“Just a warning that I feel like partying. I know you haven’t seen this side of me yet, so be prepared for just about anything.” I chuckle and loosen my tie as we walk through the doors. Emily finds her way around easily as she goes to the kitchen to fix her a glass of vodka and cranberry juice. I follow her to get a beer. She chugs her drink and fixes another, but this time it’s tequila instead of vodka.
After that drink and another beer for me, Emily has really loosened up and drags me to where everyone is dancing. I never knew Emily could move the way she was. She must have felt how excited I was because she led me upstairs, full of giggles. She takes my beer and finishes it off before handing it back to me. I smile as she checks the rooms, mumbling sorry until she finds an empty one.
She pushes me back on the bed and takes charge of the situation. She slips out of her dress and soon she has me wrapped around her little finger so tightly that I would do just about anything to have her right that second. Who knew she was such a tease!
Emily
I haven’t felt particularly good today. Talk about being nauseous and just bleh. Probably didn’t help that we partied last night after prom. I didn’t get home until early this morning. I had a headache from my hangover. After me and Jake had some fun of our own, we went back downstairs and partied some more. We got a friend of Jake’s, who was sober, to drive us home. Jake was hanging out with the guys today and would go back to get his car.
I roll over and look at the date on my phone to see that it was April 30th around noon. Shit. I was two weeks late. No. That couldn’t be right. I bit my lip as fear rose high. I couldn’t be pregnant. We used condoms every single time.
Shit. Not the first time. But still, I was on birth control. If I was, what would happen to the baby since I drank like a sailor last night? Oh my. If I was pregnant, I was already acting like my mom. I would have already harmed the baby because of alcohol. My hands began to shake as I grabbed my keys from the nightstand. I walked down the hall and into the living room where my dad was watching TV. “Dad, I’m going out for a while.”
“Okay, honey.”
I walked through the kitchen and into the garage. It took three times to get my key in the ignition. I opened the garage and bac
ked out. I didn’t want to go to a store around here. Too many people would be curious about me. I drove the hour drive to Jacksonville. I stopped at the Target, which was one of the first stores that would have the test.
I grabbed my wallet from the console and hurried inside. Oh my god. Please. This can not be happening. I found the pregnancy tests easy enough and grabbed one of each brand. I had to be certain. The woman at the register gave me a look full of sorrow as she rang me up. I paid and went straight to the bathroom. I couldn’t do this at home. Twenty minutes and five tests later, I knew my answer.
Jake
Around five, I pull up at my house from a day with the boys. Emily is sitting on my steps and I’m so happy to see her. As I get out of my car and walk towards her, she looks up and tears are in her eyes. I sit beside her and pull her to me. “Sweetness, what’s the matter? What happened?” She just kept crying. I try to sooth her, but to no avail. “Emily, please. Tell me what’s going on?”
“I’m pregnant.”
I froze. My heart might as well have stopped beating. What? How? Images of our first time together smashed into me. Emily’s broken voice brought me to reality. “Jake, say something.” I looked at her and gulped. What was I supposed to say? The only thing I knew was that I couldn’t just leave her.
“Are you sure?”
“Five tests sure,” she answers.
“We’ll figure this out. I promise.”
I held her to me as she continued to soak my shirt with her tears. What were we going to do? I wasn’t ready to raise a baby. I wanted to go to college and play in the NHL. How in the hell could I do that with a baby? How could Emily accomplish her goals with a baby? Would we get an abortion? My throat constricted at the thought of killing an unborn baby. Would we give it up for adoption so we could go to college?
“Jake, what are we going to do?” Emily’s voice was desperate as she searched my eyes for answers.
“We need to go somewhere and talk, just us,” I tell her. I pull her up and take her over to my car. I have no clue where we will go. I just drive. Almost two hours later, we arrive at the beach where our first date took place. We get out and walk down the beach. “Jake, abortion is not an option,” Emily starts. “I just can’t do that.”
“Me neither. There’s so much to think about Emily. If we keep it, we have to think about school and money. If we don’t, we have to think about adoption. I don’t know what to think, Sweetness,” I confide.
Emily’s hand touch her stomach. “I don’t know if I can give the baby up, Jake. How can I give up this little life inside of me after spending nine months with it? I don’t think I can do that. I will completely understand if you rather go to college instead of dealing with this.”
That stops me dead in my tracks. I turn her towards me and keep my arms on hers. “Sweetness, this is our baby. No matter what we decide, I’m going to be there. I promise.”
“Okay.” She still doesn’t seem convinced to me, but I let it drop for now. “So what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. I think we need to talk to our dads.” At that, Emily frowns. I can’t help but chuckle. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be right there with you.”
She nods. We walk along the beach in silence for a while before turning around to head home. This wasn’t going to go well.
We decided to tell our parents together. Drake went to a friend’s house for the time being. Mike and my dad were sitting across from us at the kitchen table at Emily’s. I held her hand in reassurance. Emily said she wanted to tell her dad. She was scared to death though. So was I. I never expected this to happen. Emily drew in a deep breath and looked down at our hands. “I’m pregnant,” she whispers.
Our dads sit still in shock. After a minute, Mike gets up and starts pacing. “What the hell?! Emily, you know better than to have sex unprotected!”
“I’ve been on birth control for years. There was only once that we didn’t use a condom,” she says softly. The fact that she has been on birth control for a long time surprised me, although, I guess it shouldn’t. My dad covers his face with his hands and then ran them through his thinning hair. “You two have really fucked up,” is all he manages to say.