Reaction - Lesley Choyce [6]
Chapter Seven
I don’t exactly know why I did what I did next. It was nearly midnight when I woke up my parents. “I need to talk,” I said. I had already told my parents about the meeting with the counselor at Planned Parenthood, and they had been surprisingly cool about it all. I think they were pretty sure we would get the abortion, but they weren’t pushing me one way or the other. Now I was having second thoughts.
“What’s wrong, Zach?” my mom asked, sitting bolt upright and suddenly fully awake.
I sat down on the edge of their bed and suddenly felt like a little kid again, coming into my parents’ room in the middle of the night because I was scared. “I’ve been thinking,” I said. I swallowed hard and then continued. “I’ve been thinking about Ashley and about her being pregnant.”
“We know it’s not easy,” my mom interrupted, trying to sound comforting.
My father rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on me. “What is it, Zach?”
I swallowed hard. “What if we decide not to have the abortion?”
My mom turned on the table lamp to look at my face. They both looked a little stunned.
My father cleared his throat. “I thought the two of you went to the clinic to talk to the doctor about…well, having a procedure to, um, terminate the pregnancy.”
“We did. I’m just not a hundred percent sure it’s the right thing for us.”
“What does Ashley think?”
“I haven’t talked to her yet about this. I mean we’ve talked about a possible abortion or her having the baby and giving it up. But what I’m thinking about is different.”
“I just don’t see how it could work,” my father snapped and was about to say more, but my mom touched his arm. He didn’t say anything else.
“I think you need to have a serious talk with Ashley,” my mother said.
“I know. I just didn’t want to phone her. I need to do this face-to-face.”
“Of course,” she said. My dad still looked a little stunned.
I waited until lunchtime the next day. I stood by the cafeteria door until Ashley came along with a couple of her friends. She looked a little pale. The two other girls just glared at me. Around school, I didn’t know what to expect from anyone. Many of my classmates knew something or thought they knew something about me—I just didn’t know what. Maybe some knew the truth, and others had been told a bunch of bullshit about me. I was tired of the looks I was getting.
“Ashley, can we talk?” I asked. “Alone,” I added.
Ashley nodded okay. “I’m not feeling all that great. I don’t think I can eat anything.”
This made me feel more than a little guilty. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay. Let’s go over to that empty table by the window.”
Everybody stared as we walked across the room. The lunchtime music was blasting away. We sat down by the window.
Ashley spoke first. “My parents think terminating the pregnancy now while it’s still early is the way to go. They’ve backed off on talking to the police about having you charged.”
I didn’t even want to think about the legal side of things. I didn’t believe anyone would really have me charged with a crime. But then, what did I know?
“I think my dad feels that’s the way to go too,” I said.
“It’s the easy way out,” Ashley said. “For you at least.” There was an edge to her voice when she said that last part.
“What about you? What do you want?”
“I still don’t know. It’s too big of a decision. I can’t make up my mind.”
“Do you want to know what I think?” I asked.
“Well, yeah,” she said. “But I’m almost afraid to ask.”
I didn’t just blurt it out. I told her about my conversation with my parents. And I told her about the website. I told her about the stories of the teen dads, and that I had even emailed the guy named Mark, who had posted his contact info after his story. By this morning, he had sent me a response. Having the baby and being there for my son was the smartest and most important thing I ever did in life, Mark had written.
Ashley looked puzzled. “You