Hannah covers her face with her hands.
“Come on, Frog and Toad, right?”
She nods, but her hands do not drop.
“Tell me.”
“I’m pregnant.”
“Oh, Hannah!” I reach over and gently pull down her hands. Tears stream down her cheeks.
“Are you sure?” I feel the trembling in her bones.
She nods.
“Oh man. Or should I say, oh Dave.”
“Stop.” She pulls her hands from mine and rubs away the tears with her fingers.
“I just . . . I just didn’t think things were that serious with you two. I thought it was strictly messing around.”
Hannah glares at me. “God, for a fucking scientist, you know nothing about biology.”
“I study genetics, not physiology.”
“Grace, you’re not helping.”
“Sorry, sorry.” I take a deep breath. “So . . . how long . . . never mind. So what are you going to do? Are you going to tell him?”
Hannah chews her lower lip but doesn’t answer.
“This is heavy. Like Lifetime movie after-school special heavy,” I try to joke.
Hannah looks like she is going to cry again.
I hold up my hands. “Wait, wait. It’s going to be okay, Hannah. We are going to get through this. I’m your Frog or your Toad. Who’s the optimist again? Whichever it is, I’m your amphibian.”
I can see Hannah beginning to smile as I shift out of park. We silently drive through town until we reach the high school. The concrete buildings jut out in odd places, additions tacked on over the years as this part of the small farm community grew into a suburb to the city. Mounds of dirty snow lie scattered along the outskirts of the school. There are a few bare patches of gray-green frozen lawn exposed near the buildings of this holding pen they call high school. Small groups of kids stand on the sidewalk talking, huddled together against the cold.
Hannah stiffens as she scans the crowd. I press on the gas and try to pass the groups as quickly as possible in case Dave Ridley happens to be in one of them. Once we are on the far side of the parking lot, Hannah slowly uncurls from her seat. She leans forward, resting her forearms on the dashboard.
“I can’t go in there,” she says. “I don’t want to bump into him.”
“Just ignore him.”
Hannah stares at me. “Just pretend I’m not pregnant? I don’t know how not to be pregnant, Grace. I have a baby growing inside me.”
“It’s not really a baby. It’s a zygote.”
“Do you always have to be the scientist?”
“I can’t help the way my mind works.” I shrug. “You know you have choices, right, Hannah?”
“I know,” she says, her voice hollow. “But so does he.”
“What does that mean?”
She twists her mouth to one side. “I mean, what if he wants to keep it?”
I stare at her incredulously. Does she really believe Dave wants to have a baby with her?
Hannah refuses to look up. She has the granola bar wrapper out. “He said he loves me.”
“He loves you,” I repeat. Love. It is an emotion like no other. Wars, murder, heroic deeds, sacrifice, suffering, all in the name of love. What is it to know this kind of love?
I study myself in the rearview mirror. My eyes so much like hers. The slope of my cheekbones. The curving upper bow of my lips. Hers. But the rest of me, the small moles marking secret places on the body, the freckles across my nose and cheeks, the way I walk—feet slightly pigeon-toed—that is my father. In me lives everything that my parents hoped and dreamed for all those years they were alone and dreamed of finding a love singular and true. I remember the way they looked at each other. Like thread and needle, each useless without the other. Dave Riley has never looked at Hannah that way. How do you tell your friend that he probably doesn’t love you enough to have a child with you? To marry you?
“Your mom and dad did it,” Hannah says, her eyes pleading with me to agree. “They had you when your mom was nineteen, you said. It was the love story your father had always dreamed about.”
“Yeah, but . . . that was different.”
“How? How is that different for your parents and not for me?”
I look away from her. How do you tell someone the truth? “Dad really loved Mom.”
I hear the click of her seat belt. The car door slams and she is gone.
• • •
From my peripheral vision, I catch glimpses of Hannah throughout the day, but she disappears behind bodies and corners each time I approach. At lunch I sit by myself at one of the tables in the back, waiting and hoping Hannah has forgiven me. Waves of people move through the cafeteria, but Hannah is not one of them. I gaze down at my fries and grilled cheese, and the heavy, greasy odor begins to choke my senses. I push the tray away, but relief will not come. Instead I can feel the warmth, the pulsing heartbeats of all the people around me, a fine mist of sweat and breath mingling together and coating my skin like a slick layer of oil. I stand up and leave my tray on the table, rushing for the double doors. Shoving my hip hard against the horizontal metal bar, I push open the door and run out into the hallway.
In the distance half a dozen kids walk toward me. I catch sight of Dave in the pack. The way Dave jostles into his friend, leaning in to say something private as he points to the girl walking in front of him, makes me sick. Hannah has said over and over that Dave is a really good guy. Sweet, even. But everything I’ve observed and noted does not support that conclusion. In fact, I would say the exact opposite. He is a pig and Hannah would be so much better off without him. Dave looks up and catches me staring at him. He lifts his chin at me
