I was sitting in my room on my bed staring up at the ceiling. My stomach quenched like I was about to throw up. I wanted to run away as far as I could away from everyone, but I couldn’t run away from this problem. Wherever I went the same exact problem would be right in front of me. I was pregnant or at least I was positive I was this time. There were so many times I almost became pregnant because of my carless, stupid mistakes. So many miracles I had been given that I was sure that God wasn’t going to spare me another one. I was only seventeen years old and I had been drinking and smoking before I was even old enough to drive.
The busy, ignoring parents I had never cared what I drank, if I smoked, or where I was half the time. However, the minute they found out I was pregnant they would throw me out in the cold.
I stuck a cigarette in my mouth and lighted it. An abortion could be a possible answer, but I didn’t have the money and I was a wuss. As I sat there, smoking my cigar, I thought about what I should do. The pregnancy test that I bought at Walgreens drug store lay on top of my dresser. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to face the fact that I was really pregnant. Maybe if I just ignored my problem for a few months it wouldn’t bother me. After taking a few more smokes, I stuck my cigarette in the ash tray on my bed stand and rolled out of bed. Snatching the pregnancy test, I went into the bathroom down the hall from my bedroom.
Two minutes later, I came out of the bathroom shaking the stick. As I walked back into my room, I hung my head and closed my eyes. “Please, please, please,” I whispered. Holding my breath, I shot a quick glance at the stick. “No,” it read. I let out a sigh of relief. I threw the pregnancy test into a small waste basket, plopped back down on my bed, and stuck another cigarette into my mouth. After taking a couple of smokes, I picked up my Blackberry and dialed my best friend, Jen’s number.
“Hey, Jen,“ I started to say into the phone, but Jen interrupted me.
“Liz, what happened? Are you pregnant or not?” Jen asked, fervently.
“No,” I muttered.
“Oh my god Liz, you have to stop this. One of these days you are really going to be pregnant.”
“I know, I know. You can cut the criticism here.”
“Well, what else do you want me to say?” I didn’t answer. “I have to go. I have homework to finish,” Jen told me.
“Whatever, bye,” I grumbled, hanging up the phone. As my stomach still quenched, I curled up under the covers. My throat felt sore and scratchy and I felt like I was going to throw up any minute. However, I drifted off to sleep within seconds.
Hours later, I woke up by the sound of my alarm clock’s annoying beeping. I slammed it off and went back to sleep. Only a half an hour later the beeping went off again. I moaned, my head spinning from last night, as I rolled out of bed and unplugged my stupid alarm clock.
I slipped off my grey sweat pants and T-shirt and yanked on a pair of holes jeans and my green Hollister shirt. Short blond hair sat flat on top of my head as always. After I scrubbed my teeth, I blacked my eyes with makeup.
As I was eating a raw poptart, I heard my boyfriend honk his horn, furiously from my driveway. I pulled on my brown American Eagle coat and ran outside. Snow covered every inch of my neighborhood. Colorado, one of the coldest states in America is where I lived for as long as I could remember. I climbed in the passenger seat of Shawn’s warm truck. A half gone cigarette hung out of his mouth.
“Did you do it?” Shawn asked as he pulled out of my driveway.
“Yeah,” I muttered
“And?” he asked, annoyed, after a moment of silence.
“I’m not pregnant,” I told him glaring at the drifting snow out the window.
“OK, then what’s your problem?” He handed me a lighted cigarette and I took it gratefully.
“Thanks,” I muttered under my breath.
We rode the rest of the way to school in silence. Shawn parked his truck in his usual parking spot. After we tossed our cigarettes in the ash tray in Shawn car, we walked into the school building. I was just about to go my own way to my first class, when Shawn grabbed me by the arm and pulled me next to him so that my chest pressed against his. Shawn began kissing me affectionately on the cheek. I moved my head slightly so that our lips met.
“I love you,” Shawn said once we broke apart.
“I love you too. I’m sorry I have been acting weird ever since Wednesday night. I was just scared,” I admitted.
“That’s OK, baby. We just have to be more careful next time.”
I only nodded. I wrapped my lips around Shawn’s once more. When the bell rang, I unlocked my lips from his and pulled myself away from Shawn’s grip. I then hurried off to my first class, American history. I sat down in my usual seat near the back. Jen sat down in the seat behind me.
“Liz,” she hissed. I was still mad at her for being so critical yesterday. When I didn’t answerer, she began tapping me continuously on the shoulder.
Finally, I turned around to face her. “What?” I asked, angrily.
“Are you mad at me or something?” Jen asked.
“No,” I lied to get Jen off my back. When Jen didn’t say anything else, I turned back around to face the teacher who was babbling on about the Civil war. I was almost asleep from boredom, when a kid that looked a few years older than me came in the room and sat down in the empty seat next to me. The teacher ignored him and continued to babble on about the Civil war.
The kid beside me pulled a green note book and a pen out of his back pack and began taking notes of every little thing the teacher said. He had long light brown hair that barely touched his shoulders and glistered in the sunlight. His skin was clean and almost golden. His eyes were bright green and he wore a dark blue sweater and some nice jeans. Noticing me staring at him, he stopped writing.
“Hi, I’m Jasper,” he whispered.
“Liz” I muttered.
“No talking,” the teacher groaned.
Quickly taking my note book and pen out of my back pack, I flipped it to an empty page, scribbled a
note on the very top, and cautiously placed it on Jasper’s lap. It read, “You’re not from here, are you?”
Jasper wrote something quick and short and passed the notebook back to me. “No,” it read.
“Where are you from?” I wrote then gave it to Jasper.
“Somewhere far away,” was his reply.
“How far?”
“Farther than you think.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you.”
I became annoyed with Jasper as I read his last reply. “Why not?”
Jasper smiled up at me, showing of his sparkling white teeth that made my mouth water. “Why are you being so persistent?” he asked.
I sighed. Knowing that I wasn’t going to get my answer, I thought of another question. “How long are you in town?”
“Three months.”
“If you are on vacation, then why are you in school?”
“I never said I was on vacation.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
Jasper froze. His eyes stared directly on the paper as he pressed his pen down hard on one spot that it left a thick black dot. As I watched him impatiently, while he thought for a few minutes before he finally replied. “I’m here to study your country. Your country is very different from mine. Maybe you could show me around sometime,” He wrote, but before I could reply the bell rang. I stuffed my notebook and pen in my green and black back pack as the rush of the other students crowded the room.
When I was out in the hallway, I looked around for Jasper. But he had disappeared.
