Olivia (54 page)

“
What’s the matter?” she asks, her
hand rubbing my shoulder gently. “You can talk to me.”

“
No, I can’t,” I mutter. “There’s
nothing to talk about anyway. I haven’t been feeling well all day
and I just want to go home. This
stupid
homework assignment was punishment for a
stupid
prank I had nothing to do with,” I complain
angrily. “
Stupid
Finn.” I know it wasn’t
his idea, but his influence convinced the rest of my class that it
was
a good idea–even though it wasn’t. “No
offense,” I add.

“
None taken,” she says. “He’s got a
mind of his own. I don’t know who he takes after. Certainly not my
brother, that’s for sure–oh,” she exhales suddenly. I look up to
see her grasping her stomach. “This baby is ready to come out,” she
laughs. “I’m ready for it, too.”

“
Is she kicking?”

“
Oh, yeah. All day. Do you want to
feel?”

“
No,” I answer quickly–too quickly.
“I, uh... I mean, sure.” I turn around and put my hand on her
swollen belly. She moves my hand a little lower, pressing it
against her firmly. I feel quick, definite movements underneath my
hand. I draw back suddenly, feeling nauseous, like I’m going to
throw up.

I don’t want that.

“
I have to go, Kaydra,” I tell her
as I gather my books. I keep my face angled downward, then away
from her, not wanting her to read the fear and shame on my
face.

“
Okay,” she whispers as I leave the
room as quickly as possible.

“
Where are you going?” Finn
asks.

“
Home,” I tell him. My voice cracks
as I say it. I avoid eye contact with him, too, making a beeline to
the door.

“
Little Liv?”

I ignore my uncle, slipping out the door as fast as
I can. I start running down the three flights of stairs, not
turning around when I hear Finn calling to me from outside Steven
and Kaydra’s apartment.

I heave in the bushes the second I exit the
building. My light lunch and lack of dinner didn’t leave anything
for my stomach to empty, but the urge to throw up is still
there.

I cross the street to the lot my car is parked in,
feeling dizzy and knowing I can’t drive. I find my Audi anyway,
getting in and turning on the air conditioner full-blast. I roll
down my window, still feeling the bile in my throat. Leaning my
head against the steering wheel, I sob, feeling scared and
alone.

“
Hey.”

“
Finn!” I jump, startled by his
sudden appearance.

“
Did you throw up?”

“
Yes,” I say weakly. “I feel like
hell and yes, I threw up.”

He tries to open my door, but it’s locked. “Open
up,” he says.

“
No!” He reaches his hand through
the window, pulling the handle from the inside. “Finn, please just
leave me alone.”

He opens the door and squats down next to my car,
putting his hand on my knee. “It’s okay, Livvy. It’ll be okay.”

“
No, it won’t,” I cry.

“
You don’t think it’s, like,
morning sickness?” I’m pretty sure my heart stops beating for a
full ten seconds. “I mean, it doesn’t happen that fast, does it?”
No way. There’s no way.
But now that he
says it, I’m sure that’s what it is.

“
Oh, god,” I sigh, leaning into
him. He puts his arms around me and lets me cry against him. He
doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. I just hold on to him
tightly, thankful that he’s here with me.

A few people approach my car, asking Finn if
everything’s okay. He assures the strangers that we’re fine as I
keep my head tucked into his shoulder, hoping no one recognizes
me.

“
Let me drive you home,” he
offers.

“
Okay.” I climb out and go to the
other side of the car, settling in to the passenger
seat.

“
Good, because we weren’t finished
with our dialogue,” he says. I look at him out of the corner of my
eye, and he smiles, showing me he’s just joking.

We say a brief hello to my parents when we get home,
but explain that we have to finish memorizing our lines. We do a
little of that in my room, but now we’re both distracted. I turn
some music on, adjusting the volume to hide our conversation.

“
Why don’t you just take it?” he
asks. “It’ll all be over with. No more tears, no more
worrying.”

“
It’s wrong,” I tell him. “To me,
it’s just wrong.”

“
Have you thought about the
consequences?”

“
As much as I can in one day,” I
mutter. “Hell, it’s only been seven hours. How has it only been
seven hours?! It feels like a lifetime. How am I going to do this,
Finn?”

“
You’re not,” he says. “You have
way too much ambition and talent to mess it up with a kid. What is
with our family?”

“
I don’t know,” I whisper. “Is it a
curse?”

“
No,” he laughs. “Take the pill,
Livvy. Just put this behind you. No one has to know. I will never
tell a soul.”

“
I don’t know that I could ever
live with that decision.”

He pulls the box out of my purse and sets it in
front of me. “Take it, Liv.”

“
It’s a baby,” I plead.

“
It’s not,” he argues. “What did we
learn in health class?”

“
It’s
something
,” I argue, not sure. “Cells,
maybe?”

“
Cells,” Finn says. “Take the
pill.”

I stare at him and sigh. All my worrying would be
over, just by swallowing one little pill. It’s so easy.

Should it really be that easy, to make a baby go
away?

“
I’m going to go get some water,” I
tell him.

“
Thatta girl.”

I ignore his encouragement. I’m truly just thirsty.
“Want anything?”

“
A soda.”

“
Put the box away,” I say, kicking
it under the bed when I get up. “My parents would flip if they saw
that.”

There’s no soda in the downstairs refrigerator, so I
have to pass my parents on my way to the kitchen.

“
Livvy, sweetie,” Mom says.
“Everything okay?”

“
Fine, Mom,” I answer, avoiding
both of their gazes. “Why?”

“
Kaydra and Steven were worried
about you.”

“
It’s just stress,” I yell from the
kitchen. “I didn’t want to have to deal with this stupid Romeo and
Juliet thing, and I’ve had this headache all day.”

“
How much longer do you think you
have?”

“
I don’t know,” I tell them
honestly, going quickly back through the room toward the basement.
“You know how bad Finn sucks at this sort of thing.”

“
Don’t be mean,” my dad says. I
give him a terse thumbs-up just before I round the corner to the
stairs.

Finn hands me the box again as soon as I close the
door. I stare at it, shaking my head. I don’t want to make this
decision now. I don’t want to make it at all. “How’d this happen?”
he asks.

“
Let’s just study,” I tell him,
having no intention of explaining what Jon and I did the day
before.
God, was it only
yesterday?

We practice our lines back and forth. Finn starts
the scene, and he still can’t get halfway through it without me
telling him what to say. “Maybe if you said it with meaning, it
would all make more sense to you.”

“
I have no idea what I’m even
saying,” he admits. “
What if her eyes were there,
they in her head?
” he asks, quoting Shakespeare. “Where the
hell else
would
her eyes be?”

I start laughing. “He’s talking about ‘two of the
fairest stars in all the heaven’ being in her head, dummy.”

“
How do you get that?” he says,
pulling the text close to his face, as if drawing it nearer will
make him understand it better.

“
Read the next line.”

“
The brightness of her cheek would
shame those stars–”

A soft knock interrupts us. “Come in,” I say over
the music.

“
Can I?” Jon asks, barely peeking
in through the cracked door. I put my book aside, standing up to
give him a hug.

“
What are you doing
here?”

“
Finn called,” he says. “Says you
could use some comforting. I’m done with my lab.” I look at Finn
and smile, a silent thank you. “Why does Romeo here get to be shut
in your room?” he asks, eying Finn. “That doesn’t feel
right.”

“
Bygones,” Finn says. “We’re back
to being family.”

“
Good to know,” Jon mumbles.
“Family who recites affirmations of love in the Ever-Elusive
Bedroom of Olivia Holland.”

“
I thought it was the death scene
when I picked it.”

“
Stick to soccer,” Jon says. Finn
nods, making a face. He can’t be too offended, though. It
is
what he’s best at. It’s what’s sending
him to college for free in Florida.

Jon looks down at me, touching his thumbs to my
cheeks before kissing me.

“
I should go,” Finn
says.

“
Not so fast,” I say. “As long as
you’re here, Jon’s allowed to be here.”

“
Olivia, this should be a private
conversation,” Jon suggests.

“
He knows enough already. You,
just... focus on your lines,” I tell Finn. “Want some
headphones?”

“
I’m good,” Finn says.

“
I’d rather talk, alone,” Jon
whispers in my ear before kissing my temple. “Can we go out back or
something?”

“
Finn, I’ll be back in a little
while. Just do me a favor and try to put meaning in the words,
okay? I swear, it will come a lot more naturally if you have some
idea of what you’re saying.”

“
What shall I swear by?” Jon says,
opening the door for me as he recites some of Romeo’s later lines.
My grin grows quickly.

“
Do not swear at all,” I say back,
leading the way through the basement and up the stairs. “Or, if
thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, which is the god of my
idolatry, and I’ll believe thee.”

“
You’re getting an A on this
tomorrow,” Jon says.

“
You forget my partner is a true
Shakespearean fool. Hey,” I address my parents, walking back
through the living room, “is it okay if we go in the backyard for a
little bit?”

“
That’s fine. Just remember that a
good night’s sleep would be good for your headache,” Dad
says.

“
Yes, sir.”

“
You have a headache?” Jon asks
when we get outside. He starts to sit on a patio chair, but I take
his hand and lead him further out into the yard to the swing, as
far from the house as we can get.

“
No. Jon, I threw up. I’ve been
feeling sick to my stomach since lunch.”

“
It’s nerves,” he says, putting his
arm around me.

“
What if it’s not?” I ask
him.

“
What do you think it is?” he
asks.

I’m afraid to say it out loud, as if letting the
words come out will somehow make it true.

“
What?” he repeats.

“
You know,” I whisper.

He starts laughing. “Morning sickness? Oh,
baby–”

“
Don’t say that word right
now.”

“
Right,” he continues to chuckle as
he talks. “That’s not possible. You really are getting too worked
up over this. It’s a widely accepted belief that morning sickness
develops when a pregnant woman’s body accumulates toxins that may
harm a fetus. She gets sick to rid her body of those toxins. It’s
her body’s way of protecting the baby. To have morning sickness,
there would have to be a fetus. And Liv?”

“
What?” I say, wondering if he has
any idea what he’s talking about.

“
It has barely been twenty-four
hours,” he says, looking at me like I’m crazy. “It takes weeks and
weeks for an embryo to become a fetus.”

“
Don’t laugh at me,” I plead. “This
is serious.”

“
I know,” he says warmly, holding
my hand. “I just didn’t realize you were this paranoid.”

“
I’m scared.”

“
Okay. Of what?”

“
What do you mean, of what? Of
being pregnant?”

“
So you don’t want
that...”

“
No!” I exclaim. “Of course I don’t
want that.”

“
Then take the pill, Olivia. That
one little pill will make this all go away. You don’t want to be
pregnant. You probably aren’t anyway. I mean, the chances of it
happening are infinitesimal. It would be
near-miraculous–”

“
Well, you know miracle babies run
in my family,” I remind him sarcastically.

“
Yes, but if you’re suggesting it’s
genetic, Olivia, you don’t share their genes. Remember?”

“
I know. But what if I was a
miracle baby? I don’t know anything about–”

“
Are you just going to play devil’s
advocate on this? Argue with every rational point I bring up with
something completely irrational?”

“
Hey,” I tell him, my tone one of
warning. “You know, it would just be my luck.”