A/N: I've wondered, if Ruben and Cindy were so in love in high school and high school sweethearts as we're lead to believe, then why did Cindy feel the need to try and trap Ruben into staying with her by getting pregnant?
Entrapment
Ruben Enriquez wasn't the first guy that she had slept with, but she wanted him to be her last. She'd been dating him for two years now. Or at least it would be two years in August, by the time their senior year began. They'd first met on day one of their sophomore year in their Spanish class. They were the only native speakers besides the teacher herself and so naturally she'd partnered them together and they'd come to discover that they'd each only taken the class as an easy A elective.
The attraction had been immediate. Hot, sexy, passionate! Some might have even called it whirlwind. He was everything she'd ever dreamed of. But even so, Ruben had been a gentleman. And more than that, he had treated her like a lady, and had been the first man to ever do so. She played it coy and tried not to show it, but she fell hard and fast. She knew it was silly and stupid, but after he'd drop her off at her front door with a kiss goodnight, she'd often linger there until she heard his car pull away and fantasize about what it would be like to be Mrs. Enriquez one day. Forget about Lee! Cindy Enriquez had a much more mystical ring to it.
The problems started one day when he came to pick her up after school for a milkshake and study date at the Dairy Shack. When she'd opened the door, she found a pile of brochures in the normally empty front seat. He'd apologized and haphazardly tossed them into the backseat, making room for her to climb in. When she'd inquired as to what they were, he'd vaguely explained how he was getting an early jumpstart on looking into colleges, after all, sophomore year was already in full swing and after that, he only had one year left, so if he planned to get into law school one day, the college he chose would have to set the proper groundwork. A cold fear embedded itself in the pit of her belly that day. She knew Ruben was smart and headed for a bright and successful future, but she was not. Her family was not rich and she couldn't follow him to one of his five star colleges. And in seventeen years, she also knew enough to know that long distance relationships never lasted. If Ruben left for college after graduation, she'd never be Mrs. Enriquez.
As the days passed, the more she thought about it, the more she dreaded each day closer to senior year: the beginning of their end. Ruben had been the only man to ever make her feel the proverbial butterflies; the only man to ever make her wake up squealing in the dead of night because she dreamt about him; the only man she'd ever loved.
He'd also been the only man to ever love her. Strike that. The only person to ever love her. Her parents had been Colombian immigrants, who adhered to the strictest of classic gender roles: her mother was a stay at home wife and her father was the bread winner, whose every pore oozed of machismo. While she did go to a public school, she grew up in a very small Colombian community, and was expected to eventually marry someone of her own kind, certainly not a Mexican. All they could do was criticize her; there was no love there. In her ideal, if she married Ruben, she could one day escape her life and finally receive the love she'd been deprived of for seventeen years.
Casually, she began to drop hints. Inquiries, really, just to test the waters and see if she could find out where he stood on marriage. By the second Halloween she celebrated with him, her favorite holiday because it was the only day out of the year she was allowed be something she was not, she finally deduced that he only had plans to marry someone after he successfully completed his education. Even though she didn't show it, it had sucked the romance right out of the masquerade ball he had planned to take her to. That night affirmed what she needed to do. And when.
Thanksgiving. Cindy picked that day not because of the feast or the fact that school was out of session in celebration of it, but because she decided it would be the day she would be the day she would give thanks to Ruben for loving her and in return, she would ensure that their love would never go to waste. It had taken a great deal of planning, but she'd managed to steal a condom from one of her friend's older brothers while spending the afternoon at their house, and then had poked holes in it with one of her mother's sewing needles a week ahead of time. It rested safely at the bottom of her purse - a simple black clutch that matched the knee length velvet dress and sweater she wore - on November 28, 1991.
As immigrants, Cindy's parents didn't see a need for celebrating the American holiday of Thanksgiving, so Ruben had graciously invited her to his home for the feast. The dinner was awkward and clunky, filled with terse conversation and gravelly looks. Cindy could tell that Ruben's mother wasn't particularly pleased with his choice of date, but refused to say it outright, and instead revealed her feelings through phrases and gestures that walked a tightrope: certainly not friendly, but not outright rude either. The tears that Mrs. Enriquez's spiteful actions provoked as Ruben drove her home were the last thing that she expected - or wanted - to end their night with, but when Ruben pulled into the empty Dairy Shack parking lot to ask her what was wrong, they worked even better than her original plan had.
"I'm sorry," she whimpered, her voice sincere. "It's just…" She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. "I don't get the impression your mom likes me that much. She was so - so -"
"That's just her way," Ruben soothed, almost chuckling. "Don't be offended. She's overprotective. A bit like your parents…but not quite." He kissed her forehead and pulled her heaping form into his arms.
As Cindy lay draped awkwardly across the seats with her head tucked into the book of her boyfriend's arm, she let out a small shudder. "Ruben, I…I…"
"You what?" he whispered, stroking her raven hair as though he was touching a baby's cheek.
"Te quiero." Her eyes glistened as she turned her head to look up at him, his mouth hanging open slightly as she repeated, this time in English: "I love you."
Ruben touched the swell of her lips with his finger, then traced the curve of her mouth. They sat in silence for what seemed like hours before he said softly, confidently, "Te amo demasiado."
Cindy reached for his hand, bringing it to her lips again. She kissed his finger with delicate lips, like she'd never kissed anyone before, then swung her hand around his neck and pulled his mouth to hers, drinking in the taste of his words. She felt the tears flee her eyes again, this time because she was so happy. Her hand fell down his chest, loosening the tie around his neck and expertly freeing the buttons from their the holes on his dress shirt. Halfway down, Ruben grabbed her hand.
"Cindy…" he shook his head, face flushed. "We can't."
"It's okay," she shuddered, pushing herself against him and sitting up. She grabbed her clutch and reached inside, retrieving the punctured condom wrapper. She reclined her seat and grinned as she peeled open the condom in front of him, then tossed the latex into his lap. "Please, Ruben…" She shook her, eyes still swimming. "I've never felt like this for anyone else."
Ruben fingered the protection; his hands and body hesitated, but he never once broke eye contact. "I've never felt this way either," he admitted. "But this-"
"Ruben." Cindy wrapped her painted nails around his tie and tugged his face forward, until she met the corner of his mouth with a kiss. Her lips were like kerosene and his resolve melted beneath them. She guided him into the backseat and shrugged away his dress shirt between kisses.
Although Ruben didn't take her biological virginity that night, Cindy decided to believe that he had taken her heart's virginity. And even though her parents grounded her for a month for being three hours later for curfew, making love to Ruben had been entirely worth it. Especially once the morning sickness hit.
"I'm pregnant." She told him on the most romantic day of the year: Valentine's Day. The date he'd planned had been anything but. Everything she'd tried to eat had make her disastrously nauseous and by the time the waiter brought them the double chocolate cake with raspberry sauce, she couldn't hold it in any longer.
Ruben's face turned the color of fresh fallen snow. "What?"
"Estoy embarazada," she repeated, her eyes daring him to ask again.
The cloth napkin Ruben held fell from his hand. "But-" His voice was as small as a pinprick. "¿Como? ¡Hemos utilizado la protección!"
The sound of his voice made her queasy all on its own. "How dare you!" she shouted, causing the water in her glass to ripple and multiple patrons from nearby tables to turn and stare. "You're Catholic!" she hissed. "How can you even ask that? Sometimes…sometimes las cosas están destinados a ser!" With that, she grabbed her purse and blew out of the restaurant, leaving only a shattered glass of water and a speechless Ruben in her wake.
Cindy didn't see Ruben again for another month. All the while, her belly was expanding and she would cry into her pillow each night, wondering if the next day would be the day that her parents would catch onto why she was eating so little at dinner, wearing hot clothes as the weather warmed, and spending much of her time in the bathroom. Forcing a pregnancy on Ruben - for the first time - had sunk in as a horrible idea. But she knew that despite the horrible choice she'd made that fateful Thanksgiving night, she couldn't turn back now. She'd made the choice to bring another life into the world and that was on her, not Ruben.
"No." She couldn't even believe herself as she said it. "No." All she'd dreamed up for over a year was saying exactly the opposite as the love of her life sat on bended knee before her, holding out a diamond ring. And on Easter, no less. "No!"
"What do you mean, no?" Ruben questioned. His voice started out confused, then gradually melded into anger. "I'm proposing to you! I spent all month collecting the money to buy this goddamn ring!"
"And I'm telling you no!"
"I'm offering to marry you!" he yelled, pulling to both feet.
Cindy drew back, unable to speak at first, then her fists began to shake. Her lips shivered. "Offering? Offering?" She slammed her fists into his chest without warning. ¡Hijo de puta! ¿Quién te crees que eres? I can raise this baby without you!" She screamed. "I don't need your help or anyone else's!" Cindy snatched up the ring box from his hand and threw it at the door, causing a reverberating thud. "¡Fuera! Get! Out!"
Wordlessly, Ruben moved towards the door. "This isn't over, Cindy." His voice was low. "We're in this together," he said, reaching for the handle. "You can't just cut me out of our child's life. We made a life together, we -"
"We?" she scoffed. "There is no 'we!' I got pregnant. I did it! It was my choice then and it is my choice now and I'm choosing to tell you to stay away! Just leave us alone, we don't need you!"
Ruben froze in disbelief. "You - you're telling me you did this on purpose? You got pregnant on purpose?"
"And what if I am? What are you going to do about it?"
Ruben shook his head. "Egoísta. That's what you are, Cindy: selfish. I was wrong about you. I don't love you. And you don't love me." He looked down at the ring, gleaming from the open box on the floor. "You can keep the ring. I don't want it. And I don't want you." As he opened the door to leave, he found Mr. and Mrs. Lee standing in his way.
Cindy gasped and folded her arms across her stomach, feeling as though she was going to vomit right there on her bedroom floor. Trapped. She felt cage, like a feral animal. Looking at Ruben, then at her parents, she realized that she'd trapped him in exactly the same way she'd been trying to escape her parents her entire life.