clenched so tightly I could feel my fingernails cutting into my hands.
Dr. Marriot put her hand on my arm. âLetâs all take a deep breath,â she said. My father and I glared at each other. I could feel the anger in the airâthe same prickliness there is right before a thunderstorm.
âItâs a big decision,â Dr. Marriot said. âWhy donât you go home? Take a few days. Think about everything. Then come back and see me and weâll talk about the options.â
Dad and I got in the car and headed home without talking. He wouldnât look at me either. When we pulled into the driveway, he turned off the engineand just sat there. Finally he let out a long breath. âWhoâs the father, Evie?â he asked.
âYou donât know him,â I said. âAnd Iâm not having an abortion. I mean it. I really will run away.â
âThen youâll put the baby up for adoption,â he said. âThereâs no way Iâm letting you throw away your life over something like this.â
We went inside the house and I went up to my room. I stood sideways in front of my mirror and lifted my shirt. You couldnât tell there was a baby growing inside me. I lay my hand on my stomach. I couldnât feel anything. It didnât even feel real, but my and Justinâs baby was inside me.
Chapter Eight
Of course I had to tell my dad who the babyâs father was. Dad went to see Justinâs parents. I donât know what happened, but they all decided it was better for everyone if they just gave my dad some money and Justin and I didnât see each other anymore.
But we still managed to be together. I figured, why shouldnât I be with Justin?I mean, we loved each other, and it wasnât like anything was going to happen because it already had. It wasnât easy, because Dad was watching me all the time, plus Jadeâs mother wouldnât let her hang around me anymore so she wasnât any help. Jade was kinda pissed at me anyway because I hadnât told her about Justin in the first place.
I got out of last class a couple of times by signing my dadâs name on a note saying I had a doctorâs appointment. Then Justin picked me up just down the street from the school. And I managed to sneak out a few times at night by piling my pillows to make it look like me under the blankets. That was so lame, but it worked.
I still puked up first thing in the morning for about another month. Then it just stopped pretty much. Except I couldnât stand the smell of fried eggs. If I smelled a fried egg, everything came up, it didnât matter what time of day it was. At least I didnât get any weird cravings,except for grape Popsicles. I wanted those all the time.
When I told Justin that my dad wanted our baby to be adopted, he said thatâs what his parents said too. We were in the truck in the woods just off the dump roadâthe same place the condom had broken. âYou wanna be stuck with a baby at your age?â He shook his head. âItâs the best thing, Evie,â he said. âThe baby will get a good home and then itâll be like this didnât even happen.â
Except it didnât work out that way.
Chapter Nine
I looked over at Justin, driving with one hand, elbow up on the doorframe. Since Iâd had the baby I hadnât seen that much of him. Iâd heard a rumor that he was seeing some other girl. Some of my so-called friends just couldnât wait to tell me stories like that. I didnât even listen because I knew it was just certain people who were jealous of me and Justin andwanted to hurt me. Iâd even told Justin about all the gossip and heâd said it wasnât trueâwhich I knew. Heâd said he hadnât been around much because he didnât want to do anything to get my dad pissed off at me. But now we were going to be a family. Once we got to Montreal itâd just
Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life, Blues