– Sammy –
Find Sam. He’ll Fix It.
A few days after my birthday, I shoot up in my large four poster bed and my hand goes to my stomach. Nausea rolls through me like hot oil, and my brow sweats as my stomach jumps.
Throwing my legs quickly over the side of my bed, I run to my bathroom, skidding along the shiny tile on my knees and throwing my head into the toilet as the first river of bile surges.
My belly hurts from the first heave, like I’m going to throw up so much, my stomach will turn inside out. My throat burns and my body shakes. Sweat beads down my spine and I shiver from the cold.
I groan as my body aches. I feel like I’ve caught the flu. Not just any flu, but the flu to end all epidemics. My hands shake, and I lay my head on the closed toilet seat, craving the cool ceramic even though I shiver from the cold.
I breathe heavily through my mouth, and tears sting my eyes as my phone vibrates on my nightstand in my room.
Shakily climbing to my feet, I stiffly walk to the sink, turn on the faucet and wash my clammy face. This can’t be happening to me. Not now. Not today – or even this year.
My head whips up at the knock on my door. “Get up, Samantha. Time for school.”
I groan and look to the clock in my room. My eyes turn to the windows and squint at the sun that’s already high. I missed my swim. I missed my time with Sam.
“Samantha! Did you hear me?”
I take a deep breath as my stomach continues to rebel. “Yes, Mom. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Get dressed. You’re running late.”
“Okay.”
I press my lips together and swallow as I shuffle to my closet and painfully step into a pair of jeans and sneakers. I pull a sloppy shirt over my head, and my arms shake as I drag my hair into a ponytail. Then I gingerly sit on my bed and wish the sickness away.
I was feeling mildly nauseous all day yesterday, just an insignificant niggle in my stomach that Sam massaged away, but today it’s come full force. I blamed it on a million things; high school graduation jitters. Packing my bags to leave town jitters. Making love at the lake in the early morning dark and hoping we don’t get caught jitters. But this is different. This isn’t jitters.
Taking another deep breath, I stand on shaking legs and brush errant wisps of hair from my face as I pick up my key card and cell and I ignore Sam’s text.
I can’t right now. I can’t talk to him right this second.
I shuffle to my bedroom door and slowly turn the handle, then poke my head into the hall and look for my mom.
Tiptoeing out, I continue to swallow heavily in an attempt to keep the sick at bay, but it’s there. It’s right there waiting for a single moment of unpreparedness.
I move through my home quickly and out the front door without seeing my mother. As I slowly walk into town, I cry softly about what’s happening to my life. I’m not stupid. I’m not na?ve.
I walk to the drug store closest to my home and buy a box of pregnancy tests. It hurts how expensive they are. Turning around, I trudge back the way I came, and tiptoe and trace my steps back into my quiet home.
My mom flitters around the ‘guest’ living room, humming softly and setting out fresh flowers. I want to roll my eyes. I want to think she’s an idiot. But my stomach heaves and my eyes water as I hold it in, so removing my shoes to be quiet, I rush to my room, skidding along the tile in my bare feet and close myself in.
I should be at school.
She can’t know I’m here.
I move quickly through my bedroom and into the bathroom, then throw my head back into the bowl and vomit until my nose and eyes water, and my stomach whimpers in pain from the continued heaves.
Blowing my nose on toilet paper and flushing the toilet, I shakily stand, wash my hands and pull my jeans down.
I sit down and breathe deeply, pick up the tossed box from the floor beside the toilet, pull out one of the three foil packets and read the instructions three times over.
This can’t be happening to me.
This can’t be happening to us.
My phone continues to vibrate on the floor, but I can’t take his call. I can’t change his life until I know for sure if my life is changing.
I rip open the packaging holding the pregnancy test, then shakily shove it between my legs.
I cry and pee… and I wait.
***
“Samantha! What have you done?”
My head whips up at my mom’s shrill screaming voice, and my stomach jumps and flips with nausea. She literally storms toward me like she wants to kick me while I’m down, but catches herself before she does, then screams some more.
Snot leaks from my nose, tears create rivers on my face until they join with the snot. It all washes over my lips and into my mouth, and then the taste on my tongue has me sobbing and vomiting more.
I want Sam.
I want him to come and get me now.
He can fix everything, even this.
And he’d never stand over me, crushing the box of leftover tests beneath his feet as he spits on me while I cry and spew. He’d sweep me up, kiss my brow and bring me warm towels. He’d serve me on his knees until I was better, then I’d return the favor anytime he needed it.
“You’re still in high school, Samantha! How could you be so stupid?”
“I graduate tomorrow,” I choke out past the dry retching I’ve been reduced to.
“You’re a teenager!” she shrieks. “You were seventeen, and he was eighteen. That’s statutory rape.”
My head snaps up, no longer tired and defeated, but sure and ready to tear her apart. He’s my mate, and she’s threatening him. “It was not rape, Mother! Sam and I love each other, and I’m eighteen!”
“You turned eighteen three days ago. A pregnancy test does not show up three days after sex, which means he was an adult having sex with a minor!” She turns on her heel again, uncaring that the person she claims to care for is still on the floor as her world crashes around her. “I’m going to talk to your father, then your boyfriend will be getting a visit from the police. And not his daddy, but real police who actually know how to do their damn job.”
I jump up so quickly, my stomach revolts and my head swims, but I grab her arm and tug her around so hard she almost slams into the cabinets. I’ve never touched my mother in anger before, and I’ve never spoken to her this way, but I’m not a meek little girl, I’m a woman with a lot to lose. I won’t give it up without a fight. “You will not hurt him! He’s not my boyfriend, he’s my husband! And he’s the man I choose to live my life with.”
“I don’t care what you think your reasoning for this nonsense is, it’s wrong and illegal. We’re going to see your father, we’re going to the police, then you’re going for an abortion. He’s trailer trash, and I won’t let him ruin your life like this.”
My hand swings out so fast, I don’t even realize my actions until the sting fires through my hand and up my arm. My mother’s face spins from the impact of my slap, and her own hand comes up to hold the injury as her wild eyes skitter around my face. “Samantha--”
“I will not abort my baby! I will not abort Sam’s baby. And I will not lose him.”
I spin on my heel and race out of my bathroom, grabbing my backpack and stuffing jeans and a stick of deodorant in, since those are the first two things I see. I race out of my room and down the hall and stairs, through the living room and out the front door.
I’ve left my phone in my bathroom, forgot my shoes, and I still have vomit in my mouth, but I’m going to find Sam, because he can fix anything.
Even an unplanned teenage pregnancy. This won’t break us. We’ll be fine.
The summer sun beats high overhead, and though it’s still mid-morning and I should already be at school, I head that way because I know he’ll be there. Even without shoes.
My running quickly turns to walking, and my walking turns to vomiting in the bushes and blisters on my feet. My tears continue to fall, because despite my confidence in Sam and me, I’m still terrified of the unknown. I have two-thousand three-hundred, and seventy-six dollars to my name. Well over half of that came from Sam’s overgenerous tipping, the rest from Dixies. My map is still sitting under Sam’s pillow at his house, because he said he wanted to study where we were going. I don’t need it anymore anyway. I remember every tiny little detail I ever marked out on it, and no matter what, I’m going where he goes.
I have my wedding band on my finger and my bank card in my back pocket... and apparently, I have a baby in my belly.
A soft tooting from behind scares me so much, I jump a foot into the air. When I turn around, I burst into a fresh bout of tears as Angelo’s beat up car idles beside me. His smile quickly turns to worry, and ripping off his seatbelt, he jumps out and runs to me.
“Soda?” His large hands squeeze my arms tightly, but I can barely see him through the tears flooding my eyes. I can barely breathe through the snot and hiccups, and when he pulls me against his chest, my sobs rip through my chest and my stomach revolts and sings nauseatingly. “Tell me quick, honey. What’s the matter? Is it Scotch? Is he hurt?”
I shake my head and bury my face against his chest. I smear boogers on his shirt, but I can’t even find it in myself to care. “He’s not hurt. He’s at school, I think.”
“Why are you walking in the heat with no shoes?” His eyes snap down to my feet, then turning quickly, he rushes me to his car, pulling the passenger door open and dropping me in heavily. My stomach tweaks with pain, but he picks my feet up and sets them inside and kneels down in front of me so our eyes meet. “What happened, honey?”
“Sam and I got married.”
He smiles handsomely, nodding his head as his long hair falls into his eyes. “I know. He told us.”
“He did?”
“Of course he did,” he chuckles. “He told me he was gonna marry you back in ninth grade. Bet your ass he told me the second he sealed the deal.” His hand comes down over top of mine softly, and his soft voice melodically murmurs, “But why are you crying?”
I look up into his eyes for a long minute. I’m scared to tell him. I’m scared to keep it in. I’m scared saying it out loud changes everything, when really, everything is already changed.
I clear my throat nervously. “I’m pregnant.”
No longer smiling, no longer semi-relaxed, his eyes snap wide and his back straight. “You… When?”
“I just found out. I need to find him. I need him to tell me we’ll be okay.”
Angelo’s thick brows draw low over his sympathetic eyes. “He’ll make it okay, Sammy. He’s one of the best guys I know. He’ll make it okay.”
“My mom wants me to get an abortion.”
“You wouldn’t!” Angelo gulps and his face turns ghostly white. “You wouldn’t do that… Would you?”
“No!”
“That’s my brother’s baby too. He gets a say in this--”
“I won’t abort, Ang. I’d never abort. My mom was just shouting at me, I was vomiting and she said she was gonna call the police… I hit my mom.”
Angelo takes my still stinging hand in his, turning it over and rubbing his thumb gently across the reddened skin. “Good for you, honey. Your mother is a bitch. This is a decision for you and Scotch only, no one else, and definitely not her.” His eyes drop to my still flat belly. “That’s a real person in there, a mix of two of my best friends. That’s not wrong, Soda. We’ll all rally, and we’ll make this better.”
I sit back in the passenger seat as a new wave of nausea rolls over me. I still haven’t eaten today, my tongue is dry and caked with vomit, and I have a crying headache like nothing I’ve ever felt before. “Can you call him, Ang? I was looking for him, but I forgot my cell at home.”
He leans into the car, reaching across me until he grabs his phone, then rests back in his crouched position and dials. I close my eyes to help block out the sick, but my ears are wide open as I listen to the dial tone, then Sam’s happy voice. “You’re gonna get detention, asswipe. You’re late again.”
“Dude, you need to play hooky. Come to my house… Actually, no. Come to the shed.”
“What’s up? Why’s no one at school today? Sammy isn’t here either. And Marc is AWOL.”
“I got Soda with me. We need you to come to us. She can’t come to school today.” I open my eyes to find Angelo’s on my bare feet again, pityingly staring at the reddened heels and old nail polish. “She’s not feeling well.”
I instantly hear the noise of a slamming locker, then Sam’s hurried, “I’ll meet you at The Shed. Have you got keys? Mine are at home.”
“I’ve got keys.”
“She’s right there with you?”
“Yeah, she’s sitting in my car.”
“In your car-- Lemme talk to her.”
Angelo passes his phone without a single moment’s hesitation, and with shaking hands and sweat dripping down my spine, I clear my throat. “Hey.”
“Ricci? What’s happening, baby?”
Fresh tears immediately spill over at the tenderness in his voice. “I don’t feel so well. Come see me? I need you right now.”
“I’m already at my bike. I’ll see you in a couple minutes. Are you okay?”
Define okay? “I need to talk to you. My mom and I just had a really big fight, so I’ve been crying, but don’t freak out when you see me, okay?”
“You got a puffy face, Ricci?”
I giggle and sob in one breath, then I look up into Angelo’s rearview mirror and study my red and puffy eyes. “Yeah, little bit.”
“Alright. Make Ang drive you right there. I gotta hang up now to ride, but I’ll see you in a minute, okay? Be a good girl and come straight to me. I’ll make it better.”
More tears escape despite my efforts to lock them in, but I nod my head and swipe away the moisture. “I’ll see you in a minute. I need a really big hug when I see you.”
“I gotcha back. I love you, Ricci. I’ll see you in a minute.”
“I love you too, Sam.”
***
Angelo silently and quickly drives us to The Shed, and though his fingers tap a nervous beat onto the steering wheel, he doesn’t speak. He’s thinking. Planning.
It’s not him who’s expecting a baby with a hysterical teenaged bride, but the guys are so close, it’s almost the same thing. This doesn’t affect them as much as Sam and me, but it will still rock all of our worlds.
Barely minutes after speaking with Sam, we pull into the dirt parking lot out front of the industrial shed, and I choke on a sob as my eyes lock onto his. He leans against the beat up old bike, with his arms across his chest and his boots crossed at the ankle.
He looks so grown up, but at the same time, still with the baby face. And his world is just about to change. The sun is in his eyes, but as soon as I climb out of the car and he gets a clearer view, he pushes off his bike at a dead sprint and has me swept up in his arms in the way only he can do. He might have the baby face, but he’s still so much bigger than me. Bigger, stronger, protective, comforting.
“Hey.” He swipes the tears from my face with the heel of his large hands. “I’ve seen you after a fight with your mom before. You’ve never looked like this. What happened, Ricci?” He steps back just half a foot, peeking down at my bare feet, then lifting me like I weigh less than a toddler, he cradles me in his arms and simply sits down on the loose dirt and gravel of the parking lot. “Where are your shoes? Your feet look really sore.”
“I hit my mom.”
“With your feet?”
I choke on another sobbing giggle, and bury my face in his warm neck. “No, with my hand.” I show him my still stinging palm. Without questioning it, he presses his lips to the sore spot, and warmth instantly radiates through my palm and soothes me, but then the rolling nausea in my stomach brings me back to reality and I clamp my lips shut before I spew in his lap. The sound of Angelo’s car door slamming shut draws my attention, and I follow his footsteps as he moves across the gravel until he stands at The Shed’s roller door about twenty feet away. He’s giving us as much privacy as he can, but he’s not leaving. He’s not ditching me, and more importantly, he’s not ditching his best friend.
“Start at the beginning, Ricci. Give me a good reason why I missed you at the lake this morning. Why’d you hit your mom? You don’t hit anybody, so this is big.”
“Can I start at the most important bit? I need to just say it before I spew again.”
“Again?” His eyes snap back to mine with suspicion, then his hand unconsciously goes to my stomach and he rubs soft circles into the tender area. He doesn’t even know how close he is. “Tell me whatever part you wanna, Ricci. But do it now. You’re killing me.”
“I’m pregnant.”
His entire body freezes, his eyes snap wide and his hand clamps down on my hip painfully. Sam’s entire chest puffs wide then freezes. His long hair falls into terrified blue eyes, and his breath ceases to come. “You’re…”
“Pregnant.” Rivers of tears stream over my cheeks, some into my mouth, others drip off my chin and land on my chest. “I’m so sorry, Sam. I swear I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“You’re pregnant with my baby?”
I nod jerkily. I don’t take offense to his doubt, because I asked myself the same question today, but mine was worse, since I obviously know who was there. Shock sent me stupid, so he’s allowed to be stupid too. “Yeah. I don’t know how far I am. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. My mom told me I had to abort it, but--”
Sam picks me up again, roughly spinning me so I’m no longer sheltered in his embrace, but sitting high on his knee as he glares at me. “You wanna abort my baby?”
“No! That’s… No. I told her there was no way. I wouldn’t do that -- I told her… No!” My shaking hands go back to his face, because he’s no longer holding me, but he’s looking at me like I already betrayed him. “I didn’t mean to do this, Sam. But we’ll be okay, right?”
“You won’t abort my baby?”
Hot salty tears continue to drip from the tips of my nose and chin, but I lean forward so our faces are within half an inch of each other’s. “Never ever, I swear.”
“We’re already married.”
My brows pull in tight. “Yeah… I know.”
“Now would be a good time to ask you to marry me.”
Snot bubbles in my nostrils as I cry and laugh. “Well, we already did that bit.”
“I love you, Sammy. That doesn’t change.”
“You promise?”
“I swear on everything we are, I promise. Forever and ever, remember?” His hesitant eyes leave my face and drop back to my stomach, then finally, a single tear slides down his own cheek and he smiles a crooked unsure smile. “I’m gonna be a daddy?”
I nod, and my fingers dig into his hair as I hold him close.
“I’m gonna be a daddy, and you’ll be the mommy? Fuck, Sammy. This is what I was working towards this whole time.”
I giggle as his lips crash onto mine. “You were all about jumping the gun, huh? You didn’t wanna wait the three years that I might’ve made you wait?”
“Just hedging my bets, Ricci. I knew what I was doing all along.”
He’s such a liar. But he’s doing what he always does best, he’s making it all better.
“So why are your feet practically bleeding? Why did Angelo pick you up?”
“I had a fight with my mom…” I don’t dare tell him her other threats; about calling the police. About her ludicrous accusations of rape. I don’t know the law, but he’s only a few months older than me. She’s wrong. She must be. “She said some really horrible things and that I had to get rid of the baby. I chose that time to tell her we were already married, and that I won’t give my baby up.”
“Our baby.”
My head snaps up. “Huh?”
“Our baby. Ours, Ricci. We’re a team in this.”
I wipe dripping boogers onto my arm as my heart throbs to the same rhythm my stomach rolls. “Yeah, Sam. Ours. So, she said some really horrible stuff. I might have hit her a little bit, then I ran out. I forgot my shoes, and my phone… and everything else I own except a spare pair of jeans.”
“You’re looking a little green behind the puffy red, Ricci. You feeling not so great?”
His simple reminder has my stomach roiling wildly, and I swallow down a new bout of vomit. The acid burns my throat, and my hands leave his hair to cover my mouth; just in case.
“We’re done with school now. The last day or two doesn’t matter. We’re done. It’s time to start our lives together. Our plans don’t change – we just add another person. Do you wanna go home to grab your stuff, or do you just wanna leave?”
“Wait a damn minute!” Angelo storms towards us angrily. “What plans? Leave to go where?”
“Shit,” Sam mutters, then picking me up off his lap and setting me aside, he stands to face his angry best friend and wipes the dirt from his jeans. “The thing is--”
“No.” Angelo shoves Sam back in an uncharacteristic display of anger. Angelo has been nothing but the perfect placid gentleman the whole time I’ve known him, so his outburst now has me letting out a ridiculous squeak of surprise. “There’s no thing! You think you guys were just gonna piss off and sneak out of town?”
“Well, not exac--”
“Don’t you fucking lie to me, Turner.”
“Okay, yeah.” Sam lifts his hands between them. “But we would have told you guys.”
“Eventually!”
“We just had to leave without her folks stopping us, that’s all. We would have called you as soon as we had our shit sorted.”
“A pretty girl walks in, and you’re ready to just dismiss everything me and the guys have ever been to you?”
“No! Jesus, can you stop? We’d have been gone barely a day before I called you. We just couldn’t openly make plans, or her folks would have stopped us.”
“So you’d still leave, then you’d expect us to follow? Just pack up our shit and follow you like we really are ‘Sam and the others?’ What if I had a life I wanted here? What if I had a girl here I wanted? What if? Asshole!”
Angelo is right, and he’s arguing the exact points I already argued with Sam. I knew his family and the guys wouldn’t accept his disappearance that easily. I worried endlessly about this, but I still let him talk me into the dream of a happily ever after. This is one of the very things I told myself not to worry about the night of prom.
“You don’t understand,” Sam argues. “We can’t stay here. Her folks won’t let us be together. I don’t have a choice, Ang.”
“I guess we don’t get a choice then either, huh? It doesn’t matter what Luc or Marc or I want, because you knew we’d follow you like puppies.”
“No! Not like puppies. I just don’t know what else to do. Sammy’s my wife, she’s been mine for years. I won’t just stand by, sleeping in a different bed, in a different house, on different sides of the fucking tracks, while her asshole parents dictate our lives. Especially not now! They want to kill my kid, Ang. Did you hear that part too? I’m a man with too much to lose.”
Angelo looks so angry, I almost expect steam to escape his ears and flames to break through his scalp, but after another minute of teeth grinding and fist flexing, Angelo takes a deep breath and steps back. His chest is still huge, filled with oxygen and adrenaline, and his hair hangs dangerously loose, but he forces a smile past teeth that remind me of the big bad wolf, then he steps forward again and slugs Sam on the chin.
I cry out in shock as Sam’s head snaps around quickly, and though he turns back to face his attacker, Angelo is no longer in attack mode. His hands are down and his face is broad with a smile. “You’re a fuckin’ asshole, Turner. Next time, you invite me along. That’s my niece or nephew in there.”
“You fucking hit me!”
“Yeah, and I’ll do it again next time you make stupid ass plans where you think you can dump us like last week’s garbage.”
***
Sam and I hang around The Shed for the rest of the day and a couple hours into the evening. Sam holds bags of ice to his face on and off, and Angelo comes and goes, bringing us food and water. His intentions were pure, but my stomach revolts at the mere smell of the fried chicken he brought. I’ve been married for less than a week, and I’m already vomiting into Sam’s hands. All that glamor and shine he accused me of having is wiped away instantly the first time his hands come up reflexively and he catches my spew.
The guys have stools and tables set up at The Shed, but there are also a couple lumpy couches, and with Sam sitting on the end while he cradles my clammy head in his lap, we talk and plan and I nap on and off all day.
I don’t care that my folks are probably looking for me right now. I don’t care that my phone is at home and I can’t contact anyone. I don’t even care that I have nothing but jeans and cash – because I have Sam. And I have an angry tiny seedling baby wreaking havoc from inside my body and forcing me to spew almost every hour on the hour.
Angelo doesn’t hover over us, mostly he hangs around on the makeshift stage softly playing music and writing in a notebook, but I get the distinct feeling he’s watching us to make sure we don’t escape into the shadows and out of his life.
Darkness falls outside and the cicadas start chirping, and though I feel like I want to curl up and die, I smile when Luc and Marc noisily wander in.
“Missed you at school today, Soda.” Luc kneels down in front of me with sympathetic eyes, then bravely leans forward and drops a kiss on my clammy cheek. “Congratulations, mama. I heard I’m getting a baby.”
I groan softly, and his pretty eyes twinkle with happiness. “It’s okay. I won’t even make it weird when he comes out looking like me. I gotcha back, baby mama.”
“Luc?”
Luc’s mischievous eyes come up to Sam’s. “Mm?”
“Fuck off.”
Luc laughs, but he stands from his crouch and runs his fingers over the loose strands of my hair. “Feel better, Sammy. I’ll sing you a song until you do.”
I lick my parched lips, and nod against Sam’s thigh. “Okay.”
Luc winks, then he heads toward the stage and starts talking with Angelo in hushed tones. Marc replaces Luc’s position, and with a cranky frown, he looks me over from top to toe. “I heard you were leaving us, huh?”
“Marc--” Sam starts, but Marc shakes his head softly. “It’s okay. I get it. Be safe, and me and Luc will catch up after we graduate. Tell your kid not to grow too fast. Bring him back here to visit. Don’t become strangers, yeah?” Marc looks toward Sam again. “We’ve been brothers for a long ass time, dude. Don’t just disappear on me.”
“We’ll be around. We’re not dying.”
“I’m counting on it. Don’t be a dick.”
With Marc’s short and sharp speech, he also stands and moves toward the stage, and I continue to doze on Sam’s thigh as sweat continues to trickle over my forehead and he plays with my hair.