*******
“What am I going to do Tonia?’’ they are standing in front of her house
“I don’t have any idea. But how can you not know who the father is, I mean I may have been with a couple of guys but I remember them, not that I keep count though but I do, so how come you don’t remember who you went skinny dipping with, this is huge Meg, like bomb huge“
“Look unlike you I don’t sleep around with guys , much less random, the only dude that I was you know… was Fred, and I haven’t seen him since last Christmas and we broke up way before then and the last time we shagged was months ago except I got pregnant then and the baby suddenly developed which is impossible, over a year ago? No.. the test rightly said four weeks.. that’s a month ago, I wasn’t seeing any one a month ago… heck for a year now so how the hell did I get pregnant? It doesn’t make sense” she sinks down to the pavement
Tonia slid’s down beside her “Okay calm down Meg let’s figure it out. Let’s think. So a month ago… no guys at all like at all?”
“Dude I would remember, I haven’t been with anyone and I would be stupid to be with someone without using protection. I would never do that, if I was so horny and I needed a good loving, I would have the good sense to have him put on a condom or better still I would have worn my contraceptive patch, I always have those. But it doesn’t make sense… I wouldn’t have slept with a dude in my right senses without protection, I know the consequences of that, I would have been really really careful. I wouldn’t “
“Okay, what if you weren’t in your right senses Meg?”
“What do you mean?’
“I mean, if you don’t remember sleeping with someone and getting pregnant, what if it happened while you weren’t exactly in your right senses?’’
”I am still not getting what you are saying Tonia”
“I am saying dummy is that what if it happened, because maybe you were drugged, you know. I hear of those kind of stories all the time, it’s used for raped victims too, they go out with friends, get drugged and get raped and have no recollection of it, and the bastards goes scot free”
Megan looks at her friend, then she bursts out crying “I was raped… I was raped and got knocked up” she wailed
“Shhh girl. Well we don’t know that bit” she hugs her friend
“Well is there another explanation? I ain’t a sister to Mary Mother and I am sure as hell ain’t giving birth to another Jesus, no angel appeared to me to tell me I was going to birth to a Messiah so which other explanations are there?’’ she sniffs
“well, are you sure you didn’t sex some random stranger?”
“I didn’t. I didn’t, I would have been careful’’ she cries
“Okay. So, if we are going by the fact that you may be drugged, where have you gone to of recent say in the past one month that there is a likely possibility of that happening?’”
‘Erm..er” she screws up her face..”Church, Aunt’s Christie’s Baby showers, Danny’s birthday party, karaoke, erm you and I went pool partying, and erm… library sessions with the Stevens, that’s all I think.We haven’t had much parties attendance and in these ones, there were hardly alcohol used, and I didn’t drink because I was sick for almost two weeks and doctor says no drugs with alcohol and ..well that’s it. Graduation party was the only major party we both went for that was totally trunt and off the hook … and we know there was so much alcohol, drugs and the whole shebang, I was stoned, but since then not so much and-“
“ oh my God Meg..that’s it!”
“That’s what?’’
“Graduation party”
“What about it”
“Your test says you are one month pregnant right?”
“Yes”
“when was graduation party?’’
“Erm?’’
They counted the days backwards..
“When did you notice you hadn’t seen Lady Red?”
“I noticed two weeks later that I was already over a week late”
“Dang!!! We just found the loop hole dude, you got knocked up on graduation night”
Megan frowns, trying to remember that day “But, I wasn’t with a guy that day, we went together and we had fun and I knew I drank a lot and I only remember waking up the next morning in my house, you dropped me off didn’t you?”
Silence
“You dropped me off at home after the party right because I knew I woke up with a nasty hangover, then you came around and mom was asking and I said you dropped me home and you said yes, right?’’
“Well about that, honestly babes I didn’t drop you home”
“Jesus Tonia!!!!”’
“I am sorry, I met this sexy stud and … yes I remember now, you were soo high you could hardly stand straight, oh crap, I took you into a room to sleep it off because you didn’t want to go just yet and I didn’t either and he was sexy hot and I was horny as a dog on heat and anyways you were half awake and asleep and I told you I was going to come back and get you and I am sorry, we went back, had fun and we sort of went to his place and by the time I knew it, it was morning, I rushed over to the party house, didn’t see you there that is why I quickly ran to yours and there you were, safe and when your mum asked how you got home and if you got home on time you said yes and said I dropped you off and I knew if I had said otherwise your mum would have gone berserk and everything would have gone to shits… but damn babes I am sorry, I didn’t think it was a big deal plus I didn’t want you to be mad at me for not taking you home” she says remorsefully
“Well right now it’s a big deal Tonia, how come you didn’t say anything. I was raped in there damn it, I am frigging pregnant”
“Well you were alone in the room , no one else was there plus we didn’t hear of any case of anyone being raped”
“Like you said if I was drugged, I wouldn’t be able to remember”
‘”True, but we are just speculating, what if you weren’t drugged, maybe you did have sex and too drunk to remember”
‘‘That wouldn’t happen”
“Sure about that Meg?”
Meg bites her lips “I would remember Tonia, I would” she cries leaning onto Tonia’s shoulders
“I am sorry Meg, really it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have left you there’’
“what will I do??”
“Well we need to find out who and who was in that party that day”
Megan scoffs “That’s like finding a needle in a hay sack Tonia, like chasing ghosts. There were a whole lot of students, from different universities ..how the hell are we going to find someone we don’t know about?”
“Shit! Babe you have to remember something,anything“
Megan shakes her head “I swear I don’t”
“What are you going to do? You just fresh out of college, no job, no boyfriend and therefore no suitor reading to whisk you away and your parents are deep Catholics… you are in deep shit”
“I know. I have to tell them”
“No you don’t, you could just go to the clinic and have it removed unless you want to keep it, you don’t know who the father is”
“I don’t know. Maybe ..no I can’t, how am I going to take care of it?”
“Okay, I know someone, he has done it for a friend of a friend a while back, we can go today or tomorrow, the longer you wait the riskier for you, you know right?’’
Megan sighs
“Does it hurt, abortion?”
“Her words? Like hell and it cost a tiny fortune, how much you got?’’
Goosebumps rises up Meg’s body…” okay then. Not much, I need to clear out all my small savings”
“Okay”
“Let me go in, I don’t want mum to come out an begin to ask me questions”
“Okay ‘’
*
As she lays on her bed , trying to go to sleep, racking her brain trying to remember anything, anything at all for the past couple of weeks to pinpoint when exactly and how exactly she was stupid enough to have unprotected sex with anyone or was she raped?.
Nothing comes to mind.
She turns on her side, as tears runs out of her eyes, she sniffs, crying into her pillow. She loved kids, she loved her nieces and nephews, but she had always told herself that when she had kids, it would be in the confines of a loving marriage, a home and a husband. Not now, how was she to care for the kid? Her parents, No her father would kill her, he was strict, very strict and he preached the whole abstinence thing taking it seriously. He thinks she was still a virgin.
She is 23 years old yet he still treats her like a kid. Her ex-boyfriend Fred had a hard time with them, and they always lied to her parents that they had never being intimate but ofc ourse what daddy doesn’t know wouldn’t hurt him right?.
But they had always being careful, using protection and when they went skinny-diving, she had always worn a patch and they wouldn’t be stupid to do it without one. But who had impregnated her, who?
Oh God!!
She cries into her pillow and after a while she falls asleep.
******
It was too days later, while she was walking down to the supermarket to buy some groceries did she see them, a couple sitting and having breakfast together. It wasn’t that they were having breakfast, it was what that happened during that made her pause..
Apparently they had bought ice-cream from the Cold Stone Mart next door, and spoon feeding each other, they laughed and kissed.. but that wasn’t it.
The girl had flicked the spoon filled with ice-cream causing it to splash and hit the boy’s face and some gets to his hair which he cleans off laughing, and then he wipes his face, looked at her mischievously and just when she was about to run he grabs her, dipping his finger into the cup of ice-cream he smears it on her nose, cheeks and her lips, when she laughs trying to smear him back he holds her hands and kisses her nose.
Megan smiles at them, such cute couple she muses..
Then the boy kisses her cheeks and then her neck, then he laughs pointing that he had smeared her cheeks and neck with the ice-cream with the one on his face, she pouts feigning anger, then she tells him to clean it.
He smiles obliging, but instead of using the handkerchief she gives him, he proceeds to use his tongue licking off the stain from her neck slowly, then her cheeks … the way he did it sent shivers up Meg’s spine.
But Meg frowns wondering why that should affect her.
She stares, as the couple stare at each other, in another second they kiss so sensually that you would wonder if they would do it there and then, but he whispers something into her ears and in another minute they get up, holding hands as they leave, their body language as obvious as a red light in a dark alley… they were going to get some.
She frowns, yeah, it’s all fun and good right now, all lovey-dovey, a month from now the girl gets knocked up and it won’t be great anymore. She wished she could go after them and tell them to douse their sexual urges in cold water and flee… but then again, it was her own fault not to be careful enough to know who knocked her up, not them. Sighing she gets her groceries, and leaves
Tonia calls her , she answers “Tomorrow, we would go, I have the money”
“Great, as early as six okay? tell your mum we have a prayer session in my crib”
“Okay’’
