Hate You, Love You. | Jenlisa

70

"What Suga said about Nancy. Did she really have an abortion?" What I really want to ask is 'Did you father Nancy's baby?' but I don't want to be too direct and I don't know if she'd entertain that.

"That's why you've been avoiding me?"

"I wasn't–"

She rolls her eyes. "I've known you for 4 years, Princess," her gaze flickers to me. "You're a terrible liar."

Everyone says that!

"Are the rumors true?" I question again, determined to get a straight answer from her for once. "Did you father Nancy's baby?"

She pauses and makes no attempt to answer my question–well questions, instead her gaze is fixed on something else. "Nancy and I have a complicated history," she finally says. "We went through a lot of shit together, probably moreso than most teenagers."

"Oh."

Still doesn't answer my questions.

She grabs another punch from the table, her fingers gripping the plastic almost to the point that the contents would spill and make a mess of her pristine white shirt.

"We've been on again and off again for 4 years and it has been tumultuous. I guess you can say that from the beginning, the relationship was based on convenience, not necessarily because we liked each other."

If I'm going with Nancy's reaction to seeing Lisa kissing another girl at the hotel's club, I'd say that's inaccurate. But, I don't tell her this and instead just listen.

"If you think about it, it actually worked, in a cliché, 90's teenage romcom way. I'm the captain of the basketball team, she's the head cheerleader, so I guess it was only 'natural'," she air quotes. "For us to be together."

"We weren't faithful to each other; she fucked other people behind my back, including the Calculus teacher," she chuckles bitterly. "And I retaliated by fucking other girls too. That was just how our dynamic was."

I flinch a little at the fact that she said she has slept with other girls. I already knew that she had done that through hallway gossip but to have her confirm it with her own mouth makes me feel a little bit jealous.

She doesn't look at me, instead she has her face angled towards the crowd in front of us. I take a quick peek at her face and she looks solemn–a look I've never seen her sport before. Usually, at least when she's with me, she's either cheeky, cocky, irritating, sometimes rude or downright flirtatious. But now it's like a dark cloud over her head.

"One summer morning, Nancy came over to my house and said she was pregnant. Even showed me the pregnancy tests with the two pink lines and said it was mine." She shakes her head. "I was in complete shock. I was 16 at the time and definitely not prepared to be a father."

She turns to the side and looks at me, analyzing my placid expression before continuing. "I told her that I didn't believe it was mine because she was seeing other people behind my back. We had a big fight and she accused me of being a coward and not taking responsibility for my actions."

Shit.

"After our massive blow up, I had time to think things through and called her over. We had a talk and she swore it was my baby and I believed her. Even said I'd follow her to the doctor for a scan and get the prenatal stuff that I read about online."

She holds my gaze. "Do you know what she told me?" I shake my head.

"She said she was getting rid of the baby." My breath hitches in my throat. "She said she didn't want to be a mother so early on in life and since I didn't believe that the baby was mine, then there was no point in keeping it."