I fixed my hair in the mirror. Put on lip gloss. Adjusted my glasses. Smoothed my jumper over my rock hard stomach, felt the outline of the baby as it did its underwater summersaults. This was certainly an interesting turn of events. J.T. and me soon to be parents. But not really. We'd be giving this baby away.
Danny, my brother, he pounded on the bathroom door. I glanced at the door, at the lock that shook with the force of his pounding. A surge of anger just flowed through me. I wished for my own apartment, my own space. But J.T. blew it.
"It's about time," Danny said to me when I came out. That scowl on his face. His hair hanging around his face in soft curls that reminded me of fern fronds. I scowled back at him.
It was kind of funny, I thought, heading out into the morning sun. I was supposed to be the smart one. I was one of the smartest people in school, if not the smartest. Well, that intelligence doesn't seem to carry across to all aspects of things. Pregnant in grade 11. How smart was that?
I'd looked down on Manny when she was pregnant, and granted that was grade nine. But now I was in no position to judge her. And it was no use comparing the particulars of our cases. Yes, J.T. and I were in a committed relationship and she had been having some secret affair with Craig. Yes, I was older. By all accounts Craig was psychotically happy at the prospect of having a family. J.T. wasn't what I'd call happy. Stressed out. Overextended. Too much on his plate. He tried. He did try. I'll give him that. But he screwed things up, drug deals, suicide attempt.
In the late months of pregnancy, muscles all out of wack, the waddle walk, it's hard to feel all that attractive. I know I've never been some glamorous cheerleader like Paige but I was used to my somewhat more in shape figure.
It was all I noticed now, my classmates' small waists. Mine was non existent. How lucky are boys that they aren't trapped in the pumpkin shell? That they don't have to own up to their mistake every second of every day for nine months? Lucky.
Sun in my eyes, sparkles off the sidewalk. The baby twisted and pirouetted as I walked to school, and sometimes I could almost feel myself inside with the baby, dancing with it. It would be nice if we were older, if we had money and things, a place to live, jobs, careers, and we could keep the baby. I can see the future on these tracks, like highway overpasses, one heads one way, one the other, twisting around and back on itself. Sometimes I don't know which one to choose.
I can feel the eyes of my classmates on me, on the convex shape under my jumper. What are they thinking? That I'm not as smart as I seemed? That I screwed up. It's judgments everywhere. No matter. Head held high and I walk by them.
Quite frankly I'm not even talking to J.T. anymore. I know it might be misplaced anger. I know I expected too much from him. An apartment, money and things and going to school and paying for diapers and formula and all the rest of it. Was I living in a dream world? Why am I so mad that the dream world crashed down around our heads?
I'm angry because I expected more from him. I didn't expect him to be so stupid. I didn't expect him to do the things he did. And it turned things inside out. Everything I used to like about him now I can't stand. The jokes. The irresponsibility. The colossal lack of good judgment. J.T. I have to ask myself, what did I ever see in him?
I don't like to think that my emotions are swayed by hormone surges. But this isn't how I ever pictured this. Not talking to J.T., the boy I worshipped for years. Giving away my baby like some heartless creature in a fairy tale, putting it in a basket and leaving it on a doorstep. Losing my standing at the school. The looks my parents give me, this brave pity mixed with disappointment. The embarrassed half-glances of the teachers. Oh my God, I had sex! Doesn't everyone? Am I supposed to be some asexual brain? That's what it feels like everyone wants, what everyone wanted. Well, we can't have what we want. Hardly ever.