Anything but Normal - Melody Carlson [36]
Somehow Sophie knew she just couldn’t do that. As much as she liked making jokes at her own expense, she couldn’t bear to have her peers laughing at her—the way she’d seen them laugh at others—just because she was pregnant. So not funny.
11
“You look hot,” Carrie Anne told Sophie the following night. The two of them were dressed for the dance and standing in front of Carrie Anne’s mirror doing their final tweaks. They’d already spent the afternoon helping Mrs. Vincent with the dinner preparations, trying to make everything perfect, until she had finally shooed them away to get dressed.
Sophie studied herself in the mirror and had to concede with her friend. She did look unusually good in the simple black dress. “I was worried that it might look too boring,” she admitted. “But Mom talked me into it. She was so convinced it was perfect that she even paid for it too.”
“Well, it’s definitely hot.” Carrie Anne added another bobby pin to secure Sophie’s pinned-up hair. “And slimming too.”
Sophie’s hand automatically slid down to her midsection. Sure, she wasn’t really showing, but suddenly she was reminded of what was going on inside her body. It was funny how sometimes, even if only briefly, she would forget about it. She would be tricked into thinking she was just the same as ever. Just Sophie Ramsay enjoying being a normal teenage girl. Then something would happen or someone would say something . . . and she would remember.
Fortunately the dinner and dance proved to be fairly good distractions. Although Sophie wasn’t enjoying herself as much as she portrayed, it wasn’t as bad as she’d expected either. Still, she was glad when it was over with. It seemed that was all she lived for anymore—getting things over with.
“Thanks for going with me tonight,” Wes told her as he walked her to her door. Carrie Anne and Drew were still in the car, and suddenly Sophie felt nervous. She so hoped that Wes wasn’t going to ruin what had been a sort of okay evening by trying to get a good-night kiss.
“Thank you,” she told him, extending her hand as if to shake his.
He took her hand and made a goofy grin. “Good night.”
“Good night.” Then she pulled her hand away from his and hurried inside her house. Awkward moment averted.
As exhausted as Sophie felt, she was wide-awake when she finally got into bed. She felt restless and edgy and uneasy. Like something was about to happen.
Suddenly it occurred to her that her body could be telling her something. Like maybe something was wrong with the pregnancy. Like maybe she was going to have a miscarriage. On one hand, it would be such a relief. On the other hand, she knew it was wrong to wish for an innocent baby’s death simply to escape her own mistake.
Even so, she’d already done some research about this online. She had actually hoped to discover some simple solution to ending the pregnancy without having an abortion. Of course, she felt guilty at the hope she’d experienced when she discovered that miscarriages were fairly common, at least statistically. But her research hadn’t revealed anything terribly helpful. It seemed most miscarriages had to do with serious illnesses or DNA problems or aging. None of which seemed applicable to Sophie. She also learned that things like exercise, foods, or even sex do not cause miscarriage. Not that she was considering sex. But she had been open to a strenuous workout regime or eating weird foods—though now those things seemed pointless.
Sophie got up and turned on her computer. Once again she was surfing