Me, Him, Them, and It

by Caela Carter

  My shoulders shake so hard they hurt. My eyes are on fire. My face is dry. Mary’s hand makes an oval pattern on my shoulder blade. I wish she would stop. I wish she would get up and go home. I hope she doesn’t move. I have been here for an hour at least, I bet. It has to be past five. It has to be almost time for her to climb into her secondhand Camry or other gas-efficient vehicle and drive home to her microwave and TV. She is wasting her time. This is never going to end. I am going to shake silently like this for the rest of my life. I will have the baby in this room still waiting for my eyes to birth their first tear. I will grow old rocking on this couch. I will never have to open my eyes again. This is it. The end. I will never stop or start crying.

  Then it stops. With a wobbly breath my body calms itself down like someone hit a switch. I take a tissue from the box on my lap and dab my face, even though it’s dry. I should since Mary brought them over and all.

  Mary leans back and points her pale blue eyes at me like lasers.

  “If I have this baby,” I whisper, “I’m going to need to tell my mom.”

  Mary nods. A baby is hard to hide. A pregnant teenager might be a problem that’s just too visual for Mommy Stiff-Ass to ignore.

  “And if I don’t, does anyone need to know?”

  Mary shakes her head. “Not necessarily.” She pauses. “We would work everything out in a way that makes you comfortable.”

  “Schedule the ab—” I can’t say it. “Make an appointment for me then. Please.”

  “Okay.” I stand up to leave, but the words “Evelyn, sit back down. We have some details to discuss” float into the room. The damn decision is finally made. What else can there be?

  “Details? What details?” I don’t mean to shout at her but I need to get out of here before I lose it again.

  “You need a consult with the doctor so he can go over the entire procedure with you. You need to decide if you want local or general anesthesia. We may need to speak with a judge to get you a waiver. You’ll need someone to take you home. You’ll be out of school for a few days.” The words are wires; they wrap around my limbs and try to pull me back down to the couch. I don’t sit.

  “We’ll talk details tomorrow,” I say, even though she hasn’t invited me back. And tomorrow is Saturday. I know PP is open but who knows if she even comes in on Saturday. Maybe she has some double life and Friday nights she highlights in a burlesque show and she’ll show up to my session tomorrow with bloodshot eyes and thick mascara still staining her skin. Maybe she spends her Saturdays taking off that über-concerned mask and screaming at college football games. Maybe she throws sex parties in her living room for lonely people she meets online.

  It doesn’t matter. I’m sure she will show up.

  When I get home my sneakers squeak over the kitchen tiles. A clock ticks in the hallway. Computers buzz in their offices over my head. I know both silent parents are home because their matching Beamers are snuggling in the garage. I look at my watch. It’s six thirty. I am too tired but if I don’t do something about dinner the dynamite will explode again. Silence sucks, but the shouting is worse. I wonder if it will be better when they shout at me instead of about me, when they find out how badly I fucked up. But they won’t. I don’t need to tell them anymore. I pause at the bottom of the stairs to enjoy the relief that should follow this realization, but it comes in a nauseating wave.

  My room is directly in front of me. Their separate wings sprawl out on either side. I have to pull energy out of every blood vessel to yell loud enough for both of them to hear me. “I’m going out for dinner!” My voice bounces from the cream walls to the hardwood floors to the ceilings with automatic lights. Her words come echoing back at me, “Have fun, sweetie.” The Stranger is probably mumbling into his phone or letting an iPod drone into his eardrums.

  I don’t actually have plans, but I will find some. This prospect is less exhausting than the Parent-Juggling Routine.

  But first I press the back of my head into my purple bedspread, wiggling my butt so the blankets climb up my hips and almost surround me, and enjoy the whoosh of air-conditioning dancing on my skin. I’ll close my eyes. Just for a minute.

  Boom!

  Something punches the inside of my stomach.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Mary has told me it would not be possible for me to actually feel the baby—excuse me, the fetus—for months, but I feel it. It’s pounding on my uterus. It’s crashing and banging its little body-blob of cells into every wall it can find.

  I am not actually feeling this.

  Bang!

  This is not really happening.

  Crash!

  Shitballs, I’m going insane.

  I sit up and reach for my cell phone, which is buzzing on the little white table next to my bed. It’s Lizzie.

  “Where are you?” she asks. I hear rap in the background. The thing-baby inside me stops moving. I was dreaming.

  “Home,” I answer.

  “Get your ass over here!” she says. “I have at least three different outfits I want you to see before we go.”

  “Huh?” The sound escapes my throat before the words she has said can break through the currents in my brain. It is the first Real Friday of school—the first Friday after surviving a week of classes. The football team’s Real Friday kegger. How many times this week have I made, discussed, and reviewed this plan with Lizzie and now I don’t even remember?

  “Did you forget about Real Friday?” she asks.

  “No, course not. I’ll come over now. Do you have any food?”

  “Yes.” When she speaks again, the party has left her voice. She hushes and says extra vowels. She speaks like a grandmother. “Evelyn,” she says, “everything is not all right with you. You’ve been weird this week.”

  “Yeah.” I acknowledge the question but not the comment. Everything is okay now, I remind myself. You made a decision. This will be over soon. Things will go back to normal.

  “You can tell me,” Lizzie says.

  I want to. The entire story bubbles in my esophagus like half-digested booze, ready to escape into a toilet and go away forever. “It’s just …,” I start. But I don’t want her to know. I want to say it and then erase her memory. If I tell her, she’ll know forever. And what will she think of me? I can’t tell anyone. “… school,” I finish. “I hate being there again.”

  She sighs but says, “Okay. Get your butt over here.” The party is back in her voice.

  We arrive at Sean’s two hours and approximately four and a half outfits later. I am wearing a black halter top tied tightly around my push-up bra, the bow disappearing in the orange animal I carry on my head, and a white miniskirt that flows off my hips with black strappy heels. I keep reminding myself that, actually, I can dress like this again for the next nine months. This is not my last hurrah. Everything is going back to freaking normal.

  Lizzie has her blond hair swept up into a bun on the top of her head to show off the huge gold hoops that swing from her earlobes in the midst of all her gold studs. She is wearing a white sundress that sticks to her skin, darkened after a summer of lifeguarding on the beach. She looks sexy, but like it’s accidental. She drives guys crazy.

  Sean’s parents talk constantly—to each other, to Sean, to anyone around. When we get there all of these words swarm in the air and make me itchy. They rub on my bare arms and make my body hair stand up straight. They swirl in my brain until they don’t make sense anymore. They nudge my ribs and say see-what-you’re-missing-in-your-silent-house?

  We say “ma’am” and “sir” and answer questions about school and college and the St. Mary’s football team and the weather. Then we hand over our keys. Talkative parents are the kind who buy their son three kegs and convince themselves it’s okay as long as they collect all of our keys and only return them when we can prove we’re sober at their door. Lizzie and I have been through this enough to know that by the time we leave Mr. Scott will be passed out on his own drunk ass and Mrs. Scott
will be slurring her speech so badly that she would believe you if you said you were an alien, let alone sober.

  We move into the backyard, swing our feet in the deep end of the pool. Lizzie talks about how she thinks she can find out her dad’s name if she can get her hands on her birth certificate, and I struggle to listen. When something good happens to Lizzie, it feels like it’s happening to me too. She talks to me all the time: at school, on the phone, texting, IMing, in the car, in my bedroom, in her bedroom, outside. Her voice is the solo soundtrack of my life. But I have barely heard a word she has said to me all week.

  This blob-baby will take over my life. It’s already putting Lizzie on mute. It will tie me to my silent house. It will light stick after stick of dynamite between my parents. It will scare Todd into another school district, or state, or planet. Or girl. It will tie up my legs and bring back my virginity. It will take a big eraser to my 3.9 GPA, my only ticket out of the state of Florida. It will cry and poop and pee and make me feel like a fool because I have no idea what else it will do.

  Stop, Evelyn! This is over!

  I accept the Solo cup that Sean is handing me. It doesn’t matter if I drink now. It does matter if I do my homework. That is good.

  But I don’t drink it. I just carry it around with me, watching Lizzie get smashed off her ass. She starts to slur and stumble. Later, we join a bunch of jocks by the swing set. Lizzie and Sean share a swing: she’s straddling him, her white skirt flying up her legs every time the swing takes them higher. I wonder if Sean’s parents are also the kind who don’t care if you screw their son on the swing set, as long as they have your keys.

  A familiar sound buzzes into my ear. “Hey, E.”

  “Todd!” Lizzie shrieks, swinging her leg over Sean, hopping off the swing, and tripping over her feet. Todd catches her under her armpits and she drapes herself across him. “What’s wrong with my friend Evelyn?” Todd looks appropriately confused for the masses watching this conversation, so I don’t worry she’s blowing our cover. “There’s something wrong with my friend Evelyn. What is it, Todd?”

  I lean over so I can stare into Lizzie’s eyes, exaggerating for the crowd. “Yoo-hoo, Lizzie! I’m right here! Nothing’s wrong!”

  She shakes her head about a hundred times. “You’re not … you’re still on your first beer,” she says, providing explanation for her concern.

  “What?” I explode into laughter like this is ridiculous, even though truthfully, I haven’t had one sip of beer. Everyone starts laughing like I’ve been acting like a wasteoid all night.

  “Whatever.” Lizzie stumbles back over to Sean and lays a kiss right on his mouth. His hands come up to grab her around the waist. In the deafening “oohs” that result from this interaction, Todd and I disappear.

  He’s holding my wrist, not my hand. He pulls me to the basketball hoop and we sit on the driveway beneath it. People can see us, but they won’t hear us. It doesn’t matter. No one ever suspects Todd would screw an ugly string bean like me. He drops my wrist as soon as he realizes he doesn’t need to drag me. There are two inches between us. Not even our clothes are touching. The baby took Lizzie’s voice and Todd’s hands. I could kill it.

  “You shouldn’t drink that.” Todd points to the warm red cup I’ve been carrying for hours.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I’m … I’m taking care of it.”

  Todd nods. Tell me not to. Tell me to stop and I will. Tell me you will love it, you will love me. Or just it. Even just it. Tell me it can live in your house where there are actual people and sometimes laughter. Tell me you’ll hate me if I do this. Tell me you are leaving and you’ll never speak to me again, but that I should still stop. Tell me and I’ll have it.

  “I still don’t think you should drink that,” he says.

  “I’m not, actually.” I hold up the cup so he can feel how warm the beer is. Jacksonville August has turned it from frosty to hot chocolate He laughs and for a minute I think he’s going to palm my knee, or put a piece of my hair between his thumb and finger. Or ask me to go behind the bushes.

  He says, “I’m sorry. I suck at this. I just, I can’t do better.”

  I let the crickets and the background buzz of our drunken classmates do the talking.

  “I have a question, though.”

  “Shoot,” I say. I feel calm for the first time all week. Sad, but calm. My heart is beating normally. No devil things are playing with a punching bag inside me. My blood is still flowing. My head is still connected to my neck. Everything will be back to normal soon.

  “How do you know it’s mine?”

  Why didn’t I know he would ask that again?

  He sees the hurt dancing on my face or something because he says, “No, Evelyn. I didn’t mean it like that. I believe you. Just … how do you know?”

  Screw it. I’ll tell him the truth. Todd and I are done with our pretend relationship anyway, so I’ll spit it out. “I’ve never done it with anyone else.”

  “Unprotected, you mean?”

  “No. At all.”

  He nods. “Me neither.”

  What? “You don’t have to say that.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “What about Am—”

  “I haven’t. Not anyone. I didn’t even kiss her. It just never felt right.”

  Half my heart flies to the sky like it’s finally allowed to fall in love, but the bigger half is being crushed beneath Todd’s practice cleats because this is actually a break-up disguised as a love song.

  “I know there is a lot you could ask of me,” he is saying, stumbling on the words. “I know I might have to pay or change diapers or … well, I know there’s a lot. But I just can’t do it. I can’t tell my parents,” he is saying. “It’s not fair to you. It’s not like it’s all your fault. I guess if you decide to take me to court or something I’ll do what they make me do and I shouldn’t hate you or anything if you do that, but I might anyway, but I’m sorry if I do.” He is rushing. “I know a good guy says he’ll do whatever he can, whatever you need. But I guess I’m not a good guy.”

  He takes a breath and I shove my words into the empty space.

  “You didn’t hear me. I’m taking care of it. I’m having an … I’m getting rid of it.”

  “Oh.”

  Tell me not to.

  He looks at me with relief in his eyes.

  He puts his hand on mine. Finally. Like putting ice on a bumped head. “Then is there anything I can do to help you?” He laughs and I start to join him, but then my body resists. I don’t feel like laughing. I don’t feel like holding his hand. Wow: I’m pissed.

  “Yes,” I say, and he looks nervous.

  “Shoot.” His eyes stay on the pack of girls in short shorts playing drunken hopscotch at the end of the driveway.

  “Drive me home.”

  “Your car is here. You’re sober.”

  “Not tonight. Drive me home from the … from the appointment. So I don’t need to tell anyone else why I’m at a Planned Parenthood clinic.”

  He opens his mouth to object like a Good Catholic Boy, but the words to make him stop crawl into my windpipe from somewhere deep in my gut, somewhere where it is still two years ago and I am still worth something. The words latch hold of the back of my tongue and escape through the cage of my teeth.

  “After that freaking asshole speech you just gave me, you owe me this. Pick me up three blocks from school, and drive me three miles home. You are doing it. You are not going to leave me stranded at the downtown Planned Parenthood after I just unpleasantly fixed a mistake that was at least fifty percent yours with no help from you at all. Also, if you bring a few hundred dollars to pay for it, I’ll take it.” I remove my hand from under his and stand up. “I’ll text you to let you know when.”

  It feels good to be the one who walks away. I notice my blood running smooth as molasses, my breath coming in and out of my nose without effort, my knees swinging my feet out to walk without shaking. I’m sad but functional. />
  When I get home, I am finally able to shut my eyes, turn my brain to hibernate mode, and just fall asleep.

  Decision

  But then there I am, standing on that chemistry book, balancing in the middle of a blue ring. It’s exactly like last time: the blue light glowing on my translucent skin, the nothingness creating goose bumps all over my naked body. Except the machine stays quiet. Then I notice that my hands are cupped in front of me, a black box with a red button resting in them. I know instinctively what it is: the on switch. I could press it. The machine would rattle to life and I would disappear into the blue light. It felt so good last time. I could do it again. I could disappear. One finger rests on the shiny red surface, rolling around. I could just press this button. It would be so easy. Just press it. But my finger stays still. Press it. Why won’t I do it?

  Boom! Boom! Boom! The baby crashes inside me, waking me up. I can tell that it’s dancing, not punching, now. It’s leaping and backflipping and spinning pirouettes. And it should. It just saved its own life.

  I close my eyes to watch it all disappear again: Lizzie’s voice, Todd’s hands, my 3.9, the bed in my future dorm room, the promise of laughter in my ears one day. I sit up and pull my shirt up, speaking to my belly button. “I hate you,” I say. “I really do.”

  It’s still dancing.

  “I’m not going to kill you, but I hate you.”

  I think it tries to high-five me. But it doesn’t have hands yet, does it?

  When I still can’t sleep, I strip down in front of the long mirror. I turn on all the lights so it looks like noon in my room. It’s three a.m. I look at the way my toes line up perfectly on the bottom of my feet. Ten little toes, each proportionally smaller than the next. The arches of my feet yawn toward the ground. I always thought they were my best feature. But I know from Mary’s pamphlets that they are about to blow up like balloons. My bony ankles will probably break from my weight. I have always been too skinny. My knees and elbows look like they’re jumping off my body, trying to escape. I hate that I look like a bag of bones by accident when I’m surrounded by so many brainless girls who are trying to achieve the sickly look on purpose. But too skinny is better than too fat. I see my arms and legs plumping, swallowing my kneecaps and elbows whole. I bring my hands up to my AA cups and push them toward my collarbone. The spiderweb of veins shifts beneath my skin. I imagine them growing but sagging, wrinkling with stretch marks, my nipples swelling to the size of Sacajawea dollars. Finally, I push out my belly as far as it will go. I look pregnant: it’s that easy. But I will be at least three times this size. I will be ugly. I already am ugly. I will be uglier.