(Not What I Was) Expecting

“You’re not the weed girl,” I said as I stood in the second-floor girls’ bathroom with my brows stitching together. It was my usual third period trip to the bathroom on a Thursday to pick up my weed, and instead of seeing Miranda, I was staring at what looked to be a senior with mascara running down her cheeks. I was a junior, so just from her face I couldn’t place her name. She was blonde and tall and looked like her perfume was called “Bubblegum Kiss” or something like that. I immediately wanted nothing to do with her, or her teary eyes, but then she was walking toward me. And then I noticed the pregnancy test in her perfectly manicured hand. (With hot pink nails filed to a point).

“Does this look positive to you?” She sputtered out, holding out the little white stick with the pink cap, her bottom lip trembling. Part of me wanted to turn around and shamelessly pretend I’d never seen her, but then her pathetic blue eyes snagged on my grey ones, and I sighed. Let me see, I said back, and my tone was a bit more exasperated than I intended. She didn’t seem to mind and handed me the stick she’d just peed on.

It was clear as day, the two lines. I’d seen picture books that were harder to read. From her smeared makeup, I could tell she was losing her shit over this, but I wasn’t about to lie to the poor girl.

“If you pissed on this, you’re definitely pregnant.”

Immediate sobbing, while I was still holding the little stick in my hand. God, where’s the weed girl when you need her? I sucked in another breath and stood there rocking back on the heels of my Doc Martens, grinding my teeth as this blonde girl continued to sob into her hands. I’d never been really great at comforting people, but there was something that sort of stung me about seeing her look so broken. She was so perfect, so beautiful. The picture of femininity and youth—the antithesis of me and my smudged eyeliner and hand-me-down t-shirt. It was a shame to watch her in pieces like this. So, I reached out and brought her into an awkward kind of hug. It’s alright, I’d muttered. An unconvincing and definitely untrue statement. 

As soon as I touched her, she was clinging to me, sobbing, shaking in my arms as she buried her face in my shoulder. I tried to remind myself that this was probably better than being in chem lab… probably. For a moment we just stood there, and I held this girl against me while she seemed to let a few years’ worth of tears pour out of her eyes. When she finally seemed to be calming down, with my hand still stroking her back I said: wanna tell me your name?

“Bridgette,” the blonde choked out, stepping back from me to wipe her snotty nose on the sleeve of her pink cardigan. I grimaced subtly and nodded, now putting a few pieces together. She was a cheerleader, and a senior, as I had originally thought. Bridgette Anderson was dating everyone’s favorite ejacu-loser, Ryan Sutherland. I could completely understand her sobbing now. God, had that man put a baby into me I’d have set the whole school on fire. 

“Is it Ryan’s then?” I asked tentatively, not wanting to set her off again. I felt like I was in a hostage situation and was somehow the hostage and the negotiator all in one. While the girl was in the dirty bathroom mirror trying to wipe at her makeup with a crumpled piece of toilet paper, my mind wandered to Miranda and my weed again. Where the fuck was she?

Bridgette answered me after a moment, going on some tangent about how she and Ryan were already on the rocks, and this would be the nail in the coffin. This meaning the baby inside of her, though I couldn’t help but wonder why she would want to deal with two babies instead of just one. Cutting Ryan out of the equation would do nothing but simplify things. I didn’t realize I was speaking these thoughts out loud until Bridgette was turned to me with her mouth agape. I smiled sheepishly and tucked a strand of my bottle-black hair behind my ear. Before I could do any damage control though, the blonde spoke again.

“You really think I’d be better off?”

“He’s a dick, Bridgette.”

It’s like I had been the first person to ever say that to her. Maybe I was. I wasn’t going to defend him when I knew how he treated girls… mostly because he and I had had a fling a few summers ago. No, I wasn’t his type, you’re exactly right. I’d wanted us to be more than bathroom stall sex, but the thought of being seen with me in public was enough to make him ghost me less than 24 hours after saying he really cared about me. Guys love saying things like that when they’re inside of you, and then you stand face to face with all your clothes on and the tune changes. From wedding bells to funeral hymns.

Then Bridgette said something even sadder: you think I can do it alone? Have this baby? It was the first time during the exchange that I had smiled. I was smiling because it surprised me how little she thought of herself. It was like when you smile right before you cry, because you just felt your heart exhale. The girl at school who every other girl wanted to be, or be with, and she was doubting her abilities. Of course you can do it, I’d said, you’ll be a great mom, Bridgette.

And she was crying again, but this time with a smile on her face. We were both smiling, and I was uncharacteristically reaching out to wipe at one of her tears with the pad of my thumb. Her cheek was warm, and the chipped back nail polish on my fingernails matched the streaks of makeup still left behind on her tanned skin. Her ocean blue eyes fluttered open and shut as the tears fell, but she didn’t pull away from me. I was surprised by that, and the way my chest tightened just a bit. I wanted to cry with her. I wasn’t sure why. What’s your name, she asked softly, her words finally able to breathe, no longer strangled with emotion. 

“Leah,” I replied, my hand still comfortably resting on the girl’s cheek. She was leaning her face against my palm. I felt unexplainably warm, holding Bridgette’s face in one hand and her positive pregnancy test in my other. Then she took a half-step forward and her hand brushed the pregnancy test, and a second later we were holding hands around the plastic stick. We were far too close, I had thought, and somehow far too far away, as well. I watched still as her wet lashes fluttered themselves dry, and her lips glistened with tears. My mouth felt dry. Then I heard my name again and was snapped from my haze when I turned and saw Miranda standing just by the bathroom door, looking at us.

“And where the fuck were you?” I asked her, breaking every connection I had to Bridgette, as I felt my cheeks flush. What had happened in that bathroom would follow me, I could already tell. Miranda gave me a little smirk and pulled a few little plastic baggies of weed out of her hoodie pocket. Better late than never, she told me while I was trying to gather a singular coherent thought that wasn’t about Bridgette. (An Impossibility because she was still standing there, just an arms’ reach away.)

(Why was I thinking about touching her again?)

I nabbed two bags of weed, double the amount we had agreed upon, and handed over my usual wad of cash which was only enough to pay for one. I shot Miranda a look that said something like you owe me, because she did. Because then I walked back to class wondering when I was going to see Bridgette again, and how soon I could get high enough to maybe forget about her. (Though that was unlikely.)