Fly Away

Saturday morning I spent nearly all day in my room, sitting on my bed, staring out the window.

My mom found out about Tyler and the whole...rape...type...thing. She was pissed! You would think she'd be the least bit sympathetic that I was nearly raped and I was lied to, but no, everything was yells and groundings for Kimberly!

I didn't want to tell her, but what was I supposed to do? I apparently planned on opening my big mouth enough to get him arrested for Christ's sake, but I couldn't bear confessing to my own mother? Tell me that's not messed up!

She told me she wasn't quite so mad about rape, but she was disappointed in me for lying and setting myself up for it. She said it was my plan, and I willingly dressed like a smut, and I kissed him, and I knew what I was getting myself into, but I still thought my stupid "plan" would be perfectly perfect.

I can't believe I created all this drama. I'm the reason everyone's so dysfunctional.

I heard a knock at the door, and spotted my mother, a very precise woman, popping her petite body into my room, holding a cup of steaming hot broccoli and cheese soup.

Despite my dumbness, she still cared about me. She still cared if I ate, if I laughed, if I smiled. How could someone as smart and pretty as her love a stupid and ugly emotional hurricane like me?

"You hungry, baby?" she asked, her voice seeming unusually perky.

Oh yeah, that was another thing. I still didn't have the nerve to tell her that I was pregnant. Then as if i was riding a bike and wiped out due to a misplaced pebble, it hit me.

OMIGOD! SHE KNOWS!

I immediately began to panic, but I tried my best to hide it.

But who did I think I was kidding, I mean, she was my []mother!

"What's wrong honey?" she asked, worriedly, setting the cup of soup on my nightstand. Her usually careful self spilled some of the contents, but for once she didn't bother to clean it up.

I attempted to say "Nothing," but my mouth just wouldn't open. That's when I started to fidget on my bed.

She quickly scurried over to me and put her arms on my shoulder.

"Are you OK?!" she questioned, shaking me, as if I were having a seizure.

I deeply breathed, and every breath I took made the next one harder. And harder. And harder.

"KIMBER! Omigod!" she screamed, and looked extremely rushed and unprepared. "Honey, I'm calling 911, and we'll go tot he hospital!" She reached for the phone, and I suddenly got even more worried that if I went to the hospital, they would discover I was carrying a baby and they would tell her, and if she didn't know-

My body suddenly stopped its spaz attack, I was surprisingly as close to normal as I could be right now.

She still remained to grip the phone so tight I was just waiting for it to explode. Her eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets, and her expression was a mixture of fear and confusion.

The tone on the phone was obnoxiously loud and I realized how close I was to exposing my secret. The phone had the numbers nine and one, but thankfully, not the last one, so I was still safe.

For now.

---

Since my stupidity nearly gave me and my mother a heart attack, I found an easy way to hide my baby bump.

Although I didn't have one yet, I knew it would be coming soon. So, I figured I needed to gain weight, FAST.

At dinner, Mom and I ate pasta and meatballs, on gigantic plates.

"Wow, you seem to be hungry!" Mom announced, observing me stuffing my face. I raised from the dinner chair, and went to the stove. I scooped up another big portion of pasta and plopped it on my third plate.

"Yeah, I didn't eat lunch," I lied, yet again. Truth was I scarfed down the whole tray of crap at lunch and even bought a bag of chips. And at breakfast, I ate a bowl of cereal, two slices of toast, and drank whole milk. My stomach was killing me from all the surprising extra food, considering it usually ran on gum and iced tea. But, I knew if I wanted to fully make my mother and all the people at school believe that I was just getting fat, I had to make it convincing.

"That's good. By the way, sweetie, if there's anything you wanna tell me, I'm here to talk," she said guiltily. Something told me she didn't know about it after all, because if she did know, my butt would be full of deep red hand-prints. I'm sure she was just talking about what happened on Halloween.

"I'm fine, Mom," I replied, attempting to laugh, and my lips curved into a smile in their most convincing way. I shoveled in another forkful of pasta that practically was tasteless by now, and my tummy was prepared to burst. All the hungry people in Shelbyville could have a serving of my exploded pasta, scraped off the walls, and there would probably still be some left.

"That's good. By the way, Tyler's mother called me this morning. He told her he wanted to speak to you, but I told her you didn't want anything to do with that piece of scum. Isn't that right?" she interrogated, expecting me to break down and admit she was right and give her a hug and a kiss, and we'd live happily ever after.

Puh-leeze.

"Right," I answered, my brain agreeing, but my heart preparing to burst out of my chest and scream "Wrong."