Summer Vacation

Chapter 6

Ricky is on the Right.

6

After I got off the phone with Tyrell, I called my brother. I asked him if we could come stay with him for the weekend and he agreed. He admitted that he was getting lonely living in the apartment by himself and that he would love for us to come by. My parents come home not too much later and told me all about the concert. They asked what I had done and I told them that Erica had come over to spend the night with me and that she was still here. They were a little irked that I had company over and didn’t bother to tell them about it, but they didn’t get overly upset since it was just Erica.

My mom caught me by myself and asked me about her a little while later while I was in my room packing my things.

She knocked gently against my open door and came in, “Hey.”

I turned around and smiled, “Hey Ma.”

She looked around my room, “You’re packing a lot of clothes for a weekend trip to your brother’s house.”

“It’s a week trip Ma, not a weekend trip. I’ll be back by this time next week.”

She looked at me suspiciously, “I could have sworn Richard told me that you were only coming down for a few days.”

I rolled my eyes to avoid looking at her, “A few days is a long time when you live by yourself.”

She shrugged, “I guess that’s true,” she closed my door and I looked at her. That was never a good sign.

She lowered her voice, “What’s wrong with Erica, Shaina?”

I adverted my glance, “What are you talking about? She’s fine.”

I walked around the room looking for some invisible object I didn’t really need. My mother just watched me, “So you randomly decide to go visit your brother for a week with Erica?” When I didn’t respond she continued a bit more heatedly, “Do I look stupid to you Shaina?”

When I didn’t reply this time, she sent me a fierce glare and snatched the shirt in my hand away, “Answer my question Shaina Mariah! Do I look stupid to you? You really expect me to believe that you all of sudden just want to go see Richard when you haven’t ever wanted to go with us, not once, to see him. Each and every time we basically had to drag you there. Now you’re suddenly planning to spend a whole week with him with Erica? I’m not stupid Shaina Mariah and you’re not going to lie to me like I am. So you’re going to sit down and tell me what the hell is going on before I decide to take that pretty little Ford back to the dealer.” She threatened.

I looked at my mother and quickly weighed my options. I could lie to her and risk losing my car, because I know from experience that her treats are not empty. Or I could tell her the truth. She probably wouldn’t agree with me. In fact her solution would probably be to call Erica’s mother and let her know, but that would kill Erica. If Erica is actually pregnant she should be the one to tell her mom, not mine. But… not telling my mother the truth would mean severe consequences and I’d like to think that my mother is decent enough to let Erica talk to her mother. I’m confident that she could stay quiet until Erica was sure whether or not she was actually pregnant or not. I mean, the pill is effective, but trying to handle situations after the fact is always much harder than being preventative in the first place. Still though, there’s a good chance that she’s not.

I took a deep breath, “Erica might be pregnant.”

My mother just stared at me, “What?”

“Yeah. Erica…might be pregnant.” I repeated.