Saving Grace (3 page)

I straightened up and stretched. My head had been slumped over against the car seat, and my mouth was all sticky inside. I felt around on the truck floor, found the water bottle and drank what was left. It wasn't very cold anymore.

“Where are we?” I asked Justin. My ponytail had come half undone. I pulled the elastic loose and raked my fingers through the knots in my hair.

“We're getting pretty close to Edmundston,” he said.

“How long before we get to Montreal?”

“Hours.”

“You know, we'd make better time on the highway,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Except the cops are probably looking for you by now. We have to stay off the main roads. You did kidnap a baby, you know, Evie.”

“Don't say that,” I said, twisting my hair back into a ponytail again. “She's mine. You can't kidnap your own kid.”

Justin had turned the radio on low while I'd been asleep. “Hey, that's our song,” I said.

“What do you mean, ‘our song'?” Justin said.

I turned the sound up just a notch and sang along, keeping my voice low so Brianna wouldn't wake up. “...when you touch me, I can hardly breathe, when you touch me, I still believe.” I looked at Justin. “I can't believe you don't remember. That's the first song we danced to, the very first time we made love.”

He shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Justin! That's the night we met. How can you not remember?”

“I remember meeting you. I just don't remember dancing and songs and stuff like that.”

How could he have forgotten? I'd told my dad that I was sleeping over at Jade's that night. She'd been my best friend
since grade two, except now her mom didn't want Jade hanging around with me anymore because I got pregnant. Jade's mother said I was a bad influence. But back then we hung out all the time. I'd say I was staying at Jade's, and she'd tell her mother she was sleeping over at my place. That way we could go out and no one would ask where we were going and when we would be home. That had always worked because no one ever checked, and most of the time when one of us said we were sleeping over at the other's house we really were.

That night we'd gone to a party Evan Kelly was having out at his parents' camp. Most of the kids at the party were in high school, but Jade had been invited by this guy, Dylan, who she'd met at the Y pool, and he'd said she could bring a friend. And that was me.

So anyway, Dylan had grabbed Jade as soon as we got there. Someone gave me a beer and I just wandered around at first. I didn't really like beer—I'd sneaked a
few sips of my dad's and the taste was gross—but I couldn't say no because I didn't want it to look like I wasn't cool.

I didn't really know anybody, and Jade was already in Dylan's lap, so after a while I went outside on the deck because it was just too loud inside. There were steps that went all the way down to the beach, and Justin was sitting on the top one smoking a cigarette.

I didn't usually go for guys who smoked because when they stuck their tongue in your mouth it tasted really raunchy. Plus I hated the smell in my hair. I've always spent a lot of effort on my hair, and I never bought cheap shampoo or conditioner, and I didn't want to smell like some old, stinky cigarette when I was spending fifteen bucks a bottle for conditioner. But Justin was blowing these totally cool smoke rings, perfect circles that just floated away into the dark.

I didn't know who he was then. I mean, I'd seen him around the Y pool and at the Burger Barn and the mall, and I'd
noticed him because how could you not? But I didn't even know his name then. He was so cute, tall with strong arms, and he had his hair long then too, thick and blond and almost touching his shoulders. So I just watched him for a while and didn't say anything. Then he turned around and smiled at me, and it was just like in the movies—for a second I couldn't breathe.

He put out his cigarette on the end of the railing and then he pulled a pack of gum out of his pocket and offered me a piece.

“Thanks,” I said. I leaned against the railing, peeled off the paper wrapper, popped the gum in my mouth—it was spearmint—and hoped I didn't look too much like a cow when I was chewing.

Justin slid over on the stairs. “Have a seat,” he said.

I sat down next to him. The step was so narrow our legs touched. I hoped he couldn't feel mine shaking.

“I'm Justin,” he said.

“I'm Evie.”

“You here with anyone?”

I knew he meant a guy. I shook my head. “Just my friend Jade. She's inside.”

“I've seen you around,” Justin said. “At the pool, right?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh.” He'd noticed me. We just started talking then. About how it wasn't fair that now you had to buy a punch pass to swim at the Y instead of just paying three bucks every time. And how the parking lot at the Dairy Queen up the hill was getting too crazy to hang out in.

We talked for maybe an hour. It was getting cold, and Justin took off his sweatshirt and gave it to me to wear. It was so romantic. A while later we went inside to find something to eat. After, Justin said, “You wanna dance?” and we did. That's how “When You Touch Me” got to be our song because it was playing on the radio.

I had my head on Justin's shoulder and I could smell his aftershave and I
thought, I could die right now and I'd be happy. Then later we went for a walk down the beach and found this spot beside a big rock, kind of back in the bushes. We sat on the blanket that Justin had brought and we started kissing, and soon Justin had his hand on my bare back. He was whispering in my ear how much he wanted me, and my insides were melting.

I didn't just put out like that, though, especially for someone I'd just met, but with Justin I knew it was different. We were already falling in love, you know, like love at first sight. I pulled back for a second. “We don't have any...you know, protection,” I said.

“I sort of do,” Justin said.

“What do you mean, sort of?” I asked.

“My buddy, Cameron, him and his girlfriend, they're in love and everything. I think they'll probably even get married some day, but his parents are really religious and strict and all, and so he asked me to hold onto his—you
know—protection, because if they found it they'd freak.” He ran his finger down my cheek and across my lips. “I've never done anything like this before,” he said. “And if you don't want to...”

I thought my heart was going to burst right out of my chest, it was pounding so hard. “I want to,” I said.

After that night, Justin and I were together all the time. We had to kind of keep things secret. I was fourteen and he was nearly seventeen. My dad would have gone ballistic. I couldn't even tell Jade, which I hated because she was my best friend and I wouldn't have even been at the party and met Justin if it hadn't been for her. Justin said that as
soon as I turned sixteen we could tell everyone, but then the condom broke.

We were in Justin's truck back in the woods off the road to the landfill. He sat up and I heard him say, “Oh crap.”

“What is it?” I said, pulling on my underpants and jeans.

“It broke.”

“What broke? What do you mean?”

“The condom. It broke.”

“I thought they weren't supposed to break.”

“Yeah, well this one did.” Justin hauled up his pants and fastened his belt.

I counted back in my head. “It's probably okay,” I said. “My period's gonna start in about a week.”

Justin was pulling his hand back through his hair the way he always did when something was bugging him. “Isn't there some kind of pill you can get from the doctor?” he said. “That can keep you from getting pregnant?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Anyway, I can't go to the doctor. The first thing he'll do
is call my dad.” I put my arms around Justin's neck. “I'm sure it'll be okay. I'm really, really regular. You'll see.”

And my period started right on time on the fourteenth, though it only lasted a couple of days. Justin and I were super careful after that, but the next month I missed my period altogether, and then a couple of weeks after I should have gotten it, I thought I had the flu. I got up and puked even before I'd washed my hair. It happened the next morning too. The third morning my dad said he was taking me to the clinic because I couldn't keep missing school.

The doctor was a woman. Dr. Marriot. She was filling in because Dr. Tracey was away. She had on a long floaty skirt and flat sandals with her white doctor coat, and she reminded me of Ms. Carrington, my art teacher. Except Ms. Carrington usually wore her sandals with socks. The doctor had blue polish on her toes and a silver toe ring.

I sat up on the table in the examining room while she looked down my throat, felt my neck and listened to me breathe. I told her how I'd heaved, first thing, for the past three mornings. “Are you sexually active, Evie?” she asked.

I wasn't sure whether I should tell her. I didn't want my dad to find out and get Justin into trouble. If it had been Dr. Tracey, I wouldn't have said a word.

“Anything you say to me stays in this room,” she said when I didn't answer.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and nodded. She gave me a little bottle and sent me into the bathroom to pee.

“It has to be a mistake,” I said when she told me I was pregnant. “Because we've been super, super careful. Okay, there was that one time last month, but— I mean, I got my period so how could I be pregnant?”

“Was it a normal period?” she asked.

“Well, it was kind of light and it only lasted a couple of days.”

The doctor explained that what I'd thought was just a short period really hadn't been one at all.

“Would you like me to tell your father?” she said.

I nodded. I could have puked right then, but there was nothing left in my stomach.

Dad didn't scream at me, which I'd known he wouldn't do with someone else around, but his face got so red I thought for a second the top of his head would blow off. “How could you have been so goddamn stupid, Evie?” he said finally in a quiet voice. He kept squeezing his hands into fists and then letting go again.

I didn't say anything. What could I say?

The doctor started talking about vitamins and nutrition and stuff like that. “What about an abortion?” my father interrupted.

“It's an option,” Dr. Marriot said. “There'd have to be another doctor in agreement.”

“No,” I shouted. “I'm having my baby.”

“You're just a kid yourself,” Dad said. “How the hell can you raise a baby? No. You're not going to ruin your life over this.”

“I don't care,” I said. “If you try to make me have an abortion I'll run away.” My hands were clenched so tightly I could feel my fingernails cutting into my hands.

Dr. Marriot put her hand on my arm. “Let's all take a deep breath,” she said. My father and I glared at each other. I could feel the anger in the air—the same prickliness there is right before a thunderstorm.

“It's a big decision,” Dr. Marriot said. “Why don't you go home? Take a few days. Think about everything. Then come back and see me and we'll talk about the options.”

Dad and I got in the car and headed home without talking. He wouldn't look at me either. When we pulled into the driveway, he turned off the engine
and just sat there. Finally he let out a long breath. “Who's the father, Evie?” he asked.

“You don't know him,” I said. “And I'm not having an abortion. I mean it. I really will run away.”

“Then you'll put the baby up for adoption,” he said. “There's no way I'm letting you throw away your life over something like this.”

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 couldn't tell there was a baby growing inside me. I lay my hand on my stomach. I couldn't feel anything. It didn't even feel real, but my and Justin's baby was inside me.

Of course I had to tell my dad who the baby's father was. Dad went to see Justin's parents. I don't know what happened, but they all decided it was better for everyone if they just gave my dad some money and Justin and I didn't see each other anymore.

But we still managed to be together. I figured, why shouldn't I be with Justin?
I mean, we loved each other, and it wasn't like anything was going to happen because it already had. It wasn't easy, because Dad was watching me all the time, plus Jade's mother wouldn't let her hang around me anymore so she wasn't any help. Jade was kinda pissed at me anyway because I hadn't told her about Justin in the first place.

I got out of last class a couple of times by signing my dad's name on a note saying I had a doctor's 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 couldn't stand the smell of fried eggs. If I smelled a fried egg, everything came up, it didn't matter what time of day it was. At least I didn't 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 that's what his parents said too. We were in the truck in the woods just off the dump road—the same place the condom had broken. “You wanna be stuck with a baby at your age?” He shook his head. “It's the best thing, Evie,” he said. “The baby will get a good home and then it'll be like this didn't even happen.”

Except it didn't work out that way.