Charlie listened to Jack tell her he was sorry he'd missed her call four times. There was never any ring, just the same mechanical voicemail over and over. Despite this, Charlie persisted; knowing that she would get through to him if she had to call him five or fifty more times. If nothing else, she would march to his front door and knock until he opened it. She didn't know if she had the strength to be that confrontational, but she knew she would do it for her own future and for the baby's. There was no questioning whether or not it was someone else's child. She had only been with Jack, and despite being pursued by kinder, more like-minded boys, she stayed with him because she felt that she was tied to him. She was stuck, thinking she couldn't just break up with Jack; not after being so intimate. It would devastate her, and at the time, she thought it would devastate him.
After calling him three more times, he finally picked up. She figured that he could have figured out the reason for her desperation in calling him, but when he talked to him, he was oblivious.
"Hello?" he answered as if she were calling him for the first time.
"Hey, Jack." She was immediately frustrated on hearing his voice; he obviously hadn't been sleeping and she knew he didn't have any classes. He was just ignoring her.
"Is everything okay?" he asked.
"I don't know yet," she said. "Did you not see the last hundred times I called you?"
"I saw," he said. "I was in the shower. What's up?"
"I'd really like to meet." She was definitely lying. She wanted nothing more than to run from the situation and never come back.
"Okay," Jack replied. He sounded as if he were feeling his way through a minefield blindfolded. "What's this about?"
"I'll tell you later," she said. "We just have to talk."
"Okay, when do you want to meet?" He asked in the falsely kind voice he'd used to cast the impression that he actually cared for her. Her anger began to spike.
"Sam's Breakfast, downtown at nine," she said abruptly. "I'll see you there."
"Okay, just let me know what..."
Before Jack could finish, she ended the call and nearly threw her phone. Before she let her anger get the best of her, she put her phone in the pocket of her jacket and walked through the drizzling rain back to her dorm.
She took a shower before she went to the diner. When she got out, she wiped the mirror with her towel and looked at herself. She began to picture what she would look like pregnant; blown up like a balloon and waddling from place to place. She remembered when her Mom had been pregnant with her little brother, Seth, back when she was in middle school. She specifically remembered the way that her ankles had swollen and her face had puffed like she had an allergy. The thought of this was horrifying until she realized that she already was pregnant. Soon, she wouldn't have to imagine what she would look like.
She cried again, only stopping when she made it to the car. She took labored breaths, slowing her mind down enough to drop it into a lower gear. She couldn't do anything but think about what was about to happen; how drastically and violently her life was about to change, how her parents would probably do nothing more than wish her good luck, and how her child may never get to see the face of its father. She knew exactly how Jack was, and she was afraid that if she told him what was going on, he'd do nothing more than wish her goodbye and walk out of the restaurant. She was hanging onto her life, a thousand-pound boulder, by nothing but a thread. She thought that the last thing she could do was keep it together, but she knew she had to, almost instinctively thinking of the baby. She started her car and drove to the diner, realizing that the clock was ticking, and she was on borrowed time.
