I didn't see the most recent episode - the last one that I saw ended with Adrian's decision to keep the baby. If this week's had Amy finding out that she was pregnant, then I guess this is an alternate version; if not, then this is simply a product of my imagination and love for dear Adrian. Enjoy!
Amy doesn't think she'll ever tire of telling Ben about New York, but after she's been describing the dynamics of the six brass players (four trumpets, her own French horn, and a tuba, all of who are going to meet with their children next summer) for five minutes and heard nothing but silence on his end, she relents.
"How are you, Ben?" she asks softly, cradling the phone against her shoulder and wishing she was asking him to his face and pressing kisses to his lips as she did.
"I—" His ominous tone stills her longing, instead making little butterflies flap in her stomach. "I have something to tell you, Amy."
Her mind jumps to the worst possibility; that he's going to end it with her right now, because he's met another Maria-girl and she's in New York and can't give him sex or petting or anything that he wants this summer. "What is it?" Amy bites her lip, trying to keep her voice nonchalant.
"I—no; that is, Adrian's … pregnant, Amy."
"What?" His statement is so notwhat Amy was expecting that she doesn't know how to respond. For several seconds, she struggles with animosity towards the older girl and empathy for something they now share. But her heart is so full right now, full of Ben and John and Julia, the trumpet player with a daughter exactly John's age, that the empathy wins.
"I have to go, Ben," she says. "I have to call Adrian. I'll talk to you later. I love you."
His confused, automatic "love you too" is lost as Amy hangs up and, fingers shaking, flips through her contacts for Adrian Lee. In the year since she's had John, and especially since meeting so many other teen mothers in the past weeks, she's gained perspective on what it means to have had a baby, and to keep him. More than that, she remembers finding out that she was pregnant; remembers feeling so alone, even around people who knew her secret—because no one really understood.
"I hope I can help you, Adrian," Amy whispers fervently, and presses the Call button.
The phone startles Adrian from her desk where she's holed herself up for the first weeks of summer, studying birth stories and adoption websites and teen mom blogs. She starts to leap across her bed to pull it off the charger, then thinks of the thing in her stomach and wonders if that'll hurt it.
Moving gingerly, trying to avoid bending her waist, she reaches her cell just in time to flip it open and say "Hello?"
"Adrian!" cries a too-familiar voice on the other end, "Its Amy! I'm so glad you picked up!"
Gulping, Adrian barely manages to swallow the incredulous "You are?" that she'd been about to say.
"Listen," Amy continues, "I know I won't be home for another three weeks, but Ben just told me that you—you're pregnant."
The first thing Adrian notices is the friendly, concerned tone of Amy's voice. The second thing is that she barely hesitated when she stated Adrian's condition—and even Adrian can't say that word without preparing herself. Pregnant. It's just too real. Both observations unnerve her a little, and she remains silent as Amy babbles on,
"I hope you don't mind that he told me … I don't know, maybe you didn't know that he knew."
"No," Adrian half laughs, "I … I did." Taking stock of the genuineness in Amy's words, she formulates the possibility that Amy really doesn't know the crucial factor yet—that Ben's the father.
As if the other girl read her mind, Amy's next question is, "Who's the father? I mean, do you know?"
"Yes, Amy," says Adrian sharply, suddenly irritated at Amy's implication, "I do." As she finishes her words, she realizes how stupid that was. "I mean … sort of."
"Is it … Ricky?" Amy nearly whispers his name.
Mouth opening and closing like a guppy, Adrian's hand clenches the phone tighter, angrily. For a horrible few seconds, she wishes more than anything that she could say yes. And not just because that's what Amy's expecting, or even because a lot of the time she's still in love with Ricky. He's a good father, a good enough father that it makes up for him being a not so good guy. Those few times when she and Ricky and John went somewhere, it felt right. Like they were a family, a normal one that did things together and loved each other.
Ben's a good guy, unlike Ricky. But he's also annoying, awkward, and totally devoted to Amy. A one-woman man. And Adrian would never be that woman—nor would she ever want to be.
Lost in thought, Adrian forgets that she's on the phone until a small coughing sound comes through the earpiece.
"N-no," she answers then. "No. I don't think its Ricky."
Amy sighs audibly in relief. "Good," she says, "Because my parents are finally starting to like Ricky, and his being a father twice would set him all the way back to square one: loathing."
"Yeah, that would do it," Adrian replies accordingly.
"And, anyway"—Amy adapts a jokey tone—"What would be weirder than Ricky being the daddy to your and my baby?"
"Not very much!" Adrian laughs, trying to sound like she thinks Amy's being funny. The only thing weirder would be Ben being the father to Adrian's baby, but she has that one covered.
It would be so easy, she thinks, to slip up. Ben wants her to let him tell Amy himself, but apparently he didn't do such a good job of it. Now's the perfect time to let Amy know their dirty little secret, as cruelly as she can, for all the times Amy's messed things up for Adrian. For stealing Ricky; for having Ricky's baby. For having a father who used Adrian's mother. For forbidding Adrian to play with John. For basically breaking her and Ricky up.
But she and Amy have something in common now, and against her will, Adrian feels a connection with the younger girl who is, in many ways, eons more experienced than herself.
"So, how are you doing, Adrian?" asks Amy. The question is so open ended that Adrian can't agree, with comment, as she has to most of Amy's other remarks. It has the opposite effect, acting as a floodgate, opening to release the torrent and torment of Adrian's deepest mind.
"I'm a mess," she says honestly. On the other end, Amy giggles.
"But I am!" says Adrian, defensive, but mostly lightly.
"I believe it!" replies Amy. "What else?"
"Everyone thinks I did something wrong, whether it was by not having the abortion, or by thinking about having one to begin with. It made my mom and dad fight, Grace nearly had a hemorrhoid"—again, Amy laughs—"and Ricky won't speak to me."
"Sounds like things are pretty rough."
Those simple words shouldn't make Adrian feel so much emotion, but suddenly, she feels everything she's been holding back since Leo and Betty's wedding.
"You have no idea," she whispers, scrunching up her sheets between two fingers and curling up on her bed. A tear leaks down her nose.
"Yes," Amy says simply, "I do. Tell me more."
That's all it takes for Adrian to lose it. She rocks back and forth, muffling her cries in her pillow so her mother won't hear anything. Amy says softly, maternally, "Talk to me. Tell me everything."
"When I first found out I might be p-pregant," begins Adrian, "Everyone found out, I don't know how, and reacted so much that I told people that I wasn't. I lied to everyone and hoped it would be true, but it wasn't, and now everyone knows that I really am, and that I'm really having this baby."
"Did you consider an abortion?" Amy's voice doesn't betray any emotion.
"I was going to have one." Sometimes, Adrian wishes she hadn't met Ricky's mom there; hadn't talked herself out of it. "I was like you. I went to the clinic, and I couldn't do it. I just … it hurt too much. It hurt some part of myself I don't even know."
Amy comments, "What a choice to have to make."
"Do you—" Adrian's voice catches. "Did I make the right one?"
Amid the ensuring silence, she produces a vivid picture of Amy, biting her lip and pushing back her hair, deciding how to answer. Finally, she hears, "I made the right one."
"You're as ambivalent as everyone else!" Adrian cries, with a snort that comes out as a sob.
"That's because there's no right answer." Amy remains steady, reassuring.
"But I need one!"
"But there's not one."
Winding her sheet around her fingers, Adrian slowly calms herself down, clenches the phone tighter, says her most important words yet.
"I'm sorry," she tells Amy, "For what me and Grace—I mean, Grace and I—did, coming to the clinic to try to stop you. Even though it was mostly Grace, I should have been strong enough to resist her. You know, to take a stand for what I believed then was right, and what I now am positive was. To stay out of it."
She feels a weight lifted as she waits for Amy's reply. That nagging thought, of what she and Grace had done to Amy, has bothered her since she made her own clinic appointment, and gnawed away at her since she canceled it.
"Its okay, Adrian." As in the past twenty minutes, Adrian can tell Amy means what she's saying. The girl reads like a book; if she sounds genuine, she is; if she doesn't, she isn't. That easy. Right now, she means every word.
Almost taking advantage of Amy's current state of honesty, but more from curiosity, Adrian asks, "You nearly arranged an adoption, didn't you?"
"I did arrange one," Amy tells her. "My dad knows this gay couple at work; they wanted a kid, I was having a kid. It sounded perfect, but in the end … you know what you said, that going to the clinic hurt a part of yourself you didn't even know existed? It was like that. I loved my son enough to end the adoption; I was selfish; I had to keep him for myself."
"You're a wonderful mother," says Adrian. She remembers those stolen nights in Ricky's apartment with John, when John was all gurgles and smiles until bedtime, when he'd cry "Ma-ma? Ma-ma?", just needing Amy there with him to snuggle him into his crib. She's seen Amy bonding with her son, never without the veil of jealousy, and always grudgingly known that whatever can be said about Amy Jerguens, she takes good care of her son.
"Thank you." Amy sounds pleased and even grateful for the compliment. Putting herself in the other girl's shoes for a moment, Adrian imagines how difficult it must be to do something like mothering that most people take for granted at sixteen. It she were Amy—and, she reminds herself, she nearly is—then she would be grateful for compliments too.
"Am I prying if I ask—"
Adrian cuts Amy off. "Ask whatever you want. You're not prying."
"Are you leaning more towards keeping the baby, or adoption?"
It's Adrian's turn to bite her lip. Of course, so much depends on Ben. She doesn't know if she wants to share something as monumental as a child with him for all their lives, but she doesn't know if he'll be willing to do anything else. But she can't share any of that with Amy. Not now, when Amy's being so nice and understanding.
It rips through Adrian's gut, right where her baby is growing, when she realizes that as soon as Ben tells Amy who the father is, she and Amy won't talk like this. They probably won't talk at all. They'll hate each other, like always. And all of a sudden, she's furious at Ben for not being man enough to tell his girlfriend, a teen mother herself, that he's gotten a girl pregnant. Almost furious enough to spit out the truth to Amy right there, but she catches herself in time.
"I don't know at all," she finally just says. "I have to talk more to my parents … his parents …"
"The father?" Amy inserts those words eagerly, with so much skill that Adrian wonders, in the back of her mind, whether she was wrong and Amy really knows that Ben's the father; has been stringing her along the whole time.
"I guess so. He's not really in the picture," Adrian tells Amy. There; let Ben explain that one. She's done.
"I have to go," she says quickly. Her tears are beginning to flow again, angry ones at Ben on both her and Amy's behalf. Behind those tears, she feels herself losing control; feels wracking helplessness setting in. "Thank you. I hope we can both always remember this conversation. It helped me so much. Goodbye."
Amy's surprised "goodbye" is lost as she hears Adrian's phone click off. She'd been feeling strong and wise while talking to the other girl, and had really thought she might be making a difference. But clearly, there was something more to Adrian's story than just being pregnant. Something that concerned Amy?
The thought enters her mind unbidden, and she does all she can to get rid of it. But it comes back, strong as ever: Adrian and Ben had sex. Adrian has been fairly celibate since being friends with Grace; it could be that he's the only guy she's had sex with recently.
It could be—
Again, her phone rings. Adrian Lee shows up on Caller I.D.
"Hello?" Amy asks. Her voice pitches high on the last syllable; the whole word comes out afraid, on guard.
"It's Ben," blurts out Adrian, "Ben's the father." And Amy hears her sobbing as she hangs up for the second time.
Ben's the father.
Everything Adrian has ever done to her catches up to Amy. Her father cheated on Anne with Adrian's mother. Adrian moved in next door. She petted and held and loved John. She spied on Ricky. She faked being friends with Amy herself; she really became friends with Ashley. She wasn't content with just the father of Amy's baby; she had to have sex with Amy's boyfriend too. She bewitched Ben with her physical charm. Gave him everything Amy wouldn't.
With a sob of fury, Amy throws herself across her bed and kicks the picture of Ben off of her nightstand. Only when it shatters across the floor does she give into pulsing rage at the one who started it all, the miserable Adrian Lee.
I would really love to hear your thoughts, good or bad. Thanks for reading!