The Space Between Us (7 page)

“I know, but—”

“The entire world already points their fingers at us and thinks we’re religious freaks, and now you’re fuel for their fire. You’re making us all look pathetic and ignorant.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I have no
clue
what goes on inside your head. This’ll kill Dad. I’m assuming you at least get that, right? And Grandma will be too humiliated to leave the house for the next decade. Have you even thought about the gossip? The entire congregation—no, all of Tremonton—is going to be talking about this forever. You can’t just ride this out. The pastor’s daughter isn’t allowed to get knocked up.”

I paused to breathe. My voice had gotten loud without me noticing and the silence burned my ears. No answer from Charly, but the crying had stopped. I almost wished it hadn’t. I needed to feel her hurting, for what she was doing to all of us.

“A
baby
, Charly,” I whispered. “That’s forever. Your life is over.”

“I know.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Silence. Then finally, “I don’t know. Whatever you tell me to do.”

Of course. It was on me, because it always is. A thousand scenes flew by, of strawberries and sugar in the black walnut tree, of painting our legs with mud after rain, of tanning on the dock by the lake in matching summer bikinis. They kept on coming, swirling together like a spinning pinwheel until they weren’t separate anymore.

W
e had to tell Grandma. Unless we weren’t going to tell Grandma. Because as soon as Grandma knew, we’d lose an option. The option we weren’t saying out loud.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Of course I’m sure.” She was chewing her raw lower lip.

“Stop doing that. It’s going to start bleeding again.”

She stopped.

We were standing in the bathroom, pretending to get ready for school. I was already done, and Charly was looking bad regardless.

“Because that’s the only way that nobody would know,” I added.

“I know that. But it’s still . . . you know.”

I nodded. Murder. We weren’t saying that word either. It’d been three days and we weren’t even saying pregnant anymore. Amazing the things we could talk about without saying.

“Yeah,” I said, wishing I could disagree. I just wished I didn’t. I kept hoping that if I reasoned it through, I would be able to come to a different moral conclusion, that there was a loophole no one had thought to mention. One that made abortion for immature idiots permissible.

“So why do you keep bringing it up?” she asked.

“I just want you to think through every possibility.”

“That’s not what it feels like to me.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, but my tension headache ignored the effort. “Then what does it feel like to you, Charly?”

“It feels like you just want this all to go away, and that it doesn’t matter that it’s all on me. But it’s, you know . . . my
soul
, right?”

“All on you? Of course it is. You’re the one who got herself pregnant.”

She grimaced at the word.

“Yeah. I said it.”

That shut her up for a minute. She stared at herself
in the mirror, grumbled and pulled her hair elastic out again. She’d been trying to put her wet hair up in a ponytail for the last five minutes, but kept ending up with bubbles.

Tears welled in her eyes. This was the third time today, or at least the third time I’d seen. I took a pick from the drawer and fished some detangler out from under the sink. “Kneel,” I said. She obeyed and I started spritzing.

I took a section of wet curls and tugged through it with the pick. Right and wrong were so much clearer from a distance, or in a sermon, or in somebody else’s life. But this was so muddy, I couldn’t even see Charly in it, and she was right in front of me.

I used to know exactly what kind of girl got pregnant, and exactly what kind of girl got an abortion, and Charly wasn’t either. Except Charly
was
pregnant. So either I didn’t know who she was at all, or she was an exception to the rule—accidentally shuffled into the teenage slut category.

“Dad would never forgive me if he found out.”

“Probably not.” Not to mention God. “But that’s the point. Dad and Grandma and everyone else wouldn’t have to find out.”

“Yeah, but I’d go to hell. Right?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“I don’t know. You think you know everything else.
And you’re the one who keeps bringing it up.”

“So now I’m trying to lead you down to hell? Maybe if you’d been a little more concerned about your soul’s destination in the first place we wouldn’t be here.”

Charly ignored me. I yanked through a knot.

“Ouch.”

“Did you even use conditioner?”

“No. My hair has been so greasy lately, I thought it would help.”

Greasy hair. Another symptom to add to the nauseating list of complaints. There was the vomiting, the dizziness, the sore boobs, the crazy dreams, the crying, the exhaustion, the hot flashes, the freaky veins, and they just kept right on coming. I’d been in the know for three days, and already it was getting old. Buying her a diary was number one on my list of things to do, just so she could have somewhere else to park her symptoms.

“And my skin,” she muttered at the mirror.

“Your skin looks fine.” Her face was a pimply mess, but I couldn’t handle more tears.

She took a deep breath and met my eyes in the mirror. “I don’t know how God ranks sins, but I’m pretty sure fornication and murder aren’t equal. I mean, I’m in trouble, but I’m not . . . ”

She reached up and grabbed the pick in my hand. I had no choice but to let go.

“Of course not. You know that’s not what I meant.” I didn’t think it was what I meant, that she was beyond forgiveness or redemption or whatever. She couldn’t be
damned
.

She put the pick on the counter, accepting defeat. “Do I have time to shower again?”

“No. Pass me that clip,” I said, pointing to a big tortoiseshell claw on the counter. She did and I wrapped her hair into a lumpy twist.

She inspected it in the mirror. It looked less bad. “Good enough.”

“So. Grandma, then?”

She raised her eyebrows. “You’re telling her for me, right?”

“Hilarious.”

She cracked a smile. I saw it and realized—she hadn’t smiled in forever. “I just thought, seeing as she doesn’t already hate you, it might be easier for her to hear it from you. Ya know?”

“Nice try. The whole easiest-on-Grandma angle is very clever.”

“I thought so too. But you’ll be there, though, right?”

I smiled back, but it made my insides hurt. Being angry was easier. “Of course.”

“Okay. Tonight, then.”

“Tonight.”

• • •

“You’re never going to believe who broke up!” Savannah squealed when she found me by my locker.

“Wrong.”

“What?”

“I believe ninety-nine percent of these idiots will break up.” I glanced around me at the throng of couples, almost-couples, wanting-to-be couples, just-over-being couples. Nobody had staying power. “And the one percent that stay together will wish they hadn’t.”

She ignored me. “Will and Luciana! And get this:
He
dumped
her
.”

I kept rifling through my bag, refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing my jaw drop. “I swear that lip gloss is in here somewhere.” I found it, looked up at her.

She was wide-eyed and grinning, and I resisted the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Even if Will and Luciana had some huge, mortifying public breakup, it wouldn’t change the real reason Will and I couldn’t be together. The real reason was . . .

My brain stalled. The real reason was pregnant. Irresistible Charly. Will was way too wholesome and traditional to see
knocked up
Charly the same way. Once he knew, once the world knew, Charly wasn’t going to seem so irresistible anymore.

I stopped myself. I had some self-respect—
I’d
refused
to be with Will,
I’d
dumped him because I’d known he would always love Charly.

But that was back before I’d ever dreamed that Charly would be making herself unlovable.

I couldn’t help it. I had to imagine what it would be like to have him waiting for me by my locker again, feel his hands on my waist, hear him talk about cross-country like it was a matter of life and death. I could be a much better girlfriend this time. More demonstrative, like he wanted. This time I could hold his hand in the hall without cringing. Maybe even kiss him in public.

“So, you’re ignoring me?”

I shrugged. “No. It just doesn’t matter.”

Savannah shook her head. “Who do you think you’re fooling?”

“Everyone.”

“Everyone else,” she corrected.

“Fine. Everyone else.”

“I’m going to be late to World History. See you at lunch?”

“Can’t,” I said. “I’m helping Dr. Kinzer stock the choir folders. Extra credit.”

“You have got to be the only tone deaf person in history to be forcing an A out of Kinzer.”

“Yeah.” I wasn’t listening.
Will and Luciana are over.
“Wait, I’m not tone deaf.”

“Sure you aren’t. See you later.”

A snappy comeback was in order, but I couldn’t pull one out. My brain was too strained with Charly and her irreversible mess, and single Will. Too complicated. If I relied on feelings I’d feel . . . who knows.

I slammed my locker and went to class.

• • •

We found Grandma that night at the kitchen table doing her crossword puzzle. For some reason, she felt like reading a novel was a frivolous use of her time, but the almighty
NYT
Sunday Crossword was not. By the time she worked her way through a book of puzzles, it was nearly as well worn as her Bible.

Head bowed, immersed in her clues, she could never have seen it coming.

Still, Charly should have set it up better. Not that
how’s it going, Grandma?
would have softened the blow anyway. But she was on the verge of chickening out, her hands all jerking and jittery like they get when she’s nervous, when suddenly she just folded her arms and smacked Grandma in the face with “I’m pregnant.”

I closed my eyes. It was cowardly, but I couldn’t make myself watch what was bound to be a mixture of righteous indignation and pure rage. Because Grandma is a fortress, a mighty pillar of strength, a beacon guiding people in their quests for salvation. And also, Grandma gets mad.

But when I opened my eyes, what I saw was steel crumpling like tinfoil.

Her face puckered. She placed her pencil in the spine of her crossword book, removed her glasses, and dropped her head to her arms. Her whole body bounced and shook with silent sobs.

I wanted to sit down beside her and put my arm around her, but I couldn’t. She wouldn’t want me to acknowledge that this convulsing wreck was (a) her, and (b) in need of my help.

It was Charly—a terrified, wide-eyed version of Charly—who made me. She elbowed me and mouthed
go hug her
.

I shook my head.

She shook her head.

So I slid into the chair beside Grandma and put my arm around her shoulders. She let me, for a few seconds, before she filled her lungs with as much air as she possibly could, sat up straight, and put her glasses back on. My arm fell limply to my side.

“Charlotte, we’ll talk about this in the morning. Neither of you are to tell your father.”

She stood and walked out of the kitchen, spine straighter than a steeple.

Neither of you are to tell your father.
Did she think either of us told him anything? Ever?

I left Charly in the kitchen, walked to the hall, and
looked down to where a sliver of light glowed beneath the den door. I could hear his voice. He was talking to himself.

• • •

The next morning I had an early practice (Saturday practices were Coach Hershey’s answer to the blitzkrieg launched by Baldwin’s Teutonic coach), and when I got back, Charly and Grandma were sitting at the kitchen table, just staring. Grandma was staring at Charly, and Charly was staring at her Froot Loops.

“Good morning, Amelia,” Grandma said, voice flat, eyes swollen. “We were just discussing prenatal care. Your sister seems to think babies thrive on high-fructose corn syrup and food dye.”

Charly took another bite of cereal.

“You’ll be seeing an obstetrician in Tallahassee next week,” Grandma said, nodding at Charly, “and we’ll buy you some prenatal vitamins while we’re there.”

“Not Dr. Reed?” I asked, pouring a glass of orange juice and leaning against the counter a safe distance from both of them.

Doctor Reed was Tremonton’s only OB. He’d delivered both Charly and me and pretty much every other baby born in Tremonton in the last thirty years.

“No, not Dr. Reed.”

Grandma took a rag from the sink and wiped down the already clean countertop.

“They sell prenatal vitamins at the Walgreens,” I offered. Will worked at the Walgreens, so I used to spend way too much time wandering the aisles waiting for his shift to end.

“We aren’t buying prenatal anything from Walgreens,” Grandma said. She sounded tired. “Do you want the entire town to know?”

“No, but . . . ” Grandma had to know where this whole thing was going. Charly was going to slowly expand until she was the size of a whale. I’d seen enough
16 and Pregnant
episodes to know it was the skinny girls whose bellies ended up looking like skin-wrapped basketballs.

I shuddered involuntarily.

Grandma looked up at me suddenly, panic lines creasing her forehead. “Where did you buy the pregnancy test from?”

“Me?
I
didn’t buy it. I didn’t even know she was pregnant until four days ago.”

Grandma looked down at Charly, clearly more than a little skeptical of her ability to diagnose herself.

Charly refused to look up from her bowl. She was the only person I knew who ate an entire bowl of Froot Loops by color. A glance over her shoulder revealed a bowl of greens and yellows. She was going to be a mother. This had to stop.