"This day could literally not get any worse," I muttered to Josh while leaning out of the car, my hair pulled back in a pony tail. A few miles from home, the afternoon sun was already setting as a cool breeze came off the ocean, wafting up the scent of my own vomit. On our way home from a terrible day at school, including my new friend kissing me without my permission, I was hit with a wave of nausea that I couldn't just "hold in" like Josh suggested as he drove me home. No, here I was, vomiting my guts out on the side of the road because of the stupid baby growing inside me, without my permission I might add.
Wiping my mouth, I breathed in deeply through my nose, taking in the smell of vinegar mixed with sea salt wafting off the ocean. When my stomach didn't roll in protest like the waves of the ocean in front of me, I undid the pony tail and slid back into the Mini Cooper. Upon shutting the door, I was greeted with the scent of pumpkin-apple spice air freshener which Josh let me pick out special for our shared vehicle, which was a relief after the horrible smell of my own half-digested lunch. Josh shot me a sympathetic look as he shifted the car back into drive and sped toward home.
"So, ultrasound today, right?" asked Josh as we pulled up to his mansion. I nodded while guzzling down a Fiji water, trying to wash down the lingering taste of bile in my mouth. Shooting me a pearly smile, Josh leaned over and pecked me on the cheek, causing me to choke up water all over myself before he playfully bolted toward the house before I could speak. I watched the front door slam from the passengers seat of the Mini Cooper, all the while covered in my own spit-up water. Still, I couldn't ignore that smile that was already forming on my face, all from that small cheek-kiss.
"Josh!" I yelled, as I entered the house, backpack slung over my shoulder. Almost cartoon-like, Josh's head popped up from the hallway, and to my delight he still had that wonderful smile on his face.
"Sorry, I couldn't help myself 'Dira," he said. Before I could respond, he emerged from the hallway, holding a duffel bag. I cocked an eyebrow in confusion.
"Okay, I know what you're thinking. It's too early to have a birth-day bag, right? Well that's not what this is," said Josh as he opened the duffel bag. Inside, there was a sweater, some Cliff bars, as well as a Polaroid camera, and a large, light blue book entitled "Baby."
"I thought maybe this would be good to take to all the doctor's visits. I creeped on your Pinterest the other day and got the idea," Josh said. I looked up from the bag and saw that he had turned bright red, making me chuckle.
"Wow, thank you Josh," I said, taking the bag "That was really considerate. I love it. But wait, why is the baby book blue?" At this, Josh walked up and placed a hand on the tiny bump on my stomach.
"Because, I'm betting on a boy. Josh junior, am I right?" said Josh. He gave a silly eyebrow waggle, causing me to burst into laughter. To my shock, I was suddenly hit with a wave of guilt, feeling an almost physical pressure on my shoulders and my stomach. I tried to brush it off, tried not to think about it as I followed Josh to the living room, but it was there. In short, I felt like shit for being happy. How could I be happy with my mother gone?
"Hey, what's wrong?" asked Josh. He turned on the television like our usual after school routine, but looked over to me with concern. I shrugged my shoulders, to which he lowered his chin and trained his eyes on me, an almost parental look of concern. Sighing, I grabbed a nearby cashmere blanket as Fitzy leapt onto the couch, snuggling up before looking at Josh again, whose eyes were still on me. I looked down, picking at the blanket fuzzies.
"Adira..." said Josh in a warning tone.
"Okay," I said. My shoulders sagged as I acquiesced. "I miss my mother. And I feel.... Guilty, I guess, for being excited about the ultrasound. She always dreamed of seeing this, even more than my father. And that's the other thing, this isn't like mourning my father, it's so, so different. I feel bad about that too, because I didn't love her more than my father, so I don't know why this is different. I just... I don't know, I just have too many emotions and the little baby growing inside me isn't making it easier because it's like eternal PMS." The words spilled out with about as much control as the vomit I was chocking up earlier. When I was done, I regretted revealing so much, adding a twisting tornado of anxiety in my belly in addition to the slew of other emotions. For a grueling moment, Josh sat silently, his eyes trained on me like he was studying a science experiment; yet, he wasn't cold or calculating, but rather a scientist attached to his project. It was like Josh was watching the stars.
"Well," said Josh "That sucks, doesn't it?"
There was silence as, I swear, my brain short-circuited. Was that really all he was going to say? To my shock though, I cracked a smile, and a little bit of sunshine broke into me and lit up a few of those dark parts. Relief. I felt relief. Surprisingly, Josh did seem to sum it all up in that single sentiment, because it was true, this MAJORLY sucked. It wasn't a cheap, greeting card "things will get better" sentiment because Josh had been there, he knew that it wasn't that simple.
"Yeah, it does," I said with a tiny giggle. Josh smiled and lifted his feet up onto the coffee table, relaxing further into his chair.
"The best thing you can do is let the suckiness sit until late at night, think about it in bed. It's lonely, dark, and you'll cry a lot but.. If you think about it all the time, you'll get spacy, detached from life," said Josh. Any smiles or laughter were knocked right out of me as I pictured that-- Josh, age fifteen, laying in bed broken and alone. I had seen him around school some then, and I didn't imagine that was anything wrong. Now, at least I had him to go to in this big lonely mansion. Josh had no one.
"I don't feel detached from life," I admitted "If anything I feel blinded by everything, like sensory overdrive. My highs are too high and my lows are damn low." For a moment, Josh turned to the glowing television, his eyes looked at the images on the screen, but not moving with them, as he mulled over what I had. I fidgeted-- thoughtful Josh made me nervous for some reason-- and Fitzy moved to a different part of the couch.
"See, Adira, I never had that because... well, you know how I smoke, right?" Josh said. His eyes didn't meet mine, they were still on the television, so when I nodded, he didn't register.
"Yes," I said softly. Slowly, I reached to Fitzy, petting his fur to calm my nervous mind. I didn't like where this was going.
"Well, I do that to help me not do... worse things," he said "You see, after my parents passed away, I didn't hang out with the crowd I hang with now. No, they are a major improvement to who I used to spend time with," at this, Josh gave a dark chuckle "Even Crystal."
I prickled a bit at that name, but tried to stay focused on what Josh was saying. This wasn't about her, or me, or any part of our failed attempt at romance. This was about Josh a mere year or two ago, suffering in ways I couldn't imagine as I buried myself in books and solitude to hide from a crumbling world.
"Drugs, right?" I said. My heart began to beat in my throat as Josh nodded, a fist clenching on the armrest of the loveseat.
"Yes. It started with hallucinogens, not pot, which everyone says in the gateway drug, but it's not. I've met a ton of pot heads who function every day," Josh said "No, I started with shrooms a few days after my mother passed, out at a party near the docks."
I had heard about the docks. A bunch of students from my school called them the "lower lots" where some of the kids from poorer families lived after the plague took their parents. It was an area rampant with not only drugs, but disease-- horrible diseases like AIDS and HIV that made kids my age exempt from the Baby Law. I shivered at the thought of Josh, the father of my child, the man who I gave my virginity to, hanging around that area at night, confused as the world took on a different light with the drugs in his system.
"After that, I tried a lot more than shrooms. LSD, naturally, which sometimes still messes with my dreams to this day. Cocaine was the next logical step, as well as molly, which I would pop sometimes before school to keep from breaking down. See, before the drugs, I used to sometimes become overwhelmed at school, that kind of extreme emotional states you were talking about earlier, which would cause me to break down in the men's bathroom sometimes before ditching to go home," said Josh. At this, his face began to redden, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he clutched the loveseat in his hand, digging his nails into the arm rest.
"I remember that, vaguely. You knocked me over once as you stormed out of the bathroom, and Cally talked about it for days, saying she was going to beat the shit out of you," I said, with no trace of humor in my voice. Cally did tend to get a bit extreme sometimes. Josh, though, let out a soft snicker, as him and Cally were finally on good terms almost, dare I say, friends.
"I think I kind of remember that too. Sorry hun," he said. Letting out a big sigh, Josh leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling in thought.
"So," I said softly. I treaded lightly with my words, not wishing to cause Josh more pain, like a hunter in the forest trying to take down a buck with the least amount of blood shed "What made you... quit?" I felt an arrow of pain in my chest as Josh's head snapped up, rigidity setting in his jaw. The subject was sore, like a wound, and I just hit it.
"Well...." Josh paused, giving another sigh "I had a close call. A very close call." He ran his hand through his shaggy hair, then scooted to the front of the seat. When he held out his hands, I sat up, making Fitzy jump to the floor as I took his hands in mine. They were warm and a flutter of nervous, romantic feelings hit me without my permission for the second time that day, but I swallowed them down with a spoonful of sorrow.
"First, I want you to know, I've been tested, multiple times, so you are okay," began to Josh. I opened my mouth to speak as that panic feeling hit me like a bus, now causing my hands to clam up in his. He couldn't mean.... He didn't....
"It's okay Adira, calm down," Josh said, as he squeezed my hands comfortingly "Let me explain. I had had a bad day, a really, really bad day. The wound of my parents death was still fresh and the latest girl I was sleeping with, Katelyn, had just told me she had slept with a few other guys and no longer wanted to be with me. So I was at this party and someone offered me heroin--"
I couldn't help but let out a cry of protest as even more emotions hit my body-- worry that Josh had done it, shame that he hadn't told me before, confusion that this was even a thing high schoolers did while I was innocently living my life believing that the worst in my town was a little cocaine. With a soothing shush, Josh gave my hands another squeeze, his turquoise eyes looking deep into mine.
"I didn't do it, Adira, I was too tired. I decided to go home early that day, and a week later, you know what I found out? A bunch of those kids at that very part were tested as HIV positive. If I had taken that needle...." Josh's eyes glazed over for a second as I felt my heartbeat go back to normal "It was enough to scare me straight. I got tested just in case, and I'm clean as a whistle. After that, I stopped sleeping around, stopped most of the drugs, but I'm not going to lie when I say I've relapsed more than I would like to admit. Adira, I'm a mess. I'm sorry that I had to tell you this." Releasing my hands, Josh stood while I sat there shell shocked. How had the guy who had just playfully kissed my cheek a minute ago live through all of that pain? When I looked up, Josh was holding his hand out to me, and his face seemed serene and calm. It was almost as if we had gone through our regular routine, not had the horrible discussion about Josh's past. Nevertheless, I took his hand and stood up. Once upright, I surprised myself by launching into a bear hug, holding Josh close. With a small grunt, Josh almost fell over, but managed to keep us both upright before embracing me as well.
We stayed like that for a long time, just holding each other in comfort.
Soon enough though, the hug ended, and Josh, to my surprise, was blushing like a school girl for what seemed like the millionth time that day. He glanced at the clock after a small grin.
"Looks like it's time we get headed," said Josh "And you know what Adira? I'm putting my money on you having twins."
A/N-- I'm so, so sorry it's been this long friends. As you all know, I've had some of the craziest weeks of my life. From moving making, to tattoos, to going away to school, I could write an entire book about this summer alone. Updates should be more frequent now that I am back in the academic world, but I need your help! Comment, share, like, and please help me get my ranking back up because publishers look at that kind of stuff and I love, love, love feedback! Anyway, see you all soon!