This time, I’m not, and by her softening face, I know she realizes that.
I know it’s a tough pill to swallow, knowing your baby is sexually active. If it hadn’t been for loving the guy I did it with, I’d probably still be a virgin. But it just felt right to be with him.
No matter what people say about kids not knowing a thing about love, I do. Hunter and I both do. We’re each other’s soulmate, and the choice to lose my virginity to him was simple. He’s always going to be mine.
Out of nowhere, my mom does something uncharacteristic. She leans away and slaps herself in the forehead like she’s ignorant to have missed something like this. Her eyes meet mine, and I know she’s put something together in her head.
“You were sick right before Thanksgiving, remember?” she asks. I nod. “You took a round of antibiotics. Gosh, I’m so stupid.”
My eyebrows draw inward in confusion. “Why is that important?”
She regards me softly, pushing a tuft of hair behind my ear. “Antibiotics can mess with birth control, baby girl. I’m sorry for not telling you.”
That’s all she says. There’s no anger, yelling, spanking for doing something as major as becoming pregnant months before turning sixteen. Instead, she’s calm, caring, collective.
My eyes widen. “You’re not mad?”
She chuckles and nods. “Oh, I’m livid.”
“Then why aren’t you more … I don’t know. Upset?” I cock my head to the side, staring her up and down.
Slowly, my mom sits down on the floor in front of me, gathering my hands into hers. Her thumb rubs over the tops of my hands, and then she leans over and gives them a soft peck. I sniff but otherwise remain silent, waiting for her to say something.
“Darling,” she says around a huff. “Your dad and I knew you and that boy were having sex.” Her eyes meet mine, features softening even more. “That’s why for your fifteenth birthday, I took you to get you birth control. Idiot me told you it was to regulate your periods.”
“It wasn’t?”
She shakes her head. “No. Not really. It was because we saw how close you and Hunter were becoming. We knew we needed to do something. So, I took you and got you examined and started on birth control. Your dad and I knew that regardless of what we thought, you and that boy would be together if you wanted to be. I just never thought to—well, I didn’t know how to explain the importance of always playing it safe without embarrassing you.”
Guilt claws at my throat. I can’t even bring myself to say I’d have told her, because I didn’t and never wanted to. She’s right. Something like that would have embarrassed me to high heaven.
“I promise we were always safe, Mom. I don’t know how this happened,” I swallow hard, trying to push the nausea down.
“Sweetheart, I know. I hate it, but I know. Antibiotics neutralize birth control, so it’s not only on you, it’s on me, too. But—”
My mom stops, looking ashamed for her train of thought. I sit in silence, watching her play through the scenario that’s no doubt going through her mind. A new feeling rears its ugly head and begins to bloom in place of the nausea.
Terror.
“Mom,” I say hesitantly. “What’s wrong?”
Her eyes finally rise to mine, anguish swirling within her emerald green depths. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but … you can’t keep this baby.”
“What are you trying to say?” I jerk back like she slapped me in the face. Essentially, she has.
I may be fifteen, but I’ll be sixteen by the time it gets here. That’s plenty old enough to take care of a baby.
May not be the future Hunter or I planned for ourselves, but—out of everything else going on—I find that it’s a future I want. A future with a baby in my arms and Hunter’s lips against my temple as he stares down with pride at his child.
A future with brightness, laughter, and unending joy.
“I’m trying to say that maybe we should have it taken care of.”
I shuffle away from her as quickly as I can, jumping to my feet. “An abortion?”
“Raising a baby isn’t as easy you think, Harloe,” she scolds, climbing to her feet as well and dusting off her butt. “A baby takes hard work, discipline. Giving up things that no sixteen-year-old should have to give up.”
Crossing my arms over my midsection, I try to ward off the hurt her words bring. I know what she’s trying to say. It’s not that this baby isn’t a blessing. She just doesn’t believe I’m competent and responsible enough to put another living being before me.
“So, because of my age, your answer is to kill the baby growing inside me? Your grandchild?” I reiterate what she’s saying back to her, so she can hear how crazy it sounds.
My mom is pro-life all the way. So are my dad, brother, and I.
My dad would swallow his tongue if he heard the way my mom is speaking right now.
Not that I’m knocking abortions because people are free to make their own choices, and I’m not going to tell them what to do with their bodies. But I personally don’t believe in them unless it’s a tenuous situation. There’s nothing tenuous about Hunter’s and my relationship. We’re in love. Eventually, it would have led to children. We’re just going about it backward.
“It’s not as crazy as you’re making it out to be,” she says, and I have a feeling if she were a teenager, she would have rolled her eyes. “The process doesn’t leave any lasting damage. You’ll still be able to conceive when the time is right, and right now, it isn’t.”
“Mom?” I crane my head to the side, studying her mannerisms. “Have you—”
Her look says it all. The moment her eyes meet mine, tears build along the surface, crest over my lashes, then streak down my face in rapid succession.
That’s why it’s so easy for her to encourage something like this. She’s had an abortion before, but … when?
“H—When?” I stammer.
She shakes her head, causing a few stray tears to break away as she turns her head and no longer makes eye contact. “We were your brother’s age when I became pregnant the first time.”
The first time? Are there more?
I lick my dry lips. “But you and Daddy were married already when you were Duncan’s age. Why would you?”
She shrugs. Actually freaking shrugs, like killing an innocent baby, is just another decision like cleaning the gutters or mopping the kitchen floors.
“We couldn’t afford a baby then, Harloe. I made the decision to the best of my ability.”
“Does Dad know you killed his child?” I think I know the answer, but I want her to say it. I want her to put her betrayal into words.
She shakes her head back and forth crazily, choking on a sob. Pushing her fingers into her hair, she looks at me with exasperation, like I’m not getting the point she’s trying to prove. Oh, I am. She wants me to take care of it without Hunter knowing. The same way she took care of my and Duncan’s older sibling without our dad knowing about it.
“Don’t think of it like that. You and Hunter are children, Lo. The second you tell him you’re carrying his child, he will toss you to the side. He is a Prince. His family is made of gold around these parts. The second you say I’m pregnant, you can forget any future you have planned with that boy because they won’t allow it.”