Page 7 of Tequila & Lace
“What’s wrong?” I sat on the rock and pulled Vanessa into my lap, draping her legs over mine. She rested her head on my shoulder, her left arm around my neck as she started to cry.
“Talk to me, babe.”
She sniffled. “I’m…” She stopped and I waited, but she only cried more. I pulled her as close to me as I could. She was almost shivering in my Letterman jacket.
“What’s wrong, sunshine? Is it us?” She stilled and my heart sank. “Sun—”
“I’m pregnant!” she blurted.
She cried harder, her body shaking in my arms, and I rocked her until she stopped crying because I had no idea what else to do. As I sat with her in my arms, staring out into the dark sky with the ocean waves crashing in the distance, the thought hit me.
I was going to be a father at eighteen.
We stared at the pregnancy tests, both not sure if we were reading them correctly. We decided she should take five more home tests to make sure she was really pregnant.
“Does one or two lines mean that you’re pregnant?” I asked her. She stared at the sticks, not saying anything. “Sunshine…”
“I’m pregnant.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I pull out each time.”
“Fuck, Paul, this can’t be happening. We can’t be parents. I’m going to be a supermodel. I can’t have stretch marks.”
“They have Photoshop,” I joked, trying to make light of the situation. I was freaking out, but I didn’t want to show it because if I did then she’d freak out more and I didn’t want my parents to hear.
“Are you serious right now?” she snapped.
“Yes, I’m serious. No model is one-hundred percent natural on anything out there.”
“I can’t have a baby, Paul!”
I didn’t like when she used my real name. People called me PJ and when things got hot and heavy, Vanessa called me God. “We’ll make it work. I promise.” I’d commute to UCLA from Malibu, and while she went to shoots, our parents could take care of the baby when I was in class or had a game. We could make this work. I knew we could. We were both staying local.
She started pacing my room. “How can we make it work? I don’t want a kid, Paul.Ihave dreams.”
“AndIdon’t?” Her tone made me snap.
“Of course you do, but mine are about my looks. I can’t be some fat heifer with stretch marks.”
I watched her pace for a moment. “Do you care about my dreams?”
She stopped walking and tilted her head slightly as if I’d lost my mind. “Of course I do.”
My heart was hurting the more she talked only aboutherdreams. We always talked aboutourdreams; how I would go pro, how she would be a supermodel, how we would get married, how we would start a family, and how we would be together forever. I knew we didn’t plan to get pregnant during high school, but Vanessa didn’t have plans to attend college like I had. Did she even think about that? Did she even care?
“Do you?” I challenged. “Because I’m willing to bust my ass every day to build a future forus, Vanessa. Notme.Us!” I snapped. “Do you even love me?”
Her head snapped back as if I’d slapped her. “What?”
“I’m starting to get the feeling that you don’t.”
“How could you say that?”
I expected her to cry. Part of me had said it to see if she would. Maybe I was an asshole because Iwantedher to cry, to prove she cared about me and not the stretch marks she’d get from being pregnant—that she’d kept mentioning.
“Well, do you?”
She hesitated before answering and at that moment I had my answer. “Yes, of—”
