Short Stories

“Undecided”

by Bianca Wilson

I can feel his fingers crawling over the back of my neck like spiders, trying his hardest to be gentle as he swoops my hair behind my ear; all the while making my stomach float around with butterflies. He smells like chocolate chip cookies… like the homemade ones his mom used to make whenever I would come over to visit, which hasn’t been in a while. I’ve missed him… far too much than I would really care to admit right now. I can feel the imprint of his chest against my back as he wraps his strong, dark brown arms around me.

“Liv,” he whispers, tickling my ear with his breath. I can immediately feel myself starting to smile like an idiot. It’s the second week of February, and I already know what he’s bugging me about. The dance is this Friday, and he needs a date. Not like Cam has a hard time finding one, he’d just rather annoy me about it because he knows he can. He’s been hinting at it for a while

“Cameron,” I manage to make out, rolling my eyes before I let my fingers brush his hands away from my waist. I turn to face him and I’m trapped looking into those beautiful, piercing hazel eyes of his.  I haven’t seen him since he left me in his bed at five this morning. He mumbled something about an early meeting with his coach, but by now, I can tell when he’s lying. It still didn’t stop me from letting him kiss me on the forehead before he turned to leave. No call, no text. It’s been about seven hours since I’ve seen him today.

“Don’t be like that,” he mutters. Pulling me closer to him now, he is holding me tight, as I stumble my way into his arms, allowing myself to relax and enjoy the feeling of his skin against mine. It’s all for show. I can feel some random girl, who he’s probably been with already, staring a hole into the back of my head wondering how did I get so lucky. I feel the urge to cry, but I never do, not in public anyway. Besides, I guess I already knew what it was when I signed up to be his girlfriend.

“Where were you?” I mouth to him, trying as best as I can to be quite and discreet. His eyes are slightly low, and his breathe smells like a combination of weed and toothpaste.

“I was busy.”

“You’re always busy these days.”

“Liv, not right now.” He clenches his teeth at me, shifting his gaze to the girl who just can’t stop looking at us. I can feel my blood starting to boil and suddenly I don’t care who hears me.

“Maybe if you would’ve paid some attention to the time today, instead of getting high and paying attention to these skanks, you would’ve known that I missed my doctor’s appointment. You said you would take me today.” My voice isn’t super loud, but it’s loud enough for her to get the hint to stay out of our business. Now he’s the one burning a hole into my head. He pulls on my arm as he leads me out of the classroom. His grip is firm and tight on my forearm, but he’s snatched me up worse before.

“I thought you took care of it already.”

“I need to know what there’s to take care of before I do anything.”

The car ride to the hospital is long, and awkward. The music’s blasting and the windows are down. I can feel the wind slapping my face and the sun glaring hard into my eyes as the heat beats down on my head, from the sun roof. He’s fumbling with the steering wheel at every red light we come across. He knows just like I know, I’m pregnant. I’ve known for a little while, definitely longer than he speculated.

The wait for the results are just as long as the car ride. I can feel my palms sweating as I wipe them along the white and teal wrinkled gown, nurse Megan instructed me to put on. She said she would operate a regular checkup just to make sure my health is up to par. She told me that the abdominal pain and irritation in my vagina I questioned about, could come from a bad yeast infection I might not have known about. She took samples of my blood and she gave me a pee test; as well as swabbed my vagina. And now we wait. The room is small and closed in. I can tell Cam’s nervous, but I don’t understand why. He’s playing with the blinds, fumbling with the light switch, messing with just about anything, just as long as he doesn’t have to talk to me.

“Ms. Jones.” The nurse’s voice calls out to me, entering the room swiftly and quietly. Her voice echoes and bounces against the four walls in this tiny off yellow room. It sends a chill down my back and I can feel a sickening truth sink down to the pit of my stomach. Her dark brown eyes look like they’re holding back tears. She reminds me of my mom, with her small light brown hands that find a way to my knee. Cam glides behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders and squeezes down lightly.

“Am I pregnant?” I question, raising my eyebrows, undecided on how I would feel about it, if it were true. Cam and I haven’t been the same for a while, and it wouldn’t feel right to keep this child knowing, it doesn’t come from a place of love; but more from a place of hurt, confusion, pain, and history. But, on the other hand, I felt like in all my 20 years of living, somehow God placed it on my heart to be a mother.

“Yes.” She exhales, breathing hard as a tear escaped her left eye. Looking into her eyes, before I could breathe a word, she cuts me off.

“You came back positive for HIV, as well.”