suitcase, bursting at the seams, found in the trunk of Andre’s Impala. The safety-pin dress spilled out like a chain-link fence.
My dad scarfed down his peas and rice until Mom wassilent. “I forgot to mention,” he said quietly, “I need to go over some plans for tomorrow’s job. I’ll be in the basement if anyone needs me.” He got up and brushed off the seat, just in case he had left any dust.
Eleven
After dinner there was nothing for me to do but hide in my room. I tried dialing Delaney’s cell. She picked up on the fourth ring, right before I was about to hang up. The speaker caught the tail end of laughter, cut it off with a breathy, “Hello?”
I caught a snippet of a male voice, then everything but the white noise stopped, right there with my heartbeat. “Rand?”
I could hardly hold the phone. “Delaney,” I said. “Is Kamran there with you?”
“Kamran? No, honey. Why would you think that? You must have heard the radio.”
I knew what I heard, and it wasn’t KEXP 90.3.
“What’s up?” she continued.
I was silent.
“Hey, listen, Rand,” she said cheerily. “I can’t talk now, but can I call you when I get home?”
I moved my mouth, but no sound came out. If it did, it might bring the house down on me.
“Okay, Rand,” she continued, “I’ll call you when I get home. I saw you guys out there in the parking lot. Hope everything’s okay.”
Click .
Kamran’s words still echoed in my head. You called to inform me we were getting married? When, exactly, is that supposed to happen? When I’m at MIT? But we had talked about it—the two of us moving to Boston, going to school, being together, having a life. When he wasn’t focused on tests and applications. When I wasn’t filling my portfolio. When I wasn’t partying with Delaney and grasping at memories of my sister. When I imagined our future. Was I the only one?
I thought about calling Chloe—unwitting party to my secrets, grafted friend. Already she’d been emailing me angel wishes and personality tests without actually writing a word. She would probably unload her cutesy best friend–ness on me, tell me everything would be okay and that she would be there for me, too. As I lay there on my bed thinking about her and Delaney, I got more and more angry. For all I knew, she was in on it, watching Kamran and Delaney flirting all summer and never saying a word.
Then there was the person I’d always talked to, intertwined with my family for more than half our lives andnow separated by a span of mixed emotions. No, I definitely couldn’t call Essence.
I needed to talk to someone, and Xanda wasn’t around to meet me at midnight, right after she had been out with Andre and smelling of dampness and leaves and French fries and skin. All I had was a safety-pin dress.
Mom retreated to the bedroom and anesthetized herself with her scripts. Maybe she’d change her Brenda character from the prodigal daughter to the prodigal pregnant daughter. I would look the part in a few months.
“What are you doing?” she demanded when I tried to slip into the office, as if Kamran lurked outside and we were going to have sex right there.
“Homework.”
“You’d better be.” And she went back to her steady drip of imaginary characters.
The internet window popped open and I plugged in my search. The results for “teen pregnant dumped completely screwed” didn’t look promising. On the BabyCenter website, the question of the day cheerfully asked, “My pregnancy test showed positive. Am I pregnant, or could it be something else?”
I plugged the date of my last period into the little due date calculator, though I couldn’t even really remember anymore. Right when school got out. The week after, maybe. Definitely before the cabin trip. If my guess was right, I was fifteen weeks—almost four months—pregnant. Fifteen out of forty.
I reached for the snack I’d raided from the kitchen, some crackers and an apple. I followed the
My dad scarfed down his peas and rice until Mom wassilent. “I forgot to mention,” he said quietly, “I need to go over some plans for tomorrow’s job. I’ll be in the basement if anyone needs me.” He got up and brushed off the seat, just in case he had left any dust.
Eleven
After dinner there was nothing for me to do but hide in my room. I tried dialing Delaney’s cell. She picked up on the fourth ring, right before I was about to hang up. The speaker caught the tail end of laughter, cut it off with a breathy, “Hello?”
I caught a snippet of a male voice, then everything but the white noise stopped, right there with my heartbeat. “Rand?”
I could hardly hold the phone. “Delaney,” I said. “Is Kamran there with you?”
“Kamran? No, honey. Why would you think that? You must have heard the radio.”
I knew what I heard, and it wasn’t KEXP 90.3.
“What’s up?” she continued.
I was silent.
“Hey, listen, Rand,” she said cheerily. “I can’t talk now, but can I call you when I get home?”
I moved my mouth, but no sound came out. If it did, it might bring the house down on me.
“Okay, Rand,” she continued, “I’ll call you when I get home. I saw you guys out there in the parking lot. Hope everything’s okay.”
Click .
Kamran’s words still echoed in my head. You called to inform me we were getting married? When, exactly, is that supposed to happen? When I’m at MIT? But we had talked about it—the two of us moving to Boston, going to school, being together, having a life. When he wasn’t focused on tests and applications. When I wasn’t filling my portfolio. When I wasn’t partying with Delaney and grasping at memories of my sister. When I imagined our future. Was I the only one?
I thought about calling Chloe—unwitting party to my secrets, grafted friend. Already she’d been emailing me angel wishes and personality tests without actually writing a word. She would probably unload her cutesy best friend–ness on me, tell me everything would be okay and that she would be there for me, too. As I lay there on my bed thinking about her and Delaney, I got more and more angry. For all I knew, she was in on it, watching Kamran and Delaney flirting all summer and never saying a word.
Then there was the person I’d always talked to, intertwined with my family for more than half our lives andnow separated by a span of mixed emotions. No, I definitely couldn’t call Essence.
I needed to talk to someone, and Xanda wasn’t around to meet me at midnight, right after she had been out with Andre and smelling of dampness and leaves and French fries and skin. All I had was a safety-pin dress.
Mom retreated to the bedroom and anesthetized herself with her scripts. Maybe she’d change her Brenda character from the prodigal daughter to the prodigal pregnant daughter. I would look the part in a few months.
“What are you doing?” she demanded when I tried to slip into the office, as if Kamran lurked outside and we were going to have sex right there.
“Homework.”
“You’d better be.” And she went back to her steady drip of imaginary characters.
The internet window popped open and I plugged in my search. The results for “teen pregnant dumped completely screwed” didn’t look promising. On the BabyCenter website, the question of the day cheerfully asked, “My pregnancy test showed positive. Am I pregnant, or could it be something else?”
I plugged the date of my last period into the little due date calculator, though I couldn’t even really remember anymore. Right when school got out. The week after, maybe. Definitely before the cabin trip. If my guess was right, I was fifteen weeks—almost four months—pregnant. Fifteen out of forty.
I reached for the snack I’d raided from the kitchen, some crackers and an apple. I followed the
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