Being Kept In The Dark

Matthew Sanders was known at Huntington Beach for his disorderly conduct and misbehavior. He remembered his parents telling him that he was a horrible child and they were ashamed to call him their son. But that never stopped him for ditching school and getting into gang fights or being thrown in a few Walmart jail cells. He was a good kid at heart, but that bad boy in him just didn’t want to show it.

When he was twelve he met Valary and Michelle Dibenedetto they had just moved to Huntington Beach during summer break. At first he thought that they were straight A’s like all the other girls in his grade, but after he saw Val punch Sally Reid in the face for stealing her Barbie he then knew different. Matt wasn’t into girls and girls weren’t really into him so when Valary asked to sit with him and his friends at lunch he really didn’t know what to do. After that Val would say hi to him in the hallway and sit at his table in class and at lunch. His friends told him that she was just talking to him because he was tallest in class and she needed protection from Sally’s evil Barbie stealing ways.

In his lifetime from birth to the Paulins’ kitchen he had only dated two girls. The other wasn’t even worth naming, she was only in it for his animal crackers. One day when his friends were all off on a field trip while he was stuck in class like every other day Val came to sit at his lunch table. She smiled sweetly at him and slid closer until their arms were toughing. Matt was confused what was she doing?

“So, Matthew right?” She asked smiling up at him. Matt gulped and nodded his head before saying anything.

“Ya, but I prefer Matt. Your names Valary, Valary Dibenedetto right?” Matt said feeling embarrassingly nervous.

“That’s right! So where’s your friends today?” Val asked giggling at Matt who was now sweating.

“Museum.” Matt simply said now wishing he were at the museum too.

The conversation continued after that Valary asking most of the questions trying to keep him talking to her. She thought he was cute, her sister thought she was crazy and told her that boys were stupid and smelt like feet, but Matt didn’t smell like feet at all. After a few more months of Valary following Matt around and trying her best to hint that she liked him Matt finally asked her to be his girlfriend. At first they would just hold hands at school and nothing else typical little kid romance.

It continued like that until grade seven Matthew gathered enough courage to kiss her. His father told him that when guys have girlfriends their supposed to kiss them to show that they care. Deciding from that day like any other stupid young teen that he was going at marry Val so caring was on the list. After the kissing they started going out on dates to movies and fast food restaurants like older couples. Going through middle school getting past Matt being expelled in eighth grade and moving to high school the couple stayed together. The boys often teased them and girls wished they had a relationship like them none of that bothered them until Sally came back. Matthew and Valary were sitting the hallway having a playful game of thumb war when the evil Barbie stealer came up. She stood in front of them hands on her hips and feet shoulder length apart face stone serous. For a while she just stood there not saying a thing just looking at each of them with her brown eyes. Then she asked a topic that neither one of the couple had really thought about being for sex.

Mr. Stronghold’s health class today’s topic… protection. There are five barrier methods to having safe sex those would be the diaphragm, cervical cap, the sponge, female condom, and the male condom. There are also hormones to prevent an egg from being released from an ovary into the fallopian tube and uterus those would be oral contraceptive pill (the pill), depo provera (the needle), the patch, and the ring. And then came then came the questions everyone should ask himself or herself.

1. Do both my partner and I feel ready to have sex now? Well sort of…
2. Have my partner and I talked about what having sex means to our relationship? Ya, a little.
3. Do I know my reasons for deciding to have sex now? Well, everyone is doing it.
4. Will I feel good about myself if I have sex now? Ya, it well make me and Val’s relationship stronger!
5. Am I sure no one is pressuring me to have sex? No…
6. Can I say “No” to sex without feeling guilty? Ya, but Val really wants to have sex…right?
7. Can my partner and I discuss openly the prevention of sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy? Ya, we both don’t want either of those.
8. Do my partner and I know enough about how to prevent sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy? Yes, a condom! Duh!
9. Are we responsible enough to use condoms and a method of birth control every time we have sex? I know where dad keeps his.
10. Are we ready to handle the possible consequences of being sexually active? What does that even mean?
11. If the relationship breaks up, will I be glad I had sex with this person? Val and I are meant to be together forever!

After Matthew finished answering all those questions to himself he felt rather proud and decided to stop listening. One of his first mistakes after young Matthew stopped listening came the decision about what happened if the female did get pregnant. He probably should have kept listening.

A few weeks later Matt’s parents had gone to the beach with his younger sister so it was just him in the house. He called Val and told her that if she was ready so was he. In fact he was more then ready his father had told him many times that sex made boys into men and he was more then ready to be a man. When Val had gotten to his house he pulled her by her arm into his parent’s room and dug through his father’s nightstand until he found what he was looking for. Then things started to get a little hot and heavy.

When Valary found out she was pregnant when she was fifteen and attending grade ten at high school. She was two weeks late for her period, she never thought she could be pregnant. She knew that she had to tell Matt. Val phoned him and said to him that she really needed to talk to him in person and to meet her at the park. When he got here he was sweating like crazy and was huffing and puffing like air it’s self was going to vanish. He was scared. Val had sounded so upset on the phone he’s never heard her sound like that ever not in the three years that they’re been dating. Val was sitting on the bench thinking of anyway, anyway at all to tell him. She had thought of showing him the test or maybe getting someone else to do it but that would mean telling someone else. She just didn’t know what to do about anything anymore. Matt sat down beside her and pulled her into his arms, he was afraid. Valary told him to hold out his hand and close his eyes because she had a present for him. Matt asked her what it was and Val said it was something that was already his. Finally after a few minutes of Matthew deciding weather or not to do it he held out his hand and closed his eyes. Val slowly turned it over, put it on her tummy and just held it there. When he opened his eyes he didn’t get what she was giving him until Val looked up with tears pouring down her cheek saying that the condom didn’t work.

Matthew didn’t know what to say. He knew that his parents wouldn’t like this. He wasn’t ready to be a father, not ever. Everyone called him “Shadows” and shop owners would often kick him out of their stores for just looking. He, like everyone else was surprised that Valary even stayed with him. He has been arrested countless times and they’re threatening to throw him in jail. He wasn’t, and never was planning to be father material.

Val saw the look on Matt’s face. She knew what he was thinking he wasn’t ready and she was thinking, she wasn’t either. Matthew said that the test was broken or something and that it was a false positive. Val knowing that wasn’t true, but wanted to believe him so bad that she just went along with it. So they both went home silent and scared shitless hoping that it was really a false positive.

But a week passed and Matthew and her were really starting to worry. They had their whole lives ahead of them still. So Val went to the doctors, only to receive a call the next day saying that she was definitely pregnant. She stayed in her room all day not even letting Michelle in until Matt showed up. He tried to comfort her as best he could, but he just didn’t know how. He never thought this could happen well, he knew it happened to other people, but not Val and him.

One of Valary’s first thoughts was that her mother was going to kill her. She was so scared to tell her parents about her pregnancy that she kept it a secret for weeks. Some how Michelle had found out and told their mother for her. Val was afraid that her mother wouldn’t support her and that’s what she needed the most. Her mother’s reaction surprised her. She didn’t freak out or kick her to the curb, she left it up to her. She said that she would support her in whatever Val decided, as did her father.

Her parents had gone out and gotten her a pamphlet they thought might help her. On the cover it read ‘what are the pregnancy options?’ and on the inside were her three choices: parenting, adoption, and abortion. Abortion was off the table fast, Valary didn’t believe in murder. That only left parenting and adoption. She talked it over with Matt and they both decided that they just weren’t ready for this type of responsibility. So adoption it was.



The room was filled with that type of silence in a western movie, everyone just waiting to see who’s going to make the first move. Matthew and Valary were sitting on the love seat across from where Cassarah sat on the couch coffee table separating them. Mary had left the couple alone with their daughter and was in the kitchen drinking some coffee while they worked things out. But it didn’t look like they were going to be working anything out anytime soon.

Cass was still had her head in her knees when the three pairs of footsteps came in. One said they would be in the kitchen and left, she recognized the voice to be Mary. The other two moved to sit on the couch across from her. As they sat Cass breathed in their scents one was quite musty and strong while the other was vanilla and sweet. After a while the female broke the silence taking the shot.

“Hello, Cassy right? Oh, can I call you Cassy? Do you even like that name?” The high soft voice asked rather fast and loud. Cass didn’t reply she just sat there.

“Umm, Cassarah? My names Matthew Sanders and his woman next to me is my wife Valary. We’re your…umm parents.” Said a strong raspy voice.

A parent is someone who is there for you when you scrape your knee, your first day of kindergarten, when your best friend moves away, and when the other parent dies. They weren’t her parents they were just the stupid teenagers that got pregnant their first time having sex. But Cass knew that she couldn’t just judge them like that, well not until she heard all the facts. Gary had taught Cassarah to never judge a book by it cover. While in Cass’s case she really couldn’t do that so she learned not to judge people by what other people had said about them. So Cass was going to give them a chance.

Valary was sitting with her palms together and tucked between her thighs staring at her daughter. She could only see her hair and that was enough to tell her that Cass was a mixture of both Matt and her. She wondered what her face looked like, her mouth, and nose. Did Cass have a little more of her or Matt in her? But most of all Val just wanted to hear her baby’s voice.

“Why…” It was barely above a whisper, but Matthew and Valary heard her. Cassarah only had one question and that was all her questions rolled into one.

“Why, what?” Val asked confused as to what her daughter was trying to say.

Cassarah couldn’t see her whole life and that was hard, but she always had Gary and Rachel there for her. People often asked if she could dream and she could, but it was just voices not pictures or images. By now Cass didn’t care that she couldn’t see. Sure it would be easier and she wouldn’t have to struggle with everything, but it would be too much of a change for her. Cass has never thought about what her friends or family look like . . . she didn't care what their faces were like because she had a sense of them. She knew them. She knew them in her heart. So when she found out that she really didn’t know them it hurt. But with Matthew and Valary she didn’t know what to feel.

“Why did you give me up?”