Girls Like You

This story begins, unfortunately, in a bathroom. And not a nice one; it was in the drugstore near my office. I was sitting, predictably, on a toilet. However, the tiny plastic stick in my hands was definitely unpredictable. The two little pink lines, even more so.

“This can’t be my life,” I said out loud. I don’t usually talk to myself, but this seemed like the appropriate situation to do so. “This is not happening. Nope. There must be something wrong with this one.” I was ignoring the fact that this was the third pregnancy test I’d taken.

Reluctantly, I pulled up my pants, flushed the toilet, and left the bathroom. Before I could walk out of the store, the cashier called to me, “You gotta pay for that.”

“What?”

“The test. You gotta pay for it, especially since you peed on it.”

“I paid for the others.”

“So?”

“So isn’t the deal buy two, get one free?”

“What? No.”

With a sigh, I handed over the money before tossing the pregnancy test into the trash, where it landed on top of the other two, complete with matching lines.

I’d done this on my lunch break, so I waited at a bus stop to go back to my office. When I climbed on, I stared at everybody around me, wondering if they could tell I was pregnant. What was it called? The “pregnancy glow”? Did I have that?

Despite the fact that there was now a human being growing inside of me I felt oddly calm. It was a Tuesday afternoon. I still had four more hours of work left. The security guard at the front desk nodded to me when I flashed my ID like usual. For now, it was still a secret, and for some reason it was oddly thrilling. I was pregnant, and I was the only one in the world who knew. Well, maybe besides the drug store cashier.

I needed to call somebody. Not my mother; it was too early for that. Definitely not Ben; he’d probably pass out on the spot. So I went to the bathroom (surprise, surprise) and called my best friend Kelly.

“FLI Financial Group, this is Kelly.”

“Are you sitting down?” I asked.

“Jordan?”

“No, it’s your mom. You forgot your lunch at home,” I said sarcastically.

I could practically see Kelly rolling her eyes. “What do you want?”

“Are you sitting down? Like, in a chair, or on a couch, or any surface, really.”

“Yeah, I’m at my desk. Why?”

“I have something to tell you. Something big.”

“Okay . . . what?”

“Are you sure you’re sitting down?”

“Yeah, I’m positive. What is it?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m pregnant.” There was a long, worrying silence on the other end. “Kelly? Are you there?” No answer. “Can you at least let me know you haven’t fainted or something?”

“I’m here,” she said at last. “Honest to God?”

“Honest to God what?”

“Honest to God you’re pregnant?”

“Oh. Yeah. I took like, three tests. All positive. There’s something in there.”

“Holy shit. Holy shit. You’re pregnant.” I hoped she was at least alone, so that way no one else would have to hear her. I wasn’t sure I needed everyone knowing just yet.

“I know.” Hearing someone else say the words out loud made it all the more real, and I felt the weird calmness I’d experienced before disappear, only to be replaced by genuine panic. “Fuck. I’m pregnant. What do I do?”

“Get rid of it, that’s what.”

“Oh man. My mom’s gonna be so mad, she hates abortion.”

“Well then don’t tell her. She doesn’t need to know, and anyway, I doubt she’d want you raising a child at 22 either.”

“I guess. Where’s the nearest Planned Parenthood?”

“There’s a couple nearby. The closest one is next to the 7-11.”

“Oh, right. I guess I’ll call and make an appointment.”

“Okay. Good.” Kelly was quiet for a second before she said, “Everything will be fine. We’ll get through this.”

“Yeah, I know.” Suddenly I didn’t want to talk or even think about it for another second. “I gotta go. I’m in the bathroom.”

“Okay. I’ll see you at home then.” Before I could hang up, she added, “Wait a second.”

“What?”

“Who’s the dad? Do you know?”

I hesitated, not because I was unsure, but because I was slightly embarrassed. “Um, I think it’s Ben.”

“You think it’s Ben.”

“Yeah. I’m pretty positive, actually.”

“Ben Sawyer.”

“Yes.”

“Huh.” Kelly snorted. “Ben. Who knew he had it in him? Or more appropriately, who knew he had it in you?”



I was too afraid to call Planned Parenthood while I was at work, out of fear that someone would hear me. Or at least, that’s what I kept telling myself. I didn’t do it on the bus ride home, either, or while I was in the empty stairwell going up to the apartment Kelly and I shared.

Since Kelly and I were fresh out of college and working shitty office jobs, we lived in a cheap, dingy, two-bedroom apartment. Our parents had attempted to talk us out of it and get us to move back to our respective homes for a while, but we disagreed. However, not long after this, Kelly and I discovered we were really bad at being adults.

We could never really get a consistent grocery list going, our beds were two box spring mattresses on the floor, neither of us could cook particularly well, the laundry only rarely ever got done, and both of us were constantly forgetting to pay the rent.

But it was home, and we loved it. Our landlord, Mr. Beyer, was a stern but lovable guy. Most of the time there was hot water. And our best friend Ben Sawyer lived two blocks away in an equally shitty studio apartment of his own.

Kelly was already there when I arrived, lounging on the couch we’d bought from Ikea. We’d saved up for months to get that couch and it was arguably the nicest thing in our apartment. “So? Did you make an appointment?” she asked as soon as I walked in.

“Yes.”

“For when?”

“Next week.”

“What day?”

“What?”

“What exact day?”

“Why do you care?”

“Well, in case you want me to come with you.”

“I can go alone.”

“Are you planning on driving?”

“What?” I repeated.

“Because you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t drive after getting an abortion.”

“We don’t even have a car. I’ll take the bus.”

Kelly stared at me. Then she said, “You didn’t make an appointment, did you.”

“No.”

Kelly was silent again for a few seconds before she said, “You want to keep it.”

“What?”

“The baby. You want to keep the baby, don’t you.”

“I—I don’t know. I need time to think.” I could feel a headache coming on, throbbing behind my eyebrow.

“What will you do with it? Give it up for adoption? Or raise it?”

“I don’t fucking know, Kell. I just found out I was pregnant a few hours ago.”

“Babies cost so much money. You think we can raise a baby in this shithole?” Kelly gestured to our apartment.

“I said I don’t know!” I snapped. “Jesus Christ, do I have to make a decision today?”

She looked at me for a little while longer. That was something that I both liked and hated about Kelly: she never wanted to fight. Ever. No matter how much I yelled or instigated, she’d merely stare at me and wait for it to be over. It was partially why we got along so well, but sometimes I wished she’d just bite my head off for once.

“We’ll go to the doctor sometime this week,” she said finally. “We can see how far along you are and then figure out where to go from there.”

“Okay,” I said with a sigh. I sank down on the couch next to her, closing my eyes.

“What made you take the pregnancy test?” she asked.

“I missed my period,” I answered heavily. “I thought I’d just check so I wouldn’t end up on one of those ‘I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant’ shows. And lucky me, I am.”

Kelly rubbed my arm. “We’ll get through this,” she repeated. “I promise. No matter what we do, we’ll be okay.” We were both quiet for a while before she said, “So, tell me . . . what was it like to bone Ben?”

I laughed for what seemed like the first time that day. “I have to say . . . it was pretty epic.”

“Really.”

“Why do you sound so surprised? Ben’s cute,” I said defensively, although I wasn’t sure why I was defending him, considering he’d gotten me pregnant.

“He’s just so . . . Ben,” Kelly said with a shrug. “I can’t even picture him shirtless, let alone pantsless.” She shuddered and I rolled my eyes. “When did you guys even have sex? And more importantly, why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was on New Year’s,” I said. “We were both drunk and bored and I dunno. It just happened. And I did tell you, remember? I was like, I think I slept with Ben and you were like, oh shit and then that was it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Kelly said, squinting like she was trying to see the moment happen. “I must’ve been really hungover.” Kelly only allowed herself to get hammered three nights a year: Halloween, New Year’s, and the 4th of July. She preferred to get moderately buzzed or not drink, period on all of the other days. I, however, was perfectly happy to get drunk any day of the week, holiday or not. Ben usually didn’t even drink at all, instead choosing to nurse the same glass for the entire night and insist it was actually his fourth and yeah, he was so drunk right now, but on a rare occasion he could be persuaded to go nuts.

“I can’t believe he didn’t use protection,” she added. “That doesn’t seem like him to forget something like that. You must’ve been pretty wasted, huh?”

“I’m not gonna be able to drink anymore,” I said sadly as the thought occurred to me.

“Or smoke.”

“Fuck.”

“You sure you wanna keep this baby?” Kelly asked, like she was a game show host and I was the contestant who’d picked the door that could either have a suitcase full of money behind it or nothing at all.

But I knew what had to be done. “Yeah. I’m positive.” And I felt positive. I was keeping this baby.

“All right.” Kelly grabbed a notepad and pen and began to jot down some words.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a shopping list of stuff to get. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”