Regret List (12 page)

“But you’re different!” I looked at her pleadingly.
“You said no.” I laughed a little, although it didn’t seem very
funny. “You definitely just broke up with Patrick. There’s no way
he’s going to ask you out again, after that whole scene.”

She looked at me sadly and I felt my heart drop.
“It’s too late, Paige.”

“What-“

“I’m pregnant.”

I started crying then, tears pouring down my face and
dripping down onto the ice. “Why didn’t I stop you? That first
night at the bowling alley, I almost left and brought you with me.
I saw that you didn’t want to be there.”

She stopped then and put her hands on my arms,
turning me to face her. “Paige,” she said, surprise in her voice,
“you’re the only reason I said no tonight. You…you’re who I think
of when I know I need to be brave. The way you were in the car,
screaming until they let us out, I wish I could be like you. I’ve
always wished I could be like you. That’s why there’s one thing I
can’t understand.”

I stopped sobbing for a moment, long enough to answer
her. “What?”

“Why in the world are you with Jason?” She turned and
started walking again, and I stepped into stride beside her, drying
my face with my sleeve.

“What do you mean?” I asked, sniffling.

“Paige, you’re not the only one who looked
uncomfortable and miserable at the bowling alley. Sure, you hang
out with him and kiss him, but you don’t have that spark in your
eyes.”

That part surprised me. I assumed I had been putting
on a good act. Was I really that obvious, or was Grace just
unusually observant? Jason seemed happy enough and no one else had
questioned our relationship. “Spark in my eyes?”

“Yeah. It’s hard to describe. If you look for it, I
bet you’ll see it. I see it sometimes in the way Jason looks at
you, but I’ve never even seen a hint of a spark in your eyes. Not
for Jason, anyway.”

“It’s complicated,” I finally replied.

I know I should have told her right then. She had
just opened up her entire life to me and here I was, closing up. I
wish I had told her right then and had someone to confide in, but
she merely nodded. “Well, when it gets too complicated, come and
find me.”

“Wait, come and find you? What do you mean? Won’t you
be at school?”

“I don’t think so.” She ducked her head forward and
her hair fell over her face. “Not with all that just happened, plus
being pregnant. I’ll just take online classes or something. My
mom’s not going to care much.”

But what am I supposed to do?
Fortunately, I
wasn’t self-absorbed enough to actually voice that out loud. “Does
Patrick know about the baby?” I asked instead.

“No. I’ll give him a couple months to cool down. I
want you there when I tell him, though.”

“Sure thing, Grace. Do you think you’re going to keep
it?”

She pursed her lips. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t
want to end up like my sisters, but knowing I have this baby…it
makes me want to be good. I want to do right for once.”

“I’ll stand by you, whatever you decide.”

It started to snow then, and I pulled my hood up in
an attempt to stay warm. “Are you going to head home?” I asked
Grace.

She nodded, teeth chattering. “I live just a few more
streets over. Do you want to stay there for the night?”

“No, thanks.” My stomach clenched at the thought.
After hearing about Grace’s mom, I couldn’t wait to get home. I
wasn’t even worried about trying to explain why I was turning up in
the middle of the night, freezing cold. I felt horrible for every
time I had complained about my mom to Grace, and wondered what she
must have thought of me.

We took a side street between two dumpsters and ended
up in front of a run-down brick house with pinecones littering the
front yard. “I’ll see you later, then.” She started up the
driveway.

“Grace, wait.” She stopped and looked at me, wiping
the snow out of her hair. “He didn’t, you know, rape you or
anything, did he?” I choked over the words.

She paused before answering. “I didn’t say no. But I
didn’t say yes either. I just…closed my eyes and let him do what he
wanted.” Turning back around, she raised a hand in farewell and
headed for the door. “Remember what I told you. Come find me when
it gets too complicated. I’ll call you if I need you.”

“Goodbye, Grace,” I replied softly. Sighing as she
closed the door behind her, I walked on. And that is the result of
Regret #3: Ignoring all the signs that something was really, really
wrong. Of course, Grace’s part isn’t over just yet, but the rest of
that story comes later. First, it got much more complicated.

Sunday passed in a haze of writing. My mom hadn’t
blinked when I appeared at 10:30 the previous night, after I
explained that Sammy had gotten sick to her stomach and I decided
it was best if I left. I hoped that she
was
sick to her
stomach, after what she had done at the party. A full-blown
snowstorm had developed overnight and the blanket of white helped
block all my worries. Instead, I simply wrote.

The girl of our story had taken the boy as prisoner.
Still bewildered by his failure to kill her, she went every day to
his cell to ask him why. Instead of answering, he told her stories
of his life: his mom and dad, the birth of his baby sister, how it
felt to run through the fields of wheat and stare up at the
cloudless sky, trying to see how far into the deep blue he could
gaze. I knew what would happen soon. Eventually, he would tell her
how he found the corpses of his parents and his baby sister, how
the fields of wheat burned with a relentless fury, and how the blue
sky turned brown with smoke and ash. All because of the wizard she
defended so fiercely. I didn’t know how she would react to all
that, but for now, I was content to let her listen to peaceful,
happy stories of the world beyond the rocky precipice the wizard’s
castle sat upon.

Maybe it was because I was dreading it so fiercely,
but Monday seemed to come much faster than normal. When I woke up,
I realized I had forgotten to do my biology homework but it was too
late to do anything about it. I was just thankful that neither
Kandice nor Sammy were in any of my classes. Slumping in my chair,
I tried to ignore the concerned glances that I knew would be coming
from Jason and Asher. Putting my head down in my arms, I winced
when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It would be Jason, for sure.
Asher wouldn’t dare bother me when I was so obviously in a bad
mood. Plastering a pleasant look on my face, I looked up. To my
surprise, it was our teacher.

“Are you alright, dear?”

I silently forgave her for making Asher’s first day
so awkward. She was young, probably just out of college. It was
obvious that she was desperate not to make a mess out of her first
year. “Fine,” I said lightly. “Just tired. Sorry, I forgot my
homework.”

She smiled at me and winked. “Don’t worry about it.
We all have days like that. Just bring it in tomorrow.”

Feeling a little better, I propped my head up on my
hand. Although invisible, all the support strings my friends
provided had been cut, but I was still doing okay. Maybe I really
could do this on my own. I still avoided making eye contact with
anyone, though. If Kandice and Sammy had engaged in any sort of
character assassination over the weekend, there was no telling what
I would find in my classmates’ looks. I wasn’t ready for that
yet.

I darted for the door after class and ignored my
phone buzzing against my hip. Jason and Asher would want to know
what was wrong and I wasn’t ready for that yet, either. Instead, I
slipped the notebook into Asher’s locker and trudged through the
rest of my day. At lunch, I sat down in front of one of the tall
windows that made up the wall of the atrium. As I slowly forced
down my sandwich, I kept my eyes on the snow falling outside, but
paused when I heard footsteps stop at my back. Glancing over my
shoulder, I saw Kandice and Sammy, their faces unreadable. With a
sigh, I turned to face them.

“There you are.” Kandice’s voice sounded robotic as
she slid down next to me.

“Can you believe that party on Saturday?” Sammy said,
sitting down on my other side. “I was
so
drunk.”

I stared at them in disbelief. Were they really
trying to go back to the way things were? After what they had done?
Maybe that was the difference between us: what happened at the
party was no big deal to them. We were going to act like Grace
never existed, like she and I hadn’t had to walk several miles home
in the middle of the night. This is one of those times that I’m not
afraid to tell you about. I don’t regret what happened next.

“Are you serious?” I stood up and faced Kandice.
“You’re seriously going to act like Grace isn’t here, that you
basically accused her of asking to get raped, that she deserved
whatever happened to her? You know what – I hope that you never
find yourself in her shoes because I doubt anyone will jump to your
defense and get you out of there.” I turned to Sammy. “And you. I
always knew Kandice would choose a hundred things over us, but you?
I thought you were better than that.” I scooped up my lunch and
still raging a little, I might have kicked over their drinks and
stomped on their sandwiches and chips a little before storming off.
Just a little.

Some guy at the end of the hallway whooped and threw
himself out of my way, pretending to cower against the lockers.
“Don’t get in this girl’s way, guys!” he hollered. As I pushed
through the doors to the stairwell, I smiled a little. Doing the
whole high school thing without friends? Yeah, I could do this.
There was no way I could have done the alternative and played along
with them. That’s just not who I am.

Fortunately, there were only a couple weeks of school
left until winter break. I began feeling like I was leading a
double life during that period. The days belonged to Jason. I
walked with him between classes, went over to his house after
school some days, and chatted on the phone while we did our
homework. The nights belonged to Asher, when I wrote until I fell
asleep with a pen in my hand on the nights I had the notebook, and
exchanged text messages with him regarding plot points.

It reminded me a lot of how I felt a couple years
ago, during a time when my decision-making skills were not exactly
at their best. Now, you’ve got to promise me that if you ever run
into my mom, you cannot tell her this story. It doesn’t matter how
old I am now – she would still flip out if she knew what we had
done. Asher and I were twelve at the time and I was spending the
day at his house, watching movies and roasting marshmallows over
the gas stove. It was just a few months before his parents split up
and they were gone for the day. They must have been at counseling
or something, but all we knew was that we had the house to
ourselves. We were stuffing our faces with marshmallows when his
brothers came into the living room and stood in front of the TV,
blocking our view.

“Hey!” I protested, throwing a marshmallow at them.
They both wore what I would categorize as a “sly grin” and I could
tell they were up to no good. They rarely were. I’m not saying they
were bad kids, but around that time, they started getting much more
mischievous. I don’t know if it’s because of their parents or
because they were in their mid-teens, but it seemed like Asher was
always telling me about some new situation they had got themselves
into.

After I threw the marshmallow, I realized Asher’s
oldest brother, Terrance, had something hidden behind his back.
“Out of the way,” Asher grumbled.

“C’mon kiddos,” Terrance wheedled, “Mom and Dad are
out. Why don’t you do something a little more exciting than watch
Harry Potter and eat candy?”

“What do you have behind your back?” I asked,
suspicious.

The middle brother, Caden, tousled my hair and backed
out of the room with Terrance. “Come upstairs and see, Paige-o.”
Laughing, they ran off and I heard them charge upstairs.

I turned to Asher. “Want to go upstairs?”

He just shrugged. “It’s trouble.”

“Yeah, but-“ I paused. Why
did
I want to go
upstairs when I knew it would only lead to trouble? I wasn’t sure
why at the time, but looking back at it, I suppose it’s pure
curiosity. You know how your mom always told you to try new foods
at least once? Well, that spilled into the rest of my life as well.
I’m the kind of person that wants to experience as much as
possible, just once, even if it gets me in the occasional bit of
trouble.

After I talked Asher into coming upstairs with me, we
tentatively peered into his brothers’ room. They boys were sitting
on the floor with a bong between them. “How nice of you to join us,
Paige,” Caden said in an overly-polite voice. “Would you care for a
hit?”

I laughed nervously and plunked down next to him. “I
guess I’ll try it.”

Terrance glanced over at Asher, who still stood in
the doorway. “You joining us, brother dearest?”

Asher shook his head, but didn’t leave.

“I don’t know how to do this.” I looked helplessly at
Caden.

He laughed and held it up to his lips, inhaling and
building up the smoke inside. “Here,” he said quickly, handing it
over. “Take a deep breath and hold it.”

I breathed in and screwed up my face at the taste,
then promptly doubled over, coughing. “Ugggh,” I managed, tears
running down my face. “I’m dying.”

Terrance and Caden burst out laughing again and I
passed the bong back to them. Asher pressed a glass of water into
my hands and I gratefully took a sip in between coughing fits.
Wiping away the tears from my face, my vision cleared and I saw the
boys watching me expectantly. I stared back at them as a buzzing
filled my ears and I found myself unable to focus. With my eyes
twitching uncontrollably, I brought my knees up to my chest and
buried my face. “I don’t like this,” I whimpered.