Chapter 2
Going to the front, she checked on her mom, then looked out at the gray light outside. It would be sunrise soon, hours before she had to be at school, but she couldn’t go back to sleep. She couldn’t even go back to bed now.
Instead, she went to the table and did some homework she was behind on. She had found her janky old laptop in the trash outside an electronics shop and had managed to get it working. Enough to write papers and essays on, anyway.
A minute before 7, she turned off her alarm so it wouldn’t wake her mom, then made breakfast before heading to school.
The bus picked her up like it did every day, and she hunched in on herself, still trying to hide her swollen belly from the worst of the bullies and jerks who would give her hell.
Sitting down next to Chad, she didn’t look up. Neither did he. He was always on his phone and barely looked at her twice all year, but no one ever sat with Chad. He stank and always had snot crusted around his nose. She had trouble with smells but learned to breathe through her mouth and face away from him. People usually left her alone if she sat with him.
Not today.
“Say! What’s up, my girl?” Davon asked, sitting in the seat across from her and leaning in.
“Day,” she mumbled, annoyed that he was still pushing that whole ‘Say’ and ‘Day’ rhyming thing with their names after four years. “You can’t copy Algebra; I haven’t finished it yet.”
“Shiiit. When you gonna finish it?”
“Probably in Bio.”
“Can I sit next to you in Bio and copy?”
“20.”
“Fuck, 20 to copy in the morning. If I gotta sit with you in Bio and copy as you do it, it should be half!”
“It’s 20,” she shrugged.
“Fuck. Fine… you still doin’ my Lit paper?”
“I told you, that’ll be 50.”
“I offered 30!”
“I told you 50 or no. I have a lot to do, Day, and that’s for your final.”
“Pshh, you think I’m made of money?”
“Made of it? No. But you have it to spend on weed and other shit. You wanna pass high school? That’s the price; I have bills.”
“Fuck,” he huffed. “Venmo or Cashapp?”
“No… cash. My phone might give out any time.”
“Shit, for real? I can hook you up, you know? I got some cracked iPhones my cuz is tryna sell?”
“No thanks. Food before phones, I need cash.”
“You that hard up? Baby girl,” he smirked, leaning closer. “How bout you make you an OnlyFans and shoot it over to me? I can get you a big following.”
“I’m not doing that!”
“Girl, you know how much money you could make?” he laughed.
“I’d fucking pay to see your tits,” Chad offered.
Sailor cringed away from him, repulsed.
“Come on, Baby Girl,” Davon grinned, leaning closer, brushing her curls off her cheek, and tucking them behind her ear. “How about me’n you go out, then? It’s Friday; we got a three-day weekend. I’ll take you to dinner, and we can go back to my place.”
“On your bike?” she asked, rolling her eyes.
“I’ll walk to your place and we’ll go to that place up on the corner,” he shrugged. “Anyways, I’m getting another car soon.”
“So you can total it too?”
“That last one wasn’t my fault!”
“But the first two were.”
“I learned my lesson,” he laughed, touching her thigh. “Race in the video games, not in the streets. How ‘bout it? Me’n you? Dinner tonight? I’m buyin’.”
“I can’t, I have to take care of my mom and grandmother,” she told him, pushing his hand off her leg.
“Shit, how ‘bout after that?” he asked, undaunted, as he grabbed her hand and pulled her fingers close to kiss.
“She won’t because she’s pregnant,” Chad offered, staring at his phone.
Sailor flinched, then gave him an incredulous look as Davon sat back, stunned. Leaning back in, he reached up and lifted her baggy shirt as she grabbed it and tried to hold it down.
Davon moved closer, looking around, though no one noticed them. “Shit! How far along? I didn’t know you was seeing anyone! Whose is it? Fuck, I thought you was a virgin!”
Sailor blushed, horrified, then turned and punched Chad in the face. “FUCK you, creeper! That wasn’t your place!”
“Ow! Ow, that hurt! You can’t hit people!” Chad whined, his hand over his mouth as he rocked, then broke down in tears.
“Shut the fuck up! And take a shower! And wipe your nasty snotty nose!” she yelled, then got up and forced Davon to move over against the kid who always wore headphones. “Don't tell anyone!” she hissed at him, her arms over her stomach.
“Whose is it?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she managed, tears of rage and anguish welling up.
“You seein’ someone already?”
“NO! ”
“Shit… okay. Like, a one-night stand or somethin’?”
“Something. Leave it.”
“Aight… shit. Fuck, Baby Girl, I’d still tap that shit,” he chuckled. “‘And I THOUGHT them titties was gettin’ bigger. I was like, damn! I thought girls stopped growin’ at like 14 or 15, but you’re 18 now, and they was gettin’ bigger! Thought maybe you was paddin’ or somethin’, but they move like real.”
“Shut up!”
“How far along?”
“4 months?”
“Right at Christmas? Who was you fuckin’ with then?”
“Leave it,” she huffed as they approached the school. Standing, she rushed forward, the first one off the bus, and hurried inside.