Текст книги "Immaculate"
Автор книги: Katelyn Detweiler
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 21 страниц)
Maybe, I thought, the realization crashing with a sickening thud to my stomach—maybe that really was the only solution. The best way to move on for everyone involved.
I would disappear, slip off the radar. I would stop weighing down my friends and my family, all the people who were the most loyal to me—all the people who least deserved this kind of punishment. I would run away, find a new place, make a new name. And I would be just like any other single mom trying to make it work.
I couldn’t keep doing this to all of them, and I wouldn’t. If the video did nothing, if the pressure and the scrutiny kept getting worse and worse . . .
I would leave. I would let them live their lives.
And the baby and I, we would live ours, somewhere far away from Green Hill.
I observed the scene in Frankie’s from the passenger seat of Jesse’s truck, glad that it was dark, that no one would see me staring in, slouched in my seat like some Peeping Tom. I hadn’t been in once since I’d quit. Frankie had seemed sad to let me go, but I could see the relief in his face, too. He was devoutly Catholic, and I’m sure that having a mockery of his much-beloved Mary running around the restaurant wasn’t sitting well with his conscience. My decision to leave was a favor for both of us.
But Jesse and Gracie had both wanted Frankie’s pizza to ring in New Year’s. I went along for the ride, and that was as far as I’d go. I could see Jesse in the long line for the register, waving and making small talk with Frankie and the guys in the back. Two heavily bundled-up customers turned away from the crowd to leave, tall stacks of pizza boxes in their arms.
As they walked through the lot and got closer to the truck, I realized with a stomach-turning lurch whom I was watching.
Izzy.
And Nate.
Izzy and Nate, together, carrying enough pizza for Nate’s annual New Year’s house party. I shimmied down lower in the seat until only my eyes and forehead were above window level, my face pushed up against the glass for a better view.
They had stayed close after all, even if their cafeteria interactions had seemed limited. That was for the public, maybe, and the private was a different story. Their moment together in the hallway, after Nate’s argument with Jesse—I had been right to read into Izzy’s power to instantly calm him. There was something there, more than they wanted to let on to anyone else.
Nate balanced his boxes on the hood of his car, which was parked only a space away from where I was sitting. I wanted to pinch myself for not noticing it there sooner, after all the hours I’d spent riding around in it.
Nate opened the car door and waited as Izzy loaded her boxes into the backseat, adding his to the pile after she stepped back. He snapped the door shut and turned to her, his now empty hands grabbing at Izzy’s waist, pulling her closer in a gesture that looked nauseatingly familiar. She didn’t flinch or step back. The touch was normal, expected. Wanted. She let herself lean against him and tilted her face up, meeting his as he curved his head down to reach her. Their lips brushed, softly at first, and then more demanding, her hands reaching to circle his neck and pull him in deeper. A car door slammed from somewhere across the lot, and they pulled apart, each moving away so quickly that I almost could believe that the last thirty seconds hadn’t happened. The kiss had been some trick of the eye, my imagination taking advantage of the dim lighting.
It had happened, though. It definitely had, and I’d probably suspected it on some level all along. Nate and Izzy had always gotten on so well. Maybe too well, since they had more in common with each other than either ever did with me. They liked the same sports and the same movies and TV shows, even had the same favorite kind of pizza—way too extra-extra pepperoni for any normal person. They were both so outgoing, always making friends so effortlessly, and they both plowed through life like nothing ever scared them. I’d just been some unnecessary middleman, and the big falling out had finally made them realize what and who had always been there.
I wanted fresh air to stop the sweaty chills that were wracking my body, the ache that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. But Nate and Izzy were still parked just feet away, and I refused to be caught. I tried my deep breathing trick, inhaling and forcing myself to count the seconds, but it didn’t work. My mind was too thick and muddy to focus.
The driver’s-side door clicked open with a burst of cold air and I jumped, my heart pounding at the sudden movement.
“Oh my God, Jesse!” I yelled, gasping for breath. “You scared the absolute shit out of me.”
His smiling face seemed to fold in on itself. “Um . . . I’m sorry? I should have knocked?”
“No, I’m sorry, it’s okay,” I said quickly, already embarrassed by my rudeness. I was the one who had been too busy staring at Izzy and Nate to pay attention.
Izzy and Nate. I whipped my head back around toward their car, just then realizing that I’d come out of hiding, sitting upright in a fully lit interior.
Nate was looking toward the street, but Izzy’s eyes were locked straight on mine. She wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t frowning, either. Her mouth was a straight, unreadable line. There was nothing there for me to read, not a trace of the easy communication we’d always had in the past. Nate looked front, then back, as he started pulling the car out of the lot, still oblivious to the blazing cord linking me to Izzy. I wouldn’t look away, not before she did. She refused, too, and we stared until the car was too far gone and our necks couldn’t twist any farther.
“So you saw them?” Jesse asked, hesitant.
I nodded, my face still turned toward the window. My eyes couldn’t seem to unstick themselves from the space where Nate’s car had just been, where Izzy had just been.
“I’m not upset that I saw Nate kissing someone else,” I said, feeling that I had to justify myself to Jesse. I sucked my lips in and bit down, refusing to give in to the tears threatening to spill out. “I’m upset that they can still be so close, when they both chose to be cut off from me. It makes me feel like they never cared about me that much after all, like I’m just so completely easy to let go of. I’m so easy to lose.”
“I’m sure that’s not true, Mina. I’m sure they miss you, they just never wanted to let you see that. They didn’t want to seem weak.”
I didn’t say anything else during the drive home, and I barely said two words while we ate dinner with Gracie around the coffee table in the living room. But I kept catching Jesse glancing over at me with a worried expression on his face, and I tried my best to shake it off for the rest of the night. I was fine then, or at least seemed to be fine, once I set my mind to ignoring that kiss, which I had already replayed at least a hundred times since it’d happened. I pulled out Candy Land and was the loudest, most enthusiastic of the three of us, insisting that we play round after round. It wasn’t until after the Funfetti cupcakes and sparkling cider, and after Gracie had passed out sprawled across the sofa, that I could feel the gnawing ache starting up again—the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach that made me feel as if I had lost Izzy all over again.
Jesse kept trying to pull me out of it, making running witty commentary on the New Year’s Eve live performances and Times Square coverage we had on the TV, poking at my belly and whispering little jokes to the baby. The baby must have been in a strange mood, too, based on the flurry of kicking and squirming around I could feel all night. I usually loved the feeling, the reminder that this little person was actually there inside of me, but it felt like too much at the moment—I wanted to just be selfish, to be alone and sulky if that was how I felt, and Jesse and the baby were both making that impossible.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Nate’s party. It was hard to believe that only a year ago I was in the center of all of it, glued to Nate’s side for the entire night as the hostess of the evening. He had yanked me away just before midnight, pushed me into the small, pitch-black laundry closet so that we could have our midnight kiss alone, away from the rest of the party. “I want this moment to be just about you and me,” he had whispered, just before giving me the slowest, warmest, most tingly and amazing kiss we’d ever shared.
Thinking about that kiss, about him and Izzy and how they’d be kissing that night—maybe in the very same laundry room, maybe with the very same quiet words—made me feel suddenly so desperate to do something, anything, that could help ease the sharp, burning pain even just a little. I looked over at Gracie, a small smile on her lips as she dreamed on the sofa, and then back at Jesse.
“Hey,” I said, struggling to push gracefully off the couch. I silently cursed at my belly for making me so completely unbalanced and unsexy. “My phone’s in my room and I want to call Hannah to wish her a Happy New Year. Can you come with me?”
Jesse looked up at me. “Do you just want me to run up and get it for you? I don’t mind.”
I shook my head. “Nah, I want to move around anyway. The baby’s antsy, too.” He followed me up the stairs, both of us stepping carefully so that the creaking wouldn’t wake Gracie.
After we were both inside my bedroom, I closed and latched the door behind us. Jesse stared at me, confused, but I pretended not to notice as I pulled back my curtain to let in the moonlight. I felt so bold and so reckless and so helpless all at the same time, as if my nerves were screaming at me, and I was powerless to do anything but obey. They wanted me to let it all go, every last rule and boundary I’d built up for myself—for once to be just in that moment, that minuscule fraction of time that existed right here and now, never before, never again after. There was no tomorrow and no yesterday, no Izzy and Nate, no college plans, no impending baby bills, no threatening calls from strangers or cruel Virgin Mina posts online for anyone in the world to see. There was no planning, no right or wrong, no perfect.
I wasn’t perfect, not anymore. And I didn’t want to be.
I took a few shaky steps toward Jesse, who was still standing by the door, his puzzled face pale in the moonlight.
“Mina, what are you . . . ?”
I tapped my finger to his mouth, and the question dropped off. His lips felt so soft and so warm, I suddenly wanted them to touch every last part of my body. I felt him as he swallowed, his throat tensing at my touch. We stayed like that, hovering in front of something bigger and scarier. My finger, his lips—nothing more than that one simple gesture. I couldn’t tell which one of us moved first, who tilted their head and crossed over that space between us. Because all of a sudden we were kissing, our lips moving together in a way I’d never imagined possible, so effortlessly in sync, shaping and reshaping. We were on my bed then, and Jesse delicately lowered me, so careful and aware of my stomach. I was surprised that I didn’t feel more self-conscious about my belly, the awkward bump that was always there between us, reminding us both that there was a third person to be considered.
I ran my fingers along the top of his jeans and his waist, and then reached up under his shirt, his back so hot and solid beneath my hands. I was pulling his shirt up without even realizing I was going to do it, tugging it up inch by inch to bring our skin even closer.
“Mina,” he whispered, his breath warm in my ear. “Mina, I don’t think we should . . .”
I pressed my lips harder against his, pushing the words back into his mouth. I felt so in control for once, so free, and I didn’t want to let that go so soon.
“Mina, seriously,” he pushed himself up on his forearms, suspended above me. “This probably isn’t a good idea. Gracie could wake up at any minute and come looking for us, and . . . and you’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t want this. At least not right now. Not with everything else that’s going on.”
“Maybe I’ve changed my mind,” I said, circling my arms around his neck and trying to tug him back down.
“Really?” He looked hopeful, and nervous, too, and I wanted to close my eyes and go back to just feeling, no more thinking. “Why tonight, Mina?”
When I couldn’t respond, I saw something click in his expression, the confusion replaced by disappointment as he pulled away from me.
“Because of Izzy and Nate. Of course.” There was disgust in his voice, and I wanted to undo that last moment, I wanted to say the right answer, the one that he needed to hear. The one that I was so afraid to say out loud.
“No, it’s not like that,” I said, my voice shaking. “It’s not like that at all.” I love you, Jesse, not Nate. Don’t you see? But the words caught in my throat. I couldn’t give in.
“It’s not? Then what is it like? Because you’ve rejected any possibility of us since I first put it out there, Mina, and suddenly, the night you see your ex-boyfriend kissing your ex–best friend, you’re bringing me up to your bedroom and practically throwing me on your bed. So please, explain to me what’s really happening then if I’m so completely wrong.”
His words stung, more so because I knew part of what he was saying was right. I had feelings for him, of course, though my motives for tonight, in that moment, had been questionable. But I couldn’t stand feeling so wrong, so worthless and rejected. It was easier just to feel angry instead—enraged.
“Everyone thinks that I’m a whore anyway, that we’ve already slept together, so why not just do it, Jesse? If everyone’s going to think it’s true, we might as well just give in to it, right? I might as well enjoy being slutty.”
He leaped off my bed—he couldn’t have looked more stunned if I’d slapped him straight across the face. Already I wanted to beg him to forget what I’d said, to plead for his forgiveness, but instead I just yanked at the blanket under me, wrapping it around my body like armor. I needed to hide. I needed to disappear.
“I c-can’t . . .” he stuttered. “I can’t believe you just said that to me. I can’t believe that’s what this meant to you.”
“It’s not,” I said, pleading. “I didn’t mean that. I care about you, Jesse, I really do, I just—”
“I can’t talk about this right now, Mina. I can’t even look at you right now.” His feet fumbled as he backed away from me toward the door. “I just need to go.”
“Don’t . . .” The word cracked on my lips. He stepped out of the room, leaving me, his footsteps quiet and cautious down the stairs.
I was mad at myself for yelling at him, but at the same time—didn’t I deserve to be angry? Didn’t I have that right?
I’d never asked for any of this, and now I was rebuilding my entire life. For a decision that had never really been mine to make. I hadn’t gotten drunk or been knocked up by some stupid one-night stand. I hadn’t even had sex—let alone unprotected sex—with a serious boyfriend.
I’d be fast-forwarding through the college years, the years where it was okay to be a little bit irresponsible, reckless. Selfish. There’d be no becoming best friends with my freshman roommate, no flirting with the cute boy sitting behind me in English Theory 101, no getting too drunk and making careless, awful decisions, and spending the next morning laughing over all of them with my new friends, glad—proud even—to have made them.
I’d spent my whole life walking a narrow line, trying not to make mistakes—not to make a single fucking mistake. Was that why I was chosen? Because somebody up there thought I was so goddamn perfect?
“I’m not perfect, Iris!” I screamed, shaking off the blanket and grabbing at the first thing my eyes landed on to throw—Nate’s anniversary watch, still on my nightstand, though I’d stopped wearing it weeks ago. I hurled it across the room, gloating at the satisfying thump as it hit the wall. “I’m not fucking perfect, and I want my fucking life back!”
Silence. Nothing but the dark, empty house to answer to me.
“Did you hear me?” I yelled, louder this time. My throat burned. “Take it back, Iris! Take it all fucking back! I know you’re there. I’ve seen you. I’ve seen you, Iris! Stop hiding!”
“She won’t come back, Mina, not when you talk to her like that.”
I shrieked, my heart pounding in my chest, before I realized that it was Gracie. She was standing in the doorway, soft light from the hallway framing her tiny body.
“What are you talking about, Gracie?”
“Iris. She won’t come if you’re screaming at her like that.”
“What do you know about Iris? You’ve never seen her. I do. I see her, Gracie. I haven’t told anyone, but I still see her sometimes.”
“I see her, too, Mina. She’s everywhere.”
A chill prickled along my spine as I stared at her, my mouth gaping open.
“How . . . ?”
“She’s there when you need her most, I think. When you’re really sad, or maybe when you’re really happy, too.” She pushed herself onto the bed and crawled to squeeze in next to me. “When I get mad at school about something somebody says about you, or when I can’t sleep at night because I’m scared about what’s going to happen to you and the baby . . . that’s when I see her. She never says anything, but she smiles at me. She smiles with those happy green eyes. And that’s enough. I always feel okay again when I see her.”
“But I don’t get it. How did you know it was Iris? How did you know about her green eyes? I never told you that.”
“I just knew.” She shrugged. “Who else would it be?”
“Why haven’t you told me?” I asked, my lips still shaking.
She scrunched her face. “I don’t know. I guess I was worried you’d think I was making it up, maybe. Because even though I think she’s real when I see her, she always disappears right away. Like a ghost or something. I was scared no one would believe me.”
“I believe you, Gracie,” I said, and sighed. “I’ll always, always believe you.”
I knew that I hadn’t just imagined Iris at school or at church, or in that depressing old restaurant. She was real, just like my baby was real.
I don’t really want Iris to take you back, I said in my head, desperately hoping that the baby could somehow hear me. I felt hot and sick with shame, as if flames were burning holes through my stomach. I didn’t mean that, not at all. I wouldn’t trade you in for anything or anyone.
Both of us were silent after that, and when Gracie’s breathing fell into a slow rhythm next to me, I closed my eyes and prayed.
Not to God, because I still wasn’t sure who or what that was.
But to Iris. I prayed to Iris.
• • •
I woke up on New Year’s Day puffy-eyed but determined—determined to make the best of a fresh start. I wrote up a list of resolutions, which I’d never done before, and every single one revolved around the baby. Because that was what this New Year would be: all about the baby. Not about me. Not what I wanted. Not who I wanted. There would be time for that—for me—later, after the baby was born, and after life settled again. But I couldn’t sit around sulking and brooding. It was a relief, really, to have no choice but to pick myself up and move past it all. Just one more reason I was glad to have this baby growing inside of me. I was learning what it really meant to be selfless.
I needed to apologize to Jesse, but I didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t know of any words that could possibly undo the ones I’d already used. So I decided not to call, not right away. I needed time to get the apology right, and besides that, he deserved some time away from me. I didn’t have to wait long, though, because he called me the day after New Year’s, the day before we’d be going back to school for the new semester.
“I finished the video,” he said, all businesslike and matter-of-fact. “Do you want me to come over tonight to show you guys?”
“Sure. That sounds great,” I said, cringing at the false, cheery ring of my voice. I opened my mouth to say more, but the words stuck in my throat. Jesse was silent for a few awkward beats, too, before he said a clipped good-bye and the line went dead.
I sighed, frustrated with myself. I needed to say something—he deserved that much at the very least. I was scared to lose him, but I was just as scared to get any closer. There seemed to be no winning here, no easy way to crawl out of the big hole I kept on digging.
I called Hannah and invited her over, too, hoping that she’d buffer at least some of the awkwardness. I still hadn’t told her about any of it, not even that first kiss on my birthday. She suspected something, I could tell, but she hadn’t asked, and I hadn’t offered. I was too conflicted—and now too ashamed—to explain myself, even to her.
Jesse and I barely glanced at each other when he walked into the living room a few hours later. Hannah filled the void, just as I’d predicted, telling us all in great detail about her resolution to read a book every week for the next year, fifty-two books in fifty-two weeks. As she rambled, my whole family huddled around Jesse and the TV.
“I’m pretty excited about how it turned out,” Jesse said, sounding anxious as he inserted a disc and fidgeted with the settings on the screen. “But don’t be afraid to offer up any constructive criticism. You all need to be happy with it, too, of course.”
We all fell silent as the video started playing—a shot of my house with the rising sun glowing just behind it, squares of light shining from my bedroom window and the kitchen, where my mom was probably standing, pouring her first mug of coffee.
And then, in a blink, it was my face, my voice. “I wake up every morning and the first thing I think, every single time, is I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby.” I was sitting at my desk, my hair still wet from my shower, just about to read through the newest website posts. “At first, in the beginning, that was a bad thing. Like I was waking up from a nightmare, and then I’d remember that it was my reality and I’d want to pull the covers over my face and hide from everything for the rest of my life.” I smiled as the camera zoomed in, a small, sad smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “But it started getting easier every day, a little bit more and more. Now when I wake up, I think I’m having a baby! and I remember that I’m not alone in my bed, that there’s this little human being right there inside me. I hope that every mom feels that. That every mom feels like her baby is her own special miracle, just like I do.”
I talked about Iris next, though I didn’t use her name, and I didn’t reveal everything she had said either, or all the little, more peripheral details—the way she dressed, the way she talked, the way the blue of her old veins had almost shone through her translucent skin. Somehow it didn’t feel right to tell the camera everything. I wanted to keep most of Iris for myself. But I did explain, of course, that she’d left me with a cryptic message about the world’s troubles, and about the mysterious baby to come. I told them about the dream I’d had that night, the symptoms that popped up one by one soon after. Watching myself on the screen now, studying each tiny twitch, I could see fear etched on my face, but there was more than that—reverence, maybe. Awe.
From there, viewers would quickly get a heavy dose of the many low points to come—me reading some of the more disturbing online posts, including a note that suggested I actually be crucified in public, both as my punishment and as a lesson to others. “If we let her go, we’re just begging God for an apocalypse.” There were many less sinister, just plain cruel posts, too, about my baby weight, about how ugly and pathetic I was, about how desperate I must be for any kind of attention. I wasn’t crying while I read any of them out loud, which I was proud of—I looked surprisingly calm, actually, just exhausted.
The camera moved on as Jesse guided us through a standard day, Gracie chattering about baby names over frozen waffles, blatant stares and whispers as we navigated the hallway to my locker. I pulled out a note that had been wedged in the locker vent, tossing it on the ground without bothering to read it. I hadn’t realized at the time, but Jesse had panned the camera down and focused on the sloppily scrawled message: You’re not special. You’re just a slut. Not one of the more eloquent letters, but at least not as damning as some. There was a rapid montage of me in classes—a lot of yawning and staring off into space, slouched at my desk and avoiding any kind of student or teacher interaction. Doing my best to be invisible. I hadn’t realized how obvious I’d made it that I was so completely detached from all of it—except for one brief slip in European History, the frown on my lips as I looked down at the graded exam that had just landed on my desk, a bright red C at the top.
As difficult as it was to see myself on film—my expressions, the way the world responded around me—the interviews that followed were even harder to watch. Jesse had done most of the shooting without me in the room, so the footage was new to me.
“It’s hard to be in school sometimes because of what some of the other kids say.” Gracie was curled up in a ball on the sofa in our living room, her little fingers twisting the frayed blanket on her lap as she avoided looking up at the camera. “Like today . . .” She paused, and I could tell from the pink in her cheeks that she was trying her best not to cry for the recording. “Today someone asked me how I can still love my sister when she’s such a liar. They said I was just as bad as her for going along with everything, and that our whole family should just leave Green Hill. Even my best friend won’t talk to me, but you know what? That’s okay, because I don’t want to talk to her, either. I can’t be friends with anyone who is mean to Mina.”
“Are you excited, then? About the baby?” Jesse’s voice came quietly from behind the camera, prompting her.
Gracie’s eyes lit up. “Of course I’m excited! I’m going to be an aunt! I know that Mina is really young to have a baby . . . and that there’s been a lot of bad things happening because of it. But I think that this baby happened for a reason, and that it’s meant to be this way. And I also think that Mina is special. This baby will be special. I just want to be the best sister and the best aunt I can be, because Mina needs me. My family needs me.”
My mom came next, talking about how she had believed me from the very first second—trusted with her all-knowing motherly intuition—and how proud she’d been to watch me, my transformation from daughter into mother. My dad was more vague regarding what he believed or didn’t believe about my story, but he trembled as he admitted that he’d turned his back on me for too long. He’d let his own expectations get in the way of protecting and supporting me.
“I will never, ever abandon my own family again,” he said, staring unblinking into the camera, even as his voice broke and a stream of tears ran down his cheek. “Not for anything. Not even for a moment. I’ve learned a very valuable lesson from my role in all this.”
I looked over at him as the video played, at his face hidden behind his palms, hands kneading into his tired eyes, and I felt myself step toward him. I had already forgiven him that night on the porch. Or at least I’d said the words out loud then, because I’d wanted to wash it all off. I’d wanted to take us back to normal as quickly as possible. But I felt it again now—I really felt it. We—every one of us in that room—had learned lessons. We were all changed, and we were probably better people because of it. My dad wasn’t perfect, but he was trying his best. That was all any of us could do.
“I forgive you,” I whispered, wrapping an arm around his waist as I leaned into his chest. “It’s time for you to forgive yourself, too.”
He didn’t say anything back, but he didn’t have to. He hugged me, and we stayed like that, tangled up together, as the footage played on.
Hannah was up then, telling the camera about the day I took the pregnancy test, the first moments of realization for her and for me. It hadn’t been easy, she said, none of it, but staying by my side was the right thing to do. I had been so strong and courageous that it had inspired her to be strong and courageous, too, even if that meant losing every other friend she had. Or more accurately, “redefining friendship and what loving someone unconditionally actually means, when you strip it out of the hypothetical and give it real-life context.”
Jesse flipped the camera around to himself after that, and I tensed, surprised to suddenly see him staring out of the screen. I didn’t recognize the backdrop behind him, but based on the numerous overlapping movie posters tacked along the wall, I suspected it was his bedroom. I hadn’t realized, not until that moment, that I’d never actually been to his house and that our friendship was so conspicuously one-sided. The thought made the guilty knot in my stomach twist even tighter, and I watched his warm, adorably sincere face while he described Iris and that night we first met. He swore that even though we’d worked together through the summer, we’d never had a real conversation until a few months ago. We had been complete strangers at the time I would have conceived.
“I came to this school not knowing anyone, and Mina . . . she took me in. I may have only known her since this fall, so I can’t comment on her past here and her reputation through the years, but I know who I’ve seen—I know this Mina, today and now, and she’s one of the strongest, sweetest, most genuine and good people I’ve ever met.” He smiled, distracted, as he swiped a hand through his knotty curls. “I hate that our friendship has started even more rumors about her and the baby, and honestly, if I were the father, I’d be proud to admit it. Any guy should be with a girl like Mina. But I’m not, at least not biologically speaking. Emotionally, though . . . emotionally I already know that I would do anything to keep both of them safe. So maybe I’m protective like a father, and care like a father, but I’m not—I am not the father. And I don’t think we’ll ever fully understand who is.”
