Page 27 of Pregnancy Scandal
“Don’t give me an answer now.” I told her with a small smile. “Take time to think about it. Either way, you get your baby. Okay?”
She nodded very slowly, but something sparkled in her eyes that reminded me of last night. It gave me hope. Hope that I didn’t just screw up our friendship.
I left her with that choice.
Chapter 9
Abby
* * *
Alot of things happened to me when I was sixteen.
It seemed to be a significant year in my life. I had my first kiss and I lost my virginity. I got my first car, and my father gave me my first gold card. Since I was the eldest, he’d come up with this new idea for me. Instead of an allowance he’d deposit in my account on a weekly basis, he gave me a card with an all access pass to a bank account he’d set up for me. It was because he knew I could go crazy shopping and spoiling myself, but I was responsible. I was responsible even at sixteen.
That year, though, I did a lot of irresponsible things. Like the part about losing my virginity.
Funnily enough, the act was synonymous with the first time I allowed myself to wonder if Gilly and I could be more than friends.
Sixteen years of crazy friendship. We’d gotten up to all manner of things. I loved his rebellious ways and loved that he could be a rebel who didn’t act like an ass. We were just who we were and would have been the same if we had money or not.
My grandmother loved all the classic Hollywood actors like James Dean and Clint Eastwood. I’d get lost in their looks with her, and damn, I’d thought Gilly looked exactly like James Dean with a cigarette slinked to the corner of his mouth. And because he’d always had a beard, Wild West Clint Eastwood came to mind. Because Gilly had that lip piercing and I thought he was a dead ringer for Maroon 5’s Adam Lavigne, who also had piercings, I blended all three guys together in my mind whenever I looked at him.
110% Gorgeousness. Gorgeous with that bad boy attitude and that panty-melting smile.
I must have gone through a few months that year of just wondering what it would be like to be with him. I’d wanted him to be my first. The first guy I ever slept with. But he had Cindi Baker, his then girlfriend, who happened to be head cheerleader. They’d been going out for five months, and they looked head over heels. He was so into her, and I couldn’t stand her because she hated my guts with a passion. She didn’t hesitate to give me the boot at tryouts. I never had a chance.
The night I lost my virginity was the same night he won his first Varsity game. He’d just been made quarterback of the team, and the excitement was infectious. All these girls rushed to him at the afterparty. They were the groupies. Usually when that happened, he’d always find me. But she was there. Cindi was there, and he went to her instead.
It was the first time I was reminded that I was the friend. I was just the friend, and he was gorgeous. We’d go through life having different experiences and be with other people who would have to come first. It wouldn’t be how I wanted it, which was to have him all to myself.
It was selfish of me to want something like that because we were friends and I was happy with that.
That night, I went to a college party with Porsha and Bella and got lulled into the call of the foolish. Chad Milton happened to me. Gorgeous, older, and into me. I foolishly believed his shit about love at first sight and found myself in a situation where I went back to his place and had my first sexual experience. It was actually awful because he showed me the door straight after. I made it sound all amazing, however, when I told Gilly.
That was how we were. I told him everything, so naturally losing my V-card was the type of thing that was big news.
He completely lost it when I told him it was with a college guy. He found Chad and beat the hell out of him. His reason was that Chad was older and I was young and naïve. I never said anything about how happy I was that he did that and figured if I’d actually told him what happened, Gilly would have killed Chad.
Friendship again. I knew I could rely on him to have my back.
The next time I thought about us as more than friends was the kiss. Most people wouldn’t even call that a kiss. It would have been a thing that happened, but what you wouldn’t quite register because of the way it happened. A brush of lips. His on mine for a second, but it felt like fire.
I never mentioned it to anyone, and I went through years wondering and getting the answer I sought when I watched him fall in love with Giselle. She was the only woman I knew he’d ever truly fallen for. Gilly fell completely in love with her and I didn’t think there would be anyone else for him. I’d never seen him behave the way he did with anyone else, and when she left him, he was completely crushed.
To say he was hurt deeply didn’t begin to describe what I saw in him. She crushed him and it changed him. Hardened him. He was still my Gilly, but wounded.
It was selfish of me at the time to think about myself, not when he was so hurt. But, through the midst of all that happened with Giselle the one thing that kept rippling through my mind was the intense love he’d had for her.
It was prominent in their relationship and after.
I was jealous.
Foolish, selfish and jealous because I never thought he could or would ever love me like that even as a friend.
Not until last night…
Last night when he placed two choices down on the table for me. It reminded me of that ‘red or the blue pill’ scene in the Matrix. Free my mind or continue as I was?
