“How could you? That should have been us.” The tears were now freely falling down my cheeks.
“All I can say is I’m sorry.”
“Please, Garrett. Just tell me why. You owe me that much.”
There was a moment of silence before I heard him sigh on the other end.
“She’s pregnant,” he whispered.
A sob escaped my lips before I clasped my hand over my mouth.
“It’s early. We haven’t told anyone yet. I didn’t want you to find out this way.”
I didn’t even bother responding as I let the phone fall to the bed.
Pregnant?
My mind went completely blank.
Through my tears, I tripped out of the bedroom and back into the living room. I was about to be hysterical. I couldn’t be here around all these people. Throwing open the front door, I walked to the end of the driveway, ignoring the glances of everyone around me.
“Mattie? What’s wrong?”
I ignored my mother and continued to walk until I was on the street.
Golf carts were lined up in a neat row. I stumbled into the first one. My mother once told me that everyone left their keys in the ignition. There was no crime to worry about here. Sure enough, a keychain with fuzzy dice was dangling by the wheel, tempting me. I turned the keys without a second thought.
Frankie and my mother were running down the street waving their arms.
“Mattie, what are you doing?” one of them shouted as I pulled the cart away from the curb and slammed on the gas.
Pregnant?
The word kept running through my mind. I started gasping for breath as my sobs became more and more frenzied. The tears blurred my vision as I whipped the cart onto the first turn out of the neighborhood. I needed to get out of here.
I threw the cart around the next blind turn, only to be met with another driver looking shocked to find me in their lane. I screamed and whipped the wheel in the other direction.
With the speed at which I was going and the force at which I turned, the cart started to tilt toward the passenger side. I tried to correct the wheel back but failed. The cart tipped sideways as if in slow motion before I felt myself flying out of it and crashing to the asphalt below.
* * *
“What the hell were you thinking?”my dad roared.
I was sitting on the medical exam table, waiting for the doctor to come back to stitch the large gash in my forehead.
“Stuart’s cart is completely wrecked. Do you know how much money it’s going to cost to fix that? Do you know howembarrassedwe are?”
“Ron, don’t yell. Everyone will hear you.”
“I don’t care,” he barked. “Our daughter drunk drove our friend’s golf cart and crashed it. I’ll yell if I want to. You’re lucky no one called the cops, and they aren’t pressing charges.”
My head was pounding from both the alcohol and the injury. I closed my eyes and willed my parents to disappear.
My mom got up and put a hand on my dad’s arm. “Why don’t you wait outside until you can calm down? Yelling isn’t helping anything. I’ll talk to Mattie.”
He threw his hands up in exasperation and stormed out of the examination room.
A hand squeezed my knee, and I looked up to see my mother’s concerned eyes.
