even harder, and before we know it, Aunt Christie comes in the room. “What on earth is so amusing?” she asks.
“We got food poisoning from our lunch today and Ash threw up in the shampoo bowls,” I tell her, still laughing. It’s partly true, so I don’t feel as bad saying it.
“Food poisoning?” Her eyes narrow. “You seem fine now.”
Ash pauses, thinking up a lie instantly. “You know how Willow exaggerates, Mom. We’re both fine. I think I just ate too fast.”
“Well, maybe take it slow next time, Ashton.” She shakes her head and leaves, a small smile on her face. She could be my mom’s twin, with her straight blond hair and ocean eyes.
But my words remind me of something. “Ash!” I swat at her. “You drank last night, knowing you were pregnant?”
She looks slightly ashamed. “I know, I know. But I was stressed out! I needed one last time. And I was going to get rid of it, anyway.”
“Was?” I raise my eyebrows at her.
She shrugs and looks at her lap. “I mean, who knows. We’ll see what happens.”
Ten
Mrs. Harrison claps her hands together. “Good morning everyone!” She looks around at the class. “Today wraps up our first two weeks of the semester, so I thought it would be nice to do something fun.”
Since we only have school Monday through Thursday, the weeks feel like they’ve flown by too quickly. However, part of the reason I was so excited about American River’s cosmetology program is its exclusion of Friday classes.
“Now I wonder what her idea of fun could be,” Theo murmurs. “A lesson on how to properly clean our tools? A lecture on the most effective active ingredient in sanitizers perhaps?”
I cover my mouth, muffling my giggle.
“We’re going to spend the day watching past fashion show presentations,” Mrs. Harrison continues. “If we have time after, I’ll let you begin choosing your partners!”
Theo chuckles. “As if people haven’t already started partnering up.” He leans back in his chair.
Ash turns to me. “I wonder what our theme will be,” she says.
I smile. “I hope it’s Harry Potter or Disney related.”
She shakes her head, but her desk neighbor, Eva, grins at me. “I love Harry Potter,” she says. Her voice is raspy and much deeper than I expected. It gives her character. She tucks her highlighted, chin-length hair behind her ear. “Dobby is so cute!”
I lean over Ash’s desk. “I know! I love him so much!”
“Are you fucking kidding me,” Ash mutters to the air.
Mrs. Harrison connects her laptop to the projector and the video appears on the screen. The class settles down as it starts.
Everyone on the screen is adorned with Roaring Twenties attire. That must have been the theme for their show. As each model is presented, the stylist stands at the podium on a stage while the model showcases her work. The model is the center of attention. Everyone in the audience is watching her.
It terrifies me.
Ash will have to be the model, and I the stylist. Because I will not be brave enough to walk the stage—runway, rather—that these girls are strutting down in the video. It simply will not happen.
Ash bounces in her seat beside me. “I’m gonna make you look so hot!” she whispers.
I slide down in my chair.
“By the way, I’m going to tell Joseph. That I’m pregnant.”
My eyes widen. “Ash, that’s great! When?”
“Tomorrow night.” She bites her manicured nail. “I’m just so nervous.”
“Why?” I ask. “It’s a win-win situation. If he’s excited, then that’s great. But if he’s not ... well, then he’ll only be encouraging the plan you were intending to follow in the first place, right?”
Ash purses her lips. “I guess that’s true.”
I pat her arm. “It will be fine.”
“I just wish you could come with me,” she huffs.
I look down, feeling slightly chagrined, but she knows better than to ask me to go anywhere extra-curricular with her on a Friday. It just won’t happen. “I’m sorry,” I say.
Theo’s phone vibrates, and I glance at the name of whoever texted him on his screen. I don’t mean to; it’s a natural instinct. But it catches my attention because the person’s name is only represented by a single letter. E.
Theo sighs, but promptly responds to the message, hiding his phone underneath the tabletop. I press my lips together. He’s not paying attention to the video. What if he misses something important?
“Will you put that thing away?” I say to him through my teeth.
Theo’s lips twitch. He sends another message and pockets his phone. “Better?” he asks.
“Pay attention.” I turn back to the screen.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s a text from Theo. I grit my teeth as I read it.
You pay attention.
I text him back. I’m trying to.
Am I distracting you?
I roll my eyes and send him a quick response. Of course not.
He laughs, but I refuse to look at him. Instead, I read his next message.
Then why do you care if I’m on my phone?
I don’t care!
He begins typing, and I steal a glance at his face. He’s grinning full force.
Oh, but you do. You care about everything, little Willow.
I blink so many times, I’m surprised I can see. He must be trying to get a reaction from me, so instead I give him the opposite. I put my phone away and don’t look at him again.
The class watches the rest of the video, three more performances. They’re all the same. The model displays herself for the entire cosmetology department, in addition to anyone else who buys tickets to the show. With every passing second, I’m even more confident that I would rather be the stylist than the model, even if it means I have to do all the creative work.
When Mrs. Harrison finally flips the lights on and tells us we’re free to pick our partners if we’re ready, I’m shocked to find Ash asleep with her head on her desk. If she weren’t pregnant, I would nudge her awake. I glance at her stomach, still perfectly flat. No signs of pregnancy have altered her body yet, but by the time the fashion show rolls around, she’ll probably have a visible bump. Which means if I have a heart at all, I will have to let her be the stylist. Unless Ash wants to walk the runway with a baby bump.
The thought of the models on the runway makes my stomach sink. I tap my desk until my anxiety ebbs slightly. Theo raises an eyebrow at me. I shrug innocently.
Charlie marches over to where we’re sitting. “Pretty boy,” he barks at Theo. “You’re my model.”
After class, in the car, Theo hands me thr
ee one hundred-dollar bills.
“What the hell?” I ask.
“It’s for petrol,” he says.
I laugh without humor. “This is way too much. Even a hundred is way too much.” I try to hand the cash back to him, but he ignores me, primping himself in the mirror.
“The prices here are outlandish,” he states. “I feel robbed for you.”
I shake my head. “You might as well just save this and buy yourself a car, because I’m not taking it.”
Theo grins. “You are taking it, little Willow. And if you saw the amount of money in my trust, you’d know I could buy several cars outright if I wanted to. But I happen to enjoy watching you get flustered behind the wheel. So, take the money.”
I stare at him. Unable to think of a response to what he just said, I vow to hide the money in his room later.
“What time are you coming over?” Theo asks.
I start the car. “I’m not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I want to be at home.” I merge onto the freeway.
He laughs. “But my home is technically part of your home. So wouldn’t it be the same thing? Besides, we need to work on ERP if you’re going to appease your mum before her deadline.”
He has me there. “Fine.” I roll my eyes. “I’ll come over. But I want to change first.” I’m starting to forget what it’s like to wear regular clothes.
We pull into the driveway of my house, and I go inside and strip out of my basic navy blue scrubs. I put on some leggings and a T-Shirt and slip my feet into my favorite pair of leather flip-flops.
When I knock on the door to the guest house, Theo answers, wearing black jeans and a white button-up shirt. His cologne hits me as soon as I step through the door, and I have to stop myself from leaning in closer. He looks even more attractive in regular clothes than he does in his scrubs. It almost hurts to look at him.
“Can I ask you a question?” I say. “Why do you even want to work if you have so much money?”
Theo shrugs. “I told you. I’m a highly creative person. If I’m not striving towards something, my life gets bloody boring.”
“Ah.” I sit on the couch and am instantly reminded of the last time I was here, drunk and confused. The little house is tidy, save for a few boxes cluttered in the corner of the room, and I have to stop myself from organizing them in a way that makes me feel at ease. I bite my lip.
One Carefree Day Page 10