ALLIE
Leah Flynn isn’t in school today, which concerns me. Whatever is going on with her friend must be a bigger deal than I thought. At the start of basketball practice, I catch Noah’s eye which results in him running across the gym toward me.
“I’m a couple guys down today,” he says.
Looking around for more missing girls, I tell him, “Leah Flynn is out.”
“She missed yesterday, too, right?” Before I have a chance to answer, he says, “Her brother is out. Maybe the whole family caught a bug.”
“Maybe.” And while that’s certainly possible, I have a feeling something else is going on. Something to do with the excuse Leah gave me yesterday.
While Noah gets everyone started stretching, I approach a senior girl on my team named Nora. Pulling her aside, I ask, “Do you know Margie Flynn?”
She nods. “She’s in my history class.”
“Was she in school today?” Maybe Noah is right and the whole family has caught something.
Nora shakes her head. “She’s been out all week.”
“Do you know why?” I ask.
She glances from side to side before telling me, “She’s been throwing up a lot. But I don’t think it’s the flu or anything like that?”
“Food poisoning?”
Leaning closer to me, she says, “Word on the street is she’s pregnant. I don’t know for sure, but isn’t throwing up one of the signs?”
“It is,” I confirm, feeling a pang of panic for the girl. Teenagers aren’t generally excited to find out they’re pregnant. “Is there anything else that makes you think pregnancy might be the reason?”
With a shrug, she answers, “She broke up with her boyfriend. My boyfriend said that Jordan told a couple of guys that Margie got knocked up and he’s pissed she won’t get an abortion.”
Exhaling loudly, I thank Nora for the information and send her back out onto the court. It looks like Leah’sfriendmight have been her sister, and the problem is much bigger than I speculated.
I let Noah lead practice today so I can mentally dissect what, if anything, I can do to help Margie and her family. While she’s not my student, I have both of her siblings in class. And being that all of them are gone today, it’s clear the whole family is in some degree of crisis.
Practice ends before I realize it, and Noah approaches me. “You feeling okay today? You’re not getting sick too, are you?”
“Nope. Not sick.” Certainly not in the way Margie is, anyway.
“Are you ready to go to dinner?” he wants to know. “How about you go and get us a table, and I’ll lock up after the kids and join you?”
“Yeah, okay.” I’m actually glad to be leaving on my own. I try to imagine what it would be like to get pregnant in high school, and I can’t. Especially with a boyfriend who expected me to get an abortion. It’s such a grown-up situation for kids so young that I feel for both of them.
On my way to my car, I reminisce about my own pregnancies. I was never nauseated, which actually disappointed me. I wanted to have a stereotypical experience, and according to every TV show or movie I’d ever seen, that included a lot of vomiting. Without it, I always felt like I was somehow missing out.
Other than a positive pregnancy test, I never had any symptoms that I had a baby on board. I only heard the heartbeat once with my first two pregnancies. I heard it multiple times with the third. I even managed to hit my second trimester before losing the last baby. In retrospect, I realize that must have played a large part in how hard it was to recover.
All the experts tell you the chance of miscarriage diminishes greatly once you make it past your first trimester. After losing two early, I just assumed if I made it to sixteen weeks I would be in the clear.
As I drive over to the diner I feel a weird sensation of disembodiment. My brain has left the building and is traversing all kinds of alternate realities. After parking in front of the diner, I make my way inside.
The restaurant is surprisingly empty, but I suppose now that school is back in session most people will be eating at home during the week. Also, the summer tourist crowd is gone, which cuts our off-season population down by a third.
I sit at a table in the front window, so Noah won’t be able to miss me. Then I order a diet soda and wait.
Noah is only a few minutes behind me. He walks into the diner with a whoosh of crisp air trailing behind him. My heartbeat immediately picks up speed and my breath hitches in my throat. It turns out my favorite time of year, mixed with my teenage crush, is quite a heady combination.
Crossing the room toward me, Noah stops and declares, “I’m so hungry I could eat five burgers. You’d think I was the one out there working my tail off on the court.”
