Page 3 of Searching for Beautiful
“Seven weeks…”
“It’s okay. It’s not a baby yet. You can do this, Brynn. Do it for us. ”
My stomach cramps. I just want to go to sleep. Want this to all be some kind of dream.
“I’m not mad that you knew,” he continues. “People sometimes lie when they love someone so much. That’s why I did it at first. We can keep on pretending like we have been. Keep being happy. I’m only twenty-three. It’s not like it’s that big a deal. ”
Twenty-three, twenty-three, twenty-three. The urge to throw up climbs into my throat again. Dizziness sweeps through me. “Jason?”
“Red, you have to trust me. It will work out. You’re my beautiful. My beautiful, Red. Don’t take that away from me. We’ll be okay… It’s not a baby yet, anyway. ”
Each and every one of his words stabs into me at once. I don’t know which to focus on. Can’t make myself pick any. Love mixes with lies and there’s a part of us inside me and he says it’s not real. He wants me to get rid of it.
Author: Nyrae Dawn
My body takes over and I’m scrambling away from him.
Jason walks toward me, but I can’t make myself back away any more. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know, Brynn. How could you not? I played your game because it made you feel better, but you know who I am. You always knew how old I was. Everyone else will know it, too. They’ll know you wanted to trap me. Or they’ll think you lied about your age. You wanted an older guy because you were messed up after your mom died. It happens all the time. ” He shrugs.
“You’d tell them I lied?” He said he loves me, but now he’d tell them I wasn’t honest about my age…
It hits me, knocking the air out of me, how much I don’t know this Jason, when he says, “Get rid of it and I won’t have to. ” He’s so to-the-point. So cold that I don’t know if I want to keep crying or hurt him. I can’t believe I fell for him.
“I hate you!” I yell. They’re the most immature words in the world, but they’re all I have. “I hate you, Jason!” Stumbling, I run toward the door, but he grabs my arm. A pain shoots through my stomach. My eyes water. My ears feel full, almost echoey.
“You’ll break your dad’s heart. He’ll know his little baby is sleeping around and got knocked up. That you lied to sleep with a local baseball player. After losing your mom, can you do that to him? Everyone else will hate you for trying to trap me, too. Do you want that? Do you want everyone to know you’re a slut?”
I rip my arm away from him, covering my mouth with a shaking hand. He’s right. I know he’s right. Everyone will hate you. Haven’t I lost enough?
It’ll be my word against his.
Jason… I love him, but he never loved me. How will I tell my dad? How will I be a mom?
“Be smart, Brynn. I swear to God, you’d better be smart and get rid of it. ”
Ignoring his words, I run from the house. I don’t remember driving home. I don’t remember starting a fire in the woodstove and throwing in that stupid red dress. All I remember are his words. He doesn’t love me. Never loved me. He saw someone young and naive and he used me. He wants me to kill the baby.
I know I can’t, but I never get the chance anyway. The cramps start in the middle of the night. The rush of blood quickly afterward.
Dad hears me crying.
He takes me to the hospital.
His anger came the next day. The yelling, the disappointment.
He hasn’t looked at me the same ever since. No one has.
Jason was right.
Chapter Two
Before
“So, you and your mom were close?” Jason slips his hand into mine, interlocking our fingers. My heart’s mixed up, not knowing if it wants to jump for joy at the contact or break in a million pieces because he brought up Mom. It’s been two months, and it feels like two decades and two seconds at the same time. How can she have been gone this long? Time feels like it’s never-ending.
So many conflicting feelings, but none that I want to focus on, so I give my attention to Jason instead.
“Yeah…she’s…” I can’t bring myself to speak the word “gone. ” It’s wrong…bad, the worst thing she can be. “We were very close. ” Ugh. How can “were” suddenly be a bad word, too? “She was my best friend. Everyone loved her. ” I feel myself smiling, which is a miracle. I haven’t smiled when it came to Mom since it happened. Dad is in his own world and even if he wasn’t, I’m not sure I could go there with him.
