by M.L. Cameron
stop.”
“Maybe.”
“You can’t be pregnant and go to school,” he reminded me and I rolled my eyes. “How do you feel about kids?” he asked and I shrugged, picking up his guitar pick necklace from his bare chest. “I’m serious Ana…”
“I like kids.”
“And when we get married, how many are we having?”
I looked at the black and blue tie-died colors and took a deep breath. “Two.”
“Two? That’s it?” I laughed and nodded.
“Why? What did you have in mind?” I asked.
He shrugged that time. “Six.”
“Six?” I nearly shrieked. “Six kids?”
“I liked growing up with three siblings, even if they weren’t my real sisters.” I took a deep breath and settled back on his shoulder.
“I liked being an only child… But six kids…? As long as you promise they’ll turn out like you.”
He rolled his eyes and laughed. “I’d rather that they be like you.”
Luke
We spent the night together, in the corner of the studio. When we woke up neither of us wanted to leave the dark room. It was like a little sanctuary, where nothing in the outside world could affect us. We sat around and the maid knocked on the door and then opened it. “Your father said you would be up around now and that I was supposed to make sure you got something to eat. So I came to ask what you wanted to eat.”
“I’ll just have some strawberries.”
“I’ll have toast and scrambled eggs.” She nodded and went to the corner of the room to collect up Ana’s clothes. She picked them up and left us alone in the room again.
She came back about twenty minutes later, we had just been lying on the floor in silence.
♪♪♪
The school seemed small after the summer. My parents had tried to convince me to live with them and go to school in London. I had refused, not wanting to leave Ana, even if it was only for one school year. I had one class with Ana, advanced biology. And my teacher had threatened to move us to opposite ends of the room if we didn’t stop talking during class.
But we could never seem to stop. The days were long and the evenings were short. I knew that at college it would just get worse.
“You should try out for hockey again,” Ana whispered while taking notes from the board.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you enjoy playing hockey.”
I leaned over the lab table, pretending to be completely engrossed in what the lecture was about. “Not as much as I like spending time with you. And when I’m playing hockey I wouldn’t be able to do that.”
“You would still see me,” she murmured as the teacher turned around to look at us. Her eyes dropped to her notes and she started writing again.
“Every day after school I would have practice and then if we were to make districts or something then it would be like four days that I would go out of district or out of state. So that’s like fifteen less hours a week that I would be able to see you not counting the days we go on trips.”
“I still think you should do it. If we saw each other less then you could just stay the nights at my house. That way you still get to see me.”
“Like I don’t already spend the night over at your house all the time. I spend more time over at your house then I spend anywhere else, well, maybe school but I don’t count that.”
Why did she want me to go for hockey so bad? “You could spend time with Mark.”
“You know what, I’ll think about it… If you tell me why you think I should try out.”
She opened her mouth to answer but suddenly our teacher called on her to answer a different question. “As the time had passed evolutionary studies have led us to believe that…” Ana kept going, answering the question as well as she possibly could. I tuned her out and just sat there. It was our senior year and she wanted me to try out for hockey. We barely spent enough time together as it was and if I was playing a sport we would barely see each other for like three months.
And then it suddenly clicked, playing hockey would mean more nights at her house which would also mean more chances for her to try and get me to sleep with her. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to, and God knew, I wanted to, but sleeping together would mean a baby, an Artist baby, which neither of us really needed during college. I was all for skipping college but my parents… well… The people who raised me, would never allow me to just skip out on a few years of school. And they already hated Ana enough, they didn’t need another reason to pull me away from her.
The class ended and I took Ana’s hand as we walked to the courtyard for lunch. “You should do hockey because it’s something you like to do. You can see your friends and I get to say that my boyfriend is on the hockey team.” She sat on the brick wall that bordered out courtyard. Sitting on the wall brought her to my height, so I didn’t have to look down.
“I still won’t sleep with you,” I said and she rolled her eyes. “You think I’m kidding.”
“One of these days you’ll crack. I know teenage guys and they can hardly resist long enough to last a few hours without their girlfriends.”
“They don’t have a hundred percent chance of pregnancy to deal with.”
“So? You’re still going to crack. And if you don’t, I’ll sleep with someone else.”
“No you won’t.”
Her eyes brows went up. “Really?”
“You aren’t giving up college, me, a life, the next nine months and the rest of your life.”
“So maybe I wouldn’t sleep with someone else. One of these days I’m just going to the bathroom and then I’m going to come back to bed…” Her voice lowered and she spoke slowly, “Wearing absolutely… Nothing…” One of her nails trailed over my collar bone and I swallowed.
I shut my eyes for a second and took a deep breath. “First you have to get the nerve to do it,” I said and she smiled.
“Oh, I’ve been working on it… For the past month I’ve come really close.. I’ve gone to the bathroom and gotten naked and then I put on my pajama’s but the whole time I’m doing it I imagine your face if I were to just go to bed, without the pajama’s.”
“You barely wear anything, as is.”
“I wear a t-shirt,” she protested and I laughed. “Your t-shirts, which are long enough that I walk around the house in them, even when you aren’t there.”
And I needed to think clearly… “Why do you want to sleep together?” I asked suddenly and she kissed me.
“I don’t really know… I was just talking to Kait and Grandpa Jack about what it was like for them… They had my mother when they were sixteen… She said that it was like one of the most amazing things she had ever been through. First the sex, and then the pregnancy and then having a baby. I want to do that…”
“And you’ll be able to do all of that in a few years, when we’re married and done with college.”
She shrugged, at least she wasn’t completely focused on seducing me anymore. And then I smiled, it was an awkward situation. Traditionally I was supposed to be arguing for the sex. But we weren’t all that traditional of a couple. “I don’t even want to go to college. Why don’t you go to MIT and I’ll do the whole dance teaching thing?”
“Because we agreed on Julliard.”
“And I still don’t want to go.”
She didn’t say anything else as I just stared at her. I wanted her to tell me why. “Why not?” I asked and she shoved at my shoulder. “Why don’t you want to go to Julliard?” Again, she didn’t answer. She jumped off the wall and pushed at me when I stopped her. “Answer me Ana.”
“I’m going to class.” She slipped past me and I watched her walk away from the courtyard. Her hand went up to her cheek and I knew that she was crying… What had I said to make her cry? I really didn’t know and I was worried about her. First about her and the sleeping together thing and then about the not wanting to go to college and then about not answering me.
&nb
sp; When school let out later that afternoon she wasn’t waiting by my car and I didn’t wait to see if she would show up, I knew that she wouldn’t. When I called she didn’t answer… Her father told me that she had gone to her room and wouldn’t talk to anyone. She did have Fish in the room but she wouldn’t even talk to the maid.
And then I had no one to call. She didn’t have any close friends, no one she would talk to… So I did the only thing I could do… I went to the park and called my parents. They had to have some sort of advice, anything at all would be helpful. I just wanted to know what was going on with Ana…
“Luke? Why are you calling?” Lucy asked and I took a deep breath. “Not that I don’t like that you’re calling I just… I kind of want to know why.”
“Ana’s upset and I don’t know what I did. She won’t talk to me…”
“Well… What happened?”
“She was trying to get me to sleep with her and then she decided not to go home with me. I called her dad and he told me that she didn’t want to talk to me. And then she told me that she didn’t want to go to college at Julliard and that she wanted me to go to MIT.” I took a deep breath and climbed the ladder to the slide. I sat at the top of the plastic tube and waited for my mom to answer.
It was a long moment before she responded to what I had said. “Maybe she wants a baby Luke… Did you ever consider it?”
“Yes I considered it! I’ve had to consider it for the past few months while she’s tried to get me to sleep with her. I love her and I want kids but not until we’re done with college. It means a lot to me to go through the last four years of school.”
“Then why don’t you go to MIT and let her stay at an apartment on the campus while raising your child?”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “Because I want to be there to watch my child grow up. Not in some stupid on campus apartment but in a house. In a place where I want to spend the rest of my life. I don’t want he or she growing up somewhere unstable.”
“Okay? Then let her live in a house somewhere… somewhere you know you’ll want to end up and then you can go to college and she can raise the child.”
“Why won’t she just go to Julliard with me?”
“Do you know anything about her mother Luke?”
“She doesn’t like talking about her anymore. And her father goes to his office whenever she comes up in the conversation. And I can’t just call her grandparents…”
I could hear Lucy take a deep breath. She let it out slowly. “Why don’t you take the winter break to go and meet Ana’s grandparents again, actually ask them about Holiday? Then you can get to know her mother.”
“But Ana wants me to go out for hockey again… And if I do hockey I won’t be able to go for any of the winter break.”
“Then don’t do hockey.”
“If it’ll make Ana talk to me again then I want to do it.”
“She’ll talk to you again even if you don’t do the hockey thing. Someone can only go so long without their Passion without feeling horrible.”
“Maybe… I don’t know what I’m going to do… I just want to know what’s wrong. Thanks…”
She told me a little bit about where she was going on her dance tour and then told me she had to go. I hung up and just sat there for about an hour. I called her cell phone again and her father answered. “I’m sorry… I thought she would answer…”
“I told you earlier Luke, she doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”
“I know… Actually, could you give me her grandparents number? Or text it to me?”
“All right.”
♪♪♪
Ana didn’t show up to school for the next day… I started to get worried and showed up at her house about a week and a half after the original conversation had occurred. Her maid answered the door and then started to close it. “You aren’t supposed to be here Mr. Surmise.”
“It’s Prelapsarian… And I know. Is Ana home?”
“No…”
“Could you tell me where she went?” I asked after a