Where the Truth Lies (12 page)

As they’re leaving, she turns to look at me. “Thanks, Emily.”

And then they’re gone. If I don’t go back to the dorm tonight, I realize, I won’t see her until after the New Year. She didn’t even say good-bye.

Del seems to have disappeared, and the party drags on as I try to stay by myself as much as possible, while simultaneously keeping an eye out for him. But he doesn’t show, not until well after midnight, once the party is over and I’ve been forced to sing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” to a room full of people who have no idea what a mess my life is.

It’s still snowing outside, a few inches accumulated since the beginning of the evening, and I’m watching as the flakes drift toward the ground in the moonlight, when a snowball hits my window.

Immediately, I know it’s him. I hurry downstairs to let him in. My parents have been in bed for over an hour, but I’m still nervous they’ll wake up.

“Where have you been?” I ask, pulling him inside. “Hurry up, before someone sees you.”

He’s not wearing a coat. His head is covered in snowflakes; his cheeks are bright red. He looks so alive and gorgeous that I can hardly stand it.

We sneak upstairs to my room. I lock the door, and we sit cross-legged on top of the covers on my tiny bed, our knees touching.

Del reaches out to touch my hair. He’s always doing that. “How was your night?” he asks.

“It was fine. Where were you?”

“I was around.” There’s a pause. Then he says, “Ethan Prince is back at my dorm, sick as hell. He’s passed out on the bathroom floor.”

“Oh, really?”

Del nods. “Uh-huh. I saw you talking to him tonight.”

The idea that he was sneaking around, watching me, is slightly annoying. “What does that matter? We were only talking.”

“He’d steal you in a second if he could.” I see the slightest flicker of insecurity in Del’s expression. “Could he?” he asks.

I almost laugh. After all, I’m
pregnant
. But Del doesn’t know that.

Instead I ask, “Did you tell him he couldn’t talk to me?”

He gives me an innocent look. “I don’t remember saying that.”

He’s lying, which annoys me even more. “Ethan remembers.”

“Maybe I did. It’s possible.”

“Who are you to say who I can and can’t talk to?” My voice is light, but only because I’m nervous. I don’t want to get into a fight. But I find myself imagining Ethan over in Winchester, on the bathroom floor, sick and lonely. He doesn’t deserve to feel that way.

He stares at me. “I’m your boyfriend, Emily.”

It’s so quiet in my room, I can almost hear the snow falling onto the ground outside. The whole world seems muffled.

“Emily,” Del asks, “what’s the matter?”

I could tell him now. The words are on the tip of my tongue.

But then I realize he’s not going to know how to help me. Maybe he’ll only make things worse. I need to figure out a solution first, on my own.

Tears are stinging the corners of my eyes, though; I have to tell him
something
. “I had my precalc final today,” I say.

“Oh, right. How did it go?”

I shake my head. “Not good. I’m pretty sure I failed.”

“Emily,” he says, “but it’s so easy. Didn’t you study?”

“Yes! I studied and studied.” I’m openly crying now, wiping tears from my eyes. “But when I look at the test, it’s like I’ve never even seen the material before.”

“I’ll help you,” he says. “Don’t worry.”

I sniffle. “I can barely do basic algebra. I don’t know how I’m supposed to make it through precalc, let alone calculus next year.”

“So you take statistics instead. It’s no big deal.” He frowns. “Why are you freaking out?”

“I’m not freaking out.”

“Yes, you are. Emily, are you sure there isn’t anything else going on?” He blinks. “Did Ethan say something to you? Did he do anything?”

“Would you stop talking about Ethan? I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Then stop fighting.”

“ …”

“ …”

“Listen, precalc will be fine. Don’t worry.”

“Uh-uh.” I stare at my comforter. “I’m too stupid. I can’t do it.”

“You
can
. I’m telling you, it’s easy.” He pauses, like he’s thinking about something. “Math is just a matter of manipulation. There’s nothing to it.”

I sniffle. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s just a matter of manipulating the variables. Once you figure out how to do that”—he spreads his hands, giving me a bright smile—“everything else is easy.”

His words, for some reason, make me break out in a sweat.

“What did you say?”

“I said it’s just a matter of manipulation.”

“Uh-huh.” He thinks everything is so easy. He always finds a way to manipulate things to get exactly what he wants.

An awkwardness begins to spread in the space between us. We stare at each other.

He glances at the clock on my nightstand. “I hate to say this, but I should go soon. I have to pack. My parents will be here in the morning.”

“Okay.” I feel almost relieved that he’s leaving. I just want to be alone.

I give him a kiss. “You should go, then.” I force a smile, even though I’m sick to my stomach, and the kerosene smell that’s always clinging to Del is making it more intense. “I’ll see you next year.”

Since I’m pregnant, I obviously can’t take Dr. Miller’s pills anymore. As a result, the nightmares come fast and intense, making sleep almost impossible. With campus all but deserted, my nights are spent alone. More than once, way after she’s supposedly gone to sleep, I see my mother through my window, sneaking outside to smoke. Each time it happens, I consider confronting her. But what would be the point? I’ve got secrets bigger than hers.

Our house phone rings a few days before Christmas. I recognize the area code as a Colorado exchange. Stephanie.

I pick up the phone and say, “What’s up, sweetie?”

There’s a long pause.

“Emily? Is that you?”

It’s Ethan.

I can feel the blood rising to my cheeks. “Ethan. Yes, it’s me. Is everything okay? Why are you—”

“Why am I calling you? I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?” I ask, pretending to be oblivious.

“For the Christmas party. You know I was drunk. Steph is so pissed about it, she’s barely been talking to me. She said I made a total fool of myself.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad.”

I can hear the tension in his voice. I imagine him at home in Colorado, with his mom and Steph, spending their first Christmas without their dad. I feel sorry for him—and for Stephanie—and so selfish, in a way, for how distant I’ve been toward all my friends. Unlike them, at least I can say I’ve got my family.

“So I bet you’re missing Del,” he says.

“Yes,” I admit. “I am.” I imagine how furious Del would be if he knew I was talking to Ethan. And I can’t quite explain it, but somehow the fact makes me feel almost satisfied. Why should Del get to tell me who I can and can’t talk to? Beyond that, I’m excited to be talking to Ethan. He might have gotten drunk and acted stupid, but he’s still
Ethan Prince
.

“Your dad still doesn’t want you two together?”

“Nope.”

“That must be hard.” He swallows. “I mean, to not be able to really be with the one person you want more than anyone else.”

I don’t know what to say to him. I’ve
never
had a telephone conversation with Ethan before. He’s been so strange in the past few months; is it really possible that he likes me? It seems that way. Not that it matters—it isn’t like anything could ever come of it now. Ethan might not know it yet, but I am
trouble.

“So … ,” I say, trying to move the conversation along, “is Steph there? Can I talk to her?”

“Oh,” he says, his tone almost surprised, “no. She’s not here.”

“She isn’t?” The awkwardness takes a leap. “Um. Does she know that you’re calling me?”

“Well, no. Should she?”

“ …”

“ …”

“Ethan … look, I should probably go. Don’t worry about the Christmas party, okay?”

“Thanks, Emily. There’s just one other thing.”

Oh, God
. “What is it?”

“I missed hearing you sing. After I left, what song did you sing?” I can
hear
him smiling. “I remember last year you sang ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas.’ It was great. And the year before that, you sang ‘Jingle Bells.’ ”

I can’t believe he remembers all of this. “Thank you,” I tell him. “This year, I sang ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.’ ”

“Emily?”

“Yes?”

There’s another long pause. “I just wanted to say merry Christmas. That’s all.”

“Oh. Well, merry Christmas to you, too.”

We hang up. I stand in the hallway for a few long moments, staring at the phone, thinking,
what was
that
all about
? But then I realize that I’m smiling.

When I go back up to my room, there’s an e-mail waiting for me from Del.

Emily,

How’s your lonely life on campus so far? I miss you terribly. My parents are going out of their way to make our first Christmas as a “real” family a superspecial one. I was trying to figure out what to get you as a present, and then it occurred to me. Attached is everything you need to ace precalc for the rest of the year. Don’t ask me how I got it; if I told you, then I’d have to kill you …

I’ll be in touch sooner than later. Merry Christmas.

All my love.

I open the attachment. I put a hand to my mouth. It’s a huge PDF document, and from what I can tell it’s every quiz and test for precalc for the rest of the year. With all the answers filled in.

I’d like to believe that it’s the pregnancy making me feel a little sick to my stomach as I stare at the document on my computer screen. But it’s not.

I am the headmaster’s daughter. I might not be a great student, and I might be seeing Del behind my father’s back—and, of course, there’s the whole illegitimate baby thing—but I am sixteen years old and I’ve never cheated on a test in my life. I know it sounds absurd, but if I
did
cheat, and I got caught, I couldn’t stand how it would humiliate my dad. I have already let him down so much, and he doesn’t even know it.

How could Del think I would ever use those answers? What is the matter with him? I delete the file. Then I lie on my bed, the door to my room locked, and stare up at my canopy. Without thinking about it, I start to sing quietly.

Dashing through the snow …

I remember that night at the party, although it seems like it was much more than two years ago. I remember the way my friends and I all wore Santa hats and the way my father tugged me under the mistletoe to plant a kiss on my cheek. I remember drinking nonalcoholic eggnog with Steph, Franny, and Grace until our stomachs hurt so much that we could barely move.

There is my life before Del, and there is my life with Del. The thought begs the question: what will life be like after Del? Eventually, something has to give. Something will break. Someone will learn my secret.

For now, I take comfort in the fact that my door is locked, that campus is deserted, and that my parents are both downstairs, with no idea of what’s truly going on in my life.

I open my eyes and look around at my room, which has not changed for as long as I can remember. I try to ignore the fact that my legs have grown almost too long for the bed.

From downstairs, my mother begins to play the piano. I can hear her just well enough to make out the song: it’s “Junk,” by Paul McCartney.

I join in with my voice. It’s the strangest feeling, there in my bedroom: she probably can’t hear me, and I can barely hear her, but for the moment we are in harmony. Just for the moment.

chapter eleven

On the Sunday before school starts after winter break, I go back to my dorm after breakfast to wait for my roommates. Since they’re taking the school van from the airport together, they all arrive on campus at the same time.

They sound like elephants on the stairs. I’ve been lying in bed, holding my belly with one hand, sweating in the dry heat of our room, waiting. I didn’t want to be at home with my parents, but now I don’t want to be here with my friends. There’s nowhere to go.

“We’re baaaack!” Grace bursts through the door. “Emily! You’re here!”

I force myself to smile. “Hi, sweetie. How was your Christmas?”

“Super.” Grace tugs off her hat and fluffs her hair. “How was yours?”

“It was good.” It was torture. I’d spent most of my time hiding in my room. My parents think I’m still upset with them about not being allowed to see Del.

Franny hurries in next. “Whatever you do,” she says to me, “don’t ask Stephanie how her vacation was.”

I’m out of bed. Grace gives me a hug. “Are you okay, Em?” she asks. “You look pale.”

“I’m fine. I only seem pale because you’re so tan.” Her cheeks are red and windburned. She looks healthy. She’s probably been skiing a lot.

“Did you miss Del?” Just as Franny asks the question, Stephanie strolls into the room. She doesn’t look healthy like Grace. She doesn’t even look well rested. She goes straight to her room, drops her luggage on the floor, opens the window, and lights a cigarette.

“Hey.” More than ever now, I don’t want to be around smoke. “Please don’t do that in here.”

“It’s my room,” she says. “I can do what I want.”

“It’s our quad,” I say, “and I’m asking you to stop.”

She takes one last drag from the cigarette before tossing it out the window. “There,” she says, glowering. “Happy?”

“You just walked in a minute ago. Are you seriously in a bad mood already?” I pause. “Would you rather be at home?”

Her hair is in a messy pile on her head. She pulls it free, and it spills over her shoulders and down her back. Even when she’s angry, her eyes puffy, her skin dry, Steph is beautiful. “I would rather be at home with my family,” she pronounces, “but that’s impossible.” She closes her eyes for a moment. Then she asks, “How about you, Emily? Did you have a perfect Christmas with your perfect parents?”

I could laugh. I want to cry.

I am terrified for school to start again. As soon as everyone is back from break, I feel overwhelmed by this kind of paralysis, an inability to act or fully understand, to tell anyone but Renee. At first, I’m anticipating that my body will go through everything a person sees in the movies and on television: morning sickness, odd food cravings, mood swings, weight gain. But instead, after a month of nausea, all I’m left with is the constant feeling that something isn’t quite right in my body, the reminder that something is growing inside me. I couldn’t be more scared. I still have no idea how I’m going to tell Del.

On the weekends, when we can sneak away for appointments, Renee drives me to the free clinic in New Haven, where I hear a heartbeat and see a tiny blur on a black-and-white screen that appears hopelessly outdated. It doesn’t look like a baby; it seems impossible that the wriggling, breathing form I see onscreen is inside me. When the ultrasound tech asks if I want to know the gender, I just shake my head. At almost every appointment, tears run quietly down my face. Renee has gotten over her initial anger, and now she is not judgmental or pressuring or anything that you might expect a person to be. She just stays beside me, holds my hand, and waits for things to sink in.

By mid-January, I am at the end of my first trimester and have not gained any weight; in fact, I’ve lost three pounds.

“It’s not unusual,” the doctor at the clinic tells me. Her name is Dr. Hwang. She’s a soft-spoken, younger-looking Asian woman. I like her. She’s been nice to me since my first visit, when I confessed that I didn’t know what I wanted to do, that I hadn’t told the father or my parents, and that the only other person who knew was Renee, sitting beside me in the room, looking blankly ahead, almost as though she felt she had no right to be there. But I wanted her with me; I don’t think I could have gone by myself.

At the end of the month, Dr. Hwang brings me into her office for what she calls “a gentle talk.” I know what’s coming.

“Emily,” she says, my medical file sitting open on her desk, “it’s time for you to start thinking about a few things.”

I only nod. I can feel the tears coming again.

“When you first came in, you made it clear you were opposed to termination.”

The idea had been unthinkable. It’s funny; before now, I’ve always figured I’m pro-choice. But once it happened to me, I realized that I’m only sixteen. Sixteen trumps pro-anything. Sixteen means a decision this large is too much for one girl to grasp. So all I could figure to do at the time was refuse the option, and move on.

Dr. Hwang gives me a book called
Stacy’s Story
, which is really more of a thick, staple-bound pamphlet about a girl like me who gets herself knocked up by a nice boy at school after their condom breaks. I can’t say how many times I’ve gone over the first night I slept with Del, and the way I blindly believed that nothing could go wrong. And even as things between us have started to feel unsteady and uncertain, ever since the night before Christmas break, I’ve continued to meet him at night. I continue to love him as I withhold the knowledge of what we’ve created, and try to ignore the sneaking suspicion that he may not be all I hope he is. We’re stupid, I know; we’ve done the dumbest thing two teenagers in love can do. The longer my pregnancy progresses, the more afraid I am to tell him what’s happening. I don’t know how he’s going to respond. And my parents—my God, I haven’t even
considered
telling my parents.

In
Stacy’s Story
, she tells her boyfriend, Mike, as soon as she finds out she’s pregnant. At first, Mike (a football player with a heart of gold) is scared, and tries to convince her not to keep the baby. But then he “comes to his senses” and assures her that he’ll support her in any decision she makes. And when Stacy tells her parents, even though they’re angry and disappointed at first, they eventually forgive her. At the end of the story, Stacy’s baby is adopted by a young, infertile couple who couldn’t be happier to receive their little bundle of joy, and life goes on for Stacy with regular therapy and oral contraception. I might be over my morning sickness, but the story alone is enough to make me want to puke. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a different pamphlet for teenagers who choose another option.

Renee does me the favor of throwing
Stacy’s Story
out the window of her car as we’re driving down Route 1 on our way back to campus.

“Yuck,” she says, watching it flutter in the wind as we drive away. “You know who Mike reminds me of? That guy—you know—Stephanie’s brother. What’s his name? Evan?”

I’m
floored
that she could have been going to Stonybrook since the seventh grade without knowing exactly who Ethan Prince is.

“Ethan,” I correct her. “You know he’s Stephanie’s twin brother. Renee. Seriously. How could you not know him?”

She shrugs. “He’s so … so
wholesome
. So apple pie.”

The description annoys me. She doesn’t even know his name. I think back to the phone call he made to me over Christmas break, to the way he remembered all the songs I’d sung at previous holiday parties. “He’s really nice,” I tell her. “He’s actually, like, the nicest guy I know.”

She raises a single eyebrow, looks at me from the corner of her eye. “Oh yeah? Since when do you care about someone being a nice guy?”

The question stings. “I care about things like that.”

“Uh-huh.” She glances at my belly. “Sure you do.”

“ …”

“ …”

“You know, Emily,” she says, changing the subject, “it’s possible you could go the rest of the school year without anyone even knowing that you’re pregnant.”

I take a deep breath. I’m relieved that we’re talking about my pregnancy instead of Ethan or Del. It bothers me that we’re talking about Ethan at all. I’m with Del. I love Del. Even though I’ve been hiding the truth from him for months.

I can’t say I haven’t thought about trying to hide the baby somehow. The idea seems crazy on the surface, but is it really? My stomach is still pretty flat. I certainly don’t look pregnant yet. By the time school lets out, I’ll be a little over six months along. I’ve seen pictures of women at six months in the clinic; if I keep my weight down and wear loose shirts, the deception seems doable.

“What about the summer?” I ask. “Eventually, my parents are going to notice. And there’s always … you know. The baby.”

“I was thinking about that,” Renee says. “School lets out the first week in May. Why don’t you come and stay with me in the city this summer?”

“With you? In New York?”

She nods.

“I thought you were taking summer classes at Yale.”

“I was going to. But I can wait until next year.”

I stare at her. “Won’t I be a drag? Besides, I’ll be visibly pregnant. Won’t your mom—”

“I don’t live with my mom in the summers,” she says. “I live with Bruce.”

“Even so. What’s he going to say about you bringing home your new knocked-up friend?”

She hesitates. “It’ll be fine.”

“You already told him, didn’t you?”

When Renee doesn’t say anything, I know the answer. The fact seems surreal: I imagine Bruce Graham sitting in a tux on a leather sofa, drinking a dry martini, surrounded by his Academy Award and Emmy statuettes, pondering the ramifications of sheltering a pregnant teenager for the summer.

“Emily. You’re not going to keep this baby, are you?”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so, no.”

“You’re gonna do things Stacy-style?”

I can’t help but giggle. “I guess so. And then I’ll live happily ever after, and come back to school in the fall and support Del at the games when he makes first-string quarterback, and everything will be—”

“Perfect,” Renee finishes.

It’s ridiculous. I doubt Del has ever held a football in his life.

Renee puts on her signal to turn into campus. “So you’ll come?”

“I have to ask my parents.”

She nods. “Your dad isn’t crazy about me.”

I bite my lip. “Bruce Graham is really okay with this?”

She nods again, smiling. “You can just call him Bruce, Emily. And he’s fine. It’s drama. He loves a good drama.”

“Is he making a donation to Stonybrook this year?”

Renee shoots me a look. But we both know what I’m thinking.

“I’m sure he could make one, if your parents have a problem with you staying in the city.”

“And then what?”

“We’ll find a doctor. We’ll find a family. You have the baby in July, go on a crash diet, and nobody knows the difference when we go back to school in the fall.”

“Do you really think it could work?”

She pulls her car into her parking space outside our dorm. “I think it will. I think it has to, Emily.”

“What makes you say that?”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Because otherwise you’re in huge trouble. Don’t get me wrong, but Del is no Mike. He’s not even close to an
Evan.
”

“You mean Ethan.”

“Right. And you’re no Stacy. And your dad—well, let’s just say he might not be intent on a happy ending.”

Renee and I part ways before I go into my dorm; she’s off to watch one of her mom’s movies with the still-awestruck and homesick seventh graders. When I reach my room, I find all three of my roommates waiting for me. None of them looks pleased.

“You’ve been out with Renee again, haven’t you?” Stephanie demands. Her bad mood has not faded since she returned from winter break. She hasn’t been willing to talk about it, but I’ve been spending plenty of time with Ethan at chorus practice, since we’re both soloists. We even have a duet together. I haven’t told Del yet.

Ethan has this incredible tenor voice that gives me chills every time I hear him sing. And the song itself is beautiful. The whole situation—after-school practices, looking into each other’s eyes while we sing—could almost be romantic. You know, if I wasn’t carrying Del Sugar’s love child.