“Shit,” he said, flipping through her calculus book. “You a nerd.”
She wasn’t, really, but learning came easily to her. (Her mother used to tease her about that—must be nice, she’d say, when Nadia brought home an aced test she only studied for the night before.) She thought her advanced classes might scare Luke off, but he liked that she was smart. See this girl right here, he’d tell a passing waiter, first black lady president, just watch. Every black girl who was even slightly gifted was told this. But she liked listening to Luke brag and she liked it even more when he teased her for studying. He didn’t treat her like everyone at school, who either sidestepped her or spoke to her like she was some fragile thing one harsh word away from breaking.
One February night, Luke drove her home and she invited him inside. Her father was gone for the weekend at the Men’s Advance, so the house was dark and silent when they arrived. She wanted to offer Luke a drink—that’s what women did in the movies, handed a man a boxy glass, filled with something dark and masculine—but moonlight glinted off glass cabinets emptied of liquor and Luke pressed her against the wall and kissed her. She hadn’t told him it was her first time but he knew. In her bed, he asked three times if she wanted to stop. Each time she told him no. Sex would hurt and she wanted it to. She wanted Luke to be her outside hurt.
By spring, she knew what time Luke got off work, when to meet him in the deserted corner of the parking lot, where two people could be alone. She knew which nights he had off, nights she listened for his car crawling up her street and tiptoed past her father’s shut bedroom. She knew the days he went to work late, days she slipped him inside the house before her father came home from work. How Luke wore his Fat Charlie’s T-shirt a size too small because it helped him earn more tips. How when he dropped to the edge of her bed without saying much, he was dreading a long shift, so she didn’t say much either, tugging his too-tight shirt over his head and running her hands over the expanse of his shoulders. She knew that being on his feet all day hurt his leg more than he ever admitted and sometimes, while he slept, she stared at the thin scar climbing toward his knee. Bones, like anything else, strong until they weren’t.
She also knew that Fat Charlie’s was dead between lunch and happy hour, so after her pregnancy test returned positive, she rode the bus over to tell Luke.
—
“FUCK” was the first thing he said.
Then, “Are you sure?”
Then, “But are you sure sure?”
Then, “Fuck.”
In the empty Fat Charlie’s, Nadia drowned her fries in a pool of ketchup until they were limp and soggy. Of course she was sure. She wouldn’t have worried him if she weren’t already sure. For days, she’d willed herself to bleed, begging for a drop, a trickle even, but instead, she only saw the perfect whiteness of her panties. So that morning, she rode the bus to the free pregnancy center outside of town, a squat gray building in the middle of a strip mall. In the lobby, a row of fake plants nearly blocked the receptionist, who pointed Nadia to the waiting area. She joined a handful of black girls who barely glanced up at her as she sat between a chubby girl popping purple gum and a girl in overall shorts who played Tetris on her phone. A fat white counselor named Dolores led Nadia to the back, where they squeezed inside a cubicle so cramped, their knees touched.
“Now, do you have a reason to think you might be pregnant?” Dolores asked.
She wore a lumpy gray sweater covered in cotton sheep and spoke like a kindergarten teacher, smiling, her sentences ending in a gentle lilt. She must’ve thought Nadia was an idiot—another black girl too dumb to insist on a condom. But they had used condoms, at least most times, and Nadia felt stupid for how comfortable she had felt with their mostly safe sex. She was supposed to be the smart one. She was supposed to understand that it only took one mistake and her future could be ripped away from her. She had known pregnant girls. She had seen them waddling around school in tight tank tops and sweatshirts that hugged their bellies. She never saw the boys who had gotten them that way—their names were enshrouded in mystery, as wispy as rumor itself—but she could never unsee the girls, big and blooming in front of her. Of all people, she should have known better. She was her mother’s mistake.
Across the booth, Luke hunched over the table, flexing his fingers like he used to when he was on the sidelines at a game. Her freshman year, she’d spent more time watching Luke than watching the team on the field. What would those hands feel like touching her?
“I thought you were hungry,” he said.
She tossed another fry onto the pile. She hadn’t eaten anything all day—her mouth felt salty, the way it did before she puked. She slipped out of her flip-flops, resting her bare feet against his thigh.
“I feel like shit,” she said.
“Want something different?”
“I don’t know.”
He pushed away from the table. “Let me get you something else—”
“I can’t keep it,” she said.
Luke stopped, halfway out his seat.
“What?” he said.
“I can’t keep a baby,” she said. “I can’t be someone’s fucking mother, I’m going to college and my dad is gonna—”
She couldn’t bring herself to say out loud what she wanted—the word abortion felt ugly and mechanical—but Luke understood, didn’t he? He’d been the first person she told when she received her acceptance e-mail from the University of Michigan—he’d swept her into a hug before she even finished her sentence, nearly crushing her in his arms. He had to understand that she couldn’t pass this up, her one chance to leave home, to leave her silent father whose smile hadn’t even reached his eyes when she showed him the e-mail, but who she knew would be happier with her gone, without her there to remind him of what he’d lost. She couldn’t let this baby nail her life in place when she’d just been given a chance to escape.
If Luke understood, he didn’t say so. He didn’t say anything at first, sinking back into the booth, his body suddenly slow and heavy. In that moment, he looked even older to her, his stubbled face tired and haggard. He reached for her bare feet and cradled them in his lap.
“Okay,” he said, then softer, “okay. Tell me what to do.”
He didn’t try to change her mind. She appreciated that, although part of her had hoped he might do something old-fashioned and romantic, like offer to marry her. She never would’ve agreed but it would’ve been nice if he’d tried. Instead, he asked how much money she needed. She felt stupid—she hadn’t even thought of something as practical as paying for the surgery—but he promised he’d come up with the cash. When he handed her the envelope the next day, she asked him not to wait with her at the clinic. He rubbed the back of her neck.
“Are you sure?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Just pick me up after.”
She’d feel worse if she had an audience. Vulnerable. Luke had seen her naked—he had slipped inside her own body—but somehow, his seeing her afraid was an intimacy she could not bear.