“How do you mean?”
“I don’t want you to have your heart broken, dear,” she finally says.
“Just because he’s a teacher?” I ask.
“No, of course not,” she tells me. “Well, I’m sure by now he’s told you about his past.”
“Oh...” I say, thinking she must know about his wife as well. This makes sense. I’m sure it would be hard to keep such a big thing from people that you work with every day. “Yeah, his wife. It’s sad.”
“Yes, and even sadder that he’s a single father taking care of his daughter all alone.”
My jaw nearly hits the ground, but she doesn’t seem to notice, because she keeps going.
“I mean, when he and I dated, he kept it from me for a while too--”
“WAIT!” I say, and then I suddenly notice that I’m shouting. She doesn’t even jump at the sudden increase of my volume. It’s almost as if she’s expected this reaction from me. “You dated Professor Mitchell?” I ask.
She suddenly looks confused, although the confusion seems somewhat feigned. And then before I can even ask her to slow down, all of her further words seem to be coming even faster and faster. They’re snowballing all around and me I feel like I’m drowning in them. My God. Why can’t she just slow down?
“And darling, it’s a lot for a girl as young as yourself with such talent and so many aspirations to have to struggle to help raise a child. And likely you’d end up pregnant yourself within a year. I mean, he’s old enough to be your father, and he’s your teacher. You’d get such a reputation, and then everyone would start to doubt your talents, not that it would matter if you had to put your studies on hold indefinitely to raise a child, because he may not stay with you if you get pregnant. What man wants to raise a child that young at his age with such a neophyte mother? He might just dump you like he did me— and I wasn’t even with child like you could be.”
She’s speaking in such definite terms all of a sudden. As if all of this is written in stone and it’s only a matter of time before her prophecies come true.
“I- I have to go,” I say, in the middle of one of her sentences as I rush out, probably leaving pens and notebooks behind on the desk, but I don’t care.
I feel so used all of the sudden. How could Trenton do this? Did he even like my poem? Was he even really touched? Or was he just trying to get into my pants? I gave him my virginity.
Jesus, what have I done?
I rush outside for some air. I lied to Dr. Myers, and my next class is actually only a building over, but I think today I’m going to skip. I’d have to walk right past Trenton’s office to get to it and I don’t want to risk seeing him. So, instead, I head over to the fountain in the courtyard and take a seat.
Suddenly, my phone begins ringing in my backpack. I pull it out hoping that it’s Jessica, who I haven’t even seen since the bar, so that I can unload a little on her and get some of this weight off my chest.
Alas, it’s Trenton.
Only I’m so overwhelmed that instead of answering the phone when I see his name, I toss it over my shoulder and hear a plop! as it lands in the fountain behind me.
How can I ever speak to him again?
Chapter Seven
Caroline
One Month Later
“How long until we know for sure?” I ask the nurse at the school’s free clinic.
“Hmm...” she says as she checks the time on her phone. “It should only be a few more minutes.”
I hate that I’m even having to sit here. I never get sick. Not like I have been for the last few days. Mornings, to be specific. And I’ve never been a day late on my period in my entire life. The nurse even asked me about my sexual history, and I told her I’d only had sex once, which was true.
“Would that interfere with my cycle?”
“Well, honey,” she says, with a bit of a southern drawl, “it only really takes one time.”
My face flushes.
I haven’t spoken to Trenton at all since my little chat with Dr. Myers. I even dropped his class with a W — which stands for ‘withdrawn’ — on my transcript. It’s not a great look. But it’s better than having an F there because I was too distracted by my brief affair with the professor to get any of my work done.
“Ms. Channing,” the nurse says as she returns to the room.
“Uh-huh?”
“Your pregnancy test is positive,” she says in a quiet voice.
Oh, if only she knew how negative that actually felt right now.