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“I'm not doing it,” Z said.

“You're not,” said Dad in disbelief.

“I'm going to find another job eventually, okay? But for now I think I'm good where I am.”

“Oh?” said Dad.

“I mean, you say you've done the stuff I've done, you've made bad choices or whatever so you understand, but then you won't let me choose how to support my family.”

“If I thought you could find a decent job on your own, I'd be happy to let you. But you've been doing nothing but waste time since you've moved back home, and I think you've made a huge mistake.” He reached out and put his hand over J's on the table. “I'm sorry,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” said Z, “Because you've never made a mistake? Never had a kid without planning for it? Never imagined your whole life would go differently only to have everything change in a second? It's not like you guys exactly planned for Jo.”

“Planned for me to what?” I said. And then, of course, it hit me.

From the very first moment, I was a mistake.

Unintended pregnancy

From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unintended pregnancies include unwanted pregnancies as well as those that are mistimed.

Unintended pregnancies include Jen's (2012) as well as my mom's (1999). Side effects of unintended pregnancies include heartburn, nausea, and unintended babies.

Unintended babies may grow up to be hideous, angsty people with few friends and fewer boyfriends.

Unintended babies may also resent being born into such a family and the world in general.

J
o
Waller, unintended child.

Jo Waller, pockmarked and unlovable.

Jo Waller, listening to one of stupid Z's stupidly excellent mixes on her iPod with the volume up full blast, not listening to you.

First, Mom knocked on the door.

“Go away!” I yelled.

But she came in anyway.

She told me how much she and my dad loved me.

How hard she knows that things have been for me.

How yes, it's true, she hadn't planned for me to happen, but that she had always, always wanted a daughter.

How she had thought that she was just too old to have any more kids so that when I came along it was like magic. And she was so glad.

She couldn't have planned a better kid, she said. And that's the way the world works — some of the greatest things that have ever happened were never planned, were somehow magic. She said.

I tried to smother myself with a pillow until, eventually, she left.

Dad came in next. He said most of the same things Mom did. That he loved me, and that I was special. That Z was an idiot. That Z was a huge idiot. That if he could choose to have had just one kid it would be me, because I was not an idiot (I think he was trying to make a joke, but he was still pretty mad so it wasn't really funny).

And then Z sat down on my bed. And Dad left pretty quick.

“I'm so sorry, Jo,” Z said. “I'm an idiot, you know that?”

“Dad mentioned it,” I said, my voice muffled by the pillow I was still half-heartedly attempting to suffocate myself with.

Z picked the pillow up off my face and he could see that I'd been crying. “I mean it. I'm the worst brother ever.”

“That was so mean.” My voice was tiny and far away.

“I know.”

“Why would you say that?” I wiped my nose with the back of my hand.

“Because I was angry. And I'm scared. And because I'm an idiot, okay? Your brother is an idiot.”

“Yeah.”

“And I know you'll never forgive me, but I've still got to try. I could …”

His voice trailed off, thinking.

I refused to help him out. I absolutely couldn't believe that he'd said what he said. I don't care how mad he was or how much he had to get Dad off his back, or even how scared he was about the baby. It was the worst thing anyone had ever said about me. The worst.

And Z didn't know me at all, really. How could he even know that I'd been an accident? He'd been gone since I was six years-old. Seeing me once every couple of weeks for a family dinner wasn't the same as being a real big brother. He had no right to say anything about me. I couldn't believe I'd idolized him for so long. He was lazy, he was stupid, and his poor kid wasn't going to stand a chance. His kid was a mistake. A huge mistake.

“Guitar,” Z said finally, breaking the silence. “I could teach you how to play the guitar, for real.”

“You said that before. And then you didn't. You never keep your promises.”

“Then I'm going to start. And the first thing I'm going to do is teach you to play. Right now, I'll go get my guitar.”

“Not tonight.”

“Okay, tomorrow?”

“You promise?” I said, finally sitting up.

“Absolutely.”

“You mean it?”

“I'm trying,” he said.

“You should take that job.”

“No, Jo, I shouldn't. This is something I'm going to have to figure out for myself.”

“It can't be that bad. You have to try. Promise you'll try to get another interview.”

“I'm not going to do that.”

“Promise. Promise you'll try or I'll never forgive you.”

“You drive a hard bargain, little sis.” He smiled. “But I'm not going to beg for another interview. That's not what I'd want my kid to do.”

“Then your kid's going to be a loser like you.”

“Ouch.” The smile disappeared. “Okay. I deserved that.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“How about I make you another promise? A different one.”

“Like what?”

“Like if I promise to be the best father in the world to that amazing little baby Jen's carrying — if I'm the greatest dad ever, then will you forgive me?”

“I'll think about it.”

“That sounds about right,” Z said, getting up. “I'll see you tomorrow for our first lesson.”

“Whatever. Shut the door, okay?”

But a couple of minutes later, there was one more knock.

“Go away, Zim!” I yelled, “I'm not forgiving you tonight.”

“Sorry, Jo,” said J, “we can talk another time.”

“Oh. No, it's okay, you can come in for a minute.”

I was back down on my bed, lying starfish, face down, but I sat up when J closed the door behind her and I made space for her on the bed. She sat cross-legged facing me.

“I want you to know that I'm totally pissed at your brother,” she said.

“Good.”

“He had no right to say what he said. He better have been grovelling when he was in here. Did he grovel? Was there grovelling?”

“Not exactly. But he's going to teach me guitar.”

“Geez, you'll be friggin' Jimmy Page by the time he's racked up enough lesson credits to earn back your trust.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, even though I wasn't totally sure who Jimmy Page was.

“Anyway,” J said, “I just wanted you to know how important you are to me. It's been … it's been tough moving in here with your parents, and I know it's been hard on them, too, having me around. None of us planned for this to happen, but I've never regretted it for a second.”

I tried to keep my face from looking totally skeptical, but J could see I wasn't buying it.

“What I mean is, I never would have guessed that this would happen to me, but I can't wait to meet this new person that Zim and I are going to be bringing into the world.”

“It's crazy,” I said. “Um, I mean —” thinking about what J had said about her family.

“No, you're right. It's completely, unbelievably bananas. And it's going to be hard, I know it is. And I feel so ridiculously lucky to have your family around to support us.”

“Really?”

“Of course. This kid is going to have more love than it'll know what to do with. Plus it's going to have the coolest aunt ever.”

“Doubtful.”

“You're amazing, Jo. And as a not-yet member of your family, I can say that with total objectivity. Being twelve sucks, but you're going to be all right. You are so, so lucky.”

“Yeah right,” I said, framing my inflamed cheeks like a game show model.

“I said being twelve sucked, didn't I?”

“Uh-huh.” I smiled. “I think you're lucky too, Jen.”

“I think you're right,” J said, running a hand over her belly.

“You still believe that everything works out for the best?”

“Yup. Definitely.”

That night I wrote a letter, a real one, not an email.

I wrote about all the horrible things I'd been feeling, about how bad it felt having a friend turn on me, and about losing another friend, a best friend, in the process. I wrote about how I don't even care about being cool, I just want to be cool with myself.

I erased that last bit, then. It sounded too cheesy.

In the letter I explained that being on birth control doesn't make me a slut, that no one should be called a slut, that the word is incredibly hateful. I explained that the colour of someone's hair — or their skin, or anything — doesn't give anyone the right to make fun of them either. And that I absolutely did not write anything on anyone's locker at school. I didn't. But I'm sorry it happened and I know what it's like to feel like you don't count.

I wrote about how excited I was to be learning to play guitar, and that I really meant it about starting a band. That there were people just like me out there, musicians and artists and total circus freaks, and I couldn't wait to meet them. The band, the music, was going to be a way of sticking out my hand and saying hi to my fellow losers. Hopefully, anyway. And I couldn't wait.

Because smart and weird may not be cool right now, but it will be. One day.

And because everything always works out for the best in this giant work-in-progress.

I believe that now, I wrote.

And I signed my name at the bottom of the letter. And I folded it up and I put it in an envelope that I found in the one of the junk drawers in the kitchen. I licked the glue on the flap at the top and I sealed it.

And on the front of the envelope I wrote her name.

Chloe.

The next day at school I showed up early.

I walked the four blocks with purpose. It was a warm day for March, and I left my coat unzipped.

I was early. Really early.

But so was a kid in grade eight who I'd seen around school before but had never talked to, I didn't even know his name. He was the only other person in the hallway at eight-thirty, and he turned when he heard my footsteps. He looked me like I was a monster, a dragon, a grizzly bear. He dropped the marker he was holding — red — and ran.

I stopped dead.

It was him? Seriously? Some weasely prankster too afraid to even speak?

I was stunned.

It hadn't been Chloe at all. How was that possible? It was just some random vandal.

Why had he done this to us? Did he have any idea what trouble he'd caused?

I took a deep breath, and then another one. My chest felt suddenly light.

I walked over to the locker where he'd been standing — I recognized it right away, it belonged to a guy in my class named Scotty, a total goof who thought it was funny that his locker number was 666 — and read what he'd written.

FREA

I'd spotted him just in time. Before he could make someone else feel like a freak.

But it made no sense.

Scotty's not a freak. He's on the basketball team. He has friends, too, lots of friends.

But the attack on Chloe's locker obviously wasn't random.

So maybe someone — this idiot grade eight with a Sharpie and whoever his friends were — knew about me being on the Pill.

Or maybe they didn't.

Was it a just a coincidence or was it a cruel joke?

I had no idea.

And not knowing didn't make me feel any better, but it did make me feel different.

I tore open the envelope and reread my letter to Chloe, wondering if I still wanted her to see it now that I knew she hadn't been the guilty one.

I dug around in my backpack for a pen, and, at the bottom on the letter wrote:

I know you didn't do it either. The locker
.

But that was never what this was all about, was it?

I opened my locker and took out all the things I needed for the day, then locked it and walked toward the gym.

I taped the envelope up again, and slid it into Chloe's new locker — it was the one next to Stacey's, still covered in ribbons and wrapping paper and magazine clippings from her birthday — through the grate at the top. I left the set of glasses — the not quite replacement replacements that I'd almost forgotten about in my locker — sitting just in front.

And I walked towards the principal's office, red marker in hand.

I didn't know if they'd believe me, or what this random creep's punishment might be. I knew telling wouldn't put the earth back on its axis. And probably neither would the letter. But it might be a start.