Seize the Day

I looked down at my fingernails. I'd started biting them. I hated biting my nails. Often times I'd sit in a daze; my mother's words ringing in my ears as if she'd only said them yesterday. I was surprised I even remembered something she'd said to me...

"Just don't come crying to me when one of those...things... impregnates you."

I heard those words play in my mind all the time. My friends were afraid for me. I'd started to grow distant from them all. I just knew if I was around them too much, something would slip and they'd find out about my pregnancy. And I couldn't let that happen. And it was hard being around Zacky, because he was the one that worried about me the most.

This whole ordeal was just... really confusing. I was only eighteen; I didn't know what to do. I couldn't raise a child. I couldn't go to Zacky; I didn't know exactly how he'd react to it. I was scared to go to his parents. I couldn't go to Val; she'd make me tell Zacky. I couldn't go to any of the guys; they wouldn't understand and they'd tell Zacky themselves. I couldn't tell Zoey; I'd broken off from her completely.

My head snapped up; there was one person I could go to...

The phone rang on the other end of the line. The sound of someone picking it up soon followed.

"Hello?"

"Casey?" I asked frantically.

"Yeah, this is she. Who's this?"

"Its Kim. Look, I really need to talk to you," I said.

"...Okay. What about?" she asked.

I sighed. "I... I can't say it over the phone or... someone might hear it," I said quietly into the receiver.

"Alright. Then meet me at... um... the coffee place uptown in like 5 minutes, okay?" she replied.

"Yeah. I'll be there. Bye."

"See ya," she said, and we hung up.

I got up and grabbed my coat and headed for the door just as Zacky came walking through it.

"Hey. How was practice?" I asked.

"It was good. You going somewhere?..."

"Uh yeah. Casey and I are going to get coffee..." I replied.

He kind of smiled. "Good. I'm glad you're not sitting around the house all the time. So you're feeling better?" he asked.

"Uh yeah. A little," I said softly, smiling a little. This charade was seriously going to kill me.

"Alright. Well, have a good time. I'll just be chilling out here," he said.

I smiled a little again and nodded my head. I leaned up and kissed him softly before walking out the door.

I found the coffee shop I was supposed to meet Casey at, and she was already sitting at a table with a drink in front of her. I rushed in and sat down across from her.

"Oh wow... Yeah, I can tell something's wrong now that I see you in person," she said as she gave me a once-over.

"Yeah everyone else can tell there's something wrong. I look like shit. I feel like shit," I mumbled.

"Well, what happened?" she asked quietly.

I sighed. "Its really bad. I feel terrible about it Casey," I said, almost feeling the presence of tears.

"Oh God... you didn't cheat on Zacky did you?" she asked, her eyes widening a little.

I shook my head 'no' slowly. "No... Casey, I'm pregnant. Before you ask, yes, its Zacky's," I said in a whisper.

She looked at me in shock. "Whoa... when did you find out?" she asked.

"About two weeks ago?" I shrugged.

"...Who else knows?" she asked, and then took a sip of her drink.

"No one that has been actually told. I think Val might know. Brian too. Just... I can tell by the way they look at me when I'm around. They always glance at me when they think I'm not looking. I'm hoping they don't know..." I said, and placed my head down on the table. "I don't know what to do Casey..." I mumbled into the table.

"I'd tell you to let Zacky know, but you'll ignore it, so I won't. What I think you should do is go to a doctor's office, just to make sure you really are. And if you ARE, then you basically have three options," Casey said. I picked my head up and looked at her.

"What options?"

"Well... please don't shoot me... but the first option is an abortion," she said, looking at me carefully to see my reaction.

"Why would I shoot you?" I asked, now just realizing that it was a very viable choice.

"Well, most girls completely hate the thought of an abortion. Anyways... Option number two is: Tell Zack you're pregnant, go through the full term of the pregnancy, and put it up for adoption. And third choice is: Tell Zack you're pregnant, go through the full term of the pregnancy, and keep it with you and Zack," she explained.

"Right now, option number three is completely out of the question. I can't keep it cuz when I tell Zacky -- if I tell Zacky... he'll leave me, for sure," I said, thinking nervously about what would happen if Zacky left me.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic Kim. If Zack loves you he won't leave you. But anyways... go make an appointment at the clinic, and find out if you really are 100 percent pregnant or not, and take it from there," she said.

I heard the bell over the door jingle, and considering the fact that I was facing the door, I saw that it was Matt and Val. They saw us and started walking over.

"But, in my personal opinion, I think you should tell Zac-"

"SHHHH!" I whispered harshly to Casey, and motioned behind her. She shut up instantly and turned around.

"Hey guys," Val said.

"Hi." Casey and I said together.

"Its good to see you out of the house finally. Zacky's getting really worried about you. We all are..." Matt said, looking directly at me.

"Yeah I know. I just -- I haven't felt good lately," I lied. I'd done a lot of lying to the people I loved lately. "Well, I should get going. Thanks Casey, for... you know," I said.

"No problem. See you around," she replied. I started to head out of the shop and got a little ways down the sidewalk when I heard someone calling for me.

"Kim! Wait up!" I turned around and saw Val jogging up to me. I stopped and waited for her.

"What's up?"

"Okay, there's something going on," she said as she caught her breath.

"What makes you say that?" I asked, trying to act natural.

"You. You've been acting really weird lately. Are you seriously sure you're okay?" she asked, pleading with her eyes for me to tell her the truth.

"No. I'm sick. I told you guys that," I lied.

"That's what you said two weeks ago..." she said in a disbelieving tone.

"I got Mono. It stays with you for like a month. That's what's wrong with me..." I said, feeling clever that I'd thought of that. I could use that now, to tell the others if they kept asking.

"Oh...." Val said as her face softened. "You sure that's all that's going on?" she asked again. I was pretty sure that by this point, she did know what was really going on.

"Yeah, as far as I know..."

She sighed. "Alright. But... just know if you ever need anything or need to talk to someone, I'm here for you, okay?" she asked.

"Yeah.. I'll see you around."

She half smiled at me. "Yeah... see ya," she said, and turned around, walking back to the coffee shop.

I had my appointment set up and everything was set to go. I had told Zacky that I had to do a shift at work because one of the workers got sick and they needed an extra waitress, which I was recently promoted to. So the plan was that Zacky would drop me off at the Publick House, and Casey would take me to the OB/GYN clinic.

"So when do you want me to pick you up?" Zacky asked.

"Uh... I'll call you when you should come get me. They didn't tell me how long I was working for," I lied. I seriously needed to stop being such a coward; this lying needed to stop.

"Okay. I'll see you later," he said and kissed me briefly. "I love you."

"Love you too," I said. At least that wasn't a lie...

I got out of the car and went through the first set of doors. I turned around and watched through the window as Zacky pulled away and drove back toward home. I sighed and stepped back outside. A couple minutes later Casey's car pulled up and I got in.

"You nervous?" she asked as she drove across town.

"Dunno. I mean, I'm already pretty sure that I'm pregnant. But if I'm not I'm going to be so fucking happy. I mean, I love Zacky to death but... I'm just not ready to have a kid. I don't think he's ready either," I said, staring out the window.

We finally made it to the clinic and I was taken into a room after waiting a couple minutes in the waiting room. I asked if Casey could come with me, and noticing the state I was in, they let her. I'd gone through the tests and we were now waiting for them to come back with the results.

"So... what are you gonna do if you are?..." Casey asked as she sat in the chair, picking at her chipped nail polish.

"...I dunno. We'll just have to wait and see..." I said. Although, I kind of had an idea of what I would do.

The doctor walked in and sat down on his stool, facing me.

"Alright. So, we ran the tests, and everything came back positive. You're pregnant," the doctor informed. I don't know why, but I felt tears stinging the corners of my eyes. I guess it was because now there was no way around the matter. Before, there was a slim margin of chance that I wasn't pregnant. Not anymore.

"Now, at this point you're only about a month and a half along, which would push the date of conception back to around.... December... 11th or so. Did you have intercourse anywhere around that date?" he asked.

I nodded my head, wiping my eyes. "Yeah, it was that day exactly..." I replied. It was the first time Zacky and I had ever had sex at all; his birthday.

"Okay. Well, since you're only about a month and a half along, the option to abort the fetus is still open. If you need time to think about your options, you have until the third month to still chose to abort," the doctor explained further.

"...No. I think I know what my decision is," I said. I told the doctor what I chose to do. It was hard.

"Alright then. Just go to the front desk, and they'll set up an appointment for you," the doctor said, and left the room.

That's right. I got an abortion. I had to. I just felt that if I wasn't pregnant anymore that I could get on with my life and things would go back to normal. But I was wrong. Oh so very wrong. Not only did I have the guilt of not telling anyone but Casey that I was pregnant, but I now carried the guilt of actually having an abortion.

The guilt all added up and made me worse off than I was before. It was eating away at me. I felt nauseous every day. Zacky knew something was up. He knew from the start. But this time he decided to do something about it.

I was laying all bummed out on the couch, watching the TV, with a hazed over look in my eyes. Zacky came over and sighed deeply.

"Baby... what's wrong? Seriously, I'm really fucking worried about you. I'm scared. Please... just... tell me what's going on. Please," he pleaded quietly, standing in front of the couch.

"Nothing is wrong Zacky..." I said monotonously, never taking my eyes off the screen.

He sighed in frustration. I glanced at his face and watched as his expression changed from soft and concerned, to hard and pissed off. He shook his head a little before he reached down and grabbed the remote from me, turning off the TV. He slammed it down onto the coffee table.

"I'm sick of this Kimmy. There's something wrong with you, and you can't even fucking tell me what it is! Two of the things about being in a relationship are being honest and being able to trust each other. And right now I feel like you're hiding something from me. And if you don't fucking tell me right now, I'm walking out that door and I don't know if I'll be walking back in it or not," he yelled in rage at me. "I just wanna know what the hell has changed you so fucking much..." he said much quieter than before.

I sat up on the couch, pulling my legs up to my body. "... I was pregnant," I said quietly. I looked up at him to see his reaction. He kinda just stood there looking at me.

"....So that's what this was all about? Why couldn't you just come tell me that you're pregnant baby? If you thought I would have... blown up at you or something, I wouldn't have," he said still standing in front of me.

"I said... I was pregnant," I said a little louder.

"Yeah, I heard you the fir -- wait. Was[i/]? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he asked, looking at me in confusion. I just looked down. I couldn't admit it to his face.

"Wait... don't -- don't tell me you... got rid of it..." he said, almost pleading me to tell him I didn't do what I did. I still didn't answer him.

"You did! What the hell Kim!? You got a fucking abortion without telling me!? That was my kid too!" he yelled.

"Well what the hell else was I supposed to do Zack!? I'm not really to have a kid! I'm only eighteen!" I said louder than I had been before.

"You still should have come to me before. We could have worked things out! Everything would have been okay!" he tried to reason with me.

"No Zacky, it wouldn't have been okay. You have the band, and you would be on tour. And I can't very well have a kid with me at UCLA. We're not ready to have a kid Zacky. We're still kids!" I said.

"Woah... UCLA? You never said anything about college," Zacky said, going back to a normal talking voice.

"Yeah well... I got accepted, and I'm going."

"I'm so fucking glad you never tell me anything anymore. Hell, as far as I know you could have been born a guy! So when you're ready to start telling me things and not hiding important shit from me, then.... I don't even fucking know. I gotta get out of here.... I'll be back... whenever the fuck I get back," he said before he walked out the front door, slamming it behind him.

I just broke down right there on the couch. He was right. I should have gone to him first. I should have told him everything. But I didn't. And now I had nothing.

I sniffled and got up, leaving the house. I looked to my left and saw Zacky walking a little farther than a block down, so I went to the right.

I walked to wherever I wanted. The sun was beating down on me. It was only about five in the afternoon and it was still hot outside.

I stopped walking when I realized where I was. I walked up to the house that I knew so well, and knocked on the door. It opened and the person standing there looked shocked to see me there in tears.

"Hey," I said, before I broke into tears again.