Snapping a picture, I send it to Sara with a simple message asking what she thinks.
“It’s cute,” she sends back a moment later. “Shorter than I expected.”
I look in the mirror. It is short. The dress hits way above mid-thigh; if the school dress code is enforced, it definitely won’t comply with the “all dresses have to go past your fingertips” rule.
I didn’t intend to show so much leg, but this is the first dress I’ve found that I actually like.
It’s also on clearance, which is a big selling point.
I already made up my mind to use the money Hunter gave me to buy my dress, but I’ll need to buy shoes, too, and I don’t want to blow the whole $200 on my homecoming outfit if I don’t have to.
I open the dressing room door and walk out to see what Mom thinks.
Her face lights up as soon as she sees me. “Ooh, pretty! I like the burgundy. Twirl.”
I roll my eyes, but I do a dramatic twirl for her anyway.
She nods her approval. “Good spin circumference. I love it. What do you think?”
“I think it’s really pretty,” I say, looking down at the dress. “It’s not red, exactly, but I still think it will go well with pig’s blood if that comes up.”
She nods. “Definitely. Burgundy might actually go better with blood than red. It’s kismet. And isn’t this one on sale?” She walks over and checks the tag without even waiting for me to respond.
“Yep. I think this is the dress.”
After that, we go shoe shopping and pick out some black strappy sandals to go with it.
On our way out of the mall, we pass baby clothes and my mood takes a hit. I try to turn my gaze way from the tiny shoes and big fluffy dresses for little newborn babies, but I fail spectacularly and a stomach ache ensues.
Mom gets ahead of me as I slow down to look at a “daddy’s girl” bodysuit with matching pink pants.
Do I think Hunter would be a good dad? He’s too young and he certainly didn’t have any good role models for most of his life, but maybe that would light a fire under him to do better for his own baby.
Oh my God, his own baby.
Panic starts to swell up. This is exactly why I’ve been keeping busy. Damn you, adorable baby clothes. Damn you all the way to hell.
“Uh, you coming?”
I start, turning toward my mom. She’s standing in the middle of the aisle staring at me as I thoughtlessly pet baby clothes.
I drop my hand like the outfit caught fire, but I know it’s too late. She already saw me.
“Yeah,” I say a touch too sharply, abandoning the cuteness and walking over to her.
Of course, she’s watching me more closely now. “Having second thoughts on the dress? I don’t think that’s your size.” She tries for levity, but I can hear the undercurrent of concern in her voice.
“Did you ever regret having me?”
Her eyes widen. “What? No, of course not. Are you kidding me? I got to give birth to my favorite person. What a boon.”
“I know, but you were so young. Surely there was so much stuff you wanted to do that you missed out on because of me. And then you had to do it all alone on top of that.”
Mom shakes her head dismissively, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me in for a sideways hug as we walk. “No way. I mean, yeah, of course there were experiences I missed out on, and being a single mom is no walk in the park, but no, I never regretted it. I wouldn’t change a thing about our life.” She cocks her head in consideration. “Well, maybe plant a money tree in the back yard when we first bought the house, but aside from that, nothing.”
I look over at her. “You never wonder what your life would’ve been like if you hadn’t gotten pregnant so young?”
Instead of rushing to tell me no, of course not, she ponders this question for a few seconds. “Sure, I guess I did when I was younger, but just wondering what life would have been like doesn’t mean I regret any of it. Yeah, getting pregnant at 17 made life harder, but life’s hard for everyone, just in different ways. If it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else that made life hard, and nothing else would have brought me you.” She gives me a squeeze, then lets go so she can walk around to the driver side and I can get into the passenger seat. Once we’re both in, she looks over at me. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I could have been. I wouldn’t want any other life. I love ours.”
Emotion wells up in my chest. I feel like a big sap when I smile at her. “I love our life, too.”
She smiles back, reaching over and patting my hand before she grabs her purse and digs out the car keys. “What brought all this on?”
I shrug, my smile fading as I look out the car window. I wish I could tell her, but I can’t. “I just feel bad sometimes. You work so hard, and you always have. I feel like I’m the reason you had to work harder than everyone else and you didn’t make it as far.”
“Ouch.”
Her tone was light, but I look over at her, my eyes widening in horror. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry, that came out so wrong.”
Mom shakes her head, letting me off the hook. “I get it. It’s a big drawback of living in a town like this, where so many people have so much. I’m sure you see your classmates who don’t even blink at spending hundreds of dollars on a dress they’ll wear once to a school dance, and… you’ve apparently been saving birthday money to pay for yours, and we still had to shop the clearance rack.”
My stomach twists. “I haven’t been saving birthday money.”
Mom shrugs. “Well, you don’t have a job and you paid for your own dress and shoes. Don’t think I don’t feel bad about that, Riley. I do.”
“Mom…” I shake my head, wishing I hadn’t brought any of this up now. “I don’t want you to feel bad. Are you kidding me? You’re the best mom in the world. I don’t care about the dress or the dance, it’s nothing like that.”
“It is frustrating sometimes, you know.” She checks the rearview and backs up. “You want to give the people you love everything, but you can’t give what you don’t have.”
“You give me everything,” I tell her.
“It’s not enough. And you’ve got college coming up.”
She says it out loud, but her voice fades. It sounds more like she’s talking to herself than me.
I feel terrible that I got her on this tangent. I didn’t even mean what I said, I just had to come up with something that wasn’t “what brought this on is I had unprotected sex with Hunter Maxwell, and I’m thinking about how my own life could be derailed if I don’t get a period soon.”
Now I kind of wish I would have just said that.
I mean it when I tell her she’s the best mom in the world. I couldn’t possibly want for a better mother. She has always done her very best for me, and I feel like an ingrate now because she thinks I think she doesn’t do enough for me.
“That is not at all what I meant, Mom. I am so sorry I brought this up. Please know that I don’t think that. I love you and I love our life, I’m incredibly grateful for both. You’re Super Woman. You don’t need to do more for me than you already do.”