Hummingbird Heart (20 page)

In the kitchen, Toni was mixing Peach Schnapps with orange juice from the fridge. She handed a glass to me and offered another to Jax.

He made a face. “You have any beer?” He opened the fridge, grabbed a beer—one of the ones Scott left—and cracked it open.

In the living room, the volume of the
TV
suddenly dropped to a soft murmur. I could practically feel Karma's big ears twitching.

“Toni got some movies,” I said.

“Cool.” Jax yawned. “Jeez. I'm tired. Worked practically every night this week.” He winked at me. “Except one.”

I felt myself blush and looked away. The doorbell rang again.

“That'll be Jessica and Ian,” Toni said. She downed her drink in one gulp and disappeared down the stairs.

Jax watched her leave. “Your friend likes to have a good time, huh?”

I wondered if he was wishing I was more like her. “Yeah. She's a lot of fun. We've been friends since we were kids.”

“I moved around too much for that,” Jax said. “Changed school every couple of years. So, you know, you make friends and say goodbye. No point in getting too attached.”

“You think you'll stay here? To finish high school?”

“Oh yeah, sure. Probably.” He rummaged in his bag. “I brought some weed. Wanna—?”

I clapped my hand over his mouth and whispered in his ear. “My little sister is in the living room, listening to every word.”

“Oh. I mean, I was going to do some weeding…um. But it rained.”

I giggled. “Weeding, huh?”

“Right. Maybe you could help? I mean, if it stops raining?” He pulled out a pack of rolling papers.

I glanced at the flour jar where Mom kept her stash. She didn't know that I knew about it, but she's had the same hiding place for at least five years. Toni and I took some a few times, just to try it, when we were thirteen. It didn't do a whole lot—just made me kind of relaxed and a bit hungry. I didn't really see why people were so into it, but if I had to do something, I'd rather smoke up than drink.

I looked at Jax and grinned. “Want to come to my room?”

“Oooh baby.”

“Shut up.”

He laughed. “Lead the way.”

TW
en
TY-O
ne

My bedroom window was the old-fashioned kind that slides open from the bottom up. Jax and I knelt on my bed and leaned out, cupping our hands over the joint and blowing the smoke into the rain. I kept thinking about what he'd said about Toni and wondering if he thought I was too serious and too uptight.

Jax butted out the tiny end of the joint on the window ledge and banged the window closed. His hair was hanging over his face, dripping water onto my pillow. I could hear voices from down the hall. I pushed my own wet hair back behind my ears and giggled. “The others are going to wonder what we've been doing.”

Jax grinned. He leaned back against the wall and pulled me toward him. His lips were cold on mine, his teeth hit mine awkwardly and his mouth tasted like smoke. I pulled away. “Not now. Come on, everyone's in the kitchen.”

“Okay, okay.”

Whatever we'd just smoked must have been stronger than what my mom smoked. My thoughts were little bubbles that kept popping before they were fully formed. I giggled all the way to the kitchen. Jax's hand rested at my waist, his fingers laced through my belt loops.

“Where'd you two disappear to?” Toni took two more of Scott's beers out of the fridge, handed them to Jax and Ian, and poured another inch of Schnapps into her own glass.

“Nowhere.”

Jessica grinned at me knowingly, and I racked my brain for a topic of conversation. “Um, so did you hear about that oil spill? In Howe Sound?”

Everyone looked at me blankly. Toni laughed and took a swig of Schnapps and OJ. “Dylan, you slay me.”

“I'm…” I was about to say I was serious but bit off the words just in time. “You guys want to watch a movie?”

My brain wasn't working properly at all. Toni had put on a comedy, which looked like it should require about three brain cells to watch, and I couldn't follow the story at all. I was definitely stoned. Jax drummed out the soundtrack on my thigh, his fingers tapping lightly. My leg felt like it belonged to someone else.

Toni was squished against my other leg, the three of us squeezed together on the couch. Ian was sitting straight-backed and cross-legged on the floor, and Jessica was curled up beside him. On the
TV
screen, a pregnant woman was sobbing wildly. She appeared to be at a funeral. Toni suddenly got up and dashed down the hall, muttering something about the washroom. I snuck a sideways glance at Jax. He was watching the movie, his eyes and teeth gleaming in the light of the television.

Karma kept staring at me from across the living room. She was making me nervous. I felt like I was setting a bad example or something, even though I wasn't really doing anything at all. Jax's hand was still on my leg, and I could feel Karma watching his every move.

I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but the funeral was over and the movie characters were in a restaurant now. It seemed like Toni had been gone for ages. I put my hand over Jax's. “Be right back,” I whispered.

I finally found Toni in my bedroom. She was sitting on the floor, crying.

“What's wrong?” I asked, horrified. Toni never did things like this. Besides, she'd seemed fine earlier, and nothing could have happened since then.

She didn't answer. I grabbed a Kleenex from the box on my dresser and knelt beside her. “Talk to me, Toni.”

Toni studied the Kleenex for a minute like she'd never seen one before. Finally she took it and blew her nose into it. Her mascara was streaked down her cheeks in two dirty rivers. “This sucks. I'm sorry.”

“It's okay. Really.” The sick selfish part of me felt good that Toni needed me for once. Lately it seemed like I'd been the one having all the problems.

“I hate girls who get drunk and cry at parties.” Toni gave a shaky laugh that turned into a sob.

“This isn't a party,” I reminded her.

She sounded as if she was choking. “Dylan, you're so weird sometimes.”

“I know.”

We sat side by side on the floor. From down the hall, I could hear voices and laughter from the
TV
. “Please tell me what's wrong,” I whispered.

Toni wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged them to her chest. She stared down at the carpet for a long moment before she turned her head to the side and met my eyes. “I think I'm pregnant.”

“Oh. Oh, Toni.”

“Yeah.”

The wind was blowing the rain sideways, and it splatted in big heavy drops against my window.
Tap tap tap
. Jax's fingers against my thigh, the sound of my thought bubbles popping. I had an awful urge to giggle. “I'm stoned,” I told Toni apologetically. “If I seem odd…”

“Yeah, I kind of noticed.”

There was a long silence and I tried to concentrate. “Jeez. So, are you sure? I mean, you could just be late, right?”

“I'm never late.”

“How late are you?”

“Two weeks. At first I kept thinking maybe I'd just mixed up my dates, or, I don't know. Hoping I'd start my period. Trying not to think about it.” She looked at me. “But tonight I started to feel kind of queasy. And my boobs hurt. That's bad, right?”

I'd never even been a week late. Not that I had a reason to keep track. “That sucks, Toni. I mean, that really, really, really…”

“Sucks. Yeah.”

We sat in silence for a moment. I couldn't imagine how freaked out I'd be if it was me. I felt like I was in a movie or something, like this wasn't our real lives. “I guess if you really are pregnant, you'll have an abortion, right?”

Toni looked away. “I don't know. I guess, probably.”

“What other choice is there?”

“Duh.”

She couldn't be serious. “You can't have a
baby.
”

“Why can't I?”

“Well, because. Because you're sixteen.” I couldn't believe she was even considering it. “What does Finn say?”

There was a long, long silence. Finally Toni sniffed a bit, wiped her nose again, and rubbed her hands across her eyes, leaving black smeary circles around them. “I haven't told him.”

“You haven't? Why not?”

“I haven't told anyone. Just you.”

“Yeah, but—well, you have to tell Finn. I mean, it's kind of his problem too, right?”

She gave a snort. “Seems like my problem to me.”

“It's his fault as much as yours.” I winced. “I don't mean
fault
, like I'm blaming anyone. I mean”—I searched for the word in my fuzzy brain—“responsibility.”

“Yeah, I know.”

I thought about Mom, finding out she was pregnant at the same age we were now, and keeping it secret. “I think you should tell him.”

“I know. I
know
.”

“But, Toni, what are you doing with him if you can't even talk to him about something this huge?”

“I love him,” she said. “And I don't want to do this to him, you know? I don't want to mess up his life.”

“How come you're acting like this is all on you?”

Toni shook her head. “Forget it, Dylan. I'll figure it out.” She stood up slowly, and curved her lips in an imitation of her usual easy grin. Her freckles looked dark as pepper scattered against her pale skin. “God, I feel sick. I just threw up.”

“Maybe it's the Schnapps?” If Toni was pregnant, she shouldn't be drinking. I opened my mouth to say something, and then closed it again. There was no way Toni could have a baby. I couldn't imagine it.

“It's not the Schnapps.” Toni crossed my room to peer into the mirror. “Dammit. Look at me, I'm a mess.” She spat on the corner of a fresh Kleenex and rubbed at the streaks of mascara on her face.

I looked at her tummy, smooth and drum-taut above her low-rise jeans. A girl at our school got pregnant last year and decided to have the baby. We hadn't been close friends, but still, it had been weird watching her belly swell up and listening to her chatter about baby showers and changing tables and strollers—like she'd crossed over some invisible line and become forever different from the rest of us. I couldn't imagine that happening to Toni.

“Are you going to tell your mom?” I asked.

“I don't know. I guess I'll have to if I don't have an abortion.”

“If you want me to go with you, like to a doctor or something…”

She frowned. “My family doctor would tell my mom. They've known each other forever. I mean, he's been my doctor since I was
born.
There's no way I can tell him.”

“So what are you going to do? You can't just ignore it.”

“I can't do anything tonight anyway.” Toni tugged on her bangs to straighten them and made a disgusted face as they sprang back up again. “Come on. We'd better get back to the others.”