Damon was getting dressed, hardly able to look Sasha in the face. She had tried to kiss him when he was leaving her house, but he’d turned his head away, sick of himself for being so weak and sick of Sasha for being so easy to mistreat. She tried to pick things back up by acting sweet and friendly whenever she came near him in school, but after that he wouldn’t walk her home anymore, and then he got a car and a job at the local university working maintenance after school. After D. Dog attacked him, Damon hadn’t set foot back into Lansing Southern and had been allowed to finish the semester from home. He’d been relieved that Sasha had graduated and finally moved on to college. Until today.
The phone rang again and Damon, snapped out of the past to the present with a jolt, looked at it like it was a snake. He felt dread creep up his spine. He checked the caller ID. Sasha, again. He snatched up the receiver.
“What?” he snarled into the phone.
“Damon,” said Sasha, “I need to tell you something. Don’t you hang up on me again.”
“Look,” he said, “I am not trying to be rude, but you-,”
“I’m pregnant,” she said. “And it’s your baby.”
Damon slammed the receiver down, and stood staring at it like it was going to explode. He put his hands over his ears to block out the obscene words. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get his breath to go in and out. His chest had an elephant sitting on it and at the same time there was screaming going on in his head so loud that it blocked out the lack of air. It wasn’t until his sister walked up to him and smacked him on the back that he wheezed out his first tiny breath in what felt like a century.
“Inhaler, stupid,” Jada said, picking it up off the counter and tossing it to him. Damon hadn’t heard her come into the kitchen behind him. He caught the inhaler on the fly and took two puffs, which eased the heavy burden in his chest. He breathed out in relief and blinked back tears. He stumbled to a chair and slumped down into it with his hands covering the sides of his face.
“Hey,” said Jada, voice tinged with concern. He felt her hand on his right shoulder. “Are you all right? Is it a bad attack?” He still couldn’t speak, so he nodded. He felt his chest tighten again, and he felt Jada jerk away and run from the room.
“Mom,” she called. “Damon’s having a bad asthma attack!” Damon’s eyes dimmed. He could feel his heart pounding and hear his own labored breathing from someplace very far away. He heard running footsteps and suddenly his mother was standing in front of him.
“Breathe, boy,” she said. Her voice was calm, but her eyes were very concerned behind her glasses. She turned to Jada. “Get my cars keys.” The next hour was a blur to Damon. He didn’t remember the frantic ride to the hospital or his mother jumping out of the still running car to get a doctor or a nurse. He didn’t remember the emergency room paramedics lifting him out of the front seat of his mother’s van. The hospital got his breathing back under control with the Nebulizer machine and a breathing treatment, but Damon still felt like he was drowning. He lay in the emergency room with his eyes closed. His mom thought that he was just resting from his asthma attack. But Damon’s mind was spinning and jumping and skipping breaths just like his lungs.
‘I’m only sixteen. How can I take care of a baby?’ What was he going to tell his parents? They were going to kill him. They were going to be so disappointed.
He took another deep breath and exhaled through the plastic mask on his face, sounding like Darth Vader. He was suddenly so tired that he just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. Then his eyes snapped open in panic.
‘Oh, God,’ he thought, breath hitching again. His mother looked at him sharply, but he got his breathing back under control quickly and squeezed his eyes back shut, lest he betray his agitation and she ask him what was wrong. God help him, he might just tell her. No, he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t even breathe, let alone think of something that made sense. He bit his lower lip. ‘What am I going to tell my baby? What am I going to tell Brielle?’
Brielle
“Hey Damon,” said Brielle, voice bright and cheery through the phone. He’d been avoiding her calls, but she’d texted him that if he didn’t pick up, she would think that he was dying and make her father drive over to see him. Damon did not doubt that she would.
“Hey, Brielle,” he said.
“Are you better?” Brielle asked. She had been very worried about Damon for a full week. She had called the house to talk to him and been told by Jada that he was on the way to the hospital. He’d missed two days of school.
“I’m doing okay,” he said in a choked voice.
“You don’t sound so good,” said Brielle.
“I’ll be all right,” he said. “But I gotta go, okay?”
“Okay,” said Brielle. “Feel better.”
She could hear Damon take a deep breath and let it out.
“I’ll try,” he said and cut the connection.
Brielle looked at her phone for a long moment.
He didn’t even say good-bye.
Damon
Damon told his mother that he was going to the mall to try to get some Christmas shopping done.
“You want to go shopping?” she asked, with a smirk. “You sure you’re feeling all right?”
“I always buy everybody Christmas presents,” he protested.
“Not before Christmas Eve,” said Mrs. Hamilton
“For once, I’m getting an early start,” he’d said and his mother had let him go, looking suspicious, but not asking
