Giftchild (18 page)

When I hauled myself off my knees, I dug it out and turned it on, checking for texts from Rodney that I already knew wouldn't be there.

I went downstairs with dread. But when I arrived, there was a tall glass with a straw where the eggs had been yesterday.

Mom looked up from her stool at the counter. "I made you a smoothie," she said. "I thought you could drink your calories, if you can't eat them."

I love smoothies. I love the way the fruits tang together; I love knowing I'm drinking something good for me even though it tastes like candy. But today all I could think of was the way it would burn coming up.

"I think I'll just have some water," I said.

Mom gave me a look, and to appease her, I picked up the vitamin she'd left on the counter and stuck it under my tongue while I poured myself a glass.

Mom sighed. "Penny. You have to eat."

I closed my eyes. The baby book said I didn't need to push it. Could that be right? Pregnant women had to eat for two, didn't they? How on earth did babies survive, if their mothers' bodies told them to starve themselves?

I picked up the smoothie. When it was still a foot from my nose, I could smell the banana, and it might as well have been bruised black for all I wanted to put it in my mouth.

"That bad?" Mom asked.

I nodded miserably.

She gave me a sad look. "I remember being pregnant with Athena. Everything I ate came up for two months. But you just have to keep eating. Something will stay down, even if it's only a little."

Mom stared out the window, like she was longing for something far away. She used to look at Lily the same way, like she'd give anything to be in her place.

My stomach tightened at the thought of putting the smoothie into my mouth. But Mom would do it, wouldn't she? If this was her baby, she'd drink.

I put the straw to my lips, and sucked some smoothie into my mouth. The tang met my tongue, and tasted fine. But despite the sweetness, my throat constricted.

Swallow
, I told myself.

But my body wouldn't.

I set the smoothie down on the counter with a clang and spit into the sink. "I can't," I said. "I'm sorry."

Mom turned her sad, longing look on me. Jeez. She was going to look at me like that for months, wasn't she? It was bad enough watching her do that to Lily.

My skin crawled. The receiving end of Mom's sad looks was so much worse.

I marched back up the stairs, intending to hide until it was time for Mom to drive me to school.

But Mom followed me into the stairwell. "Penny," Mom said. "We need to talk."

I didn't turn around. She couldn't see the look on my face, the way I wanted to glare at her and stomp away like I was a little kid. That couldn't be about the smoothie, could it?

No. That was totally stupid. So either I was completely soaked with irrational hormones, or this was really about Rodney.

I got that she wanted to feel safe about the baby being hers. But did she really have to drive him away?

"Penny," Mom said again.

She was waiting for me to turn around. I tried to wipe the anger from my face. Why was I feeling this way? I did this for Mom.
For Mom
. She should come first.

I sucked in my cheeks. I might not be able to make myself eat, but I could make myself relax and treat Mom nicely. However hard this was on me, it had to be harder on her.

I turned slowly around, keeping my face blank, but I still didn't trust myself to speak.

Mom apparently didn't need me to. "Pregnant women really need to watch their diet, to make sure they get enough nutrition."

I took a deep breath. I could do this. I could speak to my mother like a reasonable person. I wasn't Athena, who yelled.

It was just two little words.

I spoke softly, keeping my tone even.

"I'm trying," I said.

"I know," Mom said. "But you need to try harder. It doesn't seem that way, but if you eat, you'll feel better."

Better?
Food was not going to make me feel better about having lost my best friend.

Stop it
, I told myself. She was talking about the nausea. Though I tried to keep it out, an edge crept into my voice. "I want to eat," I said. "Trust me. I do. It's not my fault that I can't."

Mom folded her arms. "If you feel this bad without food," she said, "think about how the baby will suffer."

My hands trembled. "I'm not starving your child," I said. "I'll eat something for lunch at school." Probably a Snickers, but I wasn't going to say that to her.

"Penny," Mom said. "You're shaking."

I clapped my arms to my sides, but still my fingers quaked. She thought it was from lack of food, but that was only part of it.

Mom spoke slowly, in the voice she might have used to calm a toddler. "Come into the kitchen," Mom said. "See if you can stomach some crackers."

I took a step backward up the stairs. I couldn't do it. I couldn't sit there while Mom gave me that sad look, as if she hadn't torn my life apart by suggesting that Rodney leave.

Tears burned my eyes again. Didn't she get that I was just trying to help her? Couldn't she look around and see that I was the only one who was? "I'm going to get ready for school."

Mom let out an exasperated sigh, like she'd had enough of me. "Penelope," she said. "You are
not
the only one having a hard time."

Something in my brain exploded, and I nearly yelled:
I did this for you.
But I swallowed the words before they could escape. I should have eaten the smoothie. I should have downed it and lost it and come back for more. Because between the nausea and the low blood sugar, and the things Rodney had said, I really didn't have a chance of holding this next thought in. "I get it," I said. "You wish it was you who was pregnant. Well, trust me. So do I."

If she'd yelled at me, I might have felt justified, but instead her face fell, like I'd slapped her. She deflated, stepping backward away from the stairs.

"Mom," I said. "I didn't mean that." My anger crumbled. That sounded like something Athena would have said to her. Not me.

Damn it.

Why couldn't I keep my mouth shut?

If I'd thought Mom looked sad before, it was nothing compared to the way she withered before me now. "I'm going to go lie down," she said, and she walked away in the direction of the family room. Not her bedroom, which would have required her to come closer to me.

"Mom," I called after her. "I'm sorry."

But she was already gone.

She showed up at my bedroom door a half hour later with a brown bag lunch, and I didn't say one word about not wanting to eat it. She drove me to school in silence, but I could see the things I said hanging like bags around her eyes.

At lunch I bought myself a Snickers and an apple juice, and then looked inside the brown bag. Mom had made me a sprout sandwich—another thing I usually liked to eat. And though I logically knew I'd eaten tons of those in my life, I couldn't imagine how I'd ever gotten over the physical impossibility of swallowing bread.

I called Athena. "You were right," I said. "Mom
is
making me her pet birth mom."

"Um," Athena said, "did I say that?"

"You did."

"Hush," she said. "I'm trying to be gracious."

"Just tell me you told me so."

"What's going on?"

I told her about the smoothie, with emphasis on how hurtful I'd been.

"Well, you're pregnant," Athena said. "I'm sure it's normal to be hormonal."

I rolled my eyes. This went way beyond hormones. "She was all concerned about what I was eating, and I get that, but the baby book says I don't need to worry about nutrition until my second trimester, when I'll be able to eat again."

Theoretically.

"Okay," Athena said. "Now I
will
say I told you so."

"Thanks," I said. Though, predictably, that didn't make me feel better.

When I got off the phone, I found Kara waving at me in the quad. I sat down next to her, drinking my miraculously delicious apple juice. The bottle claimed to contain ten different vitamins and minerals.

Take that, morning sickness
.

Then I opened the bag lunch and pulled out the sandwich. As I peeled apart the bread, tiny green sprouts spilled onto the table.

"What is that?" Kara asked.

"Lunacy," I said. "How do people eat?"

Kara wrinkled her nose. "You mean how do they eat
that
? Because I don't."

I tucked a single sprout into my mouth. It didn't make my throat constrict, so I tried another. The bread, though, was not coming anywhere near my face. I opened up the sandwich on the table and poured the sprouts into the baggie, so I could eat them without having to look at their spongy companion.

"I take it you didn't make that," Kara said.

I looked over at her tater tots and soda. The thought of grease and carbonation nearly made me choke. "No," I said. "My mom did."

Kara squinted at me. "Does she want you to diet? Because you look fine."

Give it a few months. "She's just on a health kick."

"And you're eating the sprouts," Kara said, "but not the bread."

I shrugged.

"Hey," she said, glancing over my shoulder. "There's your boy."

I forced myself not to look. There was only one person who Kara would refer to as
my boy
, and he wasn't anymore. I picked up another sprout and twirled it between my fingers.

Kara didn't notice my lack of enthusiasm. "They're coming this way," Kara said. She turned and waved. "Hi, Rodney," she said.

At that point, I had to turn around. And when I did, I found Rodney passing our table with Ryan, Kara's ex-boyfriend.

Was she trying to get
his
attention?

"Hey," Rodney said. He might have been responding to Kara, but he was looking at me. Our eyes met. My heart hammered and my breath left me. As he passed our table, Rodney's hand drifted within inches of my shoulders. I thought he might touch me, but he didn't.

"Um, uh, hi," I said, when they had already passed by. Rodney must have heard me, because he turned around and gave me half a smile. My cheeks turned pink as he and Ryan headed off through the back doors, toward the science wing.

Kara planted her elbows on the table. "Okay. What was that?"

"What was what?" I asked.

She raised one eyebrow at me. "You dropped a sprout down your shirt."

I looked down. It was hanging at the edge of my v-neck like a drowning man clinging to the edge of a boat. I flicked it off. Had Rodney seen that?

Probably.

"I did not see that coming," Kara said.

I looked up at her. "What?"

She grinned. "After all these years, you have a
crush
on him."

"I do
not
," I said.

"You
do
. You were practically drooling! How do you do that? I'd have thought all the years of
friendship
"—Kara tagged air quotes—"would have worn all the magic off."

Now my cheeks were burning. I crossed my arms over the table top and buried my face in them.

"Wow," Kara said. "You are adorable."

I groaned. "Cut it out."

She giggled. "Has Rodney witnessed this? Because he'll tease you more than I will. You know it's true."

I put a hand to my forehead. "We're not . . . we're not really talking right now."

Kara set down her soda. "What?"

I sniffed. "Things are complicated, okay?"

Kara was quiet. I peered up to see her contemplating my disassembled sandwich. "Holy crap," she said. "Are you pregnant?"

I moaned into my arms.

Kara swore. "And he's not
talking
to you?"

I snapped up to look at her. "Why does everyone think that Rodney is being a jerk to me? He's not, okay?"

Kara looked at me wide-eyed. "Yeah," she said. "Okay."

The people at the other end of the table stared at me. I didn't look around, but I was pretty sure they weren't alone.

At least Rodney had disappeared toward the science wing. If he'd witnessed that little display, I would have curled up into a little nauseous ball.

Who was I kidding? Enough people heard.
Someone
was going to tell him.

"So what are you going to do?" Kara asked.

I rolled my eyes. "Die of starvation, probably."

But Athena was right.

There was no way I was getting out of this that easily.

I slept through the next week and a half. I'd zombie-walk through school in a daze, and then come home and crash in the afternoon. Rodney nodded at me whenever I passed him in the hall, but he never stopped to talk. In my lethargy, I managed not to stalk him.

I did, however, stalk his photography. I guess without me bugging him to study, he had a lot of time on his hands. He sent new ones every day—plants dying from the sudden arrival of the winter chill, toys the neighborhood kids abandoned in the street. One cold gray day, Rodney took a series of photos of light bulbs shattering on black tile. I recognized the floor—he took those pictures in his hall bathroom. I wondered if his mother knew he was smashing glass in the house.

I couldn't keep up with him, so I picked his best shots from each set to crop and color correct. Rodney didn't comment on my work, but I could tell from the history that he looked at the photos almost as often as I did.

At the end of the second week, I was able to eat more, but I could only stomach simple things: chicken nuggets, grapes, carrot sticks. I was going to have a child, and apparently I was going to eat like one, too. I focused on each bite individually. Place in mouth. Chew. Swallow.

I learned from the baby book that I wasn't supposed to see a doctor until twelve weeks, counting from the start date of my last period. "It's stupid," I told Kara one morning before school. "That means when I was one week pregnant, Rodney and I were both virgins."

She shook her head. "You have terrible luck, getting pregnant the first time."

Ouch
. I nodded, so she'd think I thought so, too.