Eternal Heat (Firework Girls #3) (10 page)

The next day, I decide I’m not up to going to school. My parents don’t push it. They both talked to me this morning, and my dad has softened since last night. He apologized for his harshness, gave me a hug, and said we’d all get through it together. I tearfully asked him if I’d have to get an abortion and he assured me I wouldn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do.

“But what about what Mr. Williams said?”

“We’ll figure it out,” my dad said. “He probably wasn’t feeling any more reasonable about things last night than I was. I’ll give it a couple days and then talk to him.”

I didn’t turn on my phone until my parents left for work. After listening to the litany of alerts as it got caught up, I read the many texts from Erik, beginning with one he sent me when I was still walking home from his house.

Erik:
It’s going to be okay.

He meant the Juilliard thing, which seems so long ago and far away now.

There were a few more texts after that, asking if I was all right, then there was a long break. He didn’t send the next text until evening:
I have something to tell you. Something good.

I assume that was after he’d confronted his parents about Hartman. I can only imagine how that went. Erik may have thought he was going to do what he wanted to do, but after witnessing his dad last night, I doubt they were going down without a fight.

Then there were a series of texts—
Please text or call me,
and
I really need to talk to you,
and
Can I come over?—
which must have all been before he came to talk to me.

His last text was sent right after he left here last night:
You won’t be alone in this. I promise. I’m here for you, Ashley. I love you.

This was when I realized our fathers maybe weren’t the only ones who didn’t know how to handle things last night. After thinking back on Erik’s reaction, I see he didn’t really say anything to indicate he was abandoning me. He was just taking it all in, and trying to find out my thoughts about the matter.

Tearfully, I sent him a belated reply:
Thank you. Can I come over after school today? I love you too. I’m so scared.

But that was six hours ago, and I haven’t heard a word.

An hour after the time his school would have let out, I take a chance. I don’t have long before my parents get home, so it’s now or never. I walk along the Greenbelt and to Erik’s house, wondering what I’ll find when I get there. What if his parents are home? What if he’s home, but doesn’t want to see me?

I try not to think that. I try to have faith in his last text. But after so much radio silence, it’s hard.

When I get to his house, no one’s home. I don’t bother texting. This time, I call.

It goes straight to voice mail. I listen to his recording instructing me to leave a message—my heart aching at the sound of his voice—but I hang up.

I walk home with my arms wrapped around myself, shivering the whole way.

A couple days go by and I go through the motions at school. I don’t tell a soul. Graduation is in two months, so I won’t really be showing too much at that point. I’d rather not be
that girl
so I just keep my mouth shut.

Erik hasn’t texted or called me (in fact, his number is out of service), but his dad has been pestering my dad, wanting to know if “things have been taken care of.” We’ve already decided I’ll put the baby up for adoption, but apparently Erik’s dad is still being too threatening for my dad to want to say so.

I let four whole days go by before I storm over there. I know his dad is due to leave for New York soon, and I’m determined to give both Erik and his dad a piece of my mind. But they get the upper hand on me once again. The house is closed up and there’s a For Sale sign out front.

This knocks the wind out of me. Did they decide to move early? But... what about Erik finishing school? Is he all the way to New York at this very moment?

Fuck. Goddamn him.

The anger I’d been carefully nurturing all week dissolves into shaking and tears.

That’s when I hate him.

When I get home and tell my parents, my dad gets a stony look on his face.

We’re at the kitchen table. My dad is standing, seeming too tense to sit, but mom is next to me rubbing my back. I’m scowling at the old candle centerpiece in the middle of the table, leaning on my arms and balling my hands into fists.

“They’ll go to any lengths,” my dad says, “won’t they? I thought maybe his father was just blowing hot air about pressing charges against you, but I’m not so sure now.” Clearly, he’s even more skittish about telling Erik’s dad I won’t be getting an abortion.

I’m past caring.

“Lie about it then,” I say furiously. “They can both kiss my ass.”

Neither one of them correct my language. “Honey, I understand being upset,” my mom says, rubbing my back. “I am too. But... I don’t know how angry I am at Erik. I have a feeling his dad is putting a lot of pressure on him.”

But I don’t care what his reasons are.

I’ll never forgive him for leaving me the way he has.

Two weeks later, I’ve had my first appointment with the doctor, who confirmed I’m almost five weeks along. My parents are still trying to figure out how to handle things with Erik’s dad. I oscillate between furiously hating Erik and missing him so much I think I’m going to die. Sometimes I find myself going through all sorts of scenarios in my head, giving Erik the benefit of the doubt. What if his dad is threatening him too? But in the end my hurt at being abandoned is too much to overcome. If he really loved me, wouldn’t Erik at least try to talk to me? What excuse could he have for that?

One last thing is contributing to my feeling that I’m in a downward spiral: I haven’t touched a piano since it happened. I could go back to the school one, and probably should, but I can’t. Everything is too black and heavy.

I can’t even hear music in my head.

I’ve taken to walking along the Greenbelt again, mainly because I just want to get away all the time and I have nowhere else to go. I walk in the opposite direction of Erik’s house though.

One day, in the middle of May, I’m a good mile and a half from the house when the cramping starts. It’s the thing that makes me turn back toward the house much earlier than I would have. I feel like I just need to lie down.

By the time I get home, I’m in horrible pain and know something’s terribly wrong. The dull cramping I felt at first has steadily worsened. There’s a sharp, hot pulling sensation in my uterus and I can’t even walk upright. My dad isn’t home yet, but as soon as my mom sees me, she rushes to my side.

I tell her what’s happening and she loads me into the car. I wonder if I’m losing the baby. I’m in too much pain to worry much about the confusing fact that I both do and do not want to have a miscarriage.

But, like everything else these days, it’s out of my hands.

We get to the hospital and they confirm I’m miscarrying. They end up putting me under for a D&C—a common procedure to scrape my uterus since I’m not miscarrying cleanly, which scares me to death—and I wake up an hour later with my parents by my side. I’m no longer pregnant. I’m no longer in pain.

I’m ultimately relieved.

But I can’t bring myself to admit that to anyone.

And I have no idea what to do about the big, gaping gash in my heart where Erik used to be.

I returned to my piano not long after that and ended up going to Hartman after all. Between scholarships and grants, my costs were just barely covered. That first year in college, though, was all about trying to fill the big Erik gash in my heart, and really not knowing how to do it. I could escape into my music some, but even that wasn’t enough. Aside from struggling that first year to keep up with all those well-trained musicians, Erik had become infused in my music and I didn’t yet know how to exorcise him.

I went a little wild, as I suppose many freshman do, but for me it was far more wildness than was good for me. The parties were fun, but both the drinking and the guys tended to get out of hand. I’d push myself past my comfort zone. Looking back on that time in my life, I think I was trying to punish myself for something, but I still am not sure what. It wasn’t that I was sleeping with a ton of guys, but the guys I slept with meant nothing to me, and having sex with them always made me feel miserable.

Which is sort of why I was doing it.

Surprisingly, it was Sam who cured me of it. Sam, my tiny little firecracker of a friend, who seemed to consider a night of casual sex as both the best possible form of recreation, and the cure for just about any ailment.

It came about when I stopped by Sam’s room in her dorm to pick her up for a frat party. Chloe and Isabella weren’t able to come to this one and Sam’s roommate—who she hated anyway—was out, so it was just the two of us.

When I arrived, Sam was blustering about her room, getting ready. She was in a form-fitting dress that barely covered her rear. Her short, blonde hair was styled in that wild, sexy way the guys all seemed to love. With one hand holding her spiked black high-heeled shoe, she was digging around the clothes all over the floor trying to find the other one. She seemed particularly agitated. Sam’s got a fiery personality anyway, but we’d been friends long enough that I sensed something else was going on.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. I was standing in the middle of the room, not wanting to sit on her roommate’s bed, even though I was right next to it, and not wanting to brave the mountain of clothes to cross to Sam’s bed either. We were leaving in a couple minutes anyway.

“Oh...” Sam hedged, still digging. I wondered if she was too upset to talk about whatever it was. She unearthed the missing heel and plopped down on her bed in a huff. “I’m just a little freaked out,” she said, starting to put on one shoe. “I’m three fucking days late on my period. Apparently fucking Harry doesn’t know how to put a condom on because it broke on us a couple weeks ago.”

I couldn’t even remember which guy Harry was, Sam rotated through them so quickly. I was overtaken with fear for her, but my own history came back in a rush too. A buzzing sensation crawled over my skin and I slowly sank to her roommate’s bed.

“I think I need to go get a goddamned pregnancy test.” Heels finally on her feet, Sam huffed in frustration and stood. “All right, let’s go.”