What it all comes down to |Chapter 2|

“… I’m telling you Courtney, he was freaking out!” I said to my best friend as I walked through the aisles of one of my favorite stores in the mall. “It was like Déjà vu or something, though. I have a feeling I know why he was acting that way.”

 

“Well spill it, girly.” Courtney said, obviously more into the story. “What’s the gossip?”

 

“Chris got his bitch of a girlfriend pregnant… and since she’s keeping it, he loses out on his twenty thousand dollars dad promised both of us to make it through public school without any pregnancy talks.” I couldn’t contain the smile on my face as I said this.

 

“Wait… what?!” Courtney said. “Ouch! Shoot!”

 

I scrunched up my face in confusion. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

 

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” she said. “I dropped my freaking coffee cup on my leg!”

 

I pressed my lips together while trying to control the laughter. “Oh.”

 

“Nice answer! Ugh!”

 

I couldn’t help it at this point; I burst into laughter right in the middle of the store and caught the eye of a few people. They were giving me weird looks, which, under any other circumstances would have embarrassed me, but I was in the zone.

 

“Hardy har har,” Courtney said sarcastically. “Can you finish with the story please? What do you mean twenty thousand dollars?”

 

“Oh, right. Okay,” I cleared my throat and tried to get serious. “My father didn’t want us going to public high school at first. He wanted us to go to some private school in Orlando Florida, but we didn’t want to.” I paused for emphasis in the story. “So anyway, he made us a little bet. He said that in high school we’d be pressured to do a few things. You know, drinking, drugs, sex? So in order to prevent this, he said that if we both made it through high school without doing these things, we’d get a graduation present of twenty thousand dollars on the spot… among other things.”

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“I sure am,” I said proudly. “And so far, I haven’t broken any of the rules.”

 

“Okay, does lying get you anything?” Courtney asked. “’Cuz that was a huge one!”

 

“Okay well… I mean, I wasn’t brought home drunk or anything.” I said trying to defend myself. “Plus, I’m not pregnant and I’m fully capable of protecting myself.”

 

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, shay.”

 

I smiled. “Trust me, it does.” I pulled a gray and black dress off the rack and saw that it was in my size. “This is amazingly, cute!” I said bouncing in place. “Hey, nini, I have to call you back!”

 

“Okay. Bye.”

 

I smiled and rushed over to the sales lady, Tiffany, and held up the dress. “I love it. I love it. I LOVE it!”

 

“I figured you would… that’s why I saved the matching shoes in your size—they’re in the back. You wanna try ‘em on?”

 

“Do I?” Shayla asked rhetorically.

 

 

 

 

I walked out of the store with my dress and shoes in my hand and I was ready to go to the jewelry store and by a ring and a necklace. When I walked in the door, Chris was already there—buying a ring.

 

My jaw dropped.

 

“You can’t marry that whore just because she’s pregnant!” I yelled. I’m quite the attention grabber, today.

 

Chris raised his eyebrows slightly and then his face fell a little bit. “What are you talking about?”

 

I smirked at him and rolled my eyes. “Okay, so what if you don’t get the money! You don’t have to throw your whole life away for her.”

 

“I wasn’t planning on it…” Chris paid the cashier and picked up the bag. “I figured you’d be stopping here so I bought you these.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Wow… that mouth of yours never has a simple word to shoot out!” Chris said handing me the bag. “Mind your business. Let’s go.”

 

I chose not to say anything. What was there to say?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later that night as I was just getting out of the shower for the party, the nearly silent knock on my window made me jump.

 

I gasped in shock and grabbed my chest to try and slow my heavily beating heart. “Damn!” I walked over to the window and pulled it up. “What the hell are you doing here, Travis?”

 

His amazing smile almost made me fall for his charm, again, but I looked away for a second to compose myself.

 

“Hey babe,” He said climbing into my window. He walked over to my bedroom door and locked it. “That little dinner party is tonight, right?”

 

I crossed my arms over my chest—which was only covered by a white plush towel—and cocked my head to the side slightly. “What do you want, Travis?”

 

“You’re still upset.” He said nodding to himself. “Is that why you weren’t answering my phone calls?”

 

“Obviously.” I answered bluntly.

 

“I’m really sorry, baby.” He almost looked sincere. He always did.

 

“You can’t be serious!” I yelled in a whisper.

 

“You know I wouldn’t intentionally hurt you… you know that.”

 

“I used to know that…” I couldn’t even look at him to say what I was about to say. “We need to break up.”

 

“Why?”

 

If I had a mirror, I’m sure I would notice the fire in my eyes. “You took me to a party, got drunk, and left me with a million strangers… who were also drunk. Then you abandoned me!”

 

“No, actually, I passed out in the back seat of my car.”

 

“Oh my God.” I took a deep breath and walked over to my closet to get my new clothes out. “Get out!”

 

“Baby—”

 

“Get out of my house!”

 

He looked taken aback by my tone of voice. I had never been so rude with him before… well, there was one other time.

 

As I watched him climb out of my window with a saddened look on his face—one he didn’t wear often because his face was usually covered by a mocking smirk—it reminded me of the time he dropped me of home from the clinic.

 

I stared at my reflection in the mirror and shook my head in disgust. How can someone give me a sexually transmitted disease, and expect for me not to be upset?

 

I’ve always wondered that question. However, I had a feeling that even the only person eligible to answer the question wouldn’t know the answer.

 

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