by Jamie Knight
I tried to make my voice sound as professional as possible so not as to raise any alarms.
“I know exactly who this is,” he hissed. “This is Jack Carson, Izzy’s father. Unfortunately, we have had the displeasure of meeting.”
The nasty tone in his voice threw me off a little. I blinked a few times to regain my composure.
“I am so sorry that we had to meet that way,” I said, almost stumbling over my words. “It was never my intention to have that happen. But, as you remember, the situation was cleared up. Is Izzy okay?”
My last question didn’t sound as confident. I felt so fragile, waiting for his reply. I just wanted to know that she was okay.
“She’s fine,” he spat. “But you aren’t going to speak to her. Not if I have anything to say about it. I was really disappointed with the way that things have been handled. And, to be clear, everyone else may have felt like things were swept under the rug, but as her father, I need you to know this: if there ever was any funny business going on, all of that is over with. In fact, you won’t have to worry about seeing Izzy anymore because she will never set foot in that school if I have anything to say about it. She’s done with you and the school. So, please don’t call here anymore.”
The line clicked and fell silent. I hung up the phone slowly, feeling an uneasy feeling of depression and irritation.
It was one thing for her father to say those things to him, to stand up to protect his daughter. If she were my daughter, I would probably have done the same thing.
But, for Izzy not to try to talk to me I simply could not understand.
I paused, clapping my hand over my mouth, dropping the phone from my hand, as the realization set in.
I had been falling for Izzy. I was worse than a head-over-heels teenager, risking it all for my heart. I felt silly. And obviously, it was one-sided. It was just about her getting her cherry popped and I was the closest cherry popper. I wonder how many nights she had stayed up with her friend Layla, gossiping about my penis size and whatever silly little things that popped into her childish head.
But that’s what happens when you sleep with someone so young. I thought that her intelligence made her more mature, but I guess I was wrong.
This couldn’t happen again. I had to be more careful now. Not that I had been trying to come on to Izzy. It just kind of happened.
But I vowed to devote myself to my studies and teaching from then on. No more getting distracted by a pretty face.
I turned off my light and sat in the dark, staring into the darkness, trying my hardest to put Izzy as far out of my head as possible.
Chapter 16
Izzy
The ride back home was a long one. My dad took the chance, while he had a captive audience, to rant about how disappointed he was in the university.
“I spend my hard-earned dollars to send my daughter, my jewel, my angel, to their school and they have her in the midst of some potential crime? No! I won’t have that! I’m going to be drafting a strongly-worded e-mail to the president of the board of the university. Heads will roll before I’m done.”
My mother spent the ride trying to calm him down, looking like a cat with its hair on end as she struggled to stay calm herself while he weaved in and out of cars, speeding down the road. There were a few times when I was sure that we wouldn’t make it home because he had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting another car.
Just when I was sure that he was done ranting, he would start right back up with, “And another thing…”
My mother spent the night trying to cheer my dad up and make him forget about the ugly scene that we had left.
“Our baby is home now,” she said. “Let’s make this a happy time and get things back to normal.”
He loudly insisted that things would never get back to normal. I drifted off to sleep that night, exhausted, not able to keep my eyes open another second, with thoughts that maybe my father was right.
The next morning, my mother was waking me up to a pancake breakfast in bed. She said that she had a surprise for me and told me to eat quickly and get dressed. When I got downstairs, my mother stood in the living room with a stringed quartet playing.
Hearing the noise, my father flew into the room, his eyes almost popping out his head. I laughed at my mother doting over the quartet while my father ruined it, talking loudly and complaining about them scratching up the hardwood floors.
But, once they left, my father settled in to watch football as if nothing ever happened and my mother asked me if I wanted to go shopping with her.
I was happy to get some fresh air, so I went.
It turned out that being at my parents’ house was exactly what I needed. My mother was happy to dote over me and my father had this look of satisfaction on his face, nodding and grunting whenever he caught a glimpse of me. It gave me some sense of comfort even though everything else in my world was so uncertain.
I took most of my meals in bed since eating anything made me feel sick right away. I thought that it was smart to try hiding the fact that I was pregnant for as long as I could.
But my coming home had happened too fast since, in the shuffle of leaving, I discovered that I had left my phone behind in my dorm room. I had Layla go and confirm that it was there and that I hadn’t left it somewhere else. I told her to put it in my top drawer and that I would get it when I got back to school.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, sounding sincerely worried. “There are rumors going around school that you aren’t coming back.”
I was a little surprised that my name had hit any type of rumor mill. But, that would just be one more thing to add to the list of things that I would need to face once I came back.
“I’m just trying to clear my head for now,” I told her honestly.
She told me that she understood and wished me luck. Had I been thinking, I would have asked her to send me Jace’s number that had been programmed into my phone. I didn’t know it by heart and I really wanted to talk to him, just to see what he was thinking.
I missed him and wanted to hear his voice. And I didn’t want him to catch wind of the rumors and think that I had no plans of talking to him about things.
I almost felt tempted to call the university. In fact, I picked up the phone a few times to do just that, but stopped myself once I realized that that was not a good idea.
I kept flashing back to that day in Belva’s office and the interrogation that happened off of an allegation. If I started calling the school, that would only add fuel to the fire.
I didn’t want to make things harder for Jace than they already were. I cared about him and wanted to see him happy, doing what he loved, in the place that he had dreamed of doing it. I didn’t want my own selfishness in wanting to talk to him to ruin the legacy that he has built as a teacher.
He was an amazing teacher and a great man already. I would never forgive myself if his reputation became that he chased after students all because of me.
But days could turn into weeks and just keep moving on and I wouldn’t have a concrete plan. Without talking to Jace, though, there was no real way that I could move forward. I knew that it was ultimately my decision, but I felt like I didn’t want to take away his half of the decision, though.
I sat up, staring around at my old room, a room that seemed so foreign to me now. It was the room where I had been in when I dreamed of losing my virginity. I was sure that it would have been a hot guy from school, someone my own age. Never did I imagine that it would have been with my professor.
Jace’s face popped into my head. His dark, brooding eyes and penetrating gaze breathed life into me. The way that he looked at me made me know that he was paying close attention, taking me in. I could still see him hovering over me, staring down at me, while plowing my pussy. Without thinking about it, my hand moved down to my crotch, kneading my pussy over my panties.
“Knock, knock,” came my mother’s voice, with her pushing her way through the door without waiti
ng for my response. I almost fell out of bed I was so startled.
“Mom!” I called, frowning in irritation.
“Op! I’m so sorry, honey,” she said, laughing. “I guess old habits really do die hard, huh? Well, I just wanted to know that I have a surprise for you, so if you hurry and get dressed, I’ll be in the kitchen waiting for you. With the surprise.”
She sang her words and did a silly dance. I shook my head and laughed at her, wondering what my mother could have been up to now.
My mother had always had an infectious personality. There was truly never a dull moment.
Too bad my life was far too much in shambles for me to appreciate being awakened and having to face another day without knowing what I was going to do about Jace or the baby.
I flopped around in bed, frustrated, before getting up, composing myself, and walking down the hallway toward the kitchen. I could already hear my mother humming and clanging away at something. When she saw me, her round face perked up and she beamed.
“Good morning, Izzy Wizzy!” she sang, putting a tray into the oven and closing it with her hip. “I am making your favorites today: peanut butter cookies.”
My mother made the absolute best cookies. I got a little excited. This day was already looking promising.
“Thanks, mom. That’s really sweet of you.”
“Anything for my baby girl,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously. I tried to ignore her look, but I knew that her radar was up.
She had caught me coming out of the bathroom yesterday after having a bout of morning sickness. I almost ran right into her as I came out of the bathroom.
“Whoa!” she said, steadying me with her arms. “Are you okay? Your face is all flushed.”
She scanned my face worriedly. I pulled away quickly, trying to hide my face.
“Yeah, I think that it was something I ate,” I said, patting my stomach.
My mother put a hand over her chest and gasped, offended at the thought that anything that she would have cooked for me would have made me sick.
“I’ll get you some ginger ale,” she said, speeding toward the kitchen.
“No, that okay,” I said, calling after her. “I’m okay now.”
She paused, looking back at me, a questioning look on her face. She stared at me for a few minutes while I did my best to muster what I thought was a convincing smile. She nodded unconvinced, but didn’t say anything else about it. I caught her looking at me a few times that day, but she would quickly look away when I locked eyes with her. It was starting to make me feel a little uneasy.
Standing there in the kitchen with her, seeing her looking at me like she was trying to put together a puzzle, was making me feel nervous. I shifted uncomfortably and found a seat at the kitchen table. My mother poured me a cup of tea and sat down at the table across from me.
“How are you feeling?” she asked me, her voice velvety and comforting.
I stared into my cup of tea, knowing that if I looked at her, my eyes would give me away.
“I have to admit that I’m a little stressed,” I said. I knew that I had to tell her something.
“I understand,” she said. “I just hope that you know that, no matter what’s going on with you, you can always tell us, honey. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said quietly, nodding.
“Is there anything that you want to tell me?” she said, leaning across the table and gathering my hands into hers.
I wished that I could tell her everything, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to give her the chance to be right about me going to school by telling her that I had managed to get pregnant in my first semester there. My heart sank as I swallowed hard and shook my head. The smell of the cookies in the oven were starting to waft from the oven and fill the kitchen.
And it made me nauseous.
I clapped a hand over my mouth and made a beeline to the bathroom just in time to unload a mouthful of yellow bile into the toilet. I stood over the toilet, wretching, my eyes watering as I struggle to suck in air between convulsions. When my stomach had finally settled, I ran the cold water, leaned down to take a drink, and splashed a few handfuls into my face.
“It was always eggs, for me,” came my mother’s voice from the doorway of the bathroom. I whirled around, startled. She stared back at me, smiling a knowing smile. My heart landed with a thud into my feet. But I still played dumb.
“What do you mean, mom?” I asked, trying to sound as innocent as possible. My mom ignored my fake ignorance, took a step toward me, wrapped her arms around me, laying her head on my shoulder.
“I mean, every time that I was pregnant, it was the smell of eggs that would send me running to the toilet with morning sickness.”
She did know.
“But, how?” I said, voicing my thoughts. “How long have you known?”
“I thought that something was up a few days ago at dinner when you turned down steak and potatoes with the lame excuse that you were trying to watch your figure, but you had a look on your face like you were sick. But, I didn’t say anything then. I really had been hoping that you would have brought it up yourself.”
I was in utter shock, watching my mother stand there calmly. There was a hint of sadness in her eyes that seemed to come and go.
“So, what are you going to do?” she asked me, her voice even. I was actually surprised that she wasn’t standing there yelling at me. I was sure that she would have been furious once she found out that I was pregnant. But, she wasn’t.
I broke down in tears before I could even get any words out. My mouth jumped back in surprised before recovering, putting her arm around my shoulder, and walking me out the bathroom back into the kitchen. The cookies sat cooling on top of the oven. I grabbed one, tossing it back and forth in my hands since it was still hot.
“Come sit down,” said my mother, grabbing the tea kettle from the stove and filling it with more water. “Tell me what’s going on so that we can figure this out.”
I sat down, not waiting for her to join me before I started rapid firing the whole dilemma.
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I went out with my friend Layla one night and ran into this really cute guy. But he was there with some girl, who I accidentally poured a drink all over. I didn’t think much else about it until I saw him at school in my organic chemistry classroom.
“He was the professor, the one that you met. He invited me to be a part of an internship and I agreed because I want to do anything that I can to make my resume really pop and I thought that that would be a really good chance to make my resume shine.
“Well, one thing led to another and we ended up sleeping together. I was trying to make sense of it all and started kind of avoiding him. And then, I found out that I was pregnant. Now, I don’t know how I’m going to tell him. I don’t know how he will react. And I’m sure that he won’t want anyone to know about us because it will ruin his career. And to make it all worse, our last interaction was one where everything almost came out, confirming that, if the truth gets out, it will be as bad as I think that it will be. Or worse.”
My mother had her back to me while I was talking, idly wiping the counter. When I finished talking, she turned to face me, walked slowly to the table, and took a seat next to me, her hands folded in her lap. She stared at the table like she was trying to figure out how to ask her next question.
“Do you think that he loves you enough to go public without being bitter about any fallout?” she asked.
“I really don’t know,” I said, shrugging, fidgeting with my cup of tea. “We never really talked about how we felt or if we loved each other or anything. I think that we both were just caught up in the moment of it happening. We didn’t want to think about anything else. I know that I certainly didn’t. And even now, with a baby in my belly, I am still struggling with wanting to face what is going on.”
I pushed my cup to the side and laid my head on the table. I felt exhausted all of a sudden. But I
knew that I didn’t need sleep. I just needed to figure out a plan.
“Do you love him?” my mother asked, her voice a shaky whisper.
I looked up at my mother, my lip trembling as I fought back tears.
“Yes,” I said, tears streaming from my eyes in large rivulets. “I think I really do.”
There it was, the truth that I hadn’t even been able to say to myself.
“Do you love him enough to let him go?”
I stopped crying immediately.
Let him go? How could I let him go? The person who had taken my virginity? The first person that I had ever loved? The person that I was having a baby with?
I wished that I could just easily tell my mother that I could let him go. But I couldn’t say that. So, I didn’t answer. I just stared into space forlornly.
My mother sighed deeply, worry lines etched on her forehead.
“I’m going to tell you something that I’ve never told anyone, and I’ll deny if it you ever repeat it. I got pregnant with my high school sweet heart’s baby and got rid of it before he even had a chance to know that there was a baby. My mother was the one who came up with the idea, telling me that my life would be better without the baby. Of course, I can never know for sure, but sometimes I wonder how different things would have been if I had made my own decision. Now, I was lucky to meet your father and have you girls, so I don’t regret that. But what I do regret is not including the father of my child in the decision to have him or not.”
I looked up at my mother, shocked, sure that she was lying. The look on her face told me that she wasn’t.
“Wow, mom,” I said. “You have been through more than I thought.”
I think that you should call him, honey,” she said, her voice feather soft. “This isn’t something that you should be deciding alone.”
She had a kind understanding in her eyes as she patted my hand, stood up from the table, and walked out of the kitchen. She looked like she was holding back tears as she disappeared around the corner.
I sat thinking about my mother’s words, staring into my now empty cup of tea.