Rising From the Ashes

10. Chick Friends

“Shit.” Jasmine swore under her breath as she stared at the blue stick I was holding. “Shit. Nat, it can still be okay. Those tests lie sometimes. I bought a few more.” She reached into the bag she brought with her to pull out three more sticks, all with different brand names on them.

“What, did you buy out the grocery store?” I joked weakly, my hand trembling slightly. I hoped and prayed that the other three tests would show a negative result, but somehow, almost intuitively, I know that it wouldn’t happen. With the blue stick in my head declaring the one possibility I have been much too scared of to consider, I was forced to admit that, over the past few weeks, I have shown every single textbook symptom of pregnancy that I had previously learned in sex ed class. I should’ve known better.

I took the sticks from her hands and let Jasmine urge me into the bathroom, knowing that doing this would at least buy me a few more minutes before forcing to admit that my life had just turned itself around. I forced my reluctant body to squeeze out some more fluid and waited for another few minutes, these ones not nearly as long and agonizing than when I didn’t yet know. Still, this bought me a few more minutes from having to actually figure out what I was doing.

Unfortunately, the time was short lived. Jasmine lifted the covers from the tests, revealing a bright blue glow emitting from all of them. “I’m sorry, Nat. I thought it might help.”

“It did.” I replied quietly. “It was the last time I could pretend this didn’t actually happen.”

At the sound of my voice, Jasmine’s hands tightened into fists, her expression turning into one of rage. “I am going to murder that fucking asshole! You should turn him over to the cops, that’ll do him justice!”

“I won’t,” I said calmly, slightly quelling her rage as she stared at me questioningly. “I thought about it before, when I realized what Jace actually did. Took me a couple weeks to even get to that point.” I smiled bitterly as I thought about how stupid I was, and how long it took me to realize that the whole party incident wasn’t completely my fault. I still blamed myself, but thankfully, it was to a slightly lesser extent now that the rose-colored goggles finally fell off. “His daddy’s going to pay his way out of it, and, realistically, I can’t prove that anything actually happened. Every single person we know is going to say that we’ve been going out and I’m probably just bitter because he dumped me. I’m going to have cops asking me awkward questions I don’t even want to hear from my doctor or best friend, and in the end, nothing’s going to happen to him while I lose the last of my dignity.”

“I’m sorry, Nat.” Jasmine said after mulling over my words, biting her lip to attempt to conceal the obvious anguish in her eyes.

“Don’t be.” I replied, a tone harsher than I had originally intended to. “You and Mike told me time and time again that he wasn’t good for me and was going to break my heart, and I went for it anyway. It’s my fault this happened.”

“It’s never your fault!” Jasmine shouted fiercely, surprising me with the volume of her voice and causing me to flinch involuntarily. At my reaction, her voice softened, and she moved closer to me to give me a soft hug. “No one deserves to be treated like that, so even if you picked the wrong guy, the most that should’ve happened is that he played with your feelings a bit and went back to Melissa, not…not this!”

“I’ll keep that in mind for next time.” I said dryly, a thought of Nick involuntarily popping into my head. I chased it away, knowing that any interest Nick might’ve had toward me would be easily quelled the second he found out I was pregnant. Unless, of course, no one except Jasmine ever found out…I had no idea what I was going to do.

“So what are you going to do now?” My best friend said, voicing my thoughts.

“I’m not sure, Jasm.” I ran my fingers along my soft comforter, attempting to calm myself. “If I have a kid, that’s saying no to university, to finding someone in the future, to basically making a life for myself, you know? But on the other hand, now that I know I’m actually,” I hesitated before saying the word, drawing in a long breath, “pregnant, it’s almost like I can see the kid in the future, and even though he’s from Jace and everything, it’s like he, or she I guess, is alive.”