Slowly We Trust (22 page)

“What?”

“That boy that you slept with. You’ll have to tell him so that he can get tested too, if this doesn’t work out.”

“Eddie. His name is Eddie.” She knew his name. We lived in a pretty small town and there hadn’t been a lot of people in my high school. Not to mention his father was on the school board.

Even if I had kept my daughter, my mom didn’t want to me to tell Eddie. Because then we’d have to deal with custody issues and so forth.

“I can’t believe you did this to me,” she said, shaking her head.

Those words uncorked something inside me and I finally lost it.

“Did this to
you
? Yes, Mom. I got drunk, had sex and got pregnant because I hate you. It’s all about you. God, I can’t believe you.” I stared out the window. My body shook, I was so angry. I could count the number of times I’d yelled at my mother on one hand.

“You can’t believe me? I can’t believe you! Going out and sleeping with that boy like a common slut. Like one of those girls who lives in that trailer park up the road. We raised you better.”

“You didn’t raise me at all! You just yelled at me and made everything I did seem shameful. I was just a kid and you made me feel awful. You never told me you loved me.” If I wasn’t careful, the anger was going to turn into hurt and I was already close to tears. I didn’t want her to see me cry. I never let my mother see me cry.

“That is ridiculous, Audrey. We told you we loved you. I’m not having this conversation with you anymore. This wouldn’t have happened if you’d just kept it in your pants. You let your hormones get the best of you and gave it up to some boy and then you dragged me and my sister into it. And now look where we are.”

Yes. Look at where I was. This was why I didn’t tell Will. Because I couldn’t deal with him looking at me the way my mom was looking at me. I closed my eyes and pressed my cheek against the cool glass of the window.

Audrey called me on Saturday night, her voice low so her parents wouldn’t hear. It was late, but I didn’t care. All I wanted was to hear her voice. Okay, so I wanted to see her and smell her skin and touch her hair and whole lot of other things, but if this was the best I could get, I’d take it.

“How did it go?”

“Fine. Everything was fine.” Her voice was flat, and I wished I could see her eyes to see if it was just the stress of being in her house that was making her act this way, or if it was something else.

“I wish you were here,” she said.

“Hey, I could get in my car and be there soon. Sneak in through your window. I’ve had a lot of previous window-climbing experience.” Kandy’s parents weren’t as strict as mine, but they sure as hell didn’t want their teenage daughter’s boyfriend sleeping over.

“That sounds wonderful, but I don’t want to risk it. For now, this is enough. Just hearing your voice. How was dinner?” I wanted to ask her more about how she was doing, but this was one of those times when she didn’t want to talk, so it was up to me.

“We had a session and Stryker tried to teach Simon how to play spoons. It did not go well. He kept fake-cursing and dropping them. Oh, and you should have seen the new boots Trish got. They have these little compartments in the heels so she can put things inside. I’m pretty sure she was hiding cigarettes and a lighter in there.”

“She’s been having a problem quitting,” she said, and I could finally hear the smile in her voice.

“And . . . what else? Oh, Simon’s out of the Resolution Game. And so is Max. So it’s you, me, Lottie, Zan and Stryker left now. I’m surprised that many of us are still going.” She laughed softly, more like an exhale. I saw her in my head, wearing a tank top and a ratty pair of shorts, her hair fanned out on her pillow. No doubt she had Harry Potter sheets with posters all over her wall and books stacked everywhere.

“I love you,” I said.

“I know,” she replied and I almost choked on a laugh.

“You know that’s a Star Wars reference? Han Solo says it to Leia.” She was definitely smiling now.

“I remember. I figure if I learn enough about your fandom, you’ll want to learn about mine.” It wasn’t that I didn’t like Harry Potter. I’d just never really read the books. I tried, but they just . . . I don’t know. They didn’t do it for me. But Aud was constantly bugging me to read them and she’d even said she would read them to me out loud. I’d suggested strip reading, where she took off an item of clothing for each chapter that I listened to. So far, she hadn’t gone for it.

“What are you wearing?”

She muffled a laugh.

“You’re such a perv, you know that? I’m not having phone sex with you.”

“I’m not asking you to have phone sex. I’m asking what you’re wearing. That’s a perfectly innocent question.” I was totally bullshitting her.

“Um, I’m wearing an old gray tank top that has a few holes on the hem. The material is so thin that if you hold it up to the light you can see right through it. I’m not wearing anything underneath it.” She knew what she was doing to me. I had to swallow hard. Simon was at Brady’s for the night. I flipped off my covers and said, “And what’s on bottom?”

“On bottom, a pair of equally thin shorts. They shouldn’t even be called shorts. They don’t cover much. I wouldn’t wear them in public because they show too much.”

I started stroking myself and I wondered if she was doing the same thing. The rustle of fabric sounded on her end of the line.

“Anything on under those shorts?”

“Um,” she said, inhaling softly. She was definitely doing what I thought she was doing. Fuck, this was hot.

“Nothing under them.” Her voice turned into a soft moan and I started moving my hand faster, unable to control the sounds that came from my mouth.

“What are you wearing?” she said, panting a little.

“Just a pair of boxers. No shirt.” I couldn’t make boxers sound sexy like she had.

“I miss you,” she said and I felt myself getting close.

“Shit,” I said as I came into my hand. “I miss you, too.”

She moaned a second later and then we were both silent. I got up and found a tissue to clean my hand off. I hadn’t planned on that being part of my evening, but fuck, I was glad she’d called.

“We’re doing this every time you’re away from me,” I said and she giggled, a low and sexy sound.

“It was good for me, too. I just hope my brother didn’t hear. But he’s got his TV on so loud he probably wouldn’t hear a bomb if it went off next to him.”

We talked about other things, little things and before I knew it, I was falling asleep to the sound of her voice.

A cheek swab. That was all it took to run the preliminary test to see if I was a bone marrow match. It used to be much harder.

My mother, father, brother and many of my other relatives had gotten tested as well. I was the last on my side and if this didn’t work, I’d have to tell Eddie. If neither of us was a match, then we would have to widen the search. I’d seen other families go on the news and ask for volunteers. The very idea of that happening made me shudder. Even though Maria lived in New Hampshire, and the chances of anyone seeing the story in Maine and connecting it to me were slim, I still worried.

I shouldn’t worry about that. I should be worried about my daughter. I was a horrible, selfish person. Sometimes I wondered if my mother was right about me.

But then I remembered when I’d first found out I was pregnant and my very first thought was that I couldn’t give this baby what she needed. I wanted her to have something better. I didn’t want to marry Bryan, the boyfriend I’d cheated on, and live in an apartment in my parents’ basement and finish high school by correspondence and be stuck in some dead-end job for my whole life. That wasn’t the life I wanted, and that wasn’t the life I wanted for my daughter.

She could have something better. She could wake up every day knowing that someone loved and adored her. She could go to playdates and take ballet classes or karate and have parents who would ooh and ahh over every one of her drawings and tell her that she could be anything she wanted, and would never judge her for being who she was.

She wouldn’t have to live up to expectations. She’d make her own.

So I’d decided to give her up. I knew it was the right thing then, and I knew it was the right thing now.

That didn’t make the situation any easier.

Mom had taken me to lunch after we’d gone to the hospital, and it was a meal full of silent judgment. She could still barely look at me.

“You’d better hope you’re a match so you don’t have to find that boy and tell him.” As if I’d let my daughter die rather than confront Eddie. I didn’t even respond.

All I wanted was to go back to school and pretend this weekend never happened. Trish was supposed to pick me up Sunday morning, even though she hated mornings with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. I couldn’t thank her enough for being there for me.

She arrived wearing a pair of aviators and with two giant steaming cups in her cupholder. I didn’t even say goodbye to my parents and Marco only grunted at me as I passed by him.

“Morning, bitch. How was it?” She handed me one of the cups and I sipped it, not really caring what it was. Coffee. Black as sin coffee. I took another sip before I answered.

“Awful.”

“Families sometimes are.” I nodded and she pulled away.

Will was waiting in front of my building as Trish dropped me off. He wrenched the car door open and before I knew it, he was picking me up and kissing me so hard, I thought he was going to puncture my lip with one of his teeth. He kissed me until I was gasping for air.

Someone cleared her throat loudly behind us.

“You two are disgusting, you know that? I can’t even look at you.”

“Fuck off, Trish,” Will said, not looking away from my face as he set me down.

“Oh, go fuck yourself, Will.” He just smiled. “I did last night,” he whispered in my ear. I knew he had. So had I.

“Thanks again, Trish. I owe you,” I said, tearing my eyes away from Will. She had her surly face on again.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I’ll see you tonight. Now you can go fuck each other.” She hopped in the truck and drove away.

“I know you’re probably supposed to be doing homework, but can we have sex first?” Will said, dragging me toward the door so he could get me upstairs.

“Yes, we can have sex first. And food. There should also be food.”

“Yeah, yeah, but sex first. Oh no, I think someone is chasing us. We should get to your room as quickly as possible to avoid being brutally murdered. Ready?” We both took off when we got through the front door of the building and headed for the stairs.

I didn’t deserve to be this happy.

That evening, I was busy thinking of how I should contact Eddie. If I should call him, or if this was something we should do in person. He was easy to find online, and he’d posted his contact information on his Facebook page. I had a blank email document open, but I hadn’t typed a thing.

“You look like you’re going to break your brain with all that concentrating,” Will said, making me jump.

“Sorry, just thinking.”