Chase picked me up at noon.

Pale, shaky, I climbed in beside him.

Hi. You look awful.

I smiled. "Whose fault is that?"

We laughed at the not-funny joke and headed into town.

Are you okay?

I shook my head. "I'm pregnant, remember?" I leaned into my hands, let the tears flow.

Please don't cry. I'm here for you.

Here? He was going off to sunny Southern California. I didn't need him anyway. Did I?

I love you. More than I realized.

"I love you, too. But I'm scared, Chase." He pulled to the side of the road.

I'll take care of you. The baby, too.

Was he giving me another choice?

Could I make that decision?

I was only 17.

Marry me, Kristina.

My knees buckled. My stomach churned. Chase had stepped up to the plate.

The pitch was up to me.

Planned Parenthood

was a cinder-block nightmare. It felt like prison without the comfort of bars.

Ugly in orange, the waiting room made me want to throw up. So I did.

A dozen women gave sympathetic looks as I returned from the bathroom.

One by one, they disappeared as a stern woman in white called their names.

Chase held my hand as we watched them reappear, one by one, ashen as ghosts.

A procession of wraiths, that's what it was. And I was in the back of the line.

I rocked against the hard plastic chair.

Finally the woman called, "Bree Wagner."

Chase flinched, then whispered in my ear: I prefer the sound of Kristina Wagner.

I Already Knew My Options

I listened patiently as the saccharine Ms. Sweet.w.a.ter outlined them again.

She did confirm that should I choose abortion, my parents would not have to know. All I needed was $500 and someone to drive me home.

She gave me the name of a local adoption agency, urged me to consider placing my baby in a loving home.

And then she asked me the date of my last period.

Hard as it was, I thought back to a night up at Chamberlain Flat, when I used that period as an excuse to say no.

It was the weekend before school started. Add a couple of weeks and ...

I gained a terrible insight.

Chase was not the baby's father.

Brendan was.

The Realization

was like jamming a paper clip into a light socket: profoundly stunning; like cinching a garbage bag tight around my neck: completely suffocating.

A mad surge of blood rushed to my brain, pounding temples and eardrums before draining away completely.

My face went Arctic, diving deep freeze, glacier blue.

Graveyard cold hugged me tight, rattling teeth and bones.

Chase called my name. Ms. Sweet.w.a.ter skittered to her feet and everything went black.

Pa.s.sing Out

is the strangest thing.

One minute you're here.

Then with a mere cerebral flutter, you're not.

Part of your brain insists you're dead.

Of course, you're not.

Another part says it's better there, in the dark.

Where, exactly, are you?

Somewhere, you hear voices, urgent.

Could you be in limbo?

A thin beam of light calls to you.

Will you reach heaven?

Brighter now, white and beautiful.

You hurry in that direction.

Your eyes acquiesce, and open to discover ...

you're back in h.e.l.l, after all.

Voices

Oh Yeah, I Was Fine

Dandy in fact.

Pregnant by a s.e.x fiend.

Starving for the monster.

Scared to admit either to those close to me who remained clueless eyes closed to every negative thing about me, or dying to know every dirty little tidbit.

And the only one who knew every little negative, dirty thing would have forgiven me anything.

Chase Steadied Me

as we walked to his truck, hand in hand. He opened the door, helped me inside, slid in behind the wheel.

So tell me.

I considered playing ignorant, but knew he wouldn't let go.

"About the baby ..."

My eyes unlocked from his, but not quickly enough to conceal the truth.

Brendan is the father.