Chapter 43
THE BATHROOM WAS SILENT FOR three seconds before everyone exploded.
“What do you mean, the baby is Hawk’s?” Barb’s shriek was so loud in the empty Starlight bathroom, it hurt Nicolette’s ears. “How is that even possible?”
“I didn’t mean for it—” Nicolette began, but Marty cut her off.
“Hey, guys, I need to get in here and clean,” Lorelei’s stepbrother said from the bathroom doorway. He had a mop in one hand and a bucket in the other, and eyes were darting between them. “We’re closed—”
“Get out!” Lorelei screamed, charging at him.
Marty backed out quickly, leaving the cleaning supplies behind him.
Lorelei whirled around to face them. “I knew it,” she said, her eyes bright and her face flushed. She was either angry or triumphant; Nicolette couldn’t tell. “I fucking knew that pervy motherfucker would do something like this. Oh, he’s going down.”
“Stop it, Hawk is not a perv,” Barb said, glaring at her before turning to Nicolette. “You’re lying. You don’t want to tell us who the father is, so you’re saying it’s Hawk to hurt me. I always knew you hated me.”
Nicolette had lost count of how many times Barb had defended her favorite teacher tonight, but it didn’t matter. This exact conversation is why she hadn’t wanted anyone to know. She didn’t want to explain, because how could she?
Feeling dizzy, she leaned against the wall. The nausea had subsided, but she was lightheaded and thirsty, probably from all the vomiting. “I’m not lying,” she said. “I wouldn’t lie about this.”
“Then how could you do this?” Barb shouted, her voice cracking. “And how could you not tell me? This is so not fair!”
“Fair?” Lorelei cut in, staring at them both in disbelief.
“What about any of this is fair? Mr. Hawksfield is our teacher. It’s not okay.
God, you two are so stupid sometimes. We’re all going to the police station right now, and we’re gonna get that fucker fired. Let’s go, I’ll get Marty to drive us.”
That was the last thing Nicolette wanted. Desperate, she reached for Lorelei’s arm. “Don’t do this. Please. If you tell the police, everyone will know that I’m . . . that I’m . . .”
“Don’t you dare cry,” Lorelei said sharply, pointing a stern finger at her as if she were a small child. “Not over him. He’s not worth it.”
Nicolette felt her face crumple. She didn’t want to cry—nobody hated crying more than she did—but the hormones were affecting her mental state, her emotions, basically her entire personality.
“Okay, we all need to calm down—” Barb said.
“I will not calm down,” Lorelei said to her, lifting her chin. “And the fact that you seem more concerned about why she didn’t tell you than the fact she’s been impregnated by our teacher is actually so fucked up, I can’t even.”
“Shut up,” Nicolette said to Lorelei as a dull pain stretched across her lower belly. She put a hand over her stomach until it passed, but then another wave of nausea passed over her. “I’m sorry, Barbie. I wanted to tell you so many times, but—”
“You were going to tell her and not me?” Lorelei said.
“For the fifty millionth time, this isn’t about you!
” Nicolette shouted, her voice echoing in the Starlight’s bathroom.
“Do you even give a shit? Because I think you’re just mad that Sam ditched you, and so you’re, like, projecting or something.
Sam was practically the same age as Hawk, so you’re the last person who should be criticizing—”
She stopped abruptly as she felt another dull pain, stronger this time, like a really bad menstrual cramp. Again it passed, but she forgot what she was saying.
She heard a soft sob, and realized that Barb was crying. Fuck. Lorelei had at least said one thing right. He wasn’t worth it. Daniel Hawksfield, she’d learned, only cared about Daniel Hawksfield.
“It started back in June after my dad got arrested,” Nicolette said, wishing she had something to eat to quell her queasy stomach.
“I’d just finished rehearsals for the play and was waiting for my mom, but like always, she forgot to pick me up.
Hawk was still at school and he offered me a ride home.
I was starving, so he asked if I wanted to get something to eat. ”
“Which is exactly what a pervert would do,” Lorelei said. “Feed you, then fuck you.”
“Shut up,” Barb said to her, and since she hardly ever said that to anyone, Lorelei took a step back.
Nicolette rubbed her stomach. The cramps were getting stronger. “We got some Taco Time and ate it in the parking lot. I told him how much my parents sucked—”
“Because they do,” Lorelei said.
“—and he listened. He was nice. Nothing happened. He drove me home.”
“And then what?” Barb asked.
“And then . . . we just started doing that,” Nicolette said, her hand pressed to her abdomen.
“Play rehearsals ended around five, which is the time he usually left the school. Sometimes he’d .
. . wait for me and drive me home. Nothing happened for a few weeks, but then, one time, we . . . we kissed.”
“God, I’m gonna hurl,” Lorelei said. “You had the English teacher’s tongue in your mouth?”
“You had the homeless guy’s tongue in yours?” Nicolette fired back.
The door to the bathroom opened again and a pale face peeked in. “Seriously, guys, I really need to get in here to clean—”
“Get out !” Lorelei and Nicolette yelled in unison.
The bathroom door closed again.
“Keep going,” Barb demanded.
Nicolette swallowed. Her stomach was really hurting, and she was feeling both hot and clammy. “So after the first time—”
“There was more than one time?” Barb’s mouth dropped open. “This was, like, an ongoing thing?”
“It didn’t last that long,” Nicolette said, pressing her arms against her belly and gasping slightly. “I really didn’t mean for anything to happen.”
“You are such a fucking hypocrite,” Lorelei said to her with a bitter laugh. “You gave me shit all night because I met an older guy, and it turns out you were having a whole-ass relationship with Hawk. And you know damn well Barb liked him. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“I am ashamed!” Nicolette cried. The stomach cramps were intensifying, and she felt like she might throw up again. “All I feel is shame! You think I wanted this to happen?”
“Maybe you did,” Barb said. “Maybe you thought if Hawk got you pregnant, he’d rescue you from your parents and you could go live with him—”
“I wasn’t thinking like that!” Nicolette said. “But he made me feel safe, like I mattered, and I thought he cared about me. But after a few weeks, he ended it.”
“Does he know about the baby?” Barb asked.
Nicolette nodded. “He doesn’t believe it’s his. But he said he’d give me the money to . . . take care of it.”
“No dude will pay for an abortion if the kid isn’t his.” Lorelei crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s absolutely his baby.”
“And you’re sure it’s not Jonathan’s?” Barb said.
“I told you I never slept with Jonathan!” Nicolette said. It was frustrating to keep repeating herself. “Hawk was my first and only.”
“God, you and Hawk.” Barb put her hands over her face. “What a mess. What the hell are you going to do?”
“I know what I’m gonna do,” Lorelei said loudly in a singsong voice, and her smile wasn’t a smile at all. “I’m gonna get that fucker arrested. Hawk is finished.”
Nicolette burst into tears. Now that she had told them, the full weight of her situation was finally hitting her.
She was pregnant with Daniel Hawks-field’s baby.
Lorelei was right—when this got out, he was going to jail.
And Nicolette would forever be known as the chick who got pregnant by her teacher.
They were the Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualauu scandal all over again.
Nicolette didn’t want it to get out. Nobody could know about this, ever.
“I always knew there was something wrong with him,” Lorelei said.
“Seriously, shut up,” Barb said again. “Your judgment is no better than hers when it comes to guys.”
“And what would you know about it?” Lorelei asked, turning to her. “Have you ever had boy problems, Barbie? No. Because boys don’t like you like that. You’re only ever in the friend zone.”
Barb slapped her, and Nicolette gasped. In all the years they’ve known each other, she’s never seen Barb hit anyone.
Lorelei’s hand flew to her face, where a hand-shaped blotch of red has bloomed. “You asshole,” she said, shoving Barb back against the wall. “I can’t believe you hit me. Why are you even mad at me ? It’s her that’s messed up—”
Barb shoved back, and within seconds, Nicolette was watching her two best friends go at it, punching and screeching, hair flying. She tried to get in the middle to separate them, but Lorelei’s elbow smacked her cheek, and so she did the only thing she could do.
She screamed. For as loud and as long as she could. It worked. Barb and Lorelei broke apart, the two of them gasping as they both worked to catch their breath.
“You know why you two are so messed up?” Lorelei said to them, her face red. “Because you both have serious daddy issues.”
“Shut up,” Nicolette and Barb both said at the same time, and without thinking, they both shoved Lorelei back into the bathroom stall.
Rocked by the force of two pairs of hands on her, Lorelei stood no chance.
Losing her balance, her feet slipped right out from under her on the old bathroom floor tile as she fell backward awkwardly, the back of her head slamming into the porcelain toilet bowl behind her with a sickening crack.
The sound was so shockingly loud that Nicolette couldn’t actually tell if it was the toilet or Lorelei’s skull that broke.
Seeing her friend’s face after her head made impact against the porcelain seat was like watching the lights go out. Lorelei’s body instantly went limp, and she slid down onto the floor, her legs splaying out like a discarded rag doll.
And then she was still.
“Oh, fuck,” Nicolette said, staring down at Lorelei in shock. It had all happened so fast. “I didn’t think I pushed her that hard . . .”