Page 68 of Rigid

In my world, there was nothing that needed pondered. I realized not everyone would agree with my perceptions, but everything fell into one or the other of those two categories.

My beliefs, or so I hoped, were shared by Eddie. If that were the case, she’d be able to understand the position I was in.

I looked right at her, and then wiped my eyes with the heel of my palms.

Her face washed with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Gimme a second.” I held up my index finger, drew a choppy breath, and then continued. “Sandy and I…we uhhm. We met, and we went out. We liked each other, a lot. We uhhm. We went on a few dates, and we had…we had sex. And, she uhhm…”

My voice was shaky, and each word seemed to be getting stuck in the back of my dry throat. While I struggled to continue, she swallowed heavily, and then met my gaze.

“Is she pregnant?”

I bit into my lower lip and nodded my head lightly. “Yeah. She is.”

Her eyes dropped. I had no idea what she was thinking, but I knew hurting her would simply kill me. As much as I realized I had to do the right thing by Sandy, I further knew I couldn’t do anything to sacrifice my relationship with Eddie.

As she seemed to be digesting everything, emotion washed over me, leaving me feeling vulnerable and weak.

“There’s only one thing you can do.” She looked up. “The right thing.”

Everything was still tangled up in my throat, but I opened my arms and managed to rid myself of three words.

“I love you.”

She hugged me. “I love you, too.”

Sitting on the edge of her bed, we held each other. I cried a little bit, but they weren’t tears of sadness. In realizing the level of maturity and understanding in the seventeen-year-old girl I had raised since birth, I filled with so much pride it seemed to force the tears from my eyes.

We sat there in each other’s arms for a long while, and then she broke our embrace. When she realized I was crying, she reached up and wiped the tears from my cheeks with her thumbs.

“Be careful what you wish for,” she said. “Remember that?”

Embarrassed, I wiped my eyes with my index fingers. “What about it?”

“You’ve always told me that,” she said. “And guess what?”

“What?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve always wanted a sister.”

TWENTY-ONE

Sandy

I’d always performed in an altered state of being. When I got on stage, I never did so as Sandy, I was always Texxxas. And, when I went home, Texxxas remained in the dressing room, where she belonged.

It left Sandy immune to everything that happened in the club, and allowed her to live a life unaffected by the men who lusted over Texxxas.

The process had worked well for me.

Until now.

It seemed that lately Texxxas was spending all her time on stage thinking about Smokey. My two worlds were somehow colliding, and I didn’t like the result.

“Fuck yeah,” someone screamed. “Look at her big fucking titties. I’d like to stick my cock between ‘em and…”

“Skinny little bitch needs fucked,” another hollered.