Deadly Chemistry
6 The World on Edge
MY ENTIRE WORLD tilted edgewise and I slid off into an abyss. With two words my worldview shifted. “I’m pregnant.” Don’t bother with the “I think.” If a girl tells you she thinks she’s pregnant or might be pregnant, she’s pregnant. Everything but Hannah and my unborn child fled from my mind. Other girls? Who needs them? College? I can make it without. Wedding? How soon can we get married?
Sadly, my first thought was “How could that happen?” Oh shit! I did not intend to say that out loud. Tears were spilling from Hannah’s eyes. I knew how it happened. One time. One fucking time we’re together and even without penetration I pumped a gallon of sperm straight up her vagina. As turned on as she was, if she was fertile my sperm would have been sucked straight into her womb. Maybe it was both of our subconscious hope.
“I’m sorry, Hannah. I know how it happened. I’m so sorry, baby.”
“It was my fault. I know how babies are made. I just didn’t know it felt so incredible.”
“We have to share the blame if that’s the way you think of it. I hear it feels even better when you do it right.” She snuffed a short laugh.
“What am I going to do? I’ve ruined everything.”
“Sweetheart, it’s not ruined. It’s just different. You know my rule. We’ll do whatever’s necessary.”
“Whatever’s necessary.”
We talked all morning as we sat in her room. Her mom looked in on us a couple of times, but we were just sitting there talking. This parsonage was nowhere near as nice as the one they’d moved from. It was dinky and run-down and smelled a little musty, like there had been a leak recently repaired.
Hannah said she didn’t get her period in July but didn’t think anything about it because of the stress of moving and being isolated from her friends. She’d spent the entire month crying until her parents took her to a doctor and he gave her a strong anti-depressant. She’d taken them regularly, but it wasn’t like they were uppers that made her feel good. Instead, she just didn’t feel anything until she’d skipped her pills yesterday and felt like she saw me there for the first time. When her period hadn’t appeared two weeks ago, she got frightened, didn’t tell anyone.
“We need to tell our parents and start setting things in motion,” I said.
“No! Not until I’m certain. They’ve got these stick things now that you pee on and it tells you if you’re pregnant. I’ll go to the drugstore tomorrow and buy one. I’m scared, Brian. I’m so scared.”
“I’ll be with you every step of the way, honey. I’ve done really well at the restaurant. I can go straight into being a chef and I’ll be able to support you and our baby.”
“What about college?”
“Why would I need college if I have you?”
We stood at the car with me holding her for a long time until I finally had to leave. I was going to get home later than I promised as it was.
“Don’t lose heart, honey,” I said. “Get the test tomorrow and let me know the results. We’ll do whatever is necessary. Got that?”
“Whatever is necessary.”
“I’ll talk to you Thursday morning at our usual time. I love you, Hannah. I love you more than anything else in the world.”
“I love you, Brian. Please remember that I love you.”
How could I ever forget?
It was the first time since I started driving that I experienced loss of awareness. It was hours home and sometime in the middle of the afternoon I looked around me and had no idea where I was or how I got there. Tears were streaming down my cheeks and I had to pull over because I couldn’t see well enough to drive. As brave a face as I’d put on for Hannah, I was terrified.
I was a smart guy with a bright future. Stupid things weren’t supposed to happen to me. I was supposed to graduate in the top one percent of my class, go to college, and become a research chemist earning big bucks before I ever thought about having a family. I was so smart I even wrote an agreement that would protect us all from just this kind of thing ever happening. No penetration. It was easy. Who’s going to get pregnant if there’s no penetration? It was all over. No college. Probably a high school GED. I needed to get a job right away. I needed to talk to my parents and convince them, somehow, that Hannah and I should live in the attic after we were married and our baby was born. I’d need to convince the Gordons, too. God! They’ll hate me! I was too stupid to live. I should just find a tree and drive the car into it at a hundred miles an hour.
No. I’d never take the easy way out. I wouldn’t leave Hannah alone with a baby to care for and no father—no husband. We were sixteen. We could get married if our parents consented. Or just live together and take care of our child until we’re old enough. I needed a lawyer. How old do I have to be to take care of a family?
It would all be based on how well I could sell the idea to my parents. They were going to be disappointed. There was no doubt about that. But they would listen to reason, and they’d already started talking about how long it was taking Betts to get started on her first baby. We all expected she’d pop the first brat out within nine months of the wedding. It had been over a year now. They’d love having a grandbaby around the house. I needed to put together an explanation and an effective argument.
The thing was, I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. If I told one person, all our dating group and our parents would know. How was I going to keep from saying anything Tuesday morning in school? “How’s Hannah?” “Oh just fine. She’s pregnant.” Fuck! This is too much to handle.
I cleared my eyes and my head and looked for road signs. I was on U.S. 31. I must be north of Indianapolis. I know this road. It will take me straight home. I pulled back onto the highway.
“Well?” Sam said at lunch. “Spill it. How’s our girlfriend?”
“Sorry. It was a long drive and I’m still exhausted. Hannah is depressed.” I’d practiced what I was going to tell people today but had been avoiding it until I had to tell them. To lie to them. “Her doctor put her on some really strong anti-depressants and they leave her feeling blah all the time. She can’t get enthused about anything. She sends her love to everyone, but don’t expect much from her.”
“Did you ask her parents to let her come live with us?”
“Yeah. That didn’t go over too well. Brighty… Reverend Gordon doesn’t want his family split up—especially now. I have to tell you, I think he’s a little depressed, too. He doesn’t want any of us to contact her until they have her moods stabilized.”
“What are we going to do?” Whitney asked. “We can’t just leave her there miserable.”
“I’m working on it. I don’t know how yet, but somehow, I’ll make it work out. Maybe I’ll move down there. Maybe I’ll marry her. Whatever is necessary.”
“Brian, you know we’re not going to stop loving you—even if you do move down there,” Liz said. “I wish we were all older. We could just go off to college together and take care of each other.”
“You’re just thinking about an orgy every night,” Rose laughed. She was trying to lighten the mood a little but I could tell by the way she looked at me that she was in no better shape than me.
“I am not!” Liz rose to the bait. “Not every night.” I let them carry on, relieved that the focus was off what to do about Hannah. Whitney paused and squeezed my shoulder before she left. I didn’t look up.
I grabbed the phone and had half the number dialed before I realized it was only Wednesday morning and not Thursday. I dropped the handset into its cradle and made coffee. This waiting was killing me. Surely, she’d call me as soon as she had results. Maybe she’d had difficulty buying a test kit.
I went out the back door and ran.
I’d been running every day since the morning she left back in June. I hadn’t run this hard, though since that day. I ran through the woods on my way back home crying as I ran, unable to catch my breath and running anyway. Whitney was in the drive waiting for me when I burst out of the woods and into the pasture. I saw her. I thought at first it was Heaven, but even my blurry eyes couldn’t mistake the height of my friend as she ran toward me. I didn’t make it to her. I collapsed in the pasture. Thank God we have horses and not cows.
I was sobbing… gasping for breath… moaning out my misery when Whitney got to me. She collapsed on the ground beside me and gathered me in her arms and rocked me as I wept. Petted my head as I sobbed against her. She was a rock and I was rain.
“It’s that bad?” she asked softly. I nodded.
Whitney was also rain.
“What does it mean to speak extemporaneously?” Ms. Streeter asked our speech class. How could I make two ridiculous mistakes in classes in a row? Last year I thought Debate would be an easy class. I got an ‘A’ first semester and a ‘C’ second semester. I stupidly thought that speech and drama would be an easy class that I didn’t have to do too much for. It looked like it could easily monopolize my time for the next year. “Mr. Frost? Extemporaneous?”
“Uh… like off the cuff. Something you just deliver without preparation?”
“No.” Shit! “That would more properly describe impromptu speaking. Now please keep in mind, class, that we are dealing with established rules of speech for competition. In an extemporaneous speech, the presenter has as much as half an hour to prepare remarks and is expected to cite six to fifteen resources. That means that extemporaneous speakers are extremely well-prepared. Our debaters are primarily extemporaneous speakers at competition. They are given half an hour to prepare their opening argument. The Secondary argument can build on that and on what the opposition has said. The rebuttal is largely impromptu as she has very little time to prepare. The final conclusion is a hybrid between extemporaneous and impromptu speaking. There is time to prepare the official position of the team, but most of the conclusion is based on summarizing what the team has said in its arguments and rebuttals and in making it convincing.”
I scribbled notes as I listened to her drone on. I was going to hate speech.
“Now, Mr. Frost participated in an unusual debate last fall and that is probably where his confusion has arisen. He and Ms. Clinton were given a month to prepare their material for the debate. As a result, we would consider their opening statements as Oratory. This is a speech that is prepared well in advance and is delivered with the intent of persuading the audience to the speaker’s point of view. Judges can be harsh in counting down opinion as opposed to factual content. So, you will each be given an opportunity to present differing types of speeches during this term. Mr. Johnson,” she said, pointing at one of my classmates that I didn’t know more than by sight. “I would like you to deliver to the class a two-minute impromptu speech on why you like your little finger. Please approach the podium. You have thirty seconds to prepare. I will point to you when it is time to start speaking.”
“Now?”
“Now, Mr. Johnson.”
Holy shit. I needed to get on my game for this class. Poor Johnson got his thirty seconds of prep and then started talking aimlessly about the joints in his little finger. He got some good points across about the use of the pinky in society for drinking tea and the whole class broke up when he showed how the little finger could be as effective as the middle finger in flipping the bird—which he gave directly at Ms. Streeter. The class broke up and he shut up. Probably the best thing he did during the speech.
“Impromptu speaking calls for quick wit, humor, and a glib tongue. Notice how Mr. Johnson’s gestures enhanced his speech. The act of impromptu speaking often builds on what has gone before and is fresh in the audience’s mind. This can bleed over into the extemporaneous genre as well. I want to play a tape of two of my students engaged in an impromptu banter on a live television show.”
I was horrified. There was Elaine doing her thing on The Homemaker’s Hour two years ago, showing the Eiffel Tower confection that she’d cobbled together the night before. Ms. Streeter paused the tape before my presentation and asked how much I’d prepped the night before the TV show. I had to explain about the demo competition and the way I’d played off what Elaine did when I did my demo. Then she played the tape of my on-air demonstration when I teased Elaine about not wanting to kiss me when I ate garlic. Ms. Streeter asked me about when I decided to throw that bit in and I confessed that it had been a quick inspiration after Elaine—then Candace—had tossed her barb out about me stealing her thunder.
“So, there we have the mix of a prepared oratory in a practiced demonstration, with an impromptu aside worked into the context. It’s too bad there isn’t a category for that in our speech competitions.”
I didn’t sleep Wednesday night. I mean all night long. I was in the kitchen with a cup of coffee at four o’clock waiting for the clock to reach four-thirty so I could call Hannah. I’d been crappy company at my table this week. I didn’t talk to anyone at the table on Wednesday. Only Whitney had an inkling of what I was going through and she could only squeeze my shoulder as she left. I’d gone through my Tuesday night class at IU extension hardly hearing anything that was said in the lecture, except that I had to write a personal essay before class on Thursday. I wrote it Wednesday night, but even I knew it was a piece of garbage. It was about all I’d learned as a summer intern. Whoopee ding. At four-twenty-nine-and-a-half I dialed the phone.
“Brian?”
“Honey, I’m so glad to hear your voice. I’ve been so worried about you.”
“I lost the baby.” What? Lost? Did she leave it on the bus?
“What do you mean?”
“I miscarried. It’s over. I’m sorry. We all do whatever’s necessary.”
“Hannah, honey, are you okay?”
“Sure. I’m fine.” She didn’t sound fine. “I love you, Brian. I just wanted you to know that. Daddy wants to talk to you.”
“I love you, Hannah,” I said quickly, though I wasn’t sure she was still on the phone.
“Brian?”
“Hi, Brighty.”
“I’m sorry, there isn’t much brightness in this house at the moment.”
“Oh. I’m really sorry, Reverend Gordon.”
“Brian, Hannah has told me what happened. I’m not holding you at fault. But you need to not call here for a while. Hannah needs to adapt to her new life here in Evansville and we believe she is being held back by her relationships with your group. It was wonderful while it lasted, but it’s over.”
“Reverend Gordon…”
“Brian, it is only fair that I tell you what happened, but I’m asking you on your honor not to spread this word. Hannah took an overdose of her medication washed down by a glass of whiskey that we haven’t found the source of yet. For a while we were afraid that she would not survive. It was only then that we found out about the baby. We simply can’t take that risk again.”
“No! Reverend Gordon, please let Hannah come and live with me. I’ll take care of her and she won’t be depressed anymore.”
“Brian, you have an inflated opinion of yourself. I will take care of my daughter. Please don’t call again.”
I didn’t go to school.
When Mom came in to wake up, she found me curled over the toilet vomiting. She sent me to bed. I stayed there for three days, which meant that I missed the weekend ball game and Rob passing for over a hundred yards Friday night.
I didn’t care. Mom turned Whitney away when she came by and told her she didn’t want anyone to catch anything from me.
Saturday and Sunday, I spent all my time in the barn with the horses, just brushing them. All three of them had coats so shiny you could see your reflection in them.
I cried a lot.
“We all do whatever’s necessary.” My own words came back to haunt me. Hannah thought she had to kill herself in order to keep from having a baby. Kill herself! I wanted to kill something and it scared the shit out of me.
I’ve always—hell, I’m sixteen—always been in favor of a woman’s right to choose. No one can get inside the head of a sixteen-year-old who finds out she’s pregnant and whose world has collapsed. But my baby? She tried to kill herself and she killed my little boy or girl? God. Fucking. Damn! She tried to kill herself instead of burdening me with a wife and baby. And I couldn’t even tell anyone. I couldn’t tell her how much I loved her and wanted her. I couldn’t bring her home with me. I couldn’t hold her in my arms. God damn that fucking Bishop!
I threw up again in the horse stall and hauled out the soiled straw. I let the horses out into the corral and all three of them stayed clustered around me with their heads against my chest and arms. I buried my face in Silk’s mane and cried some more.
“We do whatever’s necessary.”
What did I have to do? I had to keep trying. I had to find a way to out-wait her father, to get messages to her, to tell her I love her. I had to get her back somehow.
Tuesday night I went to my class at IU extension and didn’t hear anything that was said.
No. That’s not true. Nikki got up to read a passage from her personal essay. I remembered that.
“Don’t ever think that the ghosts people imagine are less real than the people they meet every day. I can see them, even as I look at the people in this class. I see specters of all the mistakes in my life and all the people who hate me. I know those ghosts are real. They haunt me day and night.”
It seemed like she looked straight at me.
Somehow, we got through September. There was so much work. Brenda and I studied Trig together on Saturdays. Sora and I studied German. She seemed to like spending time with me and often hung around after we studied while I was working on other classes. I felt bad that I never asked her how things were with her and Geoff.
But none of us seemed to be going anywhere. Every time I went out with one of my girls, I ended up clamming up and not talking to her. I couldn’t trust what I’d say. Even Jen and Court recognized that I wasn’t as talkative as I used to be and our calls were a little shorter than they used to be.
And I missed school at least once a week, it seemed. I’d be just fine in the morning and then start throwing up. Mom took me to a doctor, but he said he thought it might be stress-related. No shit, Sherlock. I lost about five pounds and continued to run and work out with Whitney in the mornings.
Several people said they were coming over for a while after school on Wednesday to celebrate my birthday with me. I was determined that I was going to break out of this overwhelming lethargy and have some serious loving. I was going to be seventeen. None of my potential partners were, but we hadn’t done anything since school started.
That plan went to hell.
“You knew!” Sam accused me when I sat down at lunch. “What did you do? Why did she send this to me?”
I had no idea what she was talking about. I had barely held myself together through the morning, smiling at Liz and Doug in Physics and then running to my English Comp class. Now Samantha was all over my case. She threw a paper down in front of me. I read.
“I am no longer associated with this group or the people signed below effective September 9. I am not a girlfriend of any of these boys or girls. Signed, Hannah Gordon.” Attached was Hannah’s copy of our agreement with her name scratched off. I stood up and left the table, stumbling outside and sitting under a tree in front of the school. I didn’t go in for any of my afternoon classes. I was marked truant.
Who the fuck cares?
Nobody came over for my birthday. I made an excuse up to Mom and Dad and told them I was going to meet the gang at the White Spot for a malt after dinner. I drove out into the country and just sat in the car and cried until curfew.
I walked into the cafeteria on Thursday and looked over at my usual table. I could feel the antagonism toward me radiating off the group. They felt I’d betrayed them. And the worst part was that I had. I couldn’t tell them anything. I couldn’t confess. I couldn’t beg their forgiveness. I’d broken their trust.
I looked around the cafeteria. There was an empty table—almost empty—with just one person sitting at it. I walked over and set my tray down.
“Mind if I sit here?” I asked.
“It’s a free world,” Nikki answered.
“It’s Nikki, right?” I said, trying to at least not offend someone else. Fail. She glared at me.
“We’ve gone to the same school for ten years, Brian,” she said harshly. “It’s Nicolette.”
“I… when did you change from Nikki?”
“In second grade.”
“Shit. I’m sorry. I’ll find someplace else.”
“Why aren’t you with your harem over there?” she asked. Everyone in the junior class knew we were a group now.
“I’m persona non grata. I fucked up.”
“Welcome to the club. I’ve made a career of it.”
“Nik… Nicolette, why do you write the stuff you do?”
“I told that freaky English teacher. If I don’t write about it, it comes back to haunt me. The fucking creepy things.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t. But you will.”
“I noticed you’re taking the Freshman Comp class at IUSB. How come?”
“Are you kidding? College credit and the high school has to pay your tuition? I’d be crazy not to. Crazier.”
“Are you really crazy, Nicolette?”
“That’s what they say. Everybody. You’ll say that, too. Eventually.”
We didn’t say anything more while we ate our lunch. When Whitney left, she passed by the table and squeezed my shoulder. I’d have died if she didn’t.
Court and Jen called me after school on Friday because they couldn’t reach me Wednesday night and I had class on Thursday. They were sorry that Hannah was out of the group because they really liked her—especially Court—but they weren’t as harsh as those who saw me every day. They wanted to come and help me celebrate, but they were seniors and there was a special project due Monday so they couldn’t join Anna when she came to see my parents. She brought me a birthday card from them and said they were going crazy without me. I asked if I could move in with her and she laughed at me.
Whitney still showed up every morning to work out with me and squeezed my shoulder as she passed when she left after lunch. We hardly ever spoke. It was all physical and our workouts in the morning were often harsh. We were making full contact. She never came in. I didn’t bother to try to smooth arnica on my bruises. I deserved them. Every time I looked across at “our” table at lunch, Rose was looking at me. She looked pained and sad. Sam looked angry.
“I know you’re not telling us everything,” Carl said to me on the way to lunch. Doug fell in beside me on the other side.
“The girls are all off in this kind of madness,” Doug added. “Things are really tense. We need you back at the table.”
“If I came back to the table, they’d all leave,” I said. “You guys would be even more unhappy with that.”
“You brought us to that table, Brian,” Carl said. “We’ve still got your back. I just don’t know how to defend you against the likes of Samantha.”
It was my first competition as a member of the speech team. Ms. Streeter had suggested that I compete in the Extemporaneous division. I protested that I wasn’t any good at speaking if I didn’t prepare in advance and would prefer to be in the Oratory division. She laughed at me and said this wasn’t about winning competitions, but about improving our speaking skills. She knew I could prepare and deliver an oration. She was pretty sure I could speak impromptu on any subject, based on my experience with Elaine. She identified extemporaneous speaking as my weakness and therefore wanted me to compete in that category. That was sure a lot different than basketball.
There was a list of about a dozen topic categories that we were given at the beginning of the year that the propositions would be drawn from at the statewide speech competitions. Indiana has a pretty active high school forensics league and the subjects for interscholastic speech competitions were uniform throughout the state. What that meant, though, was that you had to be ready to talk persuasively about any one of those topics and they were pretty general categories from which a specific proposition could be drawn. For example, the categories included “Morality vs. Legislation,” “U.S. Foreign Policy, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Mideast,” or “Science vs. Religion.” They were pretty big categories, but we had to prepare for any topic that might come up within any category. I had a banker’s box of clippings and articles that I’d photocopied or typed out on my computer from books and magazines. Speech and Drama was taking up fifty percent of my study time. At the same time, I was probably learning more about the world from that course than any other. I certainly didn’t have anything better to do with my time than study.
I went to the first speech competition on a bus with my banker’s box of resources and dreaded the outcome. The competition was in Syracuse on Saturday, October 29th. It made no difference that it was Halloween weekend. I didn’t plan a party. I hadn’t spoken to any of the girls of the agreement except Whitney, Cassie, Jennifer, and Courtney in three weeks. They’d just shut me out and I hadn’t made any attempt to reconcile. Cassie was in my speech class and we often had to work with each other. Whitney worked out with me every morning and basically tried to beat me to a pulp. I talked to Jennifer and Courtney twice a week on the phone. This was turning out to be the worst year of my life.
We weren’t all given our topics at the same time. There was a draw for our speaking positions and the first speaker was given his topic. Fifteen minutes later, the second speaker was given her topic. I was the sixth speaker, so I listened to speeches on U.S. Policy regarding Arab-Israeli conflict, the teaching of Evolution vs. Creationism, and a resolution in favor of reinstituting the draft before I went for a walk and then came back inside to receive my topic. I looked at the list I was given and collapsed in the back row of the auditorium.
Topic 1: The National Park System should (or should not) be expanded to include lands that are currently privately held. Topic 2: I’m just a paperboy now. Will I become a millionaire? Topic 3: Abortion should (or should not) be legal in the State of Indiana.
I just sat and stared at the sheet. I never opened my banker’s box of notes. I saw Ms. Streeter head toward me and I just raised my hand toward her and shook my head. I sat and stared at the list of topics for thirty minutes.
“Brian Frost from St. Joe Valley High School,” the announcement came. I walked to the stage. “Please tell us your proposition statement and proceed.”
“My proposition,” I said and took a deep breath, “is that abortion should be legal in the State of Indiana.” I looked around the auditorium. In addition to the three judges, there were a dozen competitors, some preparing for their speech and some who had already given theirs. Ms. Streeter was sitting with half a dozen other teacher/coaches. Several kids who didn’t have to compete until later or who had already competed in other divisions were scattered in the auditorium. It wasn’t a very big audience, so it was easy to spot Cassie looking at me with wide eyes.
“I want to tell you right off that I am pro-choice and anti-abortion,” I said when I started off. “And I want to tell you that I’m not going to cite a bunch of articles by pseudo-scientists and political pundits on why abortion should or should not be legal. There is no scientific evidence regarding when life exists. Our own state laws abrogate the charge of murder when referred to a fetus. If I kill a pregnant woman, I can be charged in her death, but not in the death of her unborn child. Yet, if that woman approaches a clinic licensed to perform an abortion, crowds greet her at the entrance chanting ‘murderer, murderer.’
“That should show us that this is not a political or legal issue. It is a religious issue and as a State, we prefer here in Indiana to follow the conventions of conservative religious organizations to ban the performance of abortions except in cases of rape and incest, and to absolve insurance companies from financial responsibility for abortions. This is a clear case of the legislature bowing to the whims of religious organizations.
“The truth is never so cut and dried. The truth is never found in bowing to religious convention. The truth is never found in following scientific evidence. No matter what we think, the truth is only found in the heart.
“I’ve always—well, for seventeen years—believed in the independence and equality of women and men. I know there are both adults and peers who hold the opinion that men are, as George Orwell put it, ‘more equal’ than women. Our male-dominated legislature decided that women have to bear their mistakes while the men responsible for those mistakes suffer no consequences. We would rather save a fetus life than provide for a single unwed mother and her child. That just doesn’t make sense.
“So how can I be pro-choice and anti-abortion? I’ve already told you. It is a personal, religious issue. There is no legislation involved. There is no religion that can dictate to me how I feel. I support a woman’s right to choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. But… Oh God, please. Not my child.
“What does any of this have to do with abortion or its legality? Simply this. Our parents—not you judges’ parents, but those of us in our teens—lived through the sexual revolution. Bra burning. Free love. Flower power. But once faced with their own children, they became their parents. Don’t touch that. Behave. You can’t date until you are thirty. Abstain. Just say no. Rules that they and even their parents and grandparents found impossible to follow. Yet they want to believe that their children are pure and innocent.
“We are not. We are driven by the same reproductive imperatives and hormonal changes that have driven mankind for millennia. We want to have sex! And instead of good information and sound practices, we are given the imperative, ‘Just say no.’ We try. We want to please our parents. We want to be upstanding members of the community who have nothing to be ashamed of. But it doesn’t always work that way.
“Should an unwed woman of sixteen be forced to bear a child because she made a mistake? Because she got some of her boyfriend’s sperm near her womb in a moment of passion—not even penetrating her? Should she be forced to endure the penalties of that mistake her whole life? Should she live in poverty in a State that denies assistance to unwed mothers and has as a stated policy that no one should be on welfare?
“Or perhaps you like the alternative. Should that unwed sixteen-year-old mother have her child that she bears and brings into this world ripped away from her and given to the highest bidder for adoption? Should she endure the pain of pregnancy and delivery and internal bonding with that baby only to see her child taken from her, never to be seen again?
“Those are the choices forced upon unwed teen mothers today. Raise your child in unsupported poverty or give up your baby to a faceless adoption agency.
“I’ve spoken to the emotions of this issue because in fact, there are no facts. There are only emotions. And my emotions threaten every day to overwhelm me because I accidentally impregnated my sixteen-year-old girlfriend. I would have done anything to take care of her and my child. But I was sixteen. We didn’t even have sex! Oh, we fooled around, but my penis was never in her vagina. But she still got pregnant. And maybe… maybe if she’d had an alternative… maybe my sweet, innocent girlfriend would not have attempted suicide and I could still be with her today.”
I didn’t place in the competition. I didn’t cite a single reference. My argument was based strictly on emotion and not on fact. Fuck ’em.
I sat on the bus for two hours before the speech contest was finally over and everybody else got on board for the trip back home. Cassie came down the aisle and sat beside me and took my hand. She cried all the way back to St. Joe Valley.
I did homework on Sunday and rode Jingo out through the woods. We trotted a lot as we went around the airfield and across to the western store then back into the woods and home. He probably could have gone for another ten miles without getting tired. I saddled Rika and we did the same trip. She was so happy to get out that she was hard to control, but after about half an hour she settled in and we even did a slow canter through the woods coming home. Then I took Silk out. That poor girl was close to twenty-five years old but she still loved to get out on the trail. Riding Silk sent my mind whirling. Hannah loved Silk. I’d rescued Cassie in the woods while I was riding Silk. Silk had carried Denise on our beautiful ride through the orchard. Liz and I had made out on Silk’s back. Silk had been my friend when it seemed like I had no friends. I rode Silk to the clearing in the woods and took off her saddle and bridle and let her graze. I hung on her neck and cried. I didn’t think there were enough tears in the world to express what I felt. Even more than the tears for my unborn baby, there were tears for Hannah. No matter what her father said, she should be here with me. But what could I do?
I didn’t even bother to look at my table when I went to lunch. I’d been eating lunch with Nicolette Duval, mostly in silence, for three weeks. We’d even reached the point that we alternated driving to our Tuesday/Thursday class at IUSB. She never asked me anything and it was clear she didn’t want to answer questions. I just went to her otherwise empty table and sat down. She looked up at me and then scooted back. It looked like she was leaving me, too.
“Please don’t leave, Nicolette,” Cassie said to her. “You’ve been a better girlfriend to Brian for the past month than the rest of us who claim to be. May we sit with you for a while today?”
“I’m his girlfriend now? That’s a new one.” She looked at me and rolled her eyes. Rose pulled up a chair on one side of me and Samantha on the other. They hugged my arms and started crying. Whitney put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
“I have to go now. I’ll see you in the morning,” she said. Liz sat beside Cassie.
“We’re pretty much the shit-awful-est girlfriends any boy could ask for,” Liz said. “I’m sorry, Brian. Of all people, I should have known better than to think you hurt her. I kept thinking that it would all blow over in a few days, but we all just let our hurt fester and get the best of us. I’m saying this because I thought I’d be able to do it without crying. I can’t. We’re so sorry.”
“God! And everybody thinks I’m crazy,” Nicolette sniped. “I don’t know why you all broke up with him, but since you did, I guess he’s my boyfriend now.” I snapped my head around to look at her. Huh? “Not that I have much use for one, so you can all have him back if you want. But I get him on the 12th—if you’d be willing to go out with me, Brian. I was going to ask you before everybody sat down here. And then… fuck! It’s not that great an idea anyway now that I’ve said it and made a stupid fool of myself. Just forget it. You can go back to your table with all your girlfriends now. I’m done.” She pushed back her chair to leave and I reached out and grabbed her hand. She looked at my hand and stared daggers at me. I released her.
“Please don’t go, Nicolette. That’s the most I’ve heard you say at one time in a month. I’d be happy to go out with you on the 12th. What’s up?”
“Really?” I nodded.
“We’re sorry we interrupted you, Nicolette,” Rose said. “It was just as selfish of us as we’ve been all term.”
“There’s this stupid ceremony I have to go to at Job’s Daughters with a dance afterward. We all have to be escorted. My mother was going to call someone and pay them if I didn’t tell her I had a date by tonight.”
“Thank you, Nicolette. I’d love to escort you. Just give me the information and what the dress code is.”
“Uh. Yeah, about that. It’s formal. I’ll pay for your tux rental.”
“It’s not a problem. I’d better go down this afternoon, though or they won’t have one available.”
“Uh, Brian, you can’t go this afternoon,” Rose said.
“Why not?”
“You have basketball practice.”
“I didn’t try out for the team this year.”
“From what I hear, you were on the JV list posted this morning. We were going to congratulate you,” Rose said.
“I don’t have stuff here for practice. I’ll go talk to Coach Hancock. This is all kind of… overwhelming. And I’ve been pretty overwhelmed a lot lately.”
“I’ve got a car today,” Sam said. “I can run you home and back before practice so you can pick up your things. Please don’t throw this away like we almost did to you. Please.”
It seemed like I’d been near to tears for the past two months. The only time I felt okay was when I was running or working out. Even the meals I cooked seemed tasteless. I nodded and agreed. We’d used up most of our lunch time and had to get going. Each of the girls gave me a kiss on the cheek before they headed to their classes. I looked at Nicolette and actually grinned for the first time I could remember in a long time. She rolled her eyes and then reached in to give me a quick peck on the cheek.
“Don’t get any stupid ideas,” she said.
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