Free Hooked by Catherine Greenman Page B

of wistfulness in his voice from the night before had vanished.
    “We’re finding a doctor.”
    “Well, I’ll go with you.”
    “No,” I blurted. “It’s okay. Vanessa’s going to come.” I knew right away I had to keep him out of it. In the back of myhead I worried that any shared downer experience would be dangerous for us, and I couldn’t have that. I hung up, stuck my phone in my jeans pocket and stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, the new me.

13.
    I sped out of Dad’s house that night like it was any other night and I’d just spent the weekend there instead of ten days. I’d told Will, and now I had to tell Mom.
    “See you Wednesday?” I called from the door.
    “See you Wednesday,” Dad answered from his leather chair in the living room, where he was surrounded by piles of paper he’d dragged home. Mom used to pick up his briefcase and call him “the brick salesman.” I could tell he was hoping for a little more departure fanfare—a hug, for example—but I wasn’t up to it.
    Mom was unpacking when I got home.
    “So how was it?” I sat on the love seat next to her bed.
    “We had a great time,” she said. “It’s a beautiful area. We’ll go when you’re old enough to drink.”
    She threw me a couple of blouses, catching my eyes for the first time. “Can you throw those in the dry cleaning? How are you? How was Daddy’s?”
    “Okay.”
    “I love Beryl,” she said. “She’s a bit over the top and socially ambitious, the complete opposite of me. But she’s good on trips.”
    “You met people.”
    “We met people, no one earth-shattering, other single type-As, mostly from New York.”
    She circled the bed, arranging piles, pouring shoes out of bags, not yet ready to stop moving. I knew I was about to catapult her back here, home, where she didn’t really want to be.
    “I don’t know why I brought these.” She licked her thumb and wiped a smudge off a strappy grape sandal.
    “Mom, something’s happened.”
    “Oh no,” she said, putting the sandal to her chest.
    “Don’t worry. No one died. I’m not sick.”
    “Then what?”
    “I’m pregnant.”
    “What?” She walked around the bed, dragging a scarf that had attached itself to her leg. She stood over me, inspecting.
    My silence must have confirmed it. “Jesus!” she said. “Since when?”
    “Mom, wait,” I said, not sure what I was asking her to wait for. “I took the test this morning.”
    “It’s Will?”
    “Yes, it’s Will. Who do you think?” I started crying.
    “How could he—you’re on the pill, for Christ’s sake. Do you bother taking it?”
    “Stop yelling.”
    “I’m not yelling.” She grabbed the scarf that was stuck on her leg and hurled it across the bed, and it fell on the floor. “I don’t understand, Thea. Why do I bother? Why did I bother getting you that gynecologist’s appointment?”
    “Look, it happened,” I said, picking up the scarf. “Now I have to deal with it. It’s no one’s fault.”
    “Did you take your pills?”
    “Yes!”
    “All the time?” she asked, her eyes ablaze.
    “Yes!” I lied. Why couldn’t it be Will who had to remember to take it? I was so
bad
at it.
    “Vanessa knows a doctor,” I said. She pushed the overflowing suitcase aside and sat down, facing me, fists in her lap. “She says he’s very good.”
    “Have you called him?” The crease in between her eyebrows was deep, deep, deep.
    “Not yet,” I said. “I wanted to tell you first.”
    “I’ll ask around and find you someone tomorrow,” she said, rubbing her temples. “The timing is really unfortunate, with all you have coming up. Honestly, Thea.”
    “It’ll be okay.” I rolled the numbered dials of her suitcase lock until they all hit zero. “I’m sorry,” I said, because it seemed like the right thing to say.

14.
    “The thing I figured out when I was doing it is that they’re stupid the way video games are stupid,” Will said, pushing the floppy SAT book up toward