But I Love Him by Amanda Grace

me. And I’m exhausted after a night of talking Connor down off the edge yet again. I don’t even like coffee, but I’m buying it because I need the caffeine to get through finals.
    And I have nothing to do but wait here as she walks up, a tentative smile on her face. She stands in front of me, looking at me, for too long.
    “How are you?” she finally says.
    She knows how I am. She can see it. Does she want me to say it out loud? Does she want me to admit I’m tired and haunted and just weary of all this?
    “Good,” I say.
    It’s a lie and she knows it, but she just lets it hang there.
    “That’s good.”
    I want to hug her. I want to leave Starbucks with her and get in her car and go wherever she’s going and pretend her life is mine. I could live like her. I know I could. A world where your parents sit at the dinner table and ask you how your day was. A world where they tuck you in at night and you roll your eyes and act annoyed, but you secretly love it.
    “My mom wants to know why you’re never over anymore.”
    My coffee is sitting in front of me now. I should just walk away. I don’t have to answer her.
    “What did you tell her?”
    “That you hate me,” she says. Her voice is even. Like saying those words is no effort at all.
    “I don’t hate you.” My voice is barely above a whisper as I say it, as I look at her to see if that really is what she thinks. I’m the one who abandoned her, not the other way around. I’m the one who ignored her calls and barely nodded at her in the hallways at school. It was me. She did nothing to deserve hate.
    She doesn’t answer. She just picks at her nails and we stand in silence, two old friends with nothing to say to one another.
    “And Connor? How’s he?”
    She knows how he is. She knows who he is, and that is enough.
    “Fine.”
    Fine. Everything is fine. She knows this, too, is a lie. I don’t know why I insist on saying it.
    She starts to leave.
    “I mean—”
    I don’t know what I mean. I don’t know why I stopped her.
    She turns back to me and looks me in the eye for the first time.
    I know she sees who I am now. I know she pities me. The silence hangs between us like a weight, and neither of us has to say anything to know what has gone unspoken.
    And then she hugs me. It lasts at least five seconds longer than necessary and I close my eyes and lose myself in it, a hug more secure than anything I’ve felt in months.
    And then without looking at me again, she walks away.
    And I know that she’s a real friend. And I wish I could have her back again.
    May 7
    Eight months, Seven days
    I think I might be pregnant. I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know what to do or say. All day long, every time my stomach twinges, I think it might be cramps and I rush to the bathroom, but it’s not.
    We were so careful.
    I know he cannot handle this. I know I need to find out first, before I say anything. He has too much on his plate. He has too much to deal with. I can’t add this to it.
    All day at school, I’ve been distracted. I keep counting the days on my fingers, in my notebooks, but every time, it’s the same. I am two days late.
    This can’t happen. This will ruin it all. It will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Some people can handle things like this. We can’t. Not now.
    PE is the worst. I was supposed to be playing basketball, but after the third time I got hit with the ball, I feigned sick and left.
    It’s not a lie. I do feel sick. I don’t know if I’m sick because I’m really pregnant or I’m sick because I’m so scared, but either way, I feel weak and vaguely nauseous. I need to lie down. In a dark hole where no one will find me ever again.
    I can’t have a baby. Not now. Not in this world. Things have to be fixed first. Connor and I have to figure out how to take care of ourselves first. He has to get better at controlling his anger and be happy, and we have so many things to fix.
    I leave before sixth period. I