“I mean, they aren’t criminals, they aren’t drug addicts. They’re judgmental and rude, but that’s not grounds for banishing their grandchild from knowing them.”
“You’re pretty forgiving,” I say, my voice steeped in sarcasm.
“It’s not for me, it’s for my baby.”
“Stop it!” I snap.
I don’t know why I snapped at him, hormones probably. All this talk about what he wants for the baby, but that clashes with what I want for me.
Steel puts his hand on my belly, and all the tension vanishes from me.
“I’ve never felt so lucky in my life,” he says, capturing my eyes in his. “At first I was freaked. But now I think that you carrying my child is the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s also the most daunting, and I don’t want to fuck it up.”
“You really think it’s the best thing?”
“I know it is.”
I look away, breaking our eye contact. What he says makes sense. Life isn’t just about the two of us anymore. I have to think about the baby’s needs.
“Maybe.”
He kisses my cheek, and says, “Plus, we’re going to want the free babysitting, for all the times I want to take you back to the Motel 6 and fuck you senseless.”
Laughing, I say, “I’ll try calling my mom and see how she is.”
The minute the words leave my lips, my laughing stops and my chest fills with butterflies.
“Should I phone now?”
“No reason not to.”
The butterflies triple. I know. I fish out my phone and turn off the airplane mode. It’s the first time I’ve taken it off airplane mode since the day I arrived at the carnival. There wasn’t a need to call anyone there, we all lived and worked together. The only thing I used my phone for was playing Candy Crush.
It beeps and chimes and vibrates like crazy. The number eighty-two shows in the bubble on the messages symbol. Somehow I manage to pretend I didn’t see it, and scroll through my contacts. My thumb stops on Courtney, and I hit dial.
“Emily,” she shouts, her voice bursts out the earpiece on my phone.
“Hey, how are you?”
“How am I? How are you, Courtney?”
“I’m good. Really good.”
“And Steel?”
“Yeah, he’s great too.” I look at Steel and shrug.
“You’re still together?”
“Absolutely.”
“Where are you?”
“Is this twenty questions?”
“Are you kidding me, you took off in the night months ago, and you don’t think I have some questions?”
“Fine, but I need to ask some first, then I’ll be able to tell you what’s going on.”
“What’s going on?”
“I said I’d tell you after.”
“What do you want to know? How berzerk your parents went after you left?”
“Have they calmed down?”
“I don’t know. They stopped talking to a lot of people. All the gossip was about you and they got tired of listening to it.”
That’s hardly surprising.
“Because they disagreed with it?”
“No idea. I saw your brothers at this year’s carnival and asked how your parents were doing. They said your parents are heartbroken.”
“That could mean a lot of things. Like they’re heartbroken because they miss their daughter, or because their daughter ruined their reputations.”
“I wish I could tell you. Why call now anyway? Everything okay?”
“Yeah, um, if I tell you you have to promise not to tell anyone.”
“Of course. I’m no gossip, you know I hate that about this town as much as you.”
“I’m pregnant.”
Courtney gasps. “No,” she says.
“Yes, and Steel and I got married.”
“Holy crap, I can’t believe all this.”
“Believe it, it’s true. We’re thinking about moving back to the area, for the sake of the baby, but I’m trying to get a sense of how my parents would react.”
“I’m sure they’re rather have you here than somewhere else. Especially if you have a baby.”
“That’s me. What about Steel? Because he’s never leaving me, and if they can’t accept that, then there’s no point in me moving back.”
“What do you want, me to ask around or anything?”
I sigh. “No, I’ll phone.”
Into the Void (Steel)
We left Memphis a couple days ago. For the past two nights, we’ve been staying at a cheap motel in the Cherokee National Forest. It’s real pretty here, and I’ve taken Emily hiking.
She still hasn’t phoned her parents.