I wanted to tell Emily that at nine weeks, a fetus can wrap his tiny fingers around his nose and toes. At fourteen weeks, which was about how far along Emily was, a fetus learns to suck his thumb.
“Shouldn’t we talk to your mom?” I asked.
“No!” she blurted. “No one can know.”
“What does Jacob think?”
She glanced up at me, her eyes watering. “He can’t know either.”
“But it’s his baby.”
“But it’s my body.”
I rubbed my chest, squeezing my T-shirt. “What happened? Didn’t you use a condom?”
She smiled sadly. “This one time it kind of slipped off and Jacob didn’t notice until we were finished.”
I paced around in circles until Emily told me to stop. My face felt stretched and stung from tears. I could tell I was getting on her nerves. I could tell she thought I was immature. But this was a living, soon-to-be breathing person we were talking about. A new life.
“Could you put the baby up for adoption?” I asked.
“Jacob wouldn’t go for that. That’s why he can’t know.”
“Why did you sleep with him?”
She lifted her hands. “Because I love him and wanted to be with him. Isn’t that obvious?”
The thought of saving myself for my future husband—the person who would love me and understand me better than anybody—thrilled me. I can’t wait to share myself with a guy someday.
“Don’t you think you’ll love the baby you made with him?”
She let out a sob. Cried for a minute straight. She loved the baby growing inside her.
She said, “I want my future. I want to compose music and play for the National Symphony. I want that.”
I sketch the flowerbeds and grass around Emily’s front porch.
That day, I silently prayed to God, asking for help. And right then, Emily picked a few white clovers out of the ground. She started tying them together, like when we were kids. She and I would sit outside for hours, singing songs while making flower bracelets and necklaces and rings.
I watched as she made a bracelet, and smiling a slight smile, she handed it to me. I slipped it over my hand, onto my wrist. I knew Emily was still the same ole Emily, even if she’d changed in D.C. She was my friend who I loved.
I sat beside her on the step and hooked my arm through hers. “Your secret’s safe. I’m here.”
Megan’s calling us back to training now, but before I put my pencils away, I draw the clover bracelet, looping it around my wrist.
never have i ever
friday, june 1 ~ week 1 of 7
After two hours of ethics, and in a very un-camping-like move, Megan announces we’re having pizza delivered for dinner.
“Really?” Eric says, throwing his hands in the air before going back to cleaning supplies in his tackle box. He must be pissed we’re not out hunting deer with bows and arrows and grilling it up. This isn’t Beowulf, Eric. It’s 2012!
“Everyone give Matt your topping preference,” Megan says.
With my hands in my back pockets, I approach the picnic table where he’s hovering over a sheet of paper with a laughing Andrea. She touches his elbow and whispers in his ear while I stand there.
He clicks his pen, edging away from her. “What’ll you have, King Crab Kate?”
“Pepperoni and mushrooms, Miniature Poodle Matt.”
Grinning, he writes my order down in shaky cursive. It’s cute.
“Anything else?” Andrea asks me. She moves so close to him she might as well sit on his lap.
“Nope.”
“We’ll tell you when the food gets here,” she replies, and goes back to acting like I don’t exist.
“Thanks,” Matt says to me, fumbling with his pen. He glances up at my face. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you with that whole riding in your pouch thing.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I have no idea what you meant, but it’s okay.”
“I have no idea what I meant either.” He smiles, pushing the pen behind his ear. He places his palms on the picnic table and leans toward me. “So you’re going to Belmont this fall—”
“Let’s start unpacking supplies,” Megan interrupts, so I smile at him before moving away. We all start sorting through big white boxes of camp T-shirts, games, spatulas, frying pans. I dig right into the new paints and crayons, and start surveying the arts and crafts closet in the open-air pavilion. I have to admit, I love being surrounded by fresh air and listening to crickets and other bugs making their noises. It’s relaxing and I can let my brain float away into a world of colors.
I love painting and sketching. My Uncle Steve is a cartoonist and has been drawing political comics for The Tennessean for the past twenty years, but it doesn’t pay much—Uncle Steve has borrowed money from Daddy on occasion. Grandpa Kelly always says that drawings don’t get you anywhere in life, really, and while I spend lots of rainy Saturday afternoons doing watercolors and sketching, it’s something I do to de-stress. My parents think I have the ability to become a lawyer, like Daddy and Aunt Missy and Grandpa Kelly.
The truth is, I have no idea what I want to major in. Architecture, a career that requires a lot of math, aka something I am truly terrible at? Art, a career where I’d make no money? Interior design, like Mom? Pre-law track, like Daddy? I should decide soon: college starts in three months, after all, and if I could figure out what to do with my life, I wouldn’t waste time taking classes that won’t count toward my major.