I think it’s the first time that I’ve ever seen Justin’s jaw drop. His raised arm slumps down to rest across his chest defensively. His eyes scan me as though he’s waiting for me to burst out laughing and confirm that this is all a stupid joke. I shift on my feet, waiting.
“What?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“You can’t be,” he says. “I wore condoms. It can’t be mine.”
Nice. He’s suggesting I’m fucking someone else when he knows he was my first and should know he’s my only. “One of them must have failed,” I say. “I haven’t been with anyone else.”
He turns from me then, sliding his legs off the bed and facing the window, muscles in his back bunched with tension. “You need to get an abortion,” he says. “This… it can’t happen. What will Cathy say?”
Of course, this would become about Cathy. How can anything in life not be about her? She’s the center of the fricking universe. I hold my breath, trying to keep my cool. There is so much I could yell at Justin right now. So many hurt and vicious things that would turn my tongue black, but it won’t change a thing for either of us. “I’m not going to get an abortion.”
He stands then, his hands balled at his sides and face as furious as I’ve ever seen it. “I don’t want this. I’m too young.”
“Your momma was my age. My momma was my age. If they could do it, we should do it.”
When his fist smashes into the wall, I step back until my back is pressed against the door. He looks at his busted knuckles as though they don’t belong to him, as though he suddenly exists in someone else’s body. It’s how I feel, too, apart from myself, looking on at a situation I never imagined would be mine. I said “we,” but I guess “I” would have been a better choice of words. I can do it. I can have this baby, because how can I not?
I got myself into this mess. I knew in my heart that Justin was just using me to pass the time, but I didn’t care. For once, I just wanted a taste of something that set my pulse racing. I wanted to believe that I could make him love me. I wanted to believe there could be a person out there just for me.
I should have known better. I got myself into this mess, and Justin isn’t going to get me out of it.
I run my hand across the cool wood of the door until I find the handle. Justin’s green eyes are fixed on mine, but instead of burning with lust, they’re burning with hate.
This moment will be charred into my memory. I don’t want to look at him and see the terrified, glorified child that he’s become in front of my eyes. Boys punch walls. Boys don’t face up to their actions. Being able to fuck doesn’t make anyone a man. It certainly doesn’t make anyone a father.
I yank the door open and walk away.
Each step I take from Justin’s room and through his childhood home feels like a step away from the girl I was when I first came here. A girl who looked for love in the wrong place. A girl who didn’t believe she deserved any more than the crumbs that she was given, the crumbs brushed off her friend’s table.
I’m not stupid enough to think that having a child is going to be easy.
I’m not stupid enough to think that Justin’s going to want to be involved in any way.
But clinging onto something that never was isn’t going to help. Looking back with regret isn’t going to get me anywhere good. I have seven and a half months to get my shit together, and that is what I’ll have to do. As I shut Justin’s front door, I place my hand over my belly. It’s still as flat as it’s always been, toned from hours of training in the flips and jumps that have put me front and center of the cheer team.
Knowing there’s more in there than just my own flesh and blood moves me in a way that surprises me to the core.
One down, one to go.
Telling Justin was easy compared to what it’s going to be like to tell my mom.
2
“You… you’re what?” Mom stares at me with wide eyes that drift down to my belly. As I’m nowhere near showing, she finds nothing that can confirm the news she wishes she wasn’t hearing from me right now.
“Pregnant. I think around six weeks.”
“How… how do you know?”
“I’m late. I took a test.”
“Who? How?” she mutters as she sinks slowly into a chair. My usually robust single mom, who works three jobs to keep us afloat, looks crumpled and defeated. She’s only thirty-eight, but suddenly she seems so much older.