"Ginger get up, time for school," my mother said, the next Monday. I opened an eye and gave her a weird look. "They’re letting you back in school and you start today." She basically dragged me out of bed, threw me the crappy uniform and threw me in the shower.
I came downstairs a half an hour later with probably the shortest skirt at that school, and a huge polo shirt that said Incarnation on the left breast. My shoes were ugly black tie and I had to wear plain white socks (in which I had maybe one pair.)
"Hmph, no wonder you got thrown out of school," my mom said, taking a look at my skirt. I shrugged. I had this skirt all year long and no one had said anything yet.
"Wait a second, I’m going to school…school is where Jeff is! Mother I can’t go to school!" I yelled.
"Well you’re going. He wouldn’t do anything at school, now would he?" she asked.
"Hello? Where the hell have you been? He killed Jackie at school. And he wouldn’t be afraid to kill me either."
"Keep away from him."
"Mom we’re in all the same classes, how can I keep away from him?" I asked. She only shrugged. "Now hurry up, I don’t wanna be late." She laughed. "What?"
"One minute you don’t wanna go, then you don’t wanna be late?" She asked, turning around.
"Well, yeah. If I have to go, might as well not be late!" She only laughed again, and then we left.
The ride there was very uneventful, but long. As we pulled up to school, I sighed as I saw Jeff get out of the car and put something in his pocket. Then he grabbed his bag and headed off to the classroom.
"I’m gonna tell him today," I said, and got of the car. I didn’t let her say anything, cause I quickly walked over to the classroom, the backpack keeping me down.
When I walked into the classroom, everybody started staring at me. "What?" I asked, my eyes flickering to Jeff, whose mouth was to the ground. "I’m back!" I said, and went to my seat.
Chris and Carlos kept staring at me. "What?" I asked both of them. "I told y’all that I’m back. Now go back to your little lives and leave me alone," I said.
"You look heavier than you did before," Chris said. I turned to him, my eyes wide. "Not like that’s a problem or anything. How much do you weigh now? 95 pounds?"
"Chris, shut up, I’ve had a hard life."
"Well I would say, someone killed two of your friends," Chris told me. I looked to him again, my eyes flashing fire. "Oh, I figure you wouldn’t want to talk about it."
"No!" I said, grabbing my science book from my desk and stuffing it in my bookbag. I turned to Carlos.
"We still have the same schedule, don’t we?" I asked. He nodded. I grabbed my notebook and put that in my bookbag and then zipped it up.
"Well, since you’re back Laura, you can start putting up the flag again," Mrs. Stahl said, walking to my desk. I looked at her strangely. "The flag, putting it up everyday?" she asked.
"Oh yeah!" I said, a little dazed. "Sorry, I didn’t know I was coming back until this morning and I went to bed last night around four." She shrugged, and walked away.
Me and Chris walked towards the door. I stopped and got the flag off the top of the bookcase, taking it out of its case and giving it to Chris. Quickly we ran out of the classroom, cut through the grass and went over to the flagpole.
As I started putting it up, Chris asked me a question he had been waiting to ask for a while. "Why’d you get expelled?" he asked, holding the flag so it wouldn’t touch the ground.
"I’d really prefer not to talk about it, Chris. Let’s just say it’s between me and Jeff and no one else should know," I told him, yanking the string so the flag would go up.
"Only do it halfway," Chris said. "We’re supposed to be in mourning right now." I nodded and put the flag up halfway, then secured it. He wasn’t really pleased with my answer.
"Chris, this is between me and Jeff, I told you so. What happened happened and I’m just trying to forget right now." He nodded and he ran ahead of me, back into the classroom while I casually walked.
At recess, Jeff was going around doing his normal thing. He hadn’t bothered me all day. I saw him playing basketball, already sweating. It was the wintertime, like 60 degrees out and we’d been out there ten minutes but he was already sweaty.
I walked over to the court, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from everybody. He smiled, looking me over. "You look good."
"Shut up. You’ve got a real problem on your hands," I told him, crossing my arms under my chest. He gave me an ‘oh please’ look.
"Oh really? What?"
"I’m pregnant."
"WHAT?!" he screamed, startling me and half the people out there. He realized that, and lowered his voice. "You can’t be pregnant."
"Actually, yes I can and I am. Three months. The baby’s due August 15th. And I swear to God if you do anything to hurt my baby I will kill you," I said, in the sternest tone he had ever heard. "And I’m not lying, Jeff. I will shoot you dead."
His face looked scared. "Well," he said, looking away and wiping his hands on his pockets, "I guess the tables have turned."
"I guess so. And I got a witness, I have people who know, and I’ll have the cops riding you ass in a second if I even have the least bit of suspicion that you’ll hurt me or my baby."
"I wouldn’t hurt the baby, Laura," he told me. And I believed him. "But what exactly are you gonna do about the whole getting fatter and stuff."
"That’s why right now we’re going to the office and you are explaining every little detail to Mrs. Goslee."
"No, I’ll get expelled if they all find out!"
"Then you’re gonna get expelled, Jeff. It’s either that or the cops, your choice." He gave me a look and grabbed my hand, leading me to the office. I smiled and followed along.
Coach Farrell stopped us before we could get past the palm trees. "Where are you two going?" he asked. He knew about what happened, all the teachers knew and none of them trust us together anymore.
"We’re going to the office to set some things straight," Jeff said, and brushed past him.
"If you wanna make sure that we’ll go there and not the bathroom then you can follow us but I won’t go anywhere near the bathrooms here anymore," I said. He nodded, and we went into the main hall.
Mrs. Webber noticed us together when we came into the office, and immediately told Mrs. Goslee. She came out and told us to go into her little office. Without saying a word we went into the office.
"So, what’s the deal? Why are you here?" she asked. She didn’t trust us at all. I looked to Jeff and he was fidgety.
"Tell her," I said.
"Well, when you caught us in the bathroom, it wasn’t exactly free sex," he said, nervously. "I was raping her."
"And why should I believe that? After all this time that you had to explain."
"Bullshit!" Jeff said. Mrs. Goslee was shocked. "You didn’t give her any time to explain! You figure you saw what you saw and that’s it. Well I’m telling you right now that it wasn’t sex, it was rape. I had a gun to her head, I was making her do it."
I only looked away, tears filling my eyes.
"And now she’s pregnant because I wanted her to fuck me and she had no choice. Well, she did. Fuck me or die," he said. I just couldn’t believe he was using this language with the principal of our school. "So do what you want with me, just let her go. You want to expel me? Go ahead. You wanna take me to jail? Go ahead."
"So you raped her…"
"DUH!" he yelled.
Mrs. Goslee turned to me, and I had tears rolling down my face. "Are you keeping the baby?"
"What do you mean?"
"Are you gonna abort it?"
"No!" I said, turning to her. "I wouldn’t do anything like that. I guess being here all those years paid off cause I know that’s immoral. But I can’t raise my baby. I am gonna put it up for adoption."
"Does your mother know?" she asked. I nodded.
"Yeah, she was the one who told me to tell him. I didn’t want to because I was seriously afraid of him."
"Why would you be afraid of me?" Jeff asked.
"Jeff, you killed two of my friends and you shot me twice, why wouldn’t I be afraid of you," I blurted out. He gave me a look. "You probably would have gone to jail anyway, might as well be in there for a while."
"Is that true?" Mrs. Goslee asked. Jeff nodded.
"Yeah, I killed Kevin Rodriguez and Jackie Espino, and I shot her twice," he said. He had changed so much since I told him that I was pregnant. He was more soft-spoken, he respected me and he didn’t even torment me.
Before that he was so mean, he was horrid, a monster sort of speak. But now he was nice, and made me regret telling Mrs. Goslee about the whole ordeal.
"Well then, you’re free to go, Laura," Mrs. Goslee said. I wiped at my eyes and stood up. "Jeff, I think we’ll need to take care of this properly," she added with a cruel look to Jeff.
"At least let me say good-bye cause we probably won’t ever see each other again," Jeff said. She nodded, and left the room, leaving us a little bit of time alone.
He got up and tightly hugged me. "I’m sorry, Jeff," I told him, making the waterworks pour again. "I didn’t mean to get you in so much trouble."
"I should be apologizing to you, you know you’ll get a reputation. I’m really gonna miss you, Ginger. We probably would have made a good couple if none of this never happened."
"Yeah." He smiled, and held me tighter. "You’re gonna hurt me if you hug me any tighter." He loosened his grip.
"I do need to see this kid," he whispered. "Even if it’s pictures, make sure you take lots and send them to me."
"I will." He let me go. "Well, I guess this is good-bye. Mrs. Goslee is probably gonna send for the cops right when I leave."
"Probably. But I deserve it. I ruined you life."
"Not really, I didn’t like Jackie all that much. And I’m trying to forget about Kevin," I said, sniffing, and trying really hard not to cry again.
"I’m sorry," Jeff told me, and gently kissed my hand. "And I’ll miss you."
"I’ll miss you." I walked out of the office without a backward glance, trying to eliminate him from my life.
"I love you," he whispered.
I quickly walked out of the office, and ran down the hall, outside again, trying to get in the last few minutes of recess.
But nothing really worked. I sat down on the lower corner of the bleachers and starting sobbing, putting my head in my hands and letting my hair shield me. I felt a comforting hand on my shoulder and looked over to see who it was.
When I saw Zac there I screamed and jumped back. "What the hell?" he asked, not expecting that.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Sitting," he replied.
"I can see that but what the hell are you doing in Tampa?" I asked. He shrugged. "Zac why are you here? Why now of all times?" I asked, turning around and starting to walk away. He got up and followed me.
"What happened?" he asked.
"None of your Goddamn business!" I yelled at him. He gave me a strange look.
"I figured I came at a bad time when I saw you crying, but you gotta tell me what’s wrong. I mean you tell me everything else in the world, why can’t you tell me this?" he asked.
"Because I can’t, that’s why," I told him, trying to get away but he kept following me. Suddenly I stopped, realizing that I wasn’t about to get away from this.
I turned around. "Zac, you know how much I hated Jeff, right?"
"Hated?" he asked, suspiciously.
"Well three months ago he raped me and now I find out I’m pregnant. I make him tell the principal and I blurted out that he killed Kevin and Jackie and shot me, and now there’s a cop on the way to arrest him. He’s gonna go to jail and it’s all my fault."
"I thought you wanted him to go to jail."
"Yeah but not now! Now he’s the sweetest person I’ve ever seen and he’s gonna end up getting like life in prison or something and right now I’m falling in love with him."
I saw Zac’s face fall suddenly, but he quickly hid it. "I shouldn’t have told you," I said, and turned around again. He stopped me from running off.
"No, it was good that you told me then not telling me." I gave him a confused look, but he just blew it off. "Well I just wanted to see how you’re doing and it figures your fine so I should be going now."
"Zac you probably just got here, stay. I still have to finish the rest of my school day but you are welcome to go to my house or something."
"I just came to see how you’re doing. We did a concert in Miami and we pass by here on route home. Everybody’s gotten homesick, so we’re going home for a while." He turned around and left before I could say anymore.
I knew he was lying, I knew they had done a concert in Miami, and I figured that he would stop by and stay a while. It wasn’t like him just to say hi and leave.
Coach blew the whistle, meaning it was time to go back inside. I sighed and started walking back to the classroom, forgetting that my eyes were red and my face was tearstained.
Mrs. Stahl gave me a concerned look as I passed by her and into the classroom. I ignored it, walking over to my seat and packing my books for Math and Religion (gag me).
People knew enough not to ask me what was wrong, cause they had seen how I reacted when Zac came along and asked me. When everyone got settled, she noticed an empty seat.
"Where’s Jeff?" she asked.
"He’s at the office," I informed. "I don’t think he’ll be back." Just then Jeff burst through the door, with a red tearstained face and grabbed his bag. Mrs. Stahl looked at me, but I was busy staring at him.
He stopped at the door and took a last look at the class, and his eyes settled on me. I saw tears well in his eyes again, which of course made the same thing happen to me.
Suddenly a uniformed cop opened the door and pulled him out, excusing Jeff from the class, and there went the father of my child. I put my hand on my stomach, sighing.
"Now he won’t be back."