Beck:
Sometimes you have to roll with it. The acrid, taste of bitter, stale black coffee scorching your throat, fighting with your father until you're red in the face, holding your girlfriend while she looks way out past the confines of your tin, silver trailer, and won't meet your gaze boring into the back of her head, face concealed by a curtain of dark brown hair, an impassive sheet, sometimes you have to compose a steely expression, forge a weak smile and swallow back the pain, because if you don't, you won't make it, trust me.
Tori:
Nothing's ever written in stone, everything's nearly always uncertain. I've reached a point in my life where I don't connect with anyone anymore. There are no new posts on Splashface, alerting all my friends of how I'm doing, keeping them amused with witty barbs, or sunshiny statuses. There's no way I'll ever go back to that. That part of my persona has been extinguished. It's a light going out, I've now grown dim as they come, I'm just waiting for someone to light the fuse again, because all I'm feeling is numb, empty, shell shocked, vacant as of this moment in time. You get the picture and it ain't pretty.
"Please," a rap sounds at the heavy, oak door of my apartment again, the third time today. People won't leave me alone. Luckily, Trina's out with her friends, Jade is occupied by Andre, my parents are on vacation, but the only one trying to reach out to me, is the one who inevitably caused the problem in the first place. And I can't speak, haven't said anything to him in days as the pain becomes more insufferable, each text unanswered, each phone call ignored and I can't bring myself to sink into his arms, because when I do it, when I glance into those dark eyes, my breath will halt, my heart will seize, and I'll realize that I'm running out of time, that I'll have to make a decision, get rid of it, something I'm not ready for. Not at seventeen years old.
"Tori, open up!" His gravelly voice clenches my heart strings, I am a marionette, a puppet, on jerky strings, a live wire stumbling toward the door, and unlocking it in a stupefied state, like a zombie, my eyes trail the length of his body as he charges in, sweaty, and out of breath, his hair artfully messy, his eyes bordering on concerned.
Beck. Warm, sunkissed Beck, with the exoctic skin and crooked smile, with the kind eyes, practically jumps me he's so nervous. "What the hell?" He cries. "What have you been doing? Where you have been?"
"Stewing," I answer, shrugging noncommittally and trying not to melt from his arms locked around me, from his breath, a gentle hiss in my ear.
"About?" Beck says curiously, eye brows furrowed.
"You know what it's about." I feel myself shiver, a chill courses down my spine and I turn away from him, cheeks flaming.
"Tori, it's a big deal." Beck says quietly. "Ignoring it's not gonna make it go away."
"You don't think I know that?" I pipe up. I shrug on my thin, cardigan draped over an overstuffed armchair in the living room, and stalk over the couch, plopping myself down on it, falling face first into a pillow and moaning in anguish.
"I know you know," Beck collapses down beside me, gently tearing the pillow from my grasp and tilting my chin upwards to meet his probing stare.
"Whatever decision you come to," Beck sighs through grit teeth. "I'll be there for you, no matter what."
"What a clichéd' thing to say," I snap, biting my lip down hard. "What if the decision is enough to tear us apart?"
"Well, that depends." Beck says easily. "Along what lines of discomfort, are we talking? Adoption? Cause you know, then we could like make it open, so we could at least see, the- our baby."
"No, no, no." I bolt upright, fishing in the pocket of my baggy, burmuda shorts I've taken to laying around in this past week, and extract a cigarette from my pack. A Marlboro red, I pop it in my mouth chagrined, much to Beck's sharp exhalation of breath and light it.
Smoke billows from my lips, and I nearly cough from its potent taste. "I'm talkin' abortion." I say with finality.
Beck's eyes grow glassy with shock, gone is the sparkling warmth, and easygoing air, his shoulders are rigid, tense with worry, and he shoots me this look I can't decipher, all I know is it can't be good.
"Tori," Beck says reasonably. "Abortion is sick."
"So, is raising a kid on basically, a shitty income." I shake my head. "And not knowing what to do every second, aside from abortion, what is there? I'm not going to pop out a baby in the delivery room, and have it taken from me, just because I chose to put it up for Adoption."
"There are other options," Beck says stiffly. "Just rule out abortion, please. The thought makes me. . . not want to have anything to do with you."
"Says the guy who's all, "I'll support you no matter what, baby!' " I scoff in frustration, raking my fingers through my disheveled mane and bristling with anger. "Yeah, right."
"Whatever you need me to do it," Beck says calmly. "I'll do it. But I'm not gonna watch you do something like that to a baby who hasn't even gotten a chance to see the world. If it's money you need, I got you."
"Money's not the issue," I say burying my face in my hands and steepling my fingers against my suddenly throbbing temple. "And you know that."
"What do we tell our families?" I feel my throat constrict. " 'Oh, hey, Mom; hi, Dad! Guess what?! I'm fucking pregnant."
"That," Beck says flatly. "Is going to cause some problems. Let me ask you this, do you really want to harm your unborn child?"
"No," I say stung that he would think so. "I was only going with abortion because that's the bull the adults are going to shoot me. I would never want to compromise the life of a child, would never want them to think they're unwanted."
Beck reaches out to swig a glass brimming with water, not even caring, nor aware of the fact that it's been sitting on the coffee table overnight, and probably lukewarm.
"Then, what do you say we keep it?" Beck says softly. "I'm with you every step of the way."
He sets his hand on the base of my knee, and my emotions are heightened, his touch feels like molten lava, my insides are pooling into a big, puddle of nothingness, the hairs stand on end my arm, my breath escapes me in a sharp hitch of wonder, his words echo in my head, Keep it.
"Keep what?" The front door slams with a resounding bang and Trina steps in, looking garish in an oversized pink, fluffy, romper, wearing espadrilles, her hair pulled back into a knot.
I knew we'd have to deal with this at some point, but how?