Forever for a Year(94)

We went in the basement, and she lay down and said, “Cuddle with me,” and so I did even though I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on. Carolina couldn’t look at me. She was shaking even though it had been super warm that day for March and it was almost stuffy hot in the basement. Someone must have died. Her dad. She hadn’t talked to or seen her dad in three weeks. Now she had found out he was dead.…

“What’s wrong, Carolina?” I asked.

She tried to open her mouth, she tried to look at me, but her face quivered and—what the f*ck was going on?

“Carolina? Did I do something? Man, I’m sorry. Was I mean? I love you. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I think, I think…” she started. Her whole throat shook and her lips vibrated with all this intense emotion. “I haven’t … gotten my, you know, period.”

I didn’t really know what this meant for about two seconds. Just confused. Like, why is she telling me about her chick stuff? But then I remembered. I’m not a moron. Holy. Crap. She’s …

She’s pregnant.

“You’re pregnant?” I said.

“I don’t know!” she wailed, and that “I don’t know” felt like a yes. And. Pregnant. Pregnant. Baby. I just turned learned to drive! My life was over. Over. Carolina and I would be together forever now. We would have to be. She was stuck with me! No. I don’t like that. I do. But not really. We’d both be stuck. For the baby. I’m too young. Crap. I love her. I love everything about her. I don’t even care now that she cheated. I love her. But a baby … pregnant …

“Have you taken a test?” I asked after a whole long time of just trying to make sense of what might be happening. I couldn’t really think straight. Baby. Pregnant. I wanted to play video games.…

She shook her head. “It’s been a week. It’s never been late a week. I looked online, and everything says I’m pregnant.”

“But how?” I asked.

“Trevor! We never use a condom half the time!”

“But…” I started. But what was I going to say? She was right. We only used it if it was convenient. And … crap … I’m that guy. I’m that idiot who got his high school girlfriend pregnant. I couldn’t go to college now. I’d have to work. What would I do? I had to support a baby. I had to get married. For real. Not imaginary. For real. And raise a baby. What the hell did I know about raising a baby?

Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.

Abortion. My mom did it. We should do that. Yeah.

“We can get an abortion,” I said before thinking it through.

“Oh, Trevor, don’t you love me?”

“I love you, Carolina! But you’re so young and our lives will be over!”

“I KNOW! DON’T YELL!”

“Do you want to have it?”

“I don’t want to be pregnant! But I don’t know! Like, I’m supposed to know better! I’m supposed to be the girl that knows better! And if I just get an abortion because I was stupid, I don’t know! It doesn’t seem right! I feel like I should have to have it and my life will be changed but it’s what I’m supposed to do!”

Crap. “Yeah…” I said.

“What?” she said as she wiped the corners of her eyes.

“You’re right.”

“Really?” she said.

“Yeah. I knew what to do. To use condoms. But we didn’t. I knew I should talk about sex more. But I didn’t. And we screwed up so much. And now this happened. And we have to accept it.”

“So?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I don’t want to be pregnant, Trevor. I want to be just in high school and in love and go to classes. I don’t want to be mature. I don’t. I want to be a kid. OH MY GOSH, I JUST WANT TO BE A KID! But I’ve thought about it so much and I don’t want to get an abortion.”

“Okay.”

“You won’t leave me?”

“I just want to go to high school too, Carolina. But I could never leave you,” I said. And I meant it more than I had meant anything I had said in my life.

*

That evening, we went to the drugstore, bought a pregnancy test, then went to TGI Fridays and she peed on the test in the bathroom. She came back crying, and I thought that meant we were having a baby.

“It was negative,” she said.

“What’s that mean?”

“I don’t know.” We spent all of dinner on our phones reading about pregnancy tests and how accurate they were. It was a really strange dinner.

*

The next morning, Carolina called me up super early. Like, seven a.m.

“I got it,” she said.

“Got what?” I asked, but I knew. I just didn’t want my heart to know it unless it was one hundred percent true.

“My period.”

“Carolina…” I said, really soft, but my whole body screamed with so much relief. My whole life was handed back to me. It had been gone. Changed. Gone. But now it was back. I was alive. That teenage dad-boy was dead. Stay dead. I don’t want to be you ever.

“We get to be kids again,” she said, and laughed. Not a happy laugh. Like an I’m glad that roller coaster didn’t fall off the tracks and kill us laugh.