Free Where You Are by Tammara Webber

on one side and Dad and Cassie on the other. Mom and Brynn were not in favor of me taking custody of Cara. We’d had a family meeting to make the decision, and even though my sisters were both in college and no longer lived at home, they were both given a vote. Mom was tight-lipped, but Brynn was livid.
    “ Why would you do this to yourself?” Her hand smacked the pine-planked kitchen table where we all sat, me at the head like the accused. “She told you she’s absolutely not keeping it, thank God , so you’re off the hook for eighteen years of child support. Let her take care of it in whatever way she sees fit and go live your life! You’re sixteen for fuck’s sake!”
    No one said anything. I don’t think Dad and Cassie disagreed with her. They just thought I should be given the choice, and I’d made it.
    I stared at my hands, splayed on the table. They weren’t as big as my dad’s yet. They weren’t the hands of a man. They were the hands of a boy. I knew in that moment that I could reclaim my adolescence and walk away from this with my family’s full support.
    My voice was low, but sure. “It’s my baby. I can’t just let her give it away—”
    “Graham, honey, we can all appreciate your sense of responsibility.” Mom’s placating tone annoyed me even more than Brynn’s anger had. “But Zoe is accountable for not protecting herself, too—”
    “We didn’t know antibiotics would screw up her pill.”
    “And you weren’t using condoms ?” Brynn yelled. “What the hell were you thinking?”
    My face flamed. I was sitting in the kitchen while my entire family discussed my sex life and stared at me like I was the biggest idiot on the planet. Unquestionably the most awkward moment of my life.
    Dad cleared his throat, and everyone waited for his tie-breaking assessment. My father is a man of few words—a trait I inherited. His eyes met those of Mom, Cassie and Brynn, one by one. “I think Graham’s made his decision, and if Zoe agrees with this, we’ll have another member of the family, and we’ll all adjust accordingly.” He turned to me. “Graham, I want your word that you’ll handle this like a man. No running away when it gets hard. No changing your mind later.”
    I nodded. “I know, Dad.”
    He returned the nod, as though I was an equal, and I sat up straighter.
    “Talk to Zoe. Keep us informed. This will all work out.” He offered a half-grin to my mother, who sat stoically across from him. “It’s not like all three of you were planned, after all.” Mom smirked back at him. That was the end of the family meeting.
    Zoe was convinced she was going to be “just like Juno .” We told her parents our decision, and since they’d given Zoe everything she wanted since the day she was born, it was easy enough to convince them to go along. There were moments during the next few months when she was pissed and blaming me for talking her into having the baby. Like the weeks she spent part of second period in the bathroom, throwing up, every day. Or when she got a new stretch mark. Or when she realized she’d gained forty pounds and the baby wouldn’t weigh more than eight.
    We weren’t together-together, but Ross Stewart was no longer hanging around (which somehow confused Zoe), and I was convinced that part of everything working out would include Zoe and me getting back together. That didn’t happen, of course.
    Once Cara was born, Zoe handed her over, signed the legal papers terminating her parental rights, and went to spend a month in the south of France with her parents. When she returned to New York, she spent several weeks in the Hamptons before heading off to Florida for college. She never called or came by. It was like Cara never happened. Like I never happened.
    *** *** ***
    Emma
    Once I’ve pulled my suitcase across the threshold of my room, I speed-dial Graham to tell him my room number. Waiting for him, I pace the length of the suite, door to window, window to door, my