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“Fine,” I said, getting to my feet. “On a scale from one to ten, I feel a ten about my relationship with Campbell. Thanks for asking, Pam.”
“Marie, I—”
“Blaire! It’s Blaire. Why can’t you call me by the name I prefer?”
She met me stare for stare and steepled her fingers in front of her. “All right, Blaire. The definition of insanity is repeating the same action and expecting different results.”
I balked at my mother. That was not what I’d expected from her. “It’s not the same as it was in high school. He asked me to come to LA with him this time. For a week or two when he has to go back.”
“I see. And you believe that changes what happened last time?”
“No. It’s just different.”
“Need I remind you, the last time he left you alone and refused to handle his responsibilities, I was the one who was there for you when you were eighteen and pregnant.”
I winced and closed my eyes around that word.
Pregnant.
I didn’t even think that word in my mind anymore if I could help it. The memory hurt far too much.
It shouldn’t have been possible for me to get pregnant anyway. Mom had put me on birth control after finding us that one weekend. We always used condoms. But then, one time, we were out. Neither of us knew how it’d happened. We were in the middle of nowhere. I’d been taking my pills. And we’d decided, Fuck it. We’ll be fine. He’d pull out.
My mind reeled back to that day when I’d held the tiny test in my hand and seen the two pink lines. I’d never cried so hard in my life. And I’d thought that Campbell telling me he was leaving was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Now, here I was, with this.
I called him until he answered. It took a dozen calls before he finally picked up and said, “Blaire, we can’t talk.”
“Campbell, I need to see you.”
He sighed. “It won’t make it any easier.”
We had four days until graduation. I had been shamelessly calling and texting him since he’d ended it. I didn’t know what else to do. He had been my life, and now, I was just supposed to go on without him? Without even talking to him every minute of every day like I had for months? It was impossible.
But today was not about that.
“I don’t care,” I said, my voice wobbly. “I need to see you now. I’m sneaking out. Meet me at the park.”
“Blaire,” he said on a long-suffering sigh. “I can’t. This is going to be harder.”
“Campbell Abbey, you meet me at the fucking park in a half hour.”
Then, I hung up on him. I figured that would get the message across that it was important. And as I pulled up to the park, I saw that I had been right. His truck was already parked there. I got out of my beat-up Civic and walked to where he was seated on the swings.
“Hey.”
He tipped his head at me. He looked at me as if I were a goddess that he had forgotten existed, and now, he was bathing in my light. “Blaire.”
I held my hand up. “I know you don’t want to make this harder. And I tried, all right? I tried so hard to stay away, but I’m not good at living without you.”
He hung his head. The swing creaked as he moved. “I know. Me either.”
“But I had to see you tonight.”
Then, I pulled the test out of my pocket, and I held it out to him. He looked at it as if it were a hand grenade.
“What is that?”
“You know what it is, Campbell.”
He jumped off the swing and took the test in his hand. He looked down at the two pink lines. Then, he shook his head. “No.”
“I know.”
He glared down at it and shoved it back into my hand. “No, Blaire. No.”
“Look, I didn’t think this would happen. It had to have been that time we didn’t use a condom.”
“No, no, no,” he repeated like a mantra. “What do you want me to say? I’m leaving for LA in four days!”
I shrank back from his anger. I hadn’t known what to expect. I hadn’t exactly been happy to see the news. That I was going to be a teen mom. A fucking statistic in my mother’s book. I’d cried. I’d sobbed. But this was visceral.
“I know, Campbell. Jesus Christ.”
“I’m not staying,” he shouted.
I reeled back. “You’re…you’re going to go anyway?”
A part of me had thought of this new world, where Campbell stayed and we had a small family. Where everything was different and hard but also wonderful because we had each other. It was the only way I’d been able to get past the news. To think that he would make it all better by being an incredible father.
