He sets his cup down. “Let me walk you, then.”
“No need. Paige is going to walk me.” Paige comes to my side.
Kai leans in and kisses me on my lips. “I’ll be home in an hour.”
I nod.
The crisp spring air at night swirls around me, making me shiver. I forget how cold it can get at night. Each small gust of wind makes me regret not bringing a sweater.
“Were you having fun?” I ask Paige.
“Kind of.”
“Why, kind of?” I cross my arms to warm myself up. She stayed around me the whole night. Which is unusual given she’s usually out dancing and starting conversations with everyone.
“I’m starting to have feelings for Owen, but I’m getting the feeling he’s more of a fuck boy than a relationship kind of guy.”
“Why do you think that?”
She shrugs her shoulders, waiting for me to open my front door. “I’ve asked him to hang out with just the two of us, and he always has an excuse.”
I kick off my shoes and take a seat on our loveseat. A couple of weeks after Kai and I moved in, we went furniture shopping. We started at a home furniture store to check out the prices ofnew furniture, but we laughed and nearly cried at the cost of small couches. So, we turned around and headed to a thrift store. Our living room is quite small, fitting only a loveseat and a tiny entertainment center. We put our TV in the living room and found a cheap DVD player at the thrift store. It beats paying full price for everything.
Paige comes and sits right next to me.
“Have you guys done anything together?”
“We kissed.” She pauses. “That’s the thing. Other guys would have tried to get into my pants, but not him. He actually respects me, so I thought he liked me, but he never wants to hang out.”
“That is weird,” I say through a yawn. “At least you’re over Jace. I thought that would never end.” Paige finally had it with Jace a few months ago. She blocked his number, deleted him from Myspace, and burned all of the things she had from him. I’m sure Owen may be the reason for her getting over Jace.
“Me neither.” She sighs. “I can’t believe I let him treat me like that. Like I was some doormat where he could come and go whenever he pleased.”
We both burst out in laughter.
“Shut up. I didn’t mean it like that.” She wipes the tears that fell from laughing off her face.
I like these simple talks with my best friend. Despite me being pregnant and so much changing, our bond remains the same. In the back of my mind, I worry once the baby is here, we won’t hang out anymore. Both of our lives are going to be so different. She gives me some normalcy for a sixteen-year-old. A normalcy I’ll need once the baby gets here. So much has changed in such a short amount of time. She’s the only constant thing from my past that remains.
“What can I help you both with?” the Planned Parenthood representative asks
“I would like to get on birth control,” Paige says.
“Both of you—” She stops mid-sentence as her eyes find my belly.
I tighten my lips together as she looks back at me and smiles slightly.
If this had happened a couple of months ago, my face would have turned a shade of tomato-red. Once I started showing, it took me a while to not be so embarrassed when people would look at me. Now, I don’t care. They truly don’t know me, or my age. If anything, I could be one of those girls who is in their twenties with a baby face. I ignore everyone who stares at me. If I catch someone staring hard, I give them a wide grin and continue on.
She grabs a brown clipboard, clips a paper onto it, and hands it to Paige. “I’ll need you to fill this out.”
“I thought the workers here knew you?” Paige wondered.
“Why would they know me?”
“Isn’t this where you go for your ultrasounds?” We both take a seat.
“No. I came one time to confirm my pregnancy. Then they told me to go to the Community Health Center to continue myprenatal care.” The health center helps low-income families with no insurance. They helped me get on Medicaid to cover my prenatal visits, and once the baby is here, she’ll be covered, too.
