The Things We Do For Love

I looked in the mirror and finished my left eyebrow. Then I dropped the tweezers on the table and grabbed the chap stick, swiping it over my lips quickly and turned to Demi.

"When you left again three years ago for the final time, I was devastated." I started. "I never really had any other friends besides you, Dallas, Selena, and Zack, so it was hard to make new girl friends. I ended up hanging out with Zack and all of his guy friends a lot, so I guess I became kind of a guys girl. I still wore the same clothes as always, and I was still in choir and acting, but everything else about me had changed. I was a different person without you guys." I paused, and thought back. "I was okay for the first two years, but then my parents started to fight, and when Jamie left life was crap for me." Jamie was my older sister, and she had always taken care of me as a kid. No one had told her I was pregnant, and I was too ashamed to call her and tell her. "This past year was probably the worst one of my life, and the girls at school were even bitchier in high school. I hit my low over the summer after freshmen year, which would be last summer. I became sort of a slut to gain more attention from my friends and family, and I was the freshmen girl that every senior guy wanted." Demi looked at me, totally shocked. "I never had sex with any of them, though. The only one I had sex with was Zack. It was one of the worst decisions I ever made, but it was…amazing at the same time. It only happened once, and it was a spur of the moment kind of thing. That was two months ago, in the middle of November, right after my birthday. Neither of us knew it was going to happen, and that's why we didn't use any kind of protection. That one time was enough to knock me up, and enough to turn my entire world upside down."

I paused for a moment to let her digest everything that I had said before I continued. I was amazed at myself and how calmly I was taking this all, it was actually quite amazing. Demi sat there thoughtfully for a couple of minutes, and then spoke.

"So, what happened after that?"

"After that…" I didn't know how to tell her how awful my Holidays were. "Well, I didn't know until Christmas that I was pregnant. I thought I had some bug or something. When I barfed at the smell of pumpkin pie, my mother knew something was up. I have always loved pumpkin pie, as you know from the years of me eating it every morning for breakfast after a holiday, and me barfing because of that was just plain strange. She got an at home pregnancy kit and we tested it only to find out that I was indeed pregnant. She actually wasn't that mad, surprisingly, and when we told my father he wasn't that phased either. Both of them wanted me to get an abortion, but I refused. She was furious, and she gave me two weeks to figure myself out. That was on New Years Eve. I went back to school on the fourth of January, and that day was the day I told Zack that I was pregnant. When he found out he didn’t believe me. He told me that we were going to go to the doctor's office and make sure that the pregnancy test was correct. That afternoon after school he drove me to the doctor's office and I took the pregnancy test. They told me that it would take at least twenty-four hours for them to make sure, and that they would call my cell phone when they found out the news. Those twenty-four hours seemed like the longest of my life, and when they finally called two days later in the middle of my math class, I was freaking out. I passed out in class when they told me I was pregnant, and Zack had to carry me to the health center. When I woke up he was gone. The nurse told me that he had picked up the phone and talked to the nurse on it and then sprinted out of the school as fast as his legs could carry him. I tried to call him, but he never answered. When I got home that afternoon my mother was home from work to tell me that I would have to leave her house and find somewhere else to live. She dragged me up to my bedroom, threw me on the bed, and told me that I should start packing my bags. I packed as fast as I could, and in the process I left everything in my bathroom there. I tried to take Angel with me, but she wouldn't let me. She locked her in the basement, and I could hear her crying for me as I left. All I had was my bags, my wallet with three hundred bucks in it, and my ipod. My mother had taken my phone from me as I was packing my stuff, and she told me that she wasn't going to pay the phone bill of some good-for-nothing slut that wouldn't get rid of a stupid fetus. I walked to my grandma's house two miles away in Houston, but when I told her why my mom kicked me out she told me she would have nothing to do with a pregnant sixteen-year old. The rest of my family was the same, but Zack's house was the worst." My voice broke in the last sentence, so I paused to compose myself before I went on. "I went to him last, thinking that after all of the rejection he would be the one person that would accept me, but I was wrong. When I knocked on his door his mother answered, and she told me that she didn't want me anywhere near her son, and that a slut like me would never go far in the world. She told me that I was nothing, and that I was always be nothing, and that I would only bring Zack down." A tear had found it's way down my cheek, and I wiped it away. "I begged her to let me just talk to him once, and she let me, but when I walked into his room Amanda was sitting on the bed next to him with the shortest skirt possible on." Amanda had always been the slut, and the archenemy of Demi and I. "She had her legs around his waist, and they were playing tonsil hockey. He saw me walk in to the room out of the corner of his eye, and he pulled away swiftly, but the damage was done." The tears were falling fast now. "After that, he didn't even apologize, but he started to blame me for getting pregnant. He told me that if I hadn't seduced him he never would have had sex with me, and Amanda just sat there and laughed in my face. I walked out of his even more broken than before. His mother at least had the decency to let me use the phone in their house to call a cab. The cab came, and when he asked me where I wanted to go I didn't know. I literally had nowhere else to go." I smiled at her through the tears that were slowing. "Then I remembered you, the real reason behind all of my distress. I remember that I still had a best friend, her name was Demetria Devonne Lovato, and I had known her since I was three. I couldn't remember your address at first, but then I remembered the letter you had sent me, telling me about your new house in Toluca Lake. I told the taxi man your address, and he drove me all the way from Texas to California. We got to know each other very well driving over fourteen hundred miles, and when we got to your house he wouldn't let me pay him. I owed him over four hundred dollars, but he wouldn't take a cent. He said that somehow he knew God had given him the duty of driving me to California, and he knew God wouldn’t' be happy if he took money from a pregnant, disowned girl like me. His name was Allen Lee, and I will never forget him. He dropped me off outside of your house, and he gave me a book of baby names when I got out of car. He told me that his daughters were name Annabelle and Lisa, and he hoped that my baby would be just as wonderful to me as they were to him. After I stepped out of the taxi, the rest you know. Dallas opened the door to find me grungy and dirty, and here we are now. If it weren't for Allen, I wouldn't be here with you, and I pretty much owe my life to him." I stopped, and Demi looked at me expectantly as if she thought there was more to the story. "That's the end, Dems. You can stop looking at me like I'm a piece of steak."

She snapped out of the mini trance she was in and looked at me with her eyes full of wonder.

"I seriously don't know how you survived, Sammy dear. We are going to pay that man a thousand dollars for driving you here." She hugged me and my tummy rumbled. I had forgotten that I hadn't eaten since lunch. She let go of me and gave me a glare. "Did you eat?" She asked motherly and sternly.

"No…" I looked at her meekly. She was going to kick my ass for not eating.

"Ugh!" She grabbed my hand and looked at the clock. "It's two thirty in the morning and you didn't eat dinner! This is just great." She pulled me down the stairs and into the kitchen, then she pulled out a burrito from the fridge. "Mom's specialty," she said, laying the burrito down in front of me. "It's funny, I'm so different from you ethnically my little white friend."

I smacked her and grabbed the burrito, shoving it into my mouth as I spoke.

"Shut up!" I said softly with my mouth full. It sounded slightly like a cow mooing.

I chewed and swallowed, and soon I had finished the huge burrito.

"Wow, you ate that fast." Demi said, slightly shocked.

"I'm eating for two, now, remember?" I told her, smiling.

"Oh yeah, I forgot." She smiled at me, and then broke out into a huge yawn. "Can we go to sleep now?"

"Yeah." I yawned as well. "I'm beat."

We dragged ourselves up the stairs and to my room.

"Can you sleep in my room tonight, Dems?" I asked. I didn't want to be alone.

"Sure thing, Sammy." She hopped on the king sized bed and pulled the covers over her. "You brush your teeth and I'll be warming up the bed for you."

"Okay, thanks." I smiled at her.

I walked into the bathroom slowly, feeling like a total zombie. Then I grabbed my toothbrush and scrubbed my teeth as hard as I could. The minty toothpaste made my mouth feel so fresh and clean. I spit out and washed my mouth, and then walked back into the bedroom. Demi was still awake, curled into a ball on her half of the bed.

"That was pretty fast brushing," she said. "Let me smell your breath to make sure you did a good job."

I rolled my eyes at her and jumped onto the bed beside her. I blew the air out of my lungs and into her face. She sniffed and smiled.

"Perfect." She stated. I smiled smugly at her.

She turned off the lamp by my bedside table, and the room was pitch black. The bed was so comfortable, and I could feel myself drifting off. Just as I was about to lose conciousness, an important thought crossed my mind.

"Demi?" I questioned groggily, asking if she was still awake.

"Yes, Sam?" Her voice was thick with sleep.

"Can you not tell anyone I'm pregnant please?" I asked. "Especially not Sel, she'll have a fit. I just want to tell people in my own time."

"Sure." Her voice sounded wider awake now. "It's your secret to keep, not mine, and I won't do anything to mess it up."

"Thanks, Dems." I smiled. I could go to sleep now peacefully.

"Your welcome, Sammy."

That was the last thing I heard before I fell asleep. I slept deeply, without dreams, and it was the most restful sleep I had had in a very long time.