The Education of Sebastian & the Education of Caroline(306)
To try and make herself feel better, she’d gone from party to party, getting high, getting drunk, sleeping with guys, including several more times with Jack. She’d gotten pregnant at the exact same time that Caroline Wilson came back into Seb’s life.
In Brenda’s fucked up mind, that meant that Caroline was her competition, so she’d gone out of her way to get rid of her.
“I know Seb won’t … be interested in me now,” she cried. “But I just hoped … I thought if he slept with me one time…”
“You’d tell him the kid was his. So Caroline being around messed up your plan to get Seb to sleep with you. That is fuckin’ low, Brenda.”
“I know, but I was desperate,” she gasped out between sniffing and hiccupping.
Chicks don’t cry as pretty in real life as in the movies.
“What do you think is going to happen between you if you do see Seb again?”
She looked down.
“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. But it would be nice to have the chance to see … if there’s anything still between us. We were … we were good together.”
“He moved on,” I said, gently.
She sighed.
“Yeah, I get that. Although I still don’t understand what was so great about her.”
I couldn’t face getting into that conversation again.
“Look, I’ll tell him you need to talk to him, but after that it’s up to him.”
“Thanks, Ches. I owe you.”
“No, Brenda. You owe, Seb. Big time.”
Boy, I really wasn’t looking forward to telling Seb about any of this. I waited till we were in the van on the way home from a late night stealth mission. I’d parked on the beach and left the van’s lights on, so we’d have something to aim for, as we caught wave after wave in the oily black ocean.
It had been good, almost like old times, but Seb knew me well enough that he could sense the tension in my body.
“You look like you’ve got a stick up your ass, so why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you,” he said, eyeing me steadily.
“Uh yeah, so … I saw Brenda today.”
“Again?”
“Yeah, she still wants to talk to you.”
“Un-fuckin’-believable.” He paused. “You told her no, right?”
“Well…
He rolled his eyes. “Since when did you get to be on her cheer team? You hated the bitch even before I did.”
“I just think you should hear what she’s got to say. She knows she screwed up and she knows you’re not going to take her back.”
“Then why bother?”
“Just talk to her, man. It’s important.”
“Ah fuck it. Okay, tell her to meet me at the surf shack after work. No, wait. I don’t want her knowing where I work. Tell her the park. She can have five minutes.”
He looked pissed about it, but at least he agreed.
It was two days later that he had his talk with Brenda. He came home looking upset.
“So, how’d it go?”
He shook his head.
“Fuck, I can’t believe it, man. She’s fuckin’ pregnant.”
“Yeah, I know. It was kind of obvious when I saw her up close.”
“She told her parents yesterday. They’re freaking out. She said they asked her what I’m going to do about it.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, she hadn’t even told them we’d broken up, even though it was like five months ago.”
“But she’s put them straight now?”
He shook his head, looking irritated.
“Not exactly. She wouldn’t tell them who the father is. I’m not even sure she knows. She thinks it’s Jack Sullivan, but she’s not sure.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, but because she’s not saying, her parents won’t believe that it’s not me. She had to stop them going over to see my old man.”
He shook his head in disbelief.
“That’s why she’s been trying to talk to me.”
“What are you going to do?”
He gave me a look.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do? It’s not my kid. If it was … if it was mine, I’d look after them, or something. No kid should come into the world unwanted. I should fuckin’ know. But I’m not gonna fall on my sword for her either. She fucked up when she told my mom about Caro. I can’t forgive her for that.”
“I can’t believe you never slept with Brenda. I always thought you guys were doin’ it like bunnies.”
He shrugged. “We were going to. It was supposed to be this big deal.” He side-eyed me. “Because we were both virgins. We did some other stuff, but we never fucked.”