These Words Are My Heart and Soul

Ellee and Gerard got together, after weeks of my irresistible charm and persuasion (meaning I meddled a shit load). We went out virtually every night, every week that month. Scarily, my period didn’t come. After another week of waiting for that annoying streak of blood you find on your underwear or sanitary towel after sleeping a decent night, I decided to do one of the scariest reminiscent actions of my life.

I took a pregnancy test.

With Cariad holding one hand and Jez holding the other, and Jerrie sat in front and Ellee sat to the side of her, I waited the agonizing thirty seconds for it to flash blue or not. To my horror, it turned blue.

“Shiiiiiiiiiiiit,” Jez whispered.

What and how would I tell Frank? I mean, of course it was his, but I mean… WTF? How would he deal with this? Maybe he’d walk out on me, like Gerard did. Regardless of what may or may not happen, though, I still had to tell Frank. I didn’t want to end up like I did the last time.

“Oh… No… how the hell do I tell him? What if it’s been hurt by the drink? What if I lose it? What if Frank doesn’t want it? What if he walks out on me?”

I began having a panic attack. I felt like all my insides were swelling; my head started spinning as if I were drunk; I started seeing those stupid multicolored stars like you do when you press your palms into your eye sockets; my heart thudded painfully; my breathing grew to an agonizingly quick pant.

A hand found it’s way to my back and another found it’s way to my outstretched hand, and voices began soothing me and trying to calm me down. After what seemed like an age, my breathing returned to normal and a headache set in.

“I, personally, think he’d be thrilled to have a little Frank. Especially by you,” Cariad said, smiling warmly.

Yeah, we were back on better terms now. She was quickly earning my trust and respect again, as well as my love and friendship, and her saying that was just perfect. She couldn’t have been a better friend if she tried.

I smiled back, before moving my hand to my stomach. If I was still as good at Math as I used to be, and if I counted correctly, I was a month pregnant. My baby, our baby, was the size of a grain of rice. My eyes filled up and I smiled to myself as a tear rolled down my cheek. I was pregnant again, but this time by someone who gave two craps.

“Maybe he’ll be okay with it.”

Standing up, I wandered into Jerrie’s kitchen and stole a few slices of bread, digging round in the refrigerator for some butter to make my favorite: butter sandwiches. They’d always been a love of mine, and Franks. We had so much in common.

“I gotta phone him!”

Stuffing a slice of buttered folded over bread into my watering yet significantly dry mouth, I half ran into Jerrie’s living room, snatching my cell phone off the coffee table and pressing speed dial one.

“Mmhmm?” came a tired yet comforting voice.

“Frankie, I have some big news, which I’m happy about, but I dunno how you’ll take it. Meet me outside Starbucks in Belleview plaza at half past two?”

“Mmkay… that’s four hours from now, right?”

“Uhm…” I looked at the clock on the mantle. “Yeah, it is.”

“Mmkay good. I’ll wake up in three hours then.”

He started snoring and the phone went dead as his sleeping finger pressed the red button. I giggled to myself at his simple mentality, and went back to the girls, still munching away as they discussed baby names for me.

***
It wasn’t long until mom’s boyfriend moved in. I guess he seemed a nice guy at first, but I always had an inkling that something would go wrong. And it did. Every time I visited, he’d glare at me as I helped myself to the food and a coffee, and he’d watch what mom said when we talked.

If she said anything he didn’t like, he’d come over and whisper something in her ear, something I couldn’t hear but always made her pale slightly and smile weakly at me, changing the subject to something monotonous, like the garden she was insanely preoccupied with and how her boring three by four cubicle job was working out.

As my nights grew longer it seemed moms grew shorter, her going to bed at nine, being his rag doll for four hours until he was completely satisfied and conking out from sexual exhaustion, only to have herself woken up at five thirty to run errands before work at seven.

I knew something was wrong when she begin refusing to take her jackets and sweaters off when we met up for lunch, whether we were outside in the eighty degrees heat or inside in the eighty degrees heat.

Something was wrong, I knew, because I was the same. She was only thirty five; not a teenager anymore but still susceptible to cutting and shit like that.

She was my mom; I was growing more and more scared of her.
***