How It Ends (22 page)

Not to mention that you'd think she'd be cutting me some slack right now. She's so fucking self-involved. She is the only person on
earth
who knows that I'm pregnant. Shouldn't she be worrying about
my
feelings for five minutes? Shouldn't she make some allowances for me?

I leave her one last voice mail. I tell her I'm sorry and that it was a misunderstanding. I tell her I want the chance to talk to her about it and show her my side of things. I'm not going to chase after her forever. If she values our friendship, she'll give me a chance and call me back. If I don't hear from her, then I'll know her answer.

Ugh.

I so don't need this right now, on top of everything else.

Like I wasn't feeling shitty enough.

All last night at the party I felt like such a fraud. It's eating me up inside, keeping this secret from Scott. I
know
I should tell him I'm pregnant. This affects him, too, and he should know. But I just can't bring myself to do it.

It'll change everything. The easy, fun connection we have will get strained and awkward. We'll have real, grown-up decisions to make. I'm not ready for that. I want to be happy and carefree and
young
for a while longer. I've been sixteen for only twenty-four hours, for Christ's sake.

Plus, I have absolutely no idea how he'll react to this news. I don't even know how I
want
him to react. Even the thought of having this conversation with him short-circuits my brain. This cannot be real. It cannot be happening to me.

What if he breaks up with me? What if he decides this is all too much for him and he just leaves? What will I do then?

If I get an abortion, I might not even need to talk to him. Maybe I can just pretend that none of this ever happened. I can stay with Scott and keep all my friends and still be
me.

I can't tell him yet. I need to decide what I want to do first. I don't want to ruin everything for no reason.

She's
done?
What the hell was that supposed to mean?

I stabbed at the screen of my phone, replaying Annie's last voice mail.

How
dare
she?

Even the tone of her voice made me livid. She was so
smug:
“I've called and texted you all day, but you refuse to talk to me. You even blocked me on Facebook. That's not how friends treat each other, Jessie. And the day after my birthday, too. If you're really my friend, you'll call me and we'll talk this through. You don't know my side of the story at all. I have so many things to tell you, but I'm done chasing you. If you don't want to talk to me, then fine. Walk away. But if you
do
value our friendship, please call me back and we'll talk.”

I could almost see her shrugging her shoulders and giving up, and it pissed me off. She expended what? . . . Like five hours of effort into making it up to me? A bunch of worthless texts and phone calls? If it had been me, I would have gone to her house, sent her apology flowers—anything to show that I was sorry and that I cared about her.

I threw my phone down and pulled my laptop toward me. I'd been trolling Facebook all day, looking for references to the party. I hit Refresh and held my breath as it reloaded. Still nothing. I wasn't sure if I should be relieved or upset.

I pulled up my friends list and scanned through it, feeling sick. All those people, and none of them real friends. Annie wasn't on the list, of course. I unfriended her the minute I woke up today.

I picked up my phone again, suddenly desperate to erase every bit of evidence of our friendship. I deleted all her messages and texts and then pulled up her number and blocked her from my contacts, but it still felt unsatisfying. It still felt as if she'd had the last word.

I looked back at my laptop screen. Scott was on Facebook. I could see the little green light beside his name on my chat sidebar.

Why should I keep her secrets when she didn't keep mine?

All it would take was one little click and a carefully worded message.

Hi, Scott. I'm so sorry about last night. I was really drunk and stupid and I don't even remember half of what happened. But I do remember wanting to tell you something. Annie has been keeping a huge secret from you. You really need to ask her about it.

I can feel Jessie's eyes on me, but I refuse to turn around. She flounced past me on her way into class earlier, her nose in the air, sighing loudly as she passed my desk. Her whole
woe is me
routine is bugging the shit out of me. She's been skulking around all morning, looking
wounded
and waiting for me to make things right.

I apologized already. It's her turn to apologize to
me.
And not just for ignoring me and being a bitch—she owes me an apology for slobbering all over Scott at the party. I mean,
come on.
It takes a shitload of nerve to play the victim when you're a backstabber who'd make a move on your best friend's boyfriend.

Scott. The back of my neck goes hot with sudden realization. I haven't heard from Scott all morning. Weird.

I reach down and ease my phone out of my bag, careful not to let Miss Fletcher see it. I must have missed his text this morning. I rest the phone inside my desk and open my messages. Not a single text from Scott. He
always
messages me first thing in the morning.

I chew on my lip, my mind turning over the possibilities. Is he home sick? Did he lose his phone again? I wait for Miss Fletcher to write something on the board before firing off a quick text:
Haven't heard from you all day! Everything ok?

It takes about three seconds for the reply to come in.
We need to talk.

Why? What's wrong?

Let's talk at lunch.

You're freaking me out. Is everything ok?

We'll talk at the diner.

The diner? We're not supposed to leave school property at lunch, though no one really makes a huge deal about it. Almost everyone eats in the cafeteria. Joel's Diner is a twenty-minute walk from school, and it's hard to get there and back in time for class.

Ok . . . meet at my locker?

Meet you at Joel's.

What the hell? Butterflies swoop in my stomach. Something's wrong. Scott sounds so
mad.
I rack my brain trying to think of a reason why. Did we have plans I forgot about? Was I supposed to message him last night? We chatted over Facebook in the afternoon, and he wasn't mad at all . . .

I'm shaking by the time I walk into Joel's at lunch. I practically ran the whole way, so I'm surprised to see Scott already here. He's in a booth at the back, already ordering from a waitress. Nice that he waited for me.

I give myself a mental shake.
Stop freaking out like a pathetic girl. You haven't done anything wrong.

I walk up with a confidence I don't feel. “Hi,” I say, trying hard to sound bright and cheerful.

Scott doesn't even look up at me. “Order fast so we're not late for class.”

The waitress raises her eyebrows at his tone. “I'll have a burger and fries,” I mumble, sliding into the booth. “And a ginger ale, if you have it.”

She scribbles down my order and rushes off. I'm gripped with the sudden urge to call her back and ask her to sit down so I won't have to face this alone.

I look up and meet Scott's eyes. He's staring at me.

“Are you going to tell me what's wrong?” I ask.

“Are you keeping secrets from me?”

My blood runs cold. He can't possibly know. “Secrets? No . . . what makes you think I'm keeping secrets?”

He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again, they're so sad that it breaks me. “If there's anything you need to tell me, Annie, just say it. Please don't lie to me.”

This isn't the time or the place. I'm not ready to have this conversation yet. But the hurt in those eyes that I love so much . . .

“I'm pregnant.”
Holyfuckingshit.
I want to reach out and grab the words and push them back into my mouth.

Whatever Scott thought I was going to say, that sure wasn't it. His face goes completely white. “What? When did this happen?”

“I missed my period last month and I took a test and—”

“Last
month?
You've known this for a month and you're just telling me now?”

“No. Almost. Wait . . .” My head is spinning.

“Why would you wait?”

“Hold on a second. You've got it all wrong. I missed my . . . you know . . . and then it took me a while to realize I was so late. Then I took a test. So really, I think I've known for all of two weeks or so. But why is that important?”

“What do you mean,
why is that important?
How long do we have left to take care of it?”

“What are you talking about?”

He leans in close, his eyes dark. “I mean, what were you waiting for? Till it was too late?”

“Too late for what?”

“An
abortion.
” He hisses out the word, looking around nervously.

“What? No! Of course not. There's still lots of time for those decisions. I was . . . just . . . I wanted to tell you at the right time.”

Scott's fury is white-hot. “The right
time?
Are you fucking serious? What right time would there possibly be for you to tell me you're ruining my life and that you've been hiding something major from me for a month!”

“Two weeks . . .”

“Whatever!” He's obviously not worried about being overheard anymore. The waitress fidgets by the counter.

“Calm down. I'm not keeping secrets. This was hard for me, too. I totally freaked out and got scared. This isn't exactly the kind of information you can just toss out there, you know?” I reach for his hand, but he pulls it away. “Come on, Scott. Of course I was going to tell you. Of course you need to know. Because this is your child and we need to make these decisions together.”

The panic in his eyes takes my breath away. “My
child?
Annie! What's wrong with you? We're sixteen years old. We can't have a child! What are we going to do, drop out of school and get jobs at the Dollar Store to support it? You're insane.”

“I never said we were going to keep it, I just said we had to talk about it. And talking usually involves conversation, not someone yelling at the other person.” The tears are out in full force now, and I swipe at them angrily. I don't want to cry in front of him.

“How did this happen, anyway?” His eyes are accusing.

“What's that supposed to mean? Are you telling me you don't remember us having
sex?
”

“Of course I remember that. But you were supposed to be on the Pill.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I'm the angry one now. “Who said anything about the Pill? What did you think, that I'd go up to my dad and ask him to fill my birth control prescriptions? Where the fuck would I get the Pill?”

“When I asked you if we could stop using condoms, you said it was okay.”

“
Excuse
me?”

“When. I. Asked . . .”

“I heard you. But first of all, you didn't
ask if it was okay.
You announced that you hated condoms and said you couldn't feel anything, so you wanted to stop wearing them. There was no question in there. And we
never
talked about the Pill. I said it was okay because I wanted you to enjoy it, not because I was on birth control.”

“Then you never should have said yes.”

“Why is it all
my
responsibility to take care of the birth control? You never even
asked.
And why would I have insisted on condoms from the beginning if I was on the Pill?”

“I just figured you were worried about AIDS.”

“Bullshit. You didn't think I was on the Pill. You just don't want to admit this is as much your fault as it is mine.”

“No, Annie. I
did
think you were on the Pill, because I thought you were a smart girl. I assumed you wouldn't risk ruining both of our lives like this.”

“Well, if you were so concerned, you should have talked to me about it.”

“My mother was right.” He mumbles the words as he sits back, staring off into space, but I feel like he shouted them.

“Right about what?”

“Right about you.”

“And what exactly did your mother say?”

“That you were out to trap me. That girls like you are looking for some guy to drag down and force them to take care of you.”

“Girls like
me?
What kind of girl am I?”

“You know, from a broken home. Unhappy. She said you'd try to trap me into a relationship because you don't have enough love in your life, and I didn't believe her.”

“But you do now.”

“What am I supposed to think, Annie? People don't do things like this. Girls don't sleep around like this without taking birth control. You weren't even on the Pill, for Christ's sake. That makes no sense to me. I mean, who would do that?”

Girls like me.

I stand up and walk right out of the restaurant. With every step, I expect him to chase after me. I expect him to grab me by the arm and apologize and say he's just overwhelmed and scared. I expect him to tell me he loves me. But he doesn't.

I walk all the way home in a complete daze. I'm actually surprised when I see my house in front of me. I'd meant to go back to school, but I'm relieved to be here instead. I stumble into my room and bury myself under the covers before gathering the courage to check my phone.

Not a single call or text.

He let me walk away and didn't even check to see if I was okay.

My stomach hurt and my head was pounding. I felt like something terrible was happening and there was nothing I could do to stop it. My heart kept fluttering and my brain was buzzing and I didn't think it was normal—even for a panic attack. What if I had some kind of heart condition and I was just ignoring it because I thought it was anxiety? What if I died sitting there waiting for my Ativan to kick in?