I couldn’t even put into words how scared I was of this test coming back positive. This would be the ultimate heartbreak to my parents, especially to my mother. The tears that I’ve been crying since we’d been in this restroom were tears of fear. I was afraid of what was to come once my mother found out about this. Whether I decided to flip the test over now or ten minutes from now, the results would still be the same, so I ended up turning the test over.
My nightmare had come true. Two bold lines sat right in the middle of the screen. I dropped down to knees and let out a cry so loud that there was no doubt in my mind that the restroom walls had shaken. Nandi quickly came over and wrapped one of her arms around me. She placed the other one on my mouth, stopping me from crying out again.
“Ssshh! Journey, breathe,” she said because, at one point, it felt like I was hyperventilating. “Please calm down before one of the security officers come in here, and they see that we’re skipping.”
It took about five minutes before I was able to relax. The tears hadn’t stopped at all, but I was much calmer. “Journey, I’m thirteen just like you. I just got my period for the first time a month ago, so I don’t have all the answers. I know that you like to keep stuff from your mom, but you have to tell her this. Journey, you have to,” she let me know, and I nodded my head in agreement with her. It was going to hurt more than anything to break this news to my mom, but like Nandi said, this wasn’t one of those things that I could just keep to myself.
I was so angry with myself. Although I didn’t know much about sex, I did know that sex without protection could lead to pregnancy, yet I did it anyway. More tears came to my eyes when reality hit me that I was going to have to actually tell my parents who I was pregnant by. They would have to find out about Raheem and learn that he was six years older than me. Then, all my lies and sneakiness would come to light. They’ll soon realize why I loved to spend so much time at my grandmother’s house.
“I’m going to tell her. Can I hold your phone, so I can call Raheem and talk to him really fast?” I said to her, and she looked at me like I was crazy.
Nandi was my best friend, so I pretty much told her everything that took place in my life. Therefore, she knew about Raheem slapping me in the face a few weeks ago. I hadn’t talked to him since then. Whenever I got Jaden’s iPad, I would send him text messages that he wouldn’t answer, and when Nandi and I went to dance practice after school, I would always sneak her phone to call him, and those calls went ignored too. He made it so obvious that he didn’t want anything to do with me.
“Journey, are you serious? He slapped you in your face! It could have been worse if that man didn’t come to stop him! What could you possibly have to say to him? Wait, are you seriously thinking about keeping this baby? I hate to sound so old school, but like my mom would say when she saw teenagers pregnant, you are a baby yourself! You’re thirteen years old, Journey! You won’t know the first thing there is to know about being a mother. Just tell your mom. I don’t see why you have to tell him,” she said, and now it was my turn to look at her like she was crazy as I rolled my eyes.
“Because he is the father, Nandi! Even if I do decide to get an abortion, he deserves to know! Now, can I use your phone or not?” I asked her.
She looked at me long and hard, but eventually, she went into her back pocket and passed me her iPhone. I knew his number by heart, so I quickly keyed it in. Seconds later, the phone began to ring. The call rang all the way through the first time, and then it went to his voicemail. I was eager to talk to him, so I ended up calling again. This time, the phone picked up and my heart dropped because I was so afraid of talking to him.
“Yo!” his deep voice answered.
I could hear a baby crying in the background, which let me know that he had to have been around his daughter.
“Raheem, it’s Journey. I need to talk to you about something very important. Do you think that you can come meet me by my school when I get out, so we can talk?” I asked because it wasn’t the first time that we’ve done this. On days when I had practice, I would walk across the street to his car, get in with him for a few minutes just to have a quick make-out session and for us to see each other, and then he would be on his way. That’s what our relationship consisted of; sneaking around. Him, hoping not to get caught dealing with me, and me hoping not to get caught by anyone in my family, but especially my mother.
“On some real shit, I really don’t know why the fuck you keep calling and texting me, shorty! You haven’t gotten the hint yet? I’m good on your ass, yo! I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking, fuckin’ around with your young ass in the first place! I can’t trust you, man. Yo
u were supposed to have been my bitch, yet you going around kissing on them little niggas from your school. What happened the other night between you and me was supposed to happen for me to finally get some common sense and realize that I’m playing around with fire, fuckin’ your little young ass. At the end of the day, we both got what we were looking for out of this. I got some new, fresh, young pussy, and you got an older nigga to dick you down and spend a couple of dollars on you. Don’t call me no more after this, shorty. I mean that shit,” he said.
I could hear him getting ready to hang up the phone, so I went ahead and just blurted it out…
“Wait! Raheem, I’m pregnant” I said, with my voice cracking and the tears still fresh on my face from the hurtful things that he’d just said to me. Hearing him confess to just wanting me for sex hurt far worse than the slap that he delivered to my face weeks ago.
“That ain’t got shit to do with me! I have one child and one child only, and that’s the one that you hear crying! If you think that baby is mine, I suggest you kill it before I pull up and find you. I’ll kill you and it! Damn, yo! What the fuck!” I heard him yell, followed by something breaking that sounded like glass. “Fuck is you trying to do? Ruin a nigga whole fuckin’ life? Them boys find out that I got your stupid ass pregnant, they taking my ass to jail! Or even worse, they going to put me on a fuckin registry and I’ll be living up under a fuckin’ bridge somewhere. Man, look, I’ll give you the money for the abortion! I’ll have one of my female cousins take you to get it done, but you can’t tell your people about this shit,” he said, and I could hear the fear in his voice.
“You just admitted to me that the only reason why you got with me was for sex, so what makes you think I give a fuck about your feelings right now, Raheem? You don’t give a fuck about mine, so I don’t care about yours! I’ll get the abortion, but I don’t need your fuckin’ money! Goodbye!” I said, and just like that, I ended the call.
My heart was completely broken. I saw that he tried to call me back, and I quickly declined the call, followed by blocking his number from Nandi’s phone. Suddenly, the bell rang, signaling that fourth period was over.
“You can go ahead and go. I’m going to stay in here. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this anyway. I just texted my mom and let her know that I’m not going to practice because I’m not feeling well, so she’s just going to get me when school gets out,” I told Nandi and her back her phone.
Instead of doing what I said, she slid down on the dirty bathroom floor next to me and silence fell between us for the rest of the two and a half hours that we had left in school. I had so many things running through my head, but the main thing that I was focusing on was the way this conversation was going to go when I got in the car with my mother.
The car ride
“What’s wrong with you, Journey? You look pale. Did you eat today?” my mom asked, taking a look at me as soon as I got in the passenger side of her Lexus truck.
Due to the car accident that she got in last weekend, she was now driving this car. I still couldn’t believe that my grown ass mama was walking around with a cast on her arm. She put her hand on my forehead to see if I had a fever or anything, and then she finally pulled out of the car pick up line and into the regular traffic. She had the air on four in her car, yet I was sweating. My hands were shaking, and I could feel the tears that weren’t that far away.
“I didn’t have an appetite today, so no, I didn’t eat,” I let her know.
“And that’s why you don’t feel good. How many times do I have to tell you that you cannot go a whole school day without eating anything? Please, don’t let me become one of those embarrassing mamas, where I have to pop up at the school during lunchtime just to make sure you’re eating because you already know that I will,” she said, followed by a laugh.
I laughed too because I could only imagine her doing that. I laughed harder than she did because I was laughing from an emotional state. Suddenly, we made it to a red light, and I was no longer laughing. Instead, I’d transitioned to crying. For the first few seconds, she hadn’t even noticed the change in my emotions until she happened to look over at me and saw that I was wiping my tears.
“Journey, please! Now you know damn well I was just playing. What is wrong with you?” she said and rolled her eyes like she always did when she got annoyed with something.
She quickly realized that it wasn’t the damn school pop up during lunchtime that had me emotional like this. Her face instantly hardened because she knew something was wrong. I assumed it was her mother’s intuition because in seconds, she had the car pulled over on the side of the road, and her hazard lights had quickly turned on. My body was literally shaking I was doing so much crying.