4Best Friendship Is a Special Relationship Sealed by Sisterhood and Teen Drama
by Hitomi Cassie
She called to ask me if I could come over her house. Her tone was urgent yet at the same time it was soft and trembling with occasional sobs. It was a call for help I couldn't refuse. I came as quickly as I can. I even skipped on my daily dose of Smallville.
I skipped a very special episode too. Today, they're airing the first episode of the new season. But it's no contest, really. I am willing to interrupt anything to answer to her call because I know she will too, she has always been.
I crossed their neighbor's lawn making my way to the same neighbor's backyard. I jumped the fence to theirs and ran to the nearest window. My back crouched, my feet barely touching the ground, vigilantly looking around. She had instructed I come without being noticed by anyone in her household.
The window of the bungalow was unlocked and I squeezed myself through the small opening, I straightened my back, fixed my hair and polished my clothes. I looked around. I know this room well that I could find my way in the dark without bumping into anything. Her room was the way I left it yesterday. Everything was where I remembered them to be. A music box, a box of accessories with a few of my hair bands and clips I had forgotten to get back, her diary and her laptop were still on her desk. Stuffed bears I had given for her birthdays continue to be displayed on her bed. Five DVD cases of TV series and films from the 80's to the present were still orderly arranged in the cabinet of her TV stand. Her CD's were arranged in the rack by artist with three gaps reserved for those I have borrowed and not yet returned. Titles such as The Little Prince, Harry Potter, The Alchemist and Lullaby were still arranged alphabetically by author on her shelf, some of them are from my library. The posters on her wall were complete and all accounted for and the picture frames still showcased photos that are 5% of herself, 15% of her family, 30% of her boyfriend and 50% of her and me. Everything was in place, except her and a chair.
She was lying flat on the floor; one hand gripping the phone, the other one was absentmindedly feeling her faux sheepskin rug her back was against. The chair was blocking the door that was already locked. How odd.
I lay down beside her and asked, "What's wrong?"
"I'm pregnant." She said. Her voice was straightforward and faking courage but I could feel the quavering.
I turned to look at her. She has got to be kidding me. She has literally got to be kidding me. This is not true. She stopped gawking at her ceiling and returned my gaze. Her eyes were red and sore and the longer she looks at her reflection in my pupil, in my eyes the tears well in hers and the more I realize that this was serious.
A massive debate took place in my mind in a span of ten seconds when we stared at each other. I was sure that she wasn't lying or joking, after all, you wouldn't intentionally throw out a false alarm about this, this issue was heavy. You know that it's real but you don't want it to be so you force yourself to believe it's not real, you force yourself to make it disappear like it didn't exist in the first place, creating this voice that argues to your rational mind saying, "This is beyond the realms of possibility. This is not real. There's an explanation for this mistake. This can't be. It only happens to TV people! It happens to the characters of books like Love, Rosie or films like Juno or TV series like The Secret Life of the American Teenager because they have to make up problems in order to sell their soap opera. It's something that happens to people that aren't even real. It happens in drama series not in the real world."
Yes. It must be. There has to be an explanation. This kind of things doesn't happen to people like us. Not in my wildest dream could I have imagined us in a situation like this. Our lives were perfect! We'd be graduating high school next year and we'd go to Stanford together and after we'd both have our offices overlooking central park. Then we'd have takeouts as we watch TV together in our shared apartment. We'd be living life Sex and the City way.
It just couldn't happen yet there she was before, starting to sob. I found her hand and gripped it. "Are you sure?" I asked.
She nodded and cried louder. "Shh!" I snapped. "You can't let the whole world know! It's okay. We will solve this together. I won't leave you."
"I know you won't." She whimpered.
"Tell me what happened." I said and sat up, not letting go of her hand.
According to her narration, her boyfriend invited her to his house two weeks ago when his parents left for some business trip. They got drunk and had sex at the leather couch of the TV room with Friday the Thirteenth on at the large plasma TV. A few days after that night, she had been feeling odd but she ignored it until she remembered they didn't use condoms the night of the fornication. She bought a pregnancy test kit last weekend but she was too afraid to touch it until she couldn't take it any longer. She used the kit and found out that she was pregnant and immediately called me.
"Jesus Christ! This is what, your fourth time doing it and you got pregnant?"
"Third." She corrected as she sniffed.
"No it's the fourth." I argued. "Remember, your first was in the backseat of your boyfriend's car then you slept over his house once and did it twice making this one your fourth."
"Right." She said without conviction since she was feeling glum because of the situation she found herself in. "So it's the fourth. What are we going to do now? I wish I'd followed your example and stayed a virgin." She grabbed a few more plies of tissue from the second box we've opened tonight.
"It's kind of too late for that, isn't it? But I do have a few options." I started. "A.) We tell your boyfriend and parents; b.) Let's run away together to Canada and raise the kid with me as the auntie and you the mommy; c.) We could hide the whole pregnancy period from your parents and when the kid is born, we'd put it out for adoption and go back to our lives as if nothing happened and; d.) Abortion."
"That's all I have." I said.
"What if there's an Option E," she asked "and it's easy and it will take away all the problems?"
"If Option E is that awesome then go for it but in the mean time, how about some reflection time? I don't know about you but I think I've had too much Skins moments for tonight. Let's call it a night and we'll figure this out tomorrow." I gave her a sad smile and helped her up.
I called my parents and told them I'd stay for the night as she went to the bathroom. I said goodbye to my mom and lay down on her bed. I heard the faucet running for a few seconds and then it was turned off. She stayed for two more minutes, without a sound, and then she lay next to me. We went under the sheets.
"Thanks for not leaving." She whispered.
"Are you kidding me? You're my best friend! I can't leave you!"
"I love you." She said. "I'm glad that out of all the people, it's you here."
"Feeling is mutual." I said sincerely.
We went to sleep after that and the next morning, I woke up when she was still asleep. I went to her bathroom to wash my face and to pee. At the sink, I saw an empty medicine bottle with the cap detached. My heart started to pound. When I arrived yesterday, that was filled with sleeping pills. Could it be? Was this actually the Option E she was talking about?
I ran back to the bed with tears streaming down my cheeks. I shook her by the shoulders vigorously shouting a name I have said more than any other word. It was the third word I had learned to say after mama and papa. It was a name I have never really given much thought on for it just came naturally as if it was a given presence in your life, like air or heartbeats.
It was a name I didn't really have to think about. It just rolled off my tongue on instinct when I needed someone to share the tears, the shouts and the laughter. It was just now that I started giving attention to the sound of her name and how I said it because when I called it, a chilling silence echoed in my ears.