With Ezra.
She hadn’t told us much about that night they had met at the gallery. Just that he had taken her to dinner and then his house to show her his art. Of course, we knew what bringing her home meant. Mac had, too. His parents were out of town, and she’d stayed the entire night until late morning the next day. Shedescribed that night as one she’d never forget and the best sex she had ever had.
“It was one night,” Mac reiterated.
“You used a condom, right?” Lemon asked.
Mac sighed through her nose. “Every time.”
“How many?—?”
“A lot,” Mac said, cutting Lemon off.
So one of the condoms had failed to do its job. I was so glad I was on birth control now. The odds of one failing had been stacked against me more than her back then.
Mac sighed again and went over to sit on the closed toilet.
“What are you going to do?” Lemon asked. “I mean, are you going to keep it?”
Mac leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and ran her fingers along her scalp. “I don’t know.”
“Are you going to tell him?” I asked.
Mac frowned at me. “How am I supposed to do that? It was a one-time thing. I didn’t ask for his number, and he didn’t ask for mine. He told me he was going away to some fancy college. He made it clear that it couldn’t be more. I agreed because he and I are from two completely different worlds.” She covered her face with a groan. “Everyone is going to think I baby-trapped a north-side guy for his money.”
Lemon and I exchanged a look. Guys from the north side of the bridge did make comments about south-side girls like that all the time. Even if they were true, Mac wasn’t like that.
“Fuck what other people think,” I told her. “That’s not you, Mac.”
Lemon went to go sit on the floor in front of Mac. “Lottie’s right. You know the truth and so will those who care about you. That’s all that matters.”
“If you want, I can try to reach out to him through social media?” I asked.
It had been a week since graduation. So it wasn’t like we were going to see him in school tomorrow. Or Stewart’s gallery, for that matter. Ezra hadn’t displayed his final to be voted on this time. Only I and a few other students had, and we’d find out the winner of the most votes today. It was a shame, because I’d seen Ezra’s final and it was breathtaking. It was so good, I was pretty sure it would have beaten mine.
His final had been to draw something imperfectly beautiful. Personally, I would have nailed that type of drawing. Ezra had had a hard time with it. He was kind of a perfectionist to a fault when it came to his art. I could see why Ms. Clark gave him such a challenge. What he’d come up with made it hard to believe he’d struggled at all. He had drawn the nearly naked body of a woman. You could not see her face. Her one breast that you could see from the side because of her sensual position was covered by her hand. Her hips and legs were positioned in a way that didn’t reveal her lower parts. The imperfect aspect was smack dab in the center of the drawing. It was a scar on the woman’s lower back. Ugly, jagged, and long. The thing was that you barely paid attention to it. The woman was too beautiful and alluring.
Ezra hadn’t shared exactly why he wouldn’t display it at Stewart’s. He’d just said that it was a personal piece.
I supposed I understood. My final was extremely personal as well. I’d shed many tears as I worked on it. I had drawn a man in a suit hugging a little girl tightly and smiling despite the many arrows sticking out of his back.
Ms. Clark had stared at it for the longest time after I revealed it to her. “It’s incredibly heartbreaking. The sacrifice, the protection, the happiness on his face, the holding of the little girl. I don’t have to be told that this is a father and child. I can see it. There’s so much you are showing, but its core is love. His love for his daughter. Well done, Lottie.”
Hearing that from Ms. Clark had been a huge relief. Like Ezra, I almost hadn’t displayed my final at Stewart’s, either, but everyone who cared about me had encouraged me to.
“Not right now. Maybe later after I figure out what I’m going to do,” Mac replied. She shook her head. “How am I going to have a baby, go to school, and work part time?”
Lemon set a hand on her knee. “I’ll be here with you.”
Mac was going to take classes at Summerhaven Community College while Lemon commuted forty-five minutes to the college she’d been accepted to in the next city.
A knock made all three of us jump. “You girls okay in there?” Vivian asked through the locked bathroom door.
“Yeah,” we all said at the same time.
“It’s almost time, Lottie,” Vivian said.
She was talking about the voting results at Stewart’s. They would be announcing it on their website.
