Kevin had been sitting there for about an hour. The TV played quietly as we both lounged about like we just didn’t care. He laughed and smiled at me with a goofy wink. I laughed. It was a moment of weakness. The one-second I have given into the charms of a boy. I had been on birth control for a little over a year now. It felt good to be bad.

After sneaking my way out of my mother’s grips I had managed to make my way down the street and into his rusty box truck. We had made our way into the simple things of life and lay in the comfort of his very own home. After enjoying ice cream and probably the dumbest movie I had ever seen he managed to get me upstairs. The irony was that he was the first guy who had ever done it that way. I had never really got that whole love thing. I didn’t fall in love.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I had seen the goo-goo eyed girls and boys in the hallways. It seemed like nothing could touch them but there was no doubt that it did end. That was high school love and as I headed into my final weeks of my junior year l I had accepted that I wasn’t going to ever experience that. Puppy Love.
But it was that moment that I realized I had been caught. He had me in his hands and he could do whatever he wanted and I was happy about it. I only then cuddled into two thick shoulders and gazed adoringly at him. This was it, I had thought. This is what made girls do stupid things. It made sense now. I locked my fingers into his and floated off into oblivion. 

***
November 17, 2014
My world had fallen apart into like glitches. And as Kevin had disappeared from my heart and as my grades dropped into D- and F the last thing I needed was to be sitting in the middle of that doctor’s office. The silence was unnerving and the pictures on the wall had been read several times. The doctor had drawn blood and set up an ultrasound machine. I could only think I wasn’t. I was on birth control. I had taken all the precautions.
Ten painful minutes later my doctor walked in with a crease in her brow. She quickly instructed me to lay on my back as she covered my belly with gross blue jelly stuff. She then put the cold plastic against my skin. It sent chills up my spine as she slid the goo covered thing around my tummy. She let out a sigh and smiled at me.
“Yes ma’am you are indeed.” she said and slide the screen to face me. My heart stopped and I stared at the screen. She reached forward and slides the volume up three or four notches. Bumpabum Bampabump.
“You hear that?” she said, “That’s the heartbeat.” she then killed and quickly began to wipe the jelly from my stomach. I felt my face flush with color and tears instantly ran down my cheek. I stood quickly and ran to the bathroom to vomit my guts out. The doctor made me stay an extra thirty minutes just to be sure I was ok. I really wasn’t but I lied and said I was.

I drove home sweating bullets. My skin was flushed and my breath was hard. My brain spun in circles and little thoughts kept bouncing around in my head like bees stinging me. What was I going to do? How was I going to this? What would I say to Kevin? Or the biggest question of all, can I even be a mother? These were the questions that were ripping at my heart. I didn’t know what to do.

***

Kevin was surprisingly happy to see me. With a sly grin and the hot ash of a cigarette he seemed to think that all our previous qualms had been nothing more than that or he was after something else. I guess I hadn’t been too bothered by that. The idea that he thought that the previous phone call was really nothing more than late night booty shouts but he was very wrong.

We went to Applebee’s in independence. It was dirty and officially had the worst customer service ever but we ordered out food and sat with only a few awkward exchanged of words. I was really shocked he had taken me out. I had been with him for how long and he had never taken me out. Not once.

I had sat quietly for a long time listening to him babble about things that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Kevin had a speech impediment. Not bad. He wasn’t stupid or anything. He had brains a good smile and handsome features. When you first see him you see a person who’s clean-shaven, reserved and looks kind of like a tough guy. Which in a way I guess he was. But then there was that speech impediment. It oddly didn’t fit his persona at all. He looked like he should have been dropping yo dogs and chatting up the next poor bystander. But he didn’t really like talking to strangers and his obvious lisp made it hard for him to be a total badass. Which in a way I kind of like it. I wondered if our child would have it. I mean it was kind of funny to know that at one point he was a ligament bad boy like out of the movies and he talked with a lisp. I had heard stories about his bad boy days. He was the kid from the wrong side of town. He says he doesn’t want to talk about it but his family says all they can about it.

They say he was a mule, a hustler and from some a counts a guy with a mean temper. I had heard stories about his ability to be quick on his feat and his mean right hand that could catch you off guard. They say Kevin was the kind of person you avoided walking down the road and you could imagine Kevin’s comments on the subject were avoided or disregarded as over exaggerated stories. He never wanted to sort things out. In his mind let the past be the past. I can only remember one moment when he truly said it.

He had cut his hand on some glass. It had left a nasty gash from knuckle to wrist right down to the tendon. We were sitting silently in the emergency room. The nurse asking all sorts of personal questions about his health, insurance and allergies all went by fairly smoothly until she asked the one question.

“It says here you are a felon. Can you share with us the reasoning please” part of me knew that he really didn’t have to answer that. It was more her curiosity than anything. Kevin was a charmer. He had a way with people that made them smile and laugh. And so after meeting him I’m sure wanted the dirty information on the handsome tough guy in the room. He let out a deep awkward sigh and then he looked down at his feet. His left foot softly kicked the side of my chair. Not to bother me but more out of frustration and shame. Color blushed his cheeks and for the first time he looked vulnerable in front of me. He looked like a boy. It actually made me sad because for a few seconds I realized how much the past got to him. How much it really bothered him to remember it all. He turned tartly to the nosy nurse,

“For the contributing, selling and use of methamphetamines and a domestic violence charge.” He stared at her daring her to make a comment. She did of course with a judgmental cluck of her tongue and a roll of her eyes. She walked out shortly after with nothing more to say. The room stayed tense after. I was shocked he didn’t defend himself. He had been clean for nearly six years. She didn’t know him or what he was like. How could she be that way? I wanted to tell her that. I wanted to tell her that he could build beautiful things and that he loved kids. That he was good at impersonating curtain actors and that his favorites TV show was big brother. I wished I could tell her that he was a good person.

No she didn’t know that but I did. And that I guess was why he loved me because I hadn’t been so judgmental and I hadn’t told him he was beneath me because of a past he couldn’t change. And I sure as hell didn’t tell him how to handle his situation or give him stupid cliché advice like, You know we learn form our mistakes because every other person in the world had an opinion and so I decided I didn’t. But in that very moment I realized that maybe I should have.

I thought about the life growing inside me and I never would have thought that I would have been stuck with him. Not that I didn’t care about him and love him deep down but this time it was different because I wasn’t the only person in this equation anymore. I was shocked when I felt the hot tear drip down onto my plate. He froze at the sight of it. His jaw tensed and he his eyes filled with earnest confusion. I took a heavy breath, “I’m pregnant.”
It was one of those moments when the whole world seemed to be against me. The irony was more so than just the world it was the reality of it. Because he didn’t jump for joy and he didn’t ask me how. He didn’t deny me that fact that the baby was his and he certainly didn’t call me stupid for letting this happen. In fact he didn’t do anything I thought he would do. Instead he stood up threw a hundred dollar bill on the table and physically jerked me by my arm from my seat disturbing a few table around me. Shocked I complied but only until were outside and the cold air brushed my cheeks. I turned on him fast and with one jerk of my hand I smacked him so hard he actually fell back a bit. He then stood firmly planted and stared at me.
“How far along are you?” he said. I told him almost 12 weeks. He stared out into the night watching cars drive by at what seemed like a million miles an hour. It was hard to realize that somewhere someone was going through something similar. We both felt so isolated.

Hours later we lay in the same spot we had so long a ago. The TV played quietly in the background. But this time there were no jokes or grins. No cute cuddling and soft kisses. This was all real. The whole room felt different. Kevin held me tightly against him as we both let it all go. He cried and I cried because we both needed to. It was a moment when I realized that none of this was about me anymore. I was the least important person in my life now. And as we lay tired and drained from emotion we found peace in a sticky subject.
He locked a big arm underneath my head and kissed my forehead. He looked at the ceiling fan as it rotated around and around. A signification of time. How it never stops. It just keeps going around and around. He glanced over at me and let a light hearted smile touch his features.

“I like the name Lori.” he said to my surprise. I turned to him in shock.
“Like for a girl?” I asked. He nodded his head.

“Yea. Like Lauren or Lorelei. I like that. I think it’s pretty for a girl. And for a boy I like James. I feel like that would be a good name. But I guess you don’t really know until you see it do you?” he said with a soft chuckle. I felt a calm pass over me. He was going to be there for me. I wasn’t going to be alone. He was going to stay. That was a whole new kind of victory. Because even though we had our issues I sincerely felt that he would be a good father. He’d probably make a better parent than me.

My mom told me that she never wanted me to speak to her again. She told me I was ruining her marriage and that I could just stay were I was at. I wasn’t really surprised by her response and Kevin made it clear that she could take all of crap and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.

I now realize I guess that thing won’t be the same and Kevinand I had a lot to get together in the next nine months. We aren’t getting married. There is not goofy theatrics here like in a Hollywood movie. This is real. Two people taking a step into something neither of them really wanted too. But this was it and we were going to try to make the best of it. And I was going to do anything to be the mother I needed to be.