Fat Girl (24 page)

Shoving all my niggling fears and self-doubts aside, I throw my arms around his neck, raining kisses all over his face. “Yes, Mick. To everything. I promise to always be there for you and to make you happy, too.”

I know I’ll never forget the look of pure, undiluted joy in his eyes as he slips the ring on my finger or that strong sense of permanence I feel for the first time ever.

I’m his. And he’s mine.

With the ring glittering in the moonlight, we walk, kicking up the sand and sharing in the delight of planning our future. Tomorrow I’ll inquire about a late admission to NYU. I tell Mick I don’t mind waiting a semester if I have to, but he won’t hear of it. We agree that until all the school details are ironed out, we’ll delay informing Mama and Papa T if Victor will keep our secret a little longer. Mick says he wants everything to be perfect. To leave the Torreses with no question that he loves me and will take good care of me.

We talk about getting married after graduation, of Mick’s dream to become an author and me a child attorney. About building a house near the lake when we can afford it and the children we’ll have someday.

We make love again, this time slow and sweet, on a blanket under the stars.

It’s the single best night of my entire life.

MY HAPPINESS IS SHORT-LIVED. Like the life of fireflies. After they hatch, their light shines bright for only a few weeks before it goes out. That’s me.

Three weeks after Mick’s proposal, I wake up feeling queasy and my breasts feel a little tender. I noticed that the other evening when Mick touched them, but thought it was a sign of my period. Then it hits me that I’m late again. My periods tend to fluctuate but I don’t recall ever missing two months in a row.

Since the first time we made love and didn’t use protection, we haven’t been all that careful. I’m not the impulsive type, except when it comes to Mick. I’ve been afraid the Pill would make me gain more weight. Sometimes he’s used a condom, but neither of us likes the barrier between our bodies. Sometimes he’s pulled out in time. But mostly we’ve played sexual roulette.

Breaths coming in big, shaky gulps, I sit up in bed and swing my feet to the floor. With Mama T being a nurse at the local hospital, I can’t chance going there or to the pharmacy in town. So I get dressed and drive to the next county to buy a pregnancy kit from the drugstore. When no one’s home, I pee on the stick and while waiting the few minutes that feels like an eternity, I nervously eat. I check. The stick is blue.

I throw up and bawl my eyes out. My foster parents still don’t know about our engagement. The ring sits locked in my side table drawer, awaiting my acceptance to NYU, when Mick will officially ask Papa T for my hand. He’s so serious about doing it right.

But now our secret will seem worse to my foster parents. More deceptive. More disappointing. And God only knows how violently Malcolm Peters will react to his son getting trapped by an accidental pregnancy, as he had.

Mick would do the right thing and marry me now. Of that, I’m certain. Then what? Raise a baby while in college? Struggle to study and work part-time to make ends meet? Or worse, give up his dreams to stay here, working a two-bit job he hates and resenting me more and more each day?

I promised to make him happy. Having a baby at eighteen isn’t going to make him happy.

THREE DAYS PASS AND I’M
avoiding Mick. Exams are over, so I don’t have to worry about running into him at school. But when he’s not working at the garage or hardware store or practicing basketball drills to keep up the pretense of going to NC State, he’s here.

Faking illness, I stay locked in my room, looking at my ring, eating from my secret stash, and crying. The notes Mick slips under my door only make me weep harder. The first few were so sweet, telling me how much he misses me. As always, they’re laced with sexual innuendo, but my pulse is no longer racing. I feel so low, it’s hardly beating.

But it’s his last note that wrenches my heart.

The situation is a ticking bomb. And my time is running out.

THE NEXT DAY, I DRAG myself out of bed for my shift at the library. The queasiness has worsened and my boobs are so tender the slightest touch makes me wince. Terrified that Mama T will spot the signs, I throw on a loose cotton dress and cover it with an oversize cardigan. I’ve gained two more pounds this week, but how much is pregnancy and how much is food, I can’t say.

At work, I keep busy and avoid Molly. Her wondering looks and questions make me anxious. It’s the same as I’m getting at home from my foster parents and Victor. Dark shadows circle my eyes from the sleepless nights I spend, gnawed by indecision and missing Mick more than I can stand.

I knew if I stayed in my room one more day that Mama T would take me to the doctor and my secret would be discovered. I roll the trolley over to the nonfiction section to restock the shelves. It’s mundane and allows my brain too much mental room to think about Mick and my dire situation.

I put away the reference books in alphabetical order. When I come to the P’s, I look around. Alone in the aisle, I slide the heavy textbook off the metal rack and flip to the pregnancy chapter. There’s a dry medical introduction, which I skim, followed by a week-by-week synopsis of each stage. Based on missed periods, I guess that I’m six to eight weeks along. I split the difference and turn to the section about the seven-week-old fetus.

In the picture, it doesn’t look like much yet, more alien or tadpole than anything, but at this stage the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears are beginning to take shape and the limbs are starting to form. After another glance over my shoulder to ensure the coast is still clear, I skip to the end. There, the simulated drawing shows a woman’s uterus. The baby is fully developed, with its legs tucked up to its chest and its knees against its nose. The caption below reads “Your baby is getting ready for birth.”

On a wave of nausea, I make it to the bathroom before I throw up. To my horror, Molly catches me retching. I tell her it’s remnants of the flu, but she watches my reflection in disbelief while I rinse out my mouth and pop in a stick of mint gum. I wish I could confide in her. Really, I do. I need to talk to someone, but I can’t chance it, so I carry on with my lies and yet another secret.

At nine thirty at night, I step outside the library into the threat of clouds. I search in my bag for keys and don’t look up until I’m a couple of feet away from the curb where my Beetle’s parked. Mick is leaning against the driver’s side. He’s wearing faded Levis and an open shirt over a light blue T-shirt that highlights his well-defined muscles. His wavy black hair is ruffled by the thick breeze, his arms are folded across his broad chest, and his face is as dark and foreboding as the sky.

The keys jingle in my hand and I bite my bottom lip. Mick pushes off the car and eats up the space between us. I long to throw myself in his arms, but I keep my distance.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I whisper, aware of the smattering of people on the street who might recognize him.

Cursing beneath his breath, he grabs my hand and pulls me into the shadows, and pushes me up against the far side of the building. He takes my mouth hard. I can feel all his worry and frustration bleeding through that kiss. The taste of him awakens my desire, but somehow I manage to resist. His tongue probes; growing more insistent and desperate. When it still doesn’t coax a response, he cups my breasts and strokes my nipples.

“
Mick
.” I flinch from his touch, which excites as much as it hurts. His head snaps up.

“Aw, sorry, baby. I thought it would be over by now,” he says, gentling his hands, assuming I have my period.

Without correcting him, I move out of his reach before he notices how much heavier they’ve gotten. But I have never rejected his advances before, and after three days apart, I’d normally be just as eager for him.

“Dee?” He examines my face. “What’s wrong?”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“You’re different.”

He can tell.
“Different how?” I ask and fidget with my key ring.

“You’re nervous and jumpy. You didn’t kiss me back the way you always do, and now you don’t want me to touch you.”

“They’re sensitive,” I hedge.

“They were sensitive a few days ago, and you said my touch made them feel better.”

Panicking, my defenses overreach. “What’s the big deal if for once I don’t want you to touch me?”

His eyes glint like black stone and his jaw clenches. “The big deal is that you’re lying. You haven’t been too sick to see me. You’ve been avoiding me and I want to know why.”

Mick’s the last person in the world I want to lie to, but I’m not ready for the truth. I doubt he is either. I take in a breath as he waits for my reply. I know what I have to do, but my heart won’t cooperate. “I…I n-need…” I lose my nerve and stop.

“Jesus, Dee, what’s going on with you?”

I’m just making things worse, so this time I take a deep breath and blurt it out, jumbling my words together. “Ineedsometimetofigurestuffout.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he demands at the same time that thunder roars. “Figure what stuff out?”

I don’t have an answer. Not one I can give him, at any rate, which leads him to his own conclusions.

“You need to figure
us
out?”

His hurt tears through my heart. That I can even let him think such a thing shows how desperate I am. “I-I just need time,” I say, begging him to understand what he can’t possibly.

A flash of lightning zigzags across the sky, and rain starts to pour, disguising my tears.

“What do you need time for? Either you want to be with me or you don’t. It’s as simple as that.”

I wish it were that simple. But there’s so much more at stake now than confessing a secret romance to my foster parents. “I’m sorry,” I say bleakly, offering a useless apology.

“You’re sorry?” he asks oblivious to the rain dripping from the hardened planes of his face. “Exactly what part are you sorry for, Dee? The part where you lied or the part where you don’t trust me to love you?”

“I do trust you.”

“Bullshit!” I recoil from his harsh tone. “You don’t trust anyone. Your foster family has tried so hard to include you, but you still sit on the sidelines. And you say you trust me, but you don’t. You never talk about your past even though I’ve confessed all my shit to you. And when you’re figuring stuff out, you don’t come to me. You hide out. That’s not trust or love. I’m willing to risk the only family I have to be with you. But you’re not willing to risk a fucking thing.”