Amy's decision

Going to band camp was the WORST decision of my life! Or at least I used to think so. That's where I met him. Ricky Underwood. He was the most popular guy at camp and the HOTTEST guy at my new school, Grant High. He was a year ahead of me, which is why I was so surprised that he showed any interest in me whatsoever. The two of us spent a very unforgettable evening together at camp. An evening that lead to sex. Sex and pregnancy. Two things, that being 15, I didn't even think I was old enough to KNOW about let along have happen to me!

About two weeks into my freshman year I noticed that my period was late. This had never happened to me before and I was really worried that I might be pregnant. So I bought an early pregnancy test at the gas station across the street from school. And there it was, I was pregnant. My two best friends Lauren and Madison weren't very supportive. Madison thought I should have and abortion and all Lauren could do was talk about how I needed to tell my mother. There was NO way I was telling her, I hadn't even told Ricky yet!

And then something even worse happend. I met a boy! His name was Ben Boycewich. The sausage prince. His father, Leo, owned and operated a series of butcher shops around town. Ben is sort of a Ricky look a like. At first I couldn't tell if it was premeditated on Ben's part or purely coincidental. He called me at home after dinner on the night I had planned to tell my parents about the baby. I hadn't even remembered bumping into him at school earlier that day. He asked me out, which made my situation take another sharp turn for the worse! I accepted his invitation and ditched my plans to talk to my parents.

My parents really liked Ben, and so had I. Maybe it was his resemblance to the man who had gotten me into this mess in the first place! I hadn't seen much of Ricky since Band camp, maybe I missed him. But Ricky was the bad boy type. He was a complete womanizer. No one had known why he had done the things he'd done. And in all honesty, it was a big shock that he hadn't gotten a girl pregnant before me.

Ben and I went to a dance in the church's fellowship hall. It's basically a gym. Grace Bowman, the head cheerleader invited the whole school to the dance. About half of them showed up. Grace was dating Jack, a football jock with too much sex on his mind. But I guess that's how guys are. There was a rumor going around that Jack had asked Grace for sex and she turned him down. Now he was hovering around Adrian Lee, the school slut! Ben was very nervous on our date, and so was I. I don't know where his nervousness stemed from but mine was a mixture of being afraid to have feelings for a guy and tryring to keep him from finding out that I was with child.

The next day the whole school was buzzing with gossip. Apparently Ben and I had missed a HUGE cat fight in the church parking lot. Grace had gone out to Jack's car to grab her sweater and had seen him in the back seat with Adrian. The two were going at it like rabbits. Grace was devistated and started praying for their souls right there in the parking lot. Jack, in turn, started calling Grace a jesus freak and a cock tease. Adrian found the whole thing amusing until Grace grabbed her by her hair and pulled her out of the open window. No one had ever pegged Grace as the type to go ape shit on anyone. I'm not sure who won but they were both pretty beat up.

Grace was the daughter of my father's first wife, Kathleen, so there is sort of this unspoken competition between us. At least there is in the eyes of our parents. They are on a mission to "raise the better daughter". This competition included my sister Ashley. She's 13 and dresses like a hooker. I don't understand why my parents let her dress that way when they are always lecturing us about sex and telling us not to grow up too fast.

At lunch I was approached by Alice Valko, one of Ben's best friends. She had heard a rumor about me and thought she should talk to me about it in private before Ben had heard it. "Can we go somewhere and talk Amy? It's kind of important.", she said in her monotone voice. I said, "Uh y-yea of course. Um, we could uh- go in the girls bathroom I guess." I think she could tell from my quivering voice that I was nervous, she gave me a forced smile and we went back into the school.

"Are you trying to trap Ben?" Alice dove right into the conversation without even checking the stalls to make sure the bathroom was empty first.
"I-uh. I d-d-don't know what you're t-talking about Alice.", I said. I hadn't stuttered in years and the only time I did was when I was lying. Good thing Alice didn't know me well enough to notice.
She continued, "Look, Amy, I know that Ben is rich, and sweet, and he falls in love easily but that doesn't mean he deserves to be walked all over, do you hear me? You're two besties are going around telling everyone, and I mean EVERYONE that YOU had sex wit Ricky Underwood at band camp!"

I got super scared and didn't know what to say. But then I remembered that I hadn't even known Ben when I was at band camp and replied to Alice with, "S-s-so what if I did? It's n-none of B-b-ben's business what I did before we m-met."
Alice smiled a sour-sweet smile, "Normally I would agree with you Amy, but I think it is his business, if you know what I mean.", She pointed to my stomach. How did she find out? The look on my face must have been priceless. I clenched my back pack, muttered, "I'm GOING to kill them!", and stormed out of the bathroom.

I couldn't believe that my best friends would sell me out! But Alice had said Ben didn't know so maybe I still had a chance to make this right. To fix it. Yes, that's what I would do, I would fix it. Before anyone else found out about it. And by the time the rumor got back to Ben, that's all it would have been, a rumor.

I walked into my house after school with a sense of relief. I had finally made a decision. I knew what I was going to do. I actually walked into the kitchen with a smile on my face. That was until I saw my parents sitting at the kitchen table with Ashley. The three of them looked as if they were in mourning. I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, and it had nothing to do with the pregnancy.

"Is everything okay?", they just looked at me in silence. "Mom? Dad? W-w-what's going on?" My mom stood up and told Ashley to go to her room. This was bad. Way bad. "Amy, would you care to explain to your father and I why we found a pregnancy test in the bathroom trash can? And could you PLEASE explain why the test is positive." So this was not how I pictured this converstation going. Since I had made my decision I hadn't even planned on telling them about it.

"I-I-I-.", I couldn't even summon up enough courage to lie to them. "I had sex. At band camp. His name is Ricky, he doesn't know. I'm not keeping it.", I walked past them with tears streaming down my face. So now everyone knew. My secret was out. I stayed in my room all night with the door locked. My parents tried to get me to come out and talk to them. They tried ordering me, yelling at me, and finally they tried to bribe me out. None of it worked. I even ignored all of Ben's calls and texts.

I couldn't look anyone in the face at school the next day. I couldn't even look my father in the eye. I was so disappointed in myself for letting him down. I was his baby, his little Amy. The good girl. And now I was having a baby. Ricky's baby.

I saw Ricky coming out of the band room after school and tried to hide in my locker. By then I was the talk of the school. The new school slut, apparently. Even more infamous than Adrian Lee! Adrian had been Ricky's girlfriend right up until the church fellowship dance when she was caught in the back seat with Jack.

Ricky spotted me and started to come my way, a smirk on his face. Little droplets of sweat started to form on my forehead as I watched him walk down the hallway toward me and then all of a sudden Grace ran up behind him.

"Hey Ricky! How are you feeling today? I heard about that Amy girl.", she said looking over his shoulder at me. She grabbed him by the arm and lead him further down the hallway until I couldn't make out what they were saying. The last thing I heard was Ricky saying, "Well ya know, Grace, she's the one whose pregnant, so I feel fine.", he was working his charm on her and since the dance, she was no longer dating Jack.

As soon as Ben heard about me and Ricky he blew up my phone with texts. Most of them were repetitive, How could you? When did this take place? Why didn't you tell me? And then the occasional, I don't blame you please call me. At first I thought he knew about the baby but I was wrong. At about midnight I got a little sick of all his messages. I mean, I was pregnant and throwing up all night and everyone was going around calling me a skank. I couldn't take it anymore. Finally I snapped. I picked up my cell and dialed Ben.

"Ames? Where have you been? I've been texting you all evening!" by this point he seemed happy just to hear my voice. "Look Ben, I've got a lot going on right now and I know you know about me and Ricky at band camp so if you have something to say to me about it now is the time to do it."

Ben was taken aback but he finally replied, "O-okay, I don't know how you found out that I found out but okay, yeah, let's talk about it. Why didn't you tell me that you had sex with Tricky Ricky? It's not like it was anything more than just sex, right?", I was silent. "Right, Amy? You're not like in love with the guy are you?" My eyes started to water and a big lump formed in my throat, "Ben." was all I could muster up. "So, you do like him?" The line went dead. Ben had hung up on me! But I guess I desereved it.

The next morning I was over exhausted and cranky. "You look like shit.", Ashley said as she trotted into the kitchen wearing a speghetti strap belly shirt and a Paris Hilton short skirt. She might as well go to school naked, I thought. I wasn't in the mood for her crap so I just rolled my eyes at her. "What's you're problem? Things not go well with Ben last night?" She had been sitting at my door listening to my conversation with Ben! I hate that! "Ashley, you should really start to mind you're own business! Oh and fyi, you look like a stripper in those clothes!"
"Ashley, don't talk to you're sister like that. Amy, don't call you're sister a hooker."
"Stripper, dad, she called me a stripper."
"Right. Stripper. Which reminds me, Ashley go change into something a lot less revealing. Like a mu mu."

As Ashley stomped her way back to her room to change my dad turned back to me, "You okay Ames? I know you're going through a lot right now especially with you're mother and I getting a divorce."

I practically spit my milk out on my dad's face, "A DIVORCE? Dad, you can't be serious! You're not getting back with Kathleen are you? I know you've been spending a lot of time with her since her husband died." My dad winced. He knew it was true. He'd been with Kathleen every day since Marshall Bowman was in that plane crash.

When Grace's dad died her whole personality took a right turn. She quit cheerleading and dropped out of her Teen Abstinance Group. Jack said she stopped going to church as well. The two were no longer dating but Jack had always been in love with Grace. Nothing was going to change that. Not even the fact that he'd been dating Adrian ever since the incident in Jack's car. Well, he'd been dating Adrian but the same couldn't be said for Adrian. She was open for business.

I had called the clinic to schedule the procedure. Ben and I hadn't spoken in over a week and I was beginning to feel like an outcast amoung my friends. Madison and Lauren had started to completely ignore me. The only person who was speaking to me was Grace. But Grace spoke to everyone. Especially Ricky.