by Laci Maskell
My mom squeezes my hand and leans toward me. I have a suspicion she is more nervous, or perhaps more excited than I am.
I take a deep breath and let it out but my heart beats a little harder in my chest.
“I’m not sure,” I tell her honestly.
“That’s fine. You can take a minute. Or if you’ve changed your mind that’s fine too.”
“No. I haven’t changed my mind,” I say. I take one last deep breath, let it out, then say, “Okay. I’m ready.”
“Aright,” Dr. Coughlin says, moving the wand over my belly. “Let me take a look around here.”
I’m sure she’s found what she’s looking for when the wand has stopped moving for several moments.
“Well ladies, I can’t be one hundred percent certain at this moment but I do believe, Lux, you are having a girl.”
Not for the first time in this room my eyes well up with tears. Somehow I knew I was having a girl, but to have that be certain makes my heart swell. I’m having a girl. I’m having that beautiful baby girl I imagined.
Reality hits me like a train. I am not having a girl. Sean and Piper are having a girl. I shouldn’t have found out. I’m sure Sean and Piper could have asked Dr. Coughlin if they wanted to know the sex of the baby. My breaths come at me heavily. I close my mouth and breathe out of my nose in an attempt not to cry. Several tears fall down my cheeks when I close my eyes.
Why is this so hard? I thought giving the baby up for adoption would be the best thing for everyone. I thought it would be easy and that I wouldn’t feel like I was losing something I didn’t know was vital to me.
The baby kicks my ribs just to make sure I know what it is I’m giving up.
I know, baby girl.
I’m sure my mom and Dr. Coughlin notice my breakdown but they let be break down in peace. They’ve seen it before. They’ll see it again if the first twenty two weeks are any indication of the next twenty.
I calm myself enough to get through the rest of the appointment and head home. It’s been a long day and I need a nap. When we get home, having skipped the rest of the day of school, my mom heads back to work, I find my bed and practically pass out when my head hits the pillow.
Greyson
Knowing that Lux was at a doctor’s appointment for the baby today and not knowing what was going on was more than a little difficult. When I felt the baby kick two weeks ago at the Husker game something woke up inside of me. I want to know what is going on with the baby. I want to know if it’s healthy. I want to know when it moves or does something new. I want to know if it’s got all its fingers and toes. I want to know if it’s going to be a little girl or a little boy. I want to know my baby.
I sat through the rest of the day and watched the seconds tick by on the clock. When the final bell rings and I am home free I do everything in my power to lie my way out of hanging out with Jesse, Amelia, or any of the rest of them. I know I should spend time with them. I definitely haven’t been doing enough of that in the past few weeks, but tonight I’m busy. If Lux is determined to keep me at arm’s length I’m going to take full advantage of the time she offers me.
When I ring the doorbell to her house her dad answers. Lux’s parents have always been nice to me. As nice as they can be to the boy who impregnated their teenage daughter. But her dad still intimidates me.
“Hello, sir,” I say trying to sound as polite as I can. “Is Lux here?”
Lux’s dad looks down on me and says, “I think she’s taking a nap.” He eyes me a little longer. I try to give off the air of sweet and innocent. Finally he says, “I’ll go get her for you. Come on in.”
I swallow hard around the lump in my throat threatening to strangle me and follow him into the house. The house is the same as always, warm and inviting. I can’t say the same for my house. Though I would compare it to a hospital, clean and medicated.
Lux must have been sleeping. Her eyes are glassy and droopy when she walks down the stairs.
She yawns then says, “Greyson, I forgot you were coming. Sorry. Those papers are up in my room.”
I follow her to her room then watch her rummage through some papers on her desk. I’m not sure if it’s because she is a new attraction for me that she fascinates me so or if it’s because I truly like her. I hope it’s the latter. Amelia fascinated me at one point.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Yeah,” she says, still flipping through papers.
“Today in the library, when I kissed you, and then you turned around to see me. I couldn’t gauge the look on your face but it seemed as if you weren’t expecting me.”
Lux’s back straightens and she stops shuffling through papers.
“Yeah,” she says. “I wasn’t sure who I was going to find.”
I bite my lip, something I’ve never done, and certainly have never seen a man do. What if in the two weeks since the game she’s gotten together with Mr. Rush? What if she told me no and then went and told him yes? She wouldn’t do that. Would she?
“Were you maybe expecting someone else. Someone maybe a little older and a little more, teachery?”
Her face falls. She wants to tell me something. I can see it in the darting of her eyes.
“You can tell me.”
“Mr. Rush hasn’t left me alone. He still wants to be with me. Today, right before the library, he called me into his office to get me to tell him I love him back. I wanted to get out of there so I told him I needed more time to think about it.”
“You should tell someone.”
“I just told you.”
“No,” I say, a bit too harsh. “You should tell the principal. Or your parents. Or the police.”
“No. I’m sure he’ll stop once he gets bored.”
“No, he won’t.”
“Greyson, stop. If it happens again, I’ll tell someone,” she says, turning back to the papers.
There won’t be an again for it to happen. I’m not going to let Mr. Rush continue to harass her and get away with it. I guarantee if it happens again she still wouldn’t tell anyone. No, Mr. Rush and I are going to have a little chat. If I can’t get him to stop, I’ll most certainly be telling someone who will.
“Here it is,” she says.
I move closer to her and the desk. My fingers itch to touch her. Maybe I can dazzle her with my charm and she’ll allow me to kiss her like I’ve been dying to do for two weeks.
I look down to the pieces of paper. The top one says, Voluntary Termination of Parental Rights. The title on the page sounds straight forward and yet I can’t wrap my head around it.
“What is this?” I ask.
“By signing that you will be giving away your rights to the baby for the adoptive parents to officially adopt the baby.”
“Oh,” I say. It’s all I can manage.
All day long all I wanted was to begin being in the baby’s life. By signing this paper I will effectively end it before getting a chance.
I pick up the paper, pretending to read it, to buy me some time. I move my eyes to keep the ruse going. Lux moves to sit on her bed while I do so. During their roaming, my eyes land on a DVD on top of the desk with a set of footprints and todays date on the top. It must have something to do with the baby and today’s doctor’s visit.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“It’s the ultrasound from today?” she says as if it’s old news.
“Ultrasound as in you got to see the baby?”
“Yeah,” she says. She looks away from me as if she’s uncomfortable.
Something pulls at my heart. This is what I wanted. To see my baby to know how it is. My mind reels trying to come up with a way I can hide it until I leave and sneak it out of here. But then I realize that is something the old Greyson would do.
So instead of adding petty theft to the list of wrong things I’ve done to Lux, I say, “Can I watch it?”
Lux narrows her eyes in surprise and confusion. “Really? You want to watch it?”
&nbs
p; “Yeah,” I feel like I’ve never spoken one word so honestly.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll put it in,” she says taking the DVD from me and walking to the TV across the room.
I sit on the end of her bed while she takes the top and leans against the headboard.
While the TV starts up she says, “You can lean back, I don’t bite.”
I’ll take any chance she gives me to be closer to her so I scoot up the bed until I am sitting right next to her. I can feel the heat coming off of her skin where our arms and legs touch. I close my eyes to let the feeling sink in. To memorize it for the times when I can’t be with her or the time she won’t let me.
I hear this beating noise. It’s loud and fast. I open my eyes to see something I’ve only ever seen in movies. It takes me several moments before I can differentiate anything on the screen. I’m tempted to ask Lux where the baby is, but I want to find it on my own. After moments of focusing I finally find it. I see the little head connected to the tiny torso. Its legs and arms. I can even see finger and toes.
I breathe in deeply and blink rapidly to keep the tears at bay. Fuck. Tears. I don’t cry. I breathe out just as deeply as I breathed in.
“Wow.”
“That’s our baby,” Lux says.
“And that thumping?” I ask.
I can practically hear her smile. “That’s her heartbeat.”
“Her?” Tears spring forward. I was not expecting this. “Oh shit,” I say, feeling the loss of breath coming on strongly.
I watch the tiny baby on the screen, watch it move its arms and legs, its chest rising and falling, and slowly fall in love with her.
I thought feeling it kick for the first time was magical. But nothing could compare to actually seeing my baby, this tiny little thing I helped create.
This was not supposed to happen. I was supposed to stay with Amelia till the end of the year. I was supposed to have the summer of my life. I was supposed to go to Lincoln and become one of the great Husker football players I’ve always looked up to.
I was not supposed to knock a girl up. I was not supposed to have feelings for that girl. I was not supposed to fall in love with the baby that will never be mine.
When the ultrasound is over I lie back against the headboard in silence. I suspect Lux knows how I feel and is giving me time to process everything.
When I have composed myself enough to form words I turn to Lux and say, “She is amazing.”
She smiles at me and I can see her eyes start to glisten. I know in that moment that she loves our daughter as much as I’ve just come to.
I look down from Lux’s face to her slowly growing belly. My baby is in there. I watch Lux’s belly wishing I had X-Ray vision. The baby bump bounces and I wonder if the baby just kicked. But then it happens again. Lux’s belly bounces in short little bursts.
I raise an eyebrow at her and say, “You’re belly is jumping.”
Lux laughs and says, “I think she has the hiccups. It’s happened once before.”
“She has the hiccups?” I ask incredulous. “That’s possible? That is mental.”
I watch her belly bounce up and down before I get jittery and being this close is not close enough.
“Can I listen?” I ask.
Lux’s face twitches. My request is not something she expected or was prepared for.
“Sure.”
I place my ear over part of her belly and listen closely. Lux stops breathing so I can hear better. I strain to hear her but can’t. It is disappointing but getting to feel her move inside there is enough for now.
I look up at Lux with pleading eyes and say, “We can’t give her away.”
Lux’s eyebrows pull in on her face making her look angry. “Don’t do this, Greyson. We’ve already been over this.”
“How can you do this? I know you love her. I can see it on your face.”
“We’ve already been over this,” she says as if stating it twice will make me drop it.
“Please. I’ll pay for whatever you both need. I’ll come home as often as possible. I’ll do whatever you want. We can make this work.”
“No,” Lux says.
She gets off the bed and walks away from me, her arms crossed over her chest and belly.
“No,” she says through her teeth, shaking her head.
I move from the bed to her. I take her in my arms and turn her around to face me.
“Lux, I love her. I love her and I’ve seen her for ten minutes. And I’m falling in love with you. Please don’t take her away from me.”
I pull her forward and plant my lips on hers. I need this kiss to show her how I feel about her. I need it to make her want to be with me and keep the baby. I move my lips on hers begging her to respond, to kiss me back. When I touch my tongue to her lips she comes alive. She kisses me back hard and hungry. I pull her closer to me and wrap my arms around her. I really am falling in love with this girl. I didn’t even realize it until I said it.
I feel her tears when they reach my cheeks. I move my thumbs to brush them away but then she pushes me back.
“Don’t,” she says, her eyes full of tears. “Don’t make me fall in love with you, when you’re never going to choose me.”
Without noticing it, Lux pushed me backward a step with every word, until I am out in the hallway and she has closed the door in my face.
“Lux, wait. Please. Open the door.”
How could she say I won’t choose her? Didn’t I just say that I chose her? Didn’t I tell her I would do what it took to be with her and the baby?
“Please.”
I can hear her crying when she says, “Go away, Greyson.”
I close my eyes and let the tears fall freely to the floor.
I walk away from her room and out of her house, my heart a little harder and a little colder.
***
I wake up refreshed and alive. Maybe determined is more the word.
Lux may not want to be with me, but I know she doesn’t want to be with Mr. Rush.
I leave for school early, telling my parents I have a project to work on. When Mr. Rush pulls up in his car I wait a few moments then follow him into the building. When I get to school and march through the halls to Mr. Rush’s room, I am no longer thinking about anything. I walk through the halls in a blind rage, push through the English classroom door without even pausing and charge at Mr. Rush.
Before he can say, “What the-“ I am rushing him and shove him hard against the marker board. With my left arm, I hold him firmly to the wall and with my right, I uppercut him below the ribs. Mr. Rush groans in pain and I punch him again in the same spot.
“Touch Lux again and I swear to you, you will pay.”
“I could have you arrested for assaulting a teacher,” Mr. Rush says, spitting in my face.
“Do it. I’ll have you arrested for sexually harassing a student. You want to lose your job and your teaching license, be my guest.”
Mr. Rush looks pissed and he struggles for a bit but he is nothing against me. After a few more seconds of scowling he says, “Fine. I’ll leave her alone.”
“That better be a promise,” I spit at him and walk out of his room.
Chapter Fourteen
Twenty Three Weeks
Lux
I was expecting Mr. Rush to want an answer from me soon regarding my feelings towards him, but a week has gone by and he hasn’t summoned me. He’s barely looked at me or spoken to me. I can’t say I’m sorry he has backed off because I don’t share his feelings and I don’t want to hurt him. But I’m sorry we lost the relationship we once had. I used to be able to talk to him about anything. We used to have such wonderful discussions about books and my favorite authors. I’m afraid we’ll never get that back and that makes me sad.
My relationship with Greyson has been on the rocky side as well. We don’t have a relationship. We shouldn’t have a relationship. He is with another girl. He is going to college soon. I’m not keeping the baby. I tell myself these t
hings every day. It’s like a mantra I keep to remind myself not to hope for things I’ll never have. And while I tell myself these things every day, a glimmer of hope still resides buried deep in my heart. Stupid heart. If it would just get on the same page as my head I wouldn’t be so miserable all the time.
Greyson and I haven’t really talked since I told him to leave. I know I hurt his feelings, and I hurt mine too. But I truly believe that it was the right thing to do. Greyson said he was falling in love with me. I should have been thrilled. I should have kissed him and told him that I too was falling in love with him. But instead it broke my heart. Greyson may think he is falling in love with me, but he will never act on it outside of my bedroom. He will never break up with Amelia. He will never tell his friends that he is the father of my baby. And that is something I have to be aware of. His words, however beautiful, are only words until he puts action to them.
I may be a bitch for treating him this way, but every time I get close to giving in and letting him have my heart, I picture the look on his face before he stormed out his bedroom twenty three weeks ago. I’m not blaming him for that, not anymore, but I can’t help being seized by panic every time I see that image. Being seized by betrayal, unwant, worthlessness. Greyson and I both have a long way to go before we can even think of being friends.
When the last bell rings for the day I gather my things and head out to Leah’s car. I used to walk home, but now that winter is in full swing, Leah is afraid the weather is too cold for the baby, not to mention she is afraid I’ll slip on the ice and wind up killing the baby. Her fears, at least the second one, are legit, and I hate being cold, so I gladly accept her offer to take me home.
Leah had to meet with a teacher after school about a project or something. She promised me it wouldn’t take long. As I wait for her my phone chimes from in my pocket.
I pull it out to see if it’s Leah saying she may be late but when I read the screen I see the name Husker above the text alert. Husker, aka Greyson. A knot forms in my stomach. What could Greyson want? Why could he be texting me? I open the text message and read.
I need to ask you a giant favor. Can I call you after practice?