No One Will Miss Her(39)

And then Carson Fletcher, the right fielder who hadn’t seen a single ball come his way since warm-ups, went charging into the backfield, leapt into the air, and came down on the other side of the outfield fence with the big lefty’s almost-home-run nestled safely in his glove. And if someone had been standing on Copper Falls’s main drag at that moment, watching the sun creep toward the horizon and wondering where the heck everybody had gone, the sound of screaming coming from the ball field at that moment would’ve been his answer.

Dwayne did pitch a no-hitter that night, and didn’t look at me again. When the game ended and he strode off the mound, it all felt so surreal that I thought I must have dreamed the whole thing: the way he’d looked at me, the way a jolt of something had seemed to pass between us. While everyone else stormed the field to celebrate, I walked back to my bike and started the journey home. Five dusty miles.

He caught me on that same stretch of road, grunting my way up the incline with my shirt sticking damply to my back. The same place where, five years earlier, I’d dropped my backpack by the side of the road and run from the boys who were chasing me. This time, I didn’t run. I turned at the sound of tires coming up behind me. I stopped as his truck pulled alongside, slowed, stopped. I let him take my hand, and I looked at the back of his neck, his thick hair matted down with sweat above the collar of his uniform jersey, as he led me into the woods. The last thing I saw as I closed my eyes to kiss him was that same old hunting shack, the roof caved in, the walls buckled and slimy, finally reclaimed by rot.



We met in the woods until it got colder, and then it was a sleeping bag and the back of his truck—and then the front seat, when winter came. Fogged windows, our bodies slick with sweat and spit and sex, the heater on full blast and the radio turned down low. Always in deserted places. Nobody ever saw us together; nobody knew. It was another thing we shared—a secret, just for us. At least that’s what I told myself. Even on the coldest night of the year, he would drop me at the end of the road instead of bringing me to my door. I was so drunk on the thrill of it, being wanted, it took me a long time to realize that Dwayne didn’t see it the same way. That my exciting secret romance was his nobody can ever know this embarrassment. That for him, I was something shameful to be kept under wraps. The junkyard girl. A dirty little secret.

Until I wasn’t. Until I made our little secret too big to hide. I didn’t lie, exactly. I told him I was getting on the Pill, and I did, driving to the clinic in the next county and hiding the packs deep in my sock drawer at home. I took them like I was supposed to.

And then I stopped. I don’t know why. It’s so easy, to just not do something, and not tell anyone that you’re not doing it. It’s not like I didn’t know what could happen. I’d been through sex ed like everyone else; I knew perfectly well how it worked. I knew. It’s just that when you want something, what you know becomes irrelevant. And I did want it. Not the baby, but the acknowledgment. After all those nights trudging home in the dark, still raw between my legs, my nose red and running in the freezing air, I just wanted him to have to stand in the sun with me and say, Yes, I’m with her. I knew he liked me. I wanted him to do it where people could see.

I thought it was because I loved him. But it wasn’t only that. It was the idea of him. Somewhere along the line, I started to play pretend again. I started telling myself stories on those walks back to the trailer, all of them with the sappiest, stupidest fairy-tale ending you ever saw. Because if I was Dwayne’s girl, they’d have to see me. They’d have to admit that I wasn’t trash, that they were wrong, that they’d been wrong to judge me. I was Dwayne’s guilty secret, but here’s my own: when you’ve been rejected all your life, the thing you want most in the world isn’t to escape. It’s to be let in. To have everyone embrace you as they welcome you to their special club, where there’s a special seat waiting just for you. And did I dream of a happily-ever-after? Of us making a little life together, a little house with little lace curtains, a little wife with a little baby kissing her husband off to work? Did I imagine us showing up at a barbecue in the haziest part of August, where grinning schoolmates would hug me, and slap Dwayne on the back, and say Good going, buddy as they clucked over the baby?

Of course I did.

Because I’m a fucking idiot.



What actually happened was this: I told Dwayne I was pregnant, and watched all the blood drain from his face, and realized that I’d made a terrible mistake. That fantasy, the hazy summer afternoon and a baby in a little eyelet jumper, froze over and shattered with a snap, into a million glittering pieces. And by the time I got home, the news had gotten there ahead of me, and Pop was waiting with a look on his face that I’ll never forget.

We said a lot of things to each other that night. Some of it, I still can’t bear to think about. I’d been a lot of things to my father over the years: a help, a surprise, a responsibility. This was the first time I’d been a disappointment. The hurt in his voice was something I would’ve given anything to undo—only undoing it would have been even worse. When I said the word abortion, he reached out with both hands and laid them on the sides of my face.

“My Lizzie,” he said. “Since the day you was born, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. You hear? I would’ve killed for you. I’d have given my own life. But this . . .” He trailed off, pressing his lips together, gathering himself. “I can’t condone it. It’s an innocent life. So it’s your choice, girl. I won’t stop you. Even if I could, I wouldn’t, because that’s your body with the baby inside, and you got the right. But it’s wrong, Lizzie. I know that much.”