“I thought you had to leave school when you got a certain age,” said Stump. “That boy is like a bad case of herpes. He pops up whenever you don’t want him around and he never goes away.”
“Tell him that,” said Ephraim, laughing.
“Not me,” said Stump. “I ain’t trying to get killed.”
I ain’t trying to get close to that fool ever again,” said Damon in agreement, rolling his eyes. “What’s been up with you, Ephraim? What you been doin’?”
“Making babies,” said Ephraim, shoulders slumping again.
Damon’s eyes got big.
“What?”
“You know Kelly, that girl I been kicking it with?” asked Ephraim. Damon nodded. “She got pregnant.”
“Man, how did you let that happen?” asked Damon. “You weren’t careful?”
“Man, she took the condom off, said it didn’t feel the same,” said Ephraim.
“You let her do that?” Damon ignored the fact that he had never once supplied a condom and couldn’t remember if he’d always used one.
“She said she was on the pill, you know,” said Ephraim, ducking his head. “I figured it was safe.”
Stump slashed the air with a thick slab of a hand to punctuate his point. “Man, you stupid.”
“What you gonna do?” asked Damon. He felt a little sick for his friend.
“Don’t know,” said Ephraim, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m not going to leave her hanging. It’s what my old man did to my mother. I ain’t never even met the sucker. He was a student at MSU. Mom has a picture of that punk in an old photo album but he busted up outta Lansing as soon as he found out she got knocked up.”
“For real?” asked Damon. He had never asked Ephraim where his father was. Damon had just accepted that he wasn’t around because Ephraim had.
Ephraim nodded.
“You ever tried to contact him?” asked Damon.
“Naw, man,” said Ephraim. “He didn’t want me. I been without him this long.”
Damon said, “So what’s she wanna do?”
“Kelly said she wants to get an abortion and I should pay for it,” said Ephraim. His long, narrowly drawn face was haunted and his thin shoulders looked folded up like broken wings of defeat.
“You need some money, man?” asked Damon. “I got a couple hundred dollars saved up from work.”
“Naw,” said Ephraim, looking offended. “She don’t even listen to what I want. I told her that if she got an abortion, then that was the last Armstrong she was ever going to get the chance to abort, because we were through.”
“Why, fool?” asked Stump. “You can’t take care of no baby. You ain’t even out of high school yet.”
“I got a job,” said Ephraim.
“Yeah, at Target,” said Stump, throwing up his hands. He turned his attention to Damon. “Man, talk to this joker. He don’t listen to me. He ain’t got a concept for how much babies cost.” Stump had six brothers and sisters. The youngest was three years old. His father worked a variety of short-term construction jobs all over the country to feed his family. If it wasn’t for being recruited for a football scholarship, Stump would have had no chance to go to college.
“I know they cost a lot,” said Ephraim. “But I’m not gonna be like my old man, just making babies and skipping out.”
“There is no baby, yet” said Stump, looking exasperated. “She’s only like two months gone.”
“You don’t understand,” said Ephraim.
“How you gonna go to college with a baby?” asked Damon.
“Man, I’m not like you,” said Ephraim. He looked terrified but determined. He swallowed heavily, his large Adams apple bobbing in his throat and then continued. “I’m not smart like you or that good at sports like Stump. I got decent grades, but it was always going to be community college for me. My moms ain’t got the cheddar to send me anyplace else.”
“What is your mom going to say?” asked Damon. He got a chill thinking of his own mother’s reaction to news that a girlfriend of his was pregnant. He resolved to be very careful in the future, and then thought of Brielle and relaxed. Virgins didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant. As long as she stuck by her guns she was safe and so was Damon.
“Man, she’s gonna be crushed,” said Ephraim. He loved his mother and they were very tight. “I can’t stand to disappoint her, but she stuck around for me, you know. I gotta stick around for my own kid.”
“I hear you,” said Damon. A baby seemed so unreal that he couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept at all. After a few minutes of no solution, Stump changed the subject to football. He and Damon argued good naturedly about who would win the upcoming high school football championship. Ephraim brooded.
Damon suggested a game of basketball and the three young men filed out of Damon’s room to the backyard.
Brielle
Brielle hated Sasha with a passion for about a week. She hated Sasha’s presence on earth. Hated the fact that Sasha was confident enough to go after what she wanted, when Brielle was shy and tongue-tied in Damon’s presence. She felt like a child.
Brielle hated Sasha most of all because she had been with Damon in a way that Brielle had only dreamed about. Alternately, she hated Damon for doing it with Sasha. But Damon’s presence was a powerful force, and Brielle didn’t know Sasha, except for the brief encounter in Target, so her feelings of animosity eventually faded. Hadn’t he broken it off? Besides that, Damon was so popular that Brielle had new found popularity. Since her confrontation with Charlene, Brielle had taken on new cool in the eyes of most of the school.
Between swim practice in the morning, classes, afternoon swim practice, and homework, Brielle didn’t have much energy to keep a mad going. She was too busy and excited about the upcoming homecoming dance. Brielle was hoping Damon would ask her to go with him. Both of them were frustrated
