I Know It's Over (18 page)

I do the only thing that will help. I catch a ride home with Keelor’s dad and start typing out an e-mail to Sasha. I know I’m supposed to leave her alone for a few days, but this is the best I can do. No voices. Just words.

There’s a knock on the door before I get far. “Nicholas?” Mom peeks her head around the door. “Can we talk?”

“I’m kinda in the middle of something.” I already have everything written out in my head and I don’t want to forget.

“Put that aside for a few minutes,” she says, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her.

I stop typing and glare at her. “So you’re not really asking.”

“Don’t be difficult.” Her voice tenses. She used to sound like this a lot just before the divorce.

I drain any hint of expression from my face as I swing around in my chair. Mom sits down on the edge of my bed with her hands resting on her knees. “I’d like to know what’s going on with you, Nicholas. You still haven’t explained what happened on Christmas Eve. I’m glad you can talk to your father, but we should be able to talk, you and I. You’re unhappy, that’s obvious.”

My chair creaks as I lean back and fold my arms in front of me. “Maybe it would help you if I talked about it,” I say flatly. “But it wouldn’t help me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t really want to know what’s going on. You just think you do.”

“That’s not true, Nicholas.” Mom’s eyes soften as her neck cranes forward. “I do want to know.”

And you know, I almost believe her. Almost but not quite. She probably still thinks this is about Dad and Bridgette—some big blowup we had on Christmas Eve and are in the middle of working through. Then she could be sympathetic and tell me that just because my father is self-centered at times doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love me.

“Mom, I’m trying to work things out for myself for now.” I give her the responsible tone so she won’t worry too much. “You can’t fix everything for me anymore. There are things I need to take care of for myself.”

Mom sighs and shakes her head. “I don’t know what to say to you.”

“Don’t worry so much.” I roll my eyes. “You take every little thing so seriously.” Okay, I know that’s not fair, and that this is no little thing but she keeps pushing me.

“Every little thing,” she repeats. The words make a pinging sound, like a leaky kitchen faucet.

“Here we go again.”
I mean it and I don’t.

Mom marches indignantly out of the room, closing the door snugly behind her, and I stare at the barely begun e-mail, trying to recapture my thoughts. I had it perfect in my head a few minutes ago, but now I’ll have to start over.

Sasha, I know you need time but I also need to hear from you. Maybe you think this is easy for me but it’s not. I was never even over you and there you were at my house telling me you were pregnant. I was mad at you. I shouldn’t have made you go. A lot of things should’ve happened differently than they did. I’m sorry for the things that are my fault and I want you to know that I do want what’s best for you—not just what’s best for me. I know you’ll tell me when you figure that out and I know this is harder for you than it is for me but it isn’t easy for me either. Nothing else matters right now. Please e me and let me know you’re ok.

Nick

I press send before I can change my mind and then IM Nathan and ask him what he’s doing on New Year’s. There’s too much time to kill while I’m waiting for Sasha’s reply. I feel like a monkey on speed, staring at the monitor with beady eyes and banging wildly on the keyboard. Next thing you know I’ll start shrieking and jumping around the room and Holland will burst in, hand me a banana, and start speaking to me in sign language.

I go downstairs before that can happen. I don’t want to run into Mom, but I’m going stir-crazy. Holland is talking on the phone and watching music videos in the living room. She tosses me the remote as I sit down and then walks away. I ride up and down the channels and land right where I started with Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.” It’s his best song and the music pounds in my chest and grabs me by the throat.

I love music that can do that. Just not now. I flick through channels for the next thirty minutes. Two minutes of
Entourage,
ninety seconds of
Battlestar Galactica,
three minutes of
Miami Ink.
After a while I don’t even know what I’m watching. The flipping itself is the activity. I don’t watch much TV normally. I don’t have time and 90 percent of the shows suck anyway. Today is no exception and the therapeutic effects of flipping wear off fast. Maybe it’s
Maury
that does it or maybe it’s cumulative. Whatever it is, I have to stop and check my messages.

I sprint upstairs to find Sasha’s reply waiting in my in-box. The subject line’s blank and I hold my breath as I open her e-mail:

Thanks, Nick. I know this isn’t easy for you. It’s not that I want to keep you in the dark or that I don’t want to talk to you. I’m just very confused right now. I talked to my mom after we got off the phone yesterday. She was more upset than mad—and not just because we were having sex but because we should’ve been protecting ourselves properly and she wishes that I’d gone to her about that. She said if she’d known about the accident she could’ve taken me to the drugstore for Plan B pills.

When she asked what I wanted to do I didn’t know what to say. She said some of the things you said about us being young and that having it would be very hard and she doesn’t want things to be hard for me. She also asked if you’d be involved if I had it and I said I didn’t really know. I know we need to talk about that and I promise I will try to consider your thoughts but first she’s going to take me to a clinic to speak with a counselor.

I’m really scared but it helps that she knows—and that she said she’d be there for me no matter what I want to do. Maybe I shouldn’t say this to you because I think it’s what you want too and I haven’t made up my mind yet but now I won’t feel like such a bad person if I can’t go through with it. Please give me a few more days and I promise I’ll come by and talk to you about it.

My dad doesn’t know anything yet. I’m not ready for that. Have you told your mom?

Sasha

I don’t reply right away. I sit down on my bed, the exact spot where Mom was sitting an hour ago. There’s nothing else I can do; I have to let Sasha figure out what she wants. Things feel different now that her mother knows. I’m glad, I guess—relieved—but the bad feelings don’t go. Maybe I should’ve told Sasha I’d be there for her no matter what. I mean, I can’t picture it. Our kid. But I know that if it comes down to it, I won’t be able to ignore it either. He or she will probably be at the school day care, three doors away from my math class. Sasha will be running in and out of there all day, checking on the kid while she tries to keep up with everything. She’ll have one of those giant diaper bag things people carry around and her parents will probably buy her a car to get them both to school. Her parents have money; they can do that. Money isn’t the issue here. The issue is me running into Sasha and the baby in the parking lot and in the hall, acting like they don’t have anything to do with me. It’s not right.

So it looks like I’m in. Parental visits to the Jasinski house. Babysitting maybe. It’s the only thing to do. And Sasha might not have the baby anyway. I crouch in front of the monitor and read her e-mail a second time. Her mom thinks it’d be better if she didn’t have it. I’d feel the same way if I were her mother. She wants Sasha to have the perfect future and this isn’t it. I’m the wrong guy and this is the wrong time. This isn’t anything like her life is supposed to turn out. She’s supposed to go to university, do Europe, and then start this incredible career. Abortion is so obviously the right thing to do that I feel like crying. This kid never had a chance from the start. They suction it out or something, right? I know it’s not a real baby, but it’s something and it’s not its fault. But that’s not the worst part about this. I don’t want that to happen to Sasha. Nobody should ever have to do that, but I can’t stand to think about it happening to her.

I sit down at the computer and type out this e-mail:

Sasha, I just want you to know that I’m ok with whatever you decide and that I will be involved if you decide to have it. I don’t know if that changes anything but I wanted you to know.

Nick

I mean it and that surprises me. Suddenly I also know that I can’t go to Buffalo with the team. Not only that, but I can’t say when I’ll be able to play hockey again. I lunge for the phone and dial Coach Howes. The coach’s usually solid voice bends with concern at my tight-lipped mention of personal problems. He’s really bighearted about the whole thing and doesn’t slam the door on the possibility of me rejoining the team later in the season. It helps me to hear that. They’re not just a collection of hockey players; they’re in the game together and that’s rarer than you’d think. But the hardest part is breaking the news to Keelor. I know he won’t let me do it without an explanation and my chest starts pounding again as I punch in his number, just like when I was listening to Eminem.

“I’m not going to Buffalo,” I blurt out. “I already called the coach and told him. I’m quitting the team—at least for a while. They’re calling up some guy to take my place. I don’t know how—”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Keelor cuts in. “Everybody has bad games, Nick. Okay, I know you’ve been having them a lot lately, but it won’t last. You’re too good to—”

“Shut up for a second, man. Just listen, all right?” I pause to make sure I have his attention. “This doesn’t have anything to do with hockey. It’s personal. Really personal. I don’t want anyone else to know this, you get me?”

“Yeah, sure, Nick. Of course.”

“Okay, then.” I swallow hard. “It’s Sasha—she’s pregnant.”

“You’re sure?” he asks gravely. “She might just be late. Stress can do that, you know. It can, like, throw their whole cycle off.”

“It’s been confirmed,” I tell him. “Twice.”

“Oh, shit.” His voice is heavy with dread. “Shit.” Yeah, that was my first reaction too. “Sorry, that’s not what I was expecting,” he continues. “So what is she gonna do? Do her folks know?”

“Her mom knows. She’s taking her for counseling—to help her figure out what to do.” I tell Keelor most of what’s happened since Christmas Eve. Saying it out loud cuts some of the tension in my stomach and I keep going, explaining about my dad wanting me to call him with an update and my mother on my case for being secretive. “I’m not ready to tell her yet,” I admit. “I need to disappear for the next few days.”

“You can still come with us,” he suggests. “The hotel’s already booked.”

“But everyone would wonder why I wasn’t playing.”

“You sure you can’t play? Maybe it’d be good for you. Kill some tension. You can’t hole up in your room forever. You said that was already making you crazy.”

“Everything’s making me crazy, but I can’t play. Trust me.”

“Got it,” Keelor says. “So then it’s Nathan’s place, isn’t it? Crash with him until we get back.”

“Yeah.” The thought of spending forty-eight hours with Nathan’s dad doesn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Nobody’s family is perfect, but the tension between Nathan and his dad is too close to the surface. I don’t know how Nathan lives with it day in and day out; I guess there are a lot of things you can do when you don’t have a choice.

I talk to Keelor for a few more minutes. Our conversation gives the situation a weird kind of normality that it didn’t have before. “I’ll call you when I get back,” he says. “And don’t think this gets you out of New Year’s.”

“I’m not in a party frame of mind,” I protest.

“We’ll just chill,” he promises. “We can leave early if you want.”

“Shut up. You know you never leave a party early.”

“Well, this time I will. Look, take it easy the next few days, okay? Maybe you should give the old man a call, make him feel useful.”

Maybe he’s right and maybe I will, but it’s Nathan I call next. Telling him is harder than telling Keelor because he understands right away. It’s not just about being scared shitless and I know he knows that. His voice is clear but quiet. “When’re you going to see her again?” he asks.

fifteen

I tell Holland
that I’ll be at Nathan’s for the next few days and swear her to secrecy. She gets mad all over again because I won’t tell her what’s going on. Believe me, I don’t even want to tell her about missing the tournament, but someone needs to know where I am. “If Sasha or Dad calls, tell them they can get me on my cell,” I instruct.

“Sasha?” Holland repeats. “Are you back together? Mom said she was here on Christmas Eve.”

“We’re not back together. We’re just friends.”

“Friends?” Holland says skeptically.

“Trying to be, okay, Holland?” I frown and dig my hands into my pockets. “You’re as bad as Mom sometimes, you know that? Can you mind your own business for five minutes?”

“You want me to lie for you, but you don’t want to tell me anything. You think that’s fair?”

“Okay, so do whatever you want.” I throw up my hands in defeat.

“God,” Holland growls. “Fine. Okay. Whatever you say, Nick. Just remember that you owe me.”

“Fine,” I growl back. I’m in a bad mood with almost everyone, but it’s worst with Mom and Holland. They’ve been talking about me, you see, trying to figure out what in the world is the matter with Nick. I expect that of my mother, but Holland should know better. I don’t talk about her behind her back.

I toss some clothes in my backpack and walk over to Nathan’s. It’s not snowing, but the wind is fierce and Nathan does a double take when he sees me. “Look at your face,” he says, motioning to the mirror behind him in the front hall.

I peer at my reflection and study my icy red cheeks. They don’t actually feel cold; they feel warm. “Christmas Eve was worse,” I tell him. “I’m fine.”