Life Interrupted (15 page)

Somewhere between when people found out I was pregnant and right before I had Gracie, someone decided that I was an expert on all things sex and boy related.  A sexpert, if you will.  I have zero idea who came to this conclusion or how, as I thought it was clear that my knowledge was limited based on the fact that I was
pregnant
and not just another high school girl sleeping around and taking names, but there you go.  It became common for girls to wait for me at my locker or my car, to assault me with vivid details about their sexual experiences and ask me for advice on how to fix a certain problem with their boyfriend or their relationship. Like, getting pregnant had somehow been a plan that was going to lead me to great things (which answered the question as to why people are so disappointed in our generation). 

             
At first, I was so shocked I did nothing more than listen and nod, hoping this type of reflective listening would be all they needed.  When it became clear that they wanted more, I took my bad mood out on them and their relationships, telling them exactly what I thought about their boyfriend who was too busy to call them on a Friday night, but not so busy he didn’t have time for a quickie in between his “football game and curfew”.  For several weeks, I acted as the demented Dear Abby of the high school world and ripped into girls about their low self-esteem and blind ignorance, mowing my way through dozens of relationships before they got the hint that not only was I clearly
not
an expert in sexual dalliance, I was a hater of all things romantic.

             
Needless to say, it’s been a long time since someone asked me for relationship advice, so I’m shocked when Kennedy Carson, star pole-vaulter and perfect student, corners me in the locker room after my morning volleyball class.  She’s wearing sweatpants despite the early April heat wave we’re having, and her face is pale.  She’s tall, not as tall as me, but an easy five-nine, her arms and legs both long and thin. 

             
“Flow? Can I talk to you?”

             
We’ve never done more than exchange a few words, and the fact that she’s one of Lauren’s best friends has me wary, but I nod and follow her when she motions to the corner.  She stands with her back to the wall, her arms crossed over her chest in a defensive manner as her eyes scan the room behind us.

“How’s it going, Kennedy?”

Her eyes meet mine and I notice that they’re pale and bloodshot.  “Not so great.  I need to ask you something, but I need you to promise you can keep a secret.”

I nod because I already know.  I’m not an idiot—this girl and I aren’t friends and there are probably fifty other people better suited to answering her questions, which means she needs
me specifically…which means she’s pregnant because that’s about the only thing I’m a known expert on at this school these days.

“Have you taken a test?”

My voice is low and still she flinches, her eyes darting to mine before they fill and she looks down at her feet, her hands clenching and unclenching as they grip her biceps.  She shakes her head.  “How did you know?”

I give her a wry smile.  “We’ve said three words to each other in the four years we’ve gone to school together, all three of them at the
Athletes in Action
dinner our sophomore year.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why you need to talk to me.”

“I don’t know what to do,” she says and suddenly she’s sliding down the wall, her legs slamming into her chest, her arms circling them as she lays her head on her knees and weeps.  I look behind me to make certain the locker room is still empty and then I crouch down next to her.  “My parents—they’re strict, like, skirt to church, no make-up strict.  They don’t even know I have a boyfriend.  How do I tell them I’m pregnant?”

It’s strange being on the opposite side of this—because as much as I understand what Kennedy’s feeling, as much as I can truly empathize with the recriminations and fear and complete dread that’s running through her right now, I also understand that nothing I say is going to make her feel better.  So I don’t try.  I sit there while she cries, listen as the bell to start class rings, ignore it.  I don’t know this girl from Adam and I sure as hell don’t owe her anything.  I could pat her shoulder and leave right now, tell her it’s the breaks but she has to deal with it like a big girl and then head to class.  I’ve been through this—I don’t need to watch someone else go through it, too.  Except, she came to me, which means she genuinely doesn’t have anyone else to go to, because let’s face it, if she did, I definitely wouldn’t be the one watching her sob herself dry. 

I had someone, several someones
, in fact.  Tripp held me even when I wasn’t his responsibility, Katie held me, my mom and Stacy.  Once my decision was made I was never alone; even when I pushed them away, I was never alone.  Looking at Kennedy, I get the feeling that’s all she is—alone and terrified and pregnant, so I sit next to her with my back against the wall, my knees slightly bent and my feet flat on the ground and wait for her, because I know what’s coming when she’s done crying is going to be ten times harder than this.

“I don’t know what to do,” she finally says
, and I turn my head to stare at her profile.  “I’m on scholarship to go to South Dakota and pole-vault for them.  How am I going to do that if I’m pregnant?”

I wipe my palms on my jeans and clear my throat.  “I guess you have to decide if you want to be pregnant, first.”  Her eyes fill and she shakes her head no.  I swallow.  “Do you know how far along you are?”

She nods.  “Six weeks, according to Google’s pregnancy calendar.  Which also puts my due date at the beginning of next year.”

“Kennedy, I can’t tell you what to do.  This is your life.”

She nods and the tears keep coming as she lays her head back against the wall.  “I’m so stupid.”

“Nah, just pregnant,” I say and
smile when a laugh gurgles out of her.  “And since I’ve been where you are, I can promise I won’t be judging you.”

She swallows and looks more terrified than she did a moment ago.  “What about other people? What is everyone else going to think when they find out?”

“Piece of advice?”  She nods.  “You can’t worry about everyone else.  Right now, you can only worry about you because in the end, you’re the one who has to live with whatever decision you make.”

She finally lo
oks at me then, her head turned slightly and still resting on her knees, her eyes still dripping.  “How do you live with yours? How do you stand what people say about you?”

I wince. 
“By trying to forget they talk about me, but thanks for that reminder.  As for living with it…” I shrug and think about how scared I get when I actually let myself think about my future.  How scared I am of Marcus and all of his threats, of not being anything more than a mom, of not being a good mom, of not having a life I can be proud of, one that will show Gracie she can be proud, too.  Then I look back at Kennedy and tell her the only thing that gets me through the day sometimes.

“I don’t have a choice.  I
want
to live so I keep going, even when it hurts.  And it hurts to think about it,” I tell her honestly.  “It hurts to know that in a month and a half when we graduate, I might be staying here and going to community college instead of chasing my dream.  And it hurts knowing that one choice made my entire life something else, something harder, something scarier.”

“Like I said, how do you live with it?”

Kennedy and I don’t talk anymore after that, not until she wipes her cheeks and stands, holding out a hand and hauling me to my feet.  “Thanks, Flow, and I’m sorry.”

I quirk my brow at her.  “For what?”

“Judging you, assuming you deserved what everyone said about you.  What you’re going through, what you have left to go through? It’s scary.  I don’t think I can do it,” she says and her breath catches.  “I know that makes me weak and horrible, but I just can’t do it.”

I shake my head at her.  “Your decision is your own, Kennedy.  Stop thinking you’re a bad person.”

She nods once, wiping her hands under her eyes, swiping at the tears that cling there before taking a deep breath.  “I guess I’ll see you.”

I incline my chin and stay where I am as she leaves, wondering if she’ll be okay.  Wondering if I’ll be okay.  It’s hard to avoid the truth now that I’ve said it aloud, the truth that follows me everywhere, no matter how hard I shove it to the back of my brain and ignore it; my life has changed and every day it gets scarier, and every day I worry more, and every day I feel like I’m one step further away from the person I always thought I’d be.  And every day I know with more certainty that no matter how hard I try, something is going to fall and it’s going to shake the balance of everything I stand on, leaving me to pick up the pieces and start over.

~

It’s oddly silent when I key into Stacy’s house
carrying a sleepy Gracie.  And messy.  Like, really messy.

For me, it’s relatively clean, but I’m less what people consider type A and obsessive and more what they call normal.  Stacy is nothing if not type A and obsessive, especi
ally about how things look, so I’m shocked to see crackers on the counter—not on a plate on the counter, but just crumbling and half eaten on the actual countertop itself—two cups in the sink, a soda can by the couch, and a blanket on the floor.  Looking at the destruction, it looks familiar, almost as if…she’s throwing up, like I can hear her doing now that I’ve reached the hallway.

Y
uck.

Continuing to the guestroom, I lay
Gracie in the pac-n-play that’s always up and leave the door cracked as I backtrack to the main living area. I grab the can from the floor and glance at it.  Hansen’s Organic? Yeah, we’re going to need something a bit stronger to get her through this.

Going to the kitchen, I grab a towel off of the counter and put it in the sink to run cold water over it while I search the fridge for Nick’s contraband soda.  I find a Coke and almost cheer at my good luck,
but after a thorough search of the cabinets which nets me nothing greasier than multigrain Wheat Thins, I snag the towel and the Coke, stopping at my purse on my way out of the kitchen to grab the go bag of Cheeze Its I keep there. 

Following the noises, I wander down the hallway and stop at the doorframe to the guest bathroom to beam at the image of my sister with her head shoved in th
e toilet.  True to form, there’s a box of Clorox Wipes next to her, opened and spilling out like she held in the vomit until the porcelain palace was cleaned to her specifications. 

“This almost makes me nostalgic.  Of course, I was in the locker room at school, a place I can assure you Clorox Wipes have never been in regular use, but still, everything else is pretty much the same.”

Stacy groans and leans back on her haunches, flushing the toilet with her left hand while she closes the lid with her right.  When she goes to stand, I step forward and stop her, easing her gently back and leaning her against the wall.  “Let’s stay here for a second.”

“I’m on the bathroom floor,” she says and I smile as I tilt her head forwar
d to put the cool towel on the back of her neck.  She groans.

“It won’t be the last time,” I assure her and crack open the can of Coke.  “How long have you been at this?”

“On and off all day.  More on than off,” she admits with a small grimace.  “Nothing makes it stop, not crackers, not soda, not water.  If I had known being pregnant was like having the Swine, I might have looked harder at adoption.”

“Well, first things first, organic soda is not soda and it won’t cut it.  Try this,” I say and hand her the can.  She sucks in a breath and leans further back into the wall, cringing away like I’ve offered her a crack
-pipe instead of a Coca-Cola. 

“
What are you doing, Rae? You know I can’t have that, it has
caffeine
in it.”  She whispers the last part, like speaking it aloud will somehow make her more vulnerable to catching whatever effect it has on her little fetus.

I roll my eyes and pick her hand up, wrapping
her fingers around the can myself.  “First of all, you can’t catch a high from being near it, so you can relax, and secondly, it’s
a
can of Coke—as in one—not a tablet of Speed.”

“I don’t even like regular Coke,” she whines and I grin.

“You may not like it, big sister, but if that little peanut in there is anything like your niece I can guarantee they do, and it’s going to be the thing that saves your life for the next six weeks.  It’s on the Brat diet,” I add when she looks at the can suspiciously.  “Which is doctor recommended for stomach problems, so between this, my handy bag of Cheeze Its, some applesauce and a banana, you’ll live.  Not comfortably, but hey, it’s the price we pay for the miracle of life.”  I don’t tell her that this very substance has also reportedly removed rust from car batteries.  Need to know basis is my motto with Stacy’s hypochondriac ways.

After reading the nutrition facts on the back of the can, she looks at me with a pained expression.  “
I know that if you can’t pronounce it, it’s not good for you, but I feel like such shit.”

I smile.  “I know.  Drink some Coke and eat some Cheeze Its, I won’t tell anybody.”