Something in the Water

"Emma, wake up, sweetheart." Dad pats my back.

I groan with extreme fatigue and turn my face away in my bed. I feel like I could sleep for years. It's nearly impossible to sleep with a giant pregnant belly. I know it will only become more uncomfortable.

"Come on, you have an appointment at the Center in an hour."

That news only makes me feel worse. "Why?" I whine.

"Don't worry about that. You need to get out of bed, now. I'll be back in five minutes." I listen to Dad's footsteps as they clear my bedroom.

I shove my fists into my eyes. He flipped the light on as he left. I checked the clock and groaned again when it was only 7am. I did a double take when I looked over at my nightstand, discovering a pretty bouquet of yellow and orange flowers in a vase. I squinted as I lifted the card from the bunch and read the small lettering : 'Happy Birthday, Emma -- Love, Mom and Dad'.

A warm smile spreads across my sleepy face. I am eighteen today, a legal adult -- but not legal enough. It's a step closer, though. The birthday spirit helps me get out of bed without too much of a problem. I wash my face and pull on the floral print skirt that I can wear over my stomach, as well as a clean white shirt to go along with it. I get my hair out of the way with a clip, and when I look in the mirror, I don't feel as obnoxiously large as I usually do.

I don't notice it's raining until I make it downstairs, slowly and painfully. Dad stops at the foot of them, prepared to come and drag me out of bed. "Are you alright?" He asks me, offering his hand to help me down the last few stairs.

"I guess so, considering the circumstances." I say.

"Good. If you're ready, we can leave now."

I don't like to feel rushed. "Isn't Ben coming, too?"

Dad digs out an umbrella. "No, this one is just for you."

I plant my heels in the ground. "What? Why?" I have never done this without Ben, and I don't plan on starting today.

"Don't worry, We're going to be late." He holds me under his arm as we squeeze beneath his umbrella. It has the Evaluator logo on the front of it.

. . . . . . . .

Dad holds open the door to the coffee shop around the corner from my house. I stand in front of it, wondering what he's up to. "This isn't the Evaluation Center."

Dad looks inside the store and back at me again with this funny expression on his face. "Oops."

I laugh nervously, concerned for the way he is acting. It's like I'm a child he's trying to amuse with his quirky attitude. "What do you mean, 'oops'?"

"We might as well go inside." He directs my shoulder to walk through the doorway and out of the rain.

I inhale the lovely scent of coffee and pastries. This place doubles as an ice cream shop, and we used to come here all the time when I was young. It would be a nice surprise, if I knew whether Dad was hiding something from me.

"Tell me the truth." I ask, after he pulls out a chair for me at a small table. "Is there really an appointment?"

"Let me get you something first. What would you like, anything special?"

I start to question whether I'm dreaming. "A blueberry muffin?"

He nods with a cheesy smile and goes to wait in the line at the counter. I fold my hands on top of the table and glance around at the other customers. It's busy in the morning for obvious reasons, and the people walking in and out don't notice me as much as the people seated around the shop. They think they're being subtle when they point their fingers and redirect their eyes, but it's all the same to me. It still hurts.

"Excuse me," I feel a tap on my shoulder and spin around. A woman is standing over me, wearing an apron that tells me she works here. "I'm sorry, but you're not keeping the baby, right?"

My heart rate climbs because I hate talking to strangers. It makes me anxious. "I'm not." I say quietly.

She nods like she expected that answer. "Right. That's what I thought. I knew the Center would set things right again. Best of luck, hun." She starts to walk away with dirty cups from the table beside mine.

"The Evaluation Center didn't make me put my baby up for adoption." I tell her. "I did it on my own."

She smirks. "Right, I know. Good choice by you, because things could have gotten messy." She disappears behind the counter.

I'm grateful when Dad comes back, though it doesn't help he's wearing that stupid uniform. It draws even more attention to us. I try to forget everything that's happened in the past five minutes. "Okay, now tell me what's going on, please."

He hugs his cup of coffee in his hands as he speaks. "There isn't an official appointment. I figured you would rather me pass on the information to you than hear it from the doctor, the Evaluator, and the Parkers all at once."

I straighten up in my seat. "What information?"

"The Parkers have decided to accept. They want to adopt your baby."

A funny feeling coats my insides. I'm relieved, but at the same time I feel like there's no going back. "Oh."

"That being said, there's still alot to handle before the baby is born. For example, we need to establish a due date and schedule a C-section, because they --"

"A C-section?" I cough on a piece of muffin. "You mean like the cutting-open-to-get-the-baby kind of thing?"

"Dr. Stevens made it clear that they need to be able to take samples for future testing and studies, and delivering that way is their best bet."

I don't allow myself to consider what they'll be taking samples of. "So I won't be able to just...you know, have the baby naturally?"

Dad shakes his head quickly. "Aside from that, the Evaluation Center is trying to take advantage of your cooperation, and they aren't going to allow you to interact with the baby before the adoptive parents."

It's all coming at me so fast, I can barely comprehend what he's saying. "I can't hold him?"

Dad leans closer to me, conscious of any listeners. "The Parkers get to decide whether they would like you to hold the baby."

It doesn't make any amount of sense to me, but I catch on. "He's not my baby anymore." I realize. "He's theirs, right?"

Dad sees it start to sink in, and he tries to mend it. "Emma, in all honesty, it will probably be best if you don't see the baby at all."

I know I'm not dreaming. He's still my real father, the one that goes out of his way to break bad news to me in the easiest way possible. "How could you say that?"

He changes subjects on me. "Did you know that when you were born, and your mother passed you over to me, I sat in the same chair and held you for hours until they came and told me it was time for you to go to sleep for the night?"

I don't see how it has anything to do with making up for what he said. "That's great, Dad." If anything, he's rubbing it in and it hurts even worse than it did before.

He notices the backfire. "My point is, you don't know what it's like to hold your own baby girl in your arms for the first time. It's not something I can explain to you, because you wouldn't understand until you feel it yourself. I can guarantee you, Emma, that the minute you decide to hold that baby, you'll make it a thousand times harder on yourself when you have to let him go."

He's so right. I've pictured it, imagined the beautiful child in my arms, and it seems remarkable even in my daydreams. I'd be an emotional wreck if it were real life.

"I think it's time for you to be selfish, sweetheart." He tells me. "Even if they offer it to you, I think you should decline for your own sake."

I can't believe he's asking this of me, but something tells me it's a right choice. It's that same something that told me to choose the Parkers. "Okay." I say weakly.

. . . . . . . .

Ben's already caught himself up with everything. I see the defeated look in his eyes and know that we're both just sick of making big, life-changing decisions. We've basically surrendered our fates to the Evaluation Center, the adults, the law, which is where they were always headed.

Now, we're just a couple of kids stuck in the mud, waiting for the next few months to come by.

My parents invite Sam, Sara, and Ben to share some birthday cake after dinner. Mom says it was Dad's idea, but I struggle to believe it. Ben waits for a distraction or a conversation to distract everyone before he pulls me off to the side.

"What is it?" I ask, once we're sheltered by a wall between us and the rest of the people in my house.

Ben stares me down in the dim light, and I get a pit in my stomach when I bet on what he's going to say. I already feel so guilty for kissing Sam, and I know how wrong it was. Seeing his face now only makes all of that ten times worse. I brace myself for another battle in our war.

"Okay, so, uh," He clears his throat, and I get a sense that he's nervous. "I know that things between us haven't been so great the past few months, and it probably wouldn't have been so tense if you weren't...you know...but -- what I'm trying to say is that I don't want the last few months to define what we are, and..." He continues to babble, and I notice his hand fiddling around in his pocket.

"What's in your pocket?" I ask.

He's cut off from his babble. "Huh?"

"Your pocket." I repeat, staring down at it. "Something's in it."

He shakes his head too many times. "Not yet."

I raise an eyebrow. "Not yet?"

"No, I mean -- God, Emma, let me finish!"

He's adorable when he gets flustered. "Go on, then."

He clears his throat again, still too flustered to continue. He huffs out a frustrated breath of air and grabs onto my wrist. He holds it up in front of me. "You want to know what's in my pocket?"

For some reason, I wish I didn't ask, but I nod anyway. He pulls it out and pinches it between his finger and thumb. It shimmers even in the low lighting.

"You see this?" He asks. "Don't freak out, it's a promise ring."

My eyes are locked on the thin silver band with a hollowed out heart shining in the center. I watch him guide my finger through as he slips it on me. I'm speechless. "Oh, Ben."

"Happy Birthday." He sighs, as if he's glad it's over with.

I can't contain the giant grin on my face. This is just as exciting as an engagement ring to me, because it tells me that old Ben is still in there. I hold my hand out to see how the ring lives happily on my finger. "It's beautiful."

Ben catches my hand and weaves his fingers through it, stepping closer to me. "Listen, I haven't given up on you yet, and I never will. I didn't think you needed a ring to see that, but things have been pretty rough in the last few months."

I'm still mesmerized by the ring. "I love you." I gush, throwing my arms around his neck. "I love you more than you'll ever know."

"You still love me enough to marry me someday?" He's teasing me now, but I don't mind it.

"I'll still marry you right now." I whisper in his ear.

I can only wonder how I got so lucky to be with him. Anyone else would have run out on me by now. I peek at how wonderful that ring looks on my finger, and I only picture spending the rest of my life with him. I just need the rest of my life to get started, and it will only start after this baby is born.

Ben lifts me away and kisses me. It's long, and slow, and ridiculously distracting. Dad has to call my name twice from the other room before I snap out of it.

I allow my face to calm down before I return to my mini-birthday party. Sam and Sara's gift is strange. It's a photo of an empty room with white walls and a hardwood floor.

"That's your room in our new house." Sara tells me. "You can decorate it however you want when you come and visit. It's for you and Ben to stay in." Sara catches the unsettled look from my parents. "Or just you, or your whole family." She adds carefully.

"Thank you. I'll visit as soon as possible." I set the photo on the coffee table.

Sam's barely said a word the entire time. The more I start to see his face in the same picture as my new ring, the more I feel guilty for not telling Ben about the kiss. If I'm in my right mind, I would tell him now.

I can't stand to see his heart broken, especially after he's already promised it to me. I offer to clean the cake dishes and glasses in the sink, shooting Sam an eye-roll that tells him to follow me.

I feel his eyes burning into my back as I stand at the sink. "Are you going to help me, or are you going to just stand there like a dork?" I ask harshly.

He eventually makes his way over to my side, picking up a towel to dry the few dishes. I feel bad for being harsh, because it's not his fault. None of it is his fault. But if I'm not harsh, I'm nice, and nice is not a good way to go now.

"You haven't told Sara, have you?" I ask at a low volume.

He decides to play dumb. "Told her what?" I drop my glass in the sink and stare at him blankly. He stops playing dumb real fast. "No."

"We're going to pretend that nothing ever happend, alright? I never kissed you, and you never kissed me back."

He's quiet for a moment. "How am I supposed to forget it happened?"

I knew it couldn't be that easy. I lift my hand to show him the ring that I now realize is coated in bubbles from the sink. I wipe it with the corner of the towel he's holding. "Ben gave me a promise ring today."

"Which means what, exactly?" He wonders cautiously.

I'm not so sure myself. "It means that he loves me, and that he wants to stay with me forever."

"But how is that different from an engagement ring?"

He has a good point. "An engagement ring would mean I am engaged to be married."

"So, there's no difference?"

"I don't know!" I admit, turning off the running water. "It means that the kiss never happened, okay?" I snatch the towel from him and dry my hands completely.

He still has to finish putting the dishes away. "Ben's always been the lucky one."

"You should have gotten to me first, then." I spin the ring on my finger. "If you could go back to the ninth grade homecoming dance, who would you ask to be your date?"

Sam chuckles. "No way, that's when he asked you?"

I look up, amused as well. "He tricked me, if that's what you mean. Who did you go with, anyway?"

His forehead wrinkles. "I really don't remember. I think Ben and I were supposed to go as friends." Something like an epiphany hits him in the face. "You're the girl he dumped me for?"

I shrug. "Guilty."

He shakes his head, ashamed of himself. "And I shared my sandwiches with you every day..."

I smile now, and I'm glad he's brave enough to keep our lovely friendship rolling.