Cheers from everyone but me, I think. I'm feeling a little less psyched, though, what with the whole huge-dirty-secret thing. Mark is over the other side of the room, clapping and looking like he doesn't have a miserable bone in his body. What pregnant girlfriend?
“So... I figure we'll keep Mark on as worship leader for a while, 'til we train some others - anyone interested?”
A burst of sniggering comes from Jack and his buddies.
“Interested in being worship leader, or in Mark?” Jack yells.
Ben frowns.
“I don't get it,” he says, “but it's pretty obvious that's meant rudely, boys - and it's not appropriate!”
“Is a gay worship leader appropriate?” Jack says, smirking.
I look over at Mark. I've never seen someone actually go white before. What the hell?
Ben's still frowning.
“That's one hell of an accusation, Jack, and this isn't the time or place to be making it. Leave, please.”
“Me, leave? He's the lying poofter, meeting his gay buddies for coffee and stuff!”
“OUT!” Ben yells, looking furious, and Jack snarls and leaves.
Ben sighs.
“I'm sorry, guys, this is going to have to be dealt with, now - Cooper, play the movie, please?”
He leaves the room, and Cooper starts the movie. No one pays much attention to it, though. Too busy whispering and staring and wondering.
****
“What on earth was Jack going on about?”
Mark shrugs.
“He's an idiot,” he says.
“Well, duh! But - something he said really upset you, didn't it? Was it the coffee thing?”
Mark sighs.
“Mark?”
“The gay men's club - it's meant for uni students, but anyone can come to the social meetings. They're at the cafe in town.”
“You've been going to it? But - wait, you didn't tell me about this?”
“I was afraid you'd freak.”
“What? Why?”
He shrugs and sighs again.
“So you went to a gay men's group a couple times - that hardly makes compelling evidence, does it?”
He stays silent.
I sigh. Stuff it. I'm sick of playing 20 questions.
“If you're not gonna talk, I'm going home.” I say.
“I am gay.”
“What? How - how do you know that all of a sudden?”
“It's not sudden.”
“And you've been sleeping with me? How does that make you gay?”
“It - I like sleeping with you.”
“But you're sure you're gay. Do you realise how... how stupid that sounds?”
“I know, but... it's never felt quite right, you know?”
“No, I don't know! You couldn't've told me it 'wasn't right'? And what the? You like it but it's not right?”
“I was going to...”
“Oh, fucking great! Thanks!”
I storm off and run home. Mum looks up as I run through the lounge, but I can't talk to her right now. I shut my bedroom door, lie down on my bed, and shake.
“Maisy?”
“Not now, Mum.”
“You OK?”
“Not now, k?”
“OK, sweetie. I'll be out in the lounge.”
I can't cry. Can't think. I just lie on the bed, shaking. It feels like hours, but eventually I'm asleep and dreaming about someone stalking me through an empty house, then I'm awake and it all crashes down on me again.
****
“Hey, Maisy...” a too-sweet voice says.
I turn around. Lisa is standing behind me, smirking slightly. And a few of her friends are gathered nearby oh-so-casually. Oh, this is gonna be fun, isn't it? An old-fashioned lynching, with verbal bitch-slaps instead of pitchforks.
“Hey, Lisa, what's up?”
“I heard Mark dumped you,” she says, ignoring the question, “Poor Maisie, can't keep a man, even turned him gay... what on earth did you do to the poor boy?”
Bitch.
I shrug, pretending casualness.
“Lisa, darl, it could be worse... at least my boyfriend didn't tell everyone that my face looks like a baboon's arse while I'm having sex, eh? Poor thing...”
Some of her friends snicker, but Kelsey's loyal if kinda dumb.
“Fuck off, you stupid bitch!” Kelsey yells, and slaps me straight across the cheek.
Crap, that hurt.
“Oh noz, a slut-slap!” I mock, even though my cheek's stinging like crazy and has got to be turning bright red.
She actually snarls this time, and aims a punch at me - but Lisa's seen a teacher approaching and pulls her back, telling her to cool it. Not that she needed to bother - the teacher walks straight past without showing the slightest bit of interest. The confrontation's lost its steam, though, and Lisa's gang doesn't seem too interested in continuing, now that they won't look like they're backing down. God, they're pathetic.
Lisa and her gang walk away, like they've just decided they've got somewhere else to be. I sit down against the wall and shake for a bit. Yeah, I've got the tough girl act down pat, except for actually being tough. I'm like a steel-coated marshmallow.
In case you haven't worked it out by now, I'm a social pariah. Everywhere I go people whisper and giggle and smirk and crap. Well, yay, I'm the centre of attention. Cos I always wanted that outta life.
Mark's been absent from school for a week - whether he's sick or uber-grounded I don't know, and I'm not sure I really care. I'm still really, really pissed at the bastard. Not because he's decided he's gay. Now that I've had time to cool down, I can see that he gave me fair warning, it's not like I didn't know the deal. His timing sucks monkey balls, but the real issue is that he deliberately, carefully lied to me. He went to that stupid club every week and never once told me what he was doing. Or where he met that guy who came up to talk to him, for that matter. What the hell did he think I was going to do? Geez, he could've warned me.
So now I'm preggers, the baby's daddy is gay, and I'm a laughing-stock even before people find out about the baby. Just dandy. Lucky I didn't like any of the fuckers anyway.
The bell rings. Oh joys. My day's extra-perfect with a dose of History and smelly Mr Smith to top it off.
“Stupid bitch!” hisses a friend of Lisa's as she walks into the same class. Darn, if my vocab was that limited, I think I'd lose the will to live.
****
Finally the day's over and I get to go home and hide. I need it. Just the looks and the sneers and the laughter wherever I go - it's worn me down and I feel like shit on a BBQ. The tough chick act probably makes it worse, but I refuse to let them feel like they've won. Ever.
I walk home, let myself in, and head straight for my bedroom. I don't even stop for chocolate - I just want to pretend the world doesn't exist, for a few hours. I climb into bed and pull the covers over my head.
****
“Hi, love!”
Mum wakes me from the suffocated doze, and I realise I'm feeling even more crap than I was before. There's a comfort - it can always get crapper. I snort to myself, and Mum frowns.
“You feeling alright, honey?”
Oh, God. She's one of the few people in this hellhole who doesn't know all my secrets.
“Nope.”
She sits down on the bed, looking worried.
“Feeling sick?”
“Nope. Mark was outed yesterday.”
“He - what?”
“Came out. The involuntary kind. Gay.”
“OH!”
She goes quiet, but I can see cogs turning in her head.
“Are you worried about the spiritual side of things?”
Hoooo boy. Only 6 months behind the ball. How the heck do I tell her this stuff, though? It's like a triple whammy of 'no, I didn't listen to a single piece of advice you gave me' with a side of 'and I lied my arse off'. Oh well - when all else fails, just open your mouth and start talking.
“M
ark's gay and Mark's the father of this baby and he didn't tell me that he was still having doubts - see? So I only found out when everyone else did and I feel like an idiot, and I'm pregnant, and he doesn't even care...”
Uncried tears start glugging up my nose, so I shut up. I look up at Mum, and she's just staring at me as if I'd said that I'm the Pope and had she considered converting to the real church? I sit up and grab a tissue from the box on the bedside table, and blow my nose thoroughly. Gives me something to do besides see the look of confusion and betrayal that must be on her face.
“Fuck,” she says.
I think that's the first time I've heard my mum swear in, like, a decade.
“Yeah, fuck,” I agree, and before I know it I'm laughing. This whole situation's just ridiculous.
Mum's mouth quirks like she's tempted to join in, but she opens her arms wide and invites me in for a hug instead. I hold on tight, put my head on her shoulder and laugh and cry until I'm all out of tears.
Chapter 17: The Other Kind of Outed
Mum's earned my undying gratitude by not yelling or saying anything like “I told you so”. She's just set up doctor's appointments, blood tests, hospital appointments, and kept her mouth shut. I love her for it. But I still feel bad for doing this to her. I almost wish she would blow me up, tell me I'm useless and stupid and evil, because then maybe I'd stop telling myself that stuff, over and over again. I can't get over how dumb I've been, how much I've stuffed everything up. My whole life, maybe.
Finally we get to 12 weeks, and like magic the pregnancy sickness disappears. I drink my weight in water, go to the hospital, and get an ultrasound.
“There's the head, see?” says the radiologist, turning the computer monitor around, “and that's a foot, moving...”
I can make out a lump that could be a head, but the foot's just a moving blob that I'll take his word on. Mum squeezes my hand. Her eyes are full of tears and she's smiling.
“That's my grand-daughter!” she says breathlessly.
“You can tell it's a girl?” I ask, craning my neck to see the screen again.
She laughs.
“Nah, can't tell this soon, love - but it's got to be a girl, doesn't it? Then we can be like the Gilmore Girls!”
I snort. Sometimes my mother really is lame.
She grins, looking completely unrepentant, and looks back at the monitor.
****
“So....” she says later, at home.
This sounds like it's gonna be one of those conversations.
“We're going to have to tell people soon,” she says.
Yep. One of those.
“Uh huh,” I say.
“I'm thinking we should just tell the school, then tell the church and ask for prayer - is that OK?”
Oh God, I'm going to be the laughing-stock of the school and the fallen woman of the church. This is gonna SUCK.
“Um, yeah, I guess so,” I say, and bite my lip. I don't want to cry. I'm not that pathetic. I got myself into this mess, and feeling sorry for myself is pretty damn stupid.
Mum sighs and gets up to wrap her arms round my shoulders.
“I remember what it's like,” she says softly. “It's changed, but not much - it'll be tough, I'm sorry, honey. But I'll be here for you, OK? You're brave and you're smart, you can do this!”
I sigh and nod. Yeah, I can do this. I'm tough. I'll go to my room and have another cry session, and then I'll be tough.
****
The kids at school are surprisingly... well, not kind, really. Quiet. The boys act half-scared of me, like they might catch some weird baby-germs from me, and the girls just look. Some sneer, most just seem freaked by the whole thing. Guess it's like having your worst nightmare paraded in front of you. I walk through each day like a zombie, not talking to anyone, no one making an effort to talk to me. None of the teachers bug me about homework or lack of participation. It's like everyone's decided to just leave me the hell alone, and I'm not sure whether I'm grateful or don't give a rats.
“Maisy?”
I turn around. Oh no, it's Mr Hunt. The school counsellor and the geekiest teacher I've ever met. This can only be painful.
The interview is more nasty, painful and sickly-sweet than I'd imagined, full of “so how do you feel about that?” and “we want you to know we're here for you!”. Eurgh. It might not sound so bad, but Mr Hunt is one of the creepiest adults I've ever met, and I'd trust him about as far as I could kick him. And the mere idea of having him 'there for me' brings me out in a rash.
I walk home slowly and follow my new routine - lie down in bed and feel like crap until dinner. But while I'm lying there, a thought occurs to me. Mark was so damn sure that he's gay. Yet he's been happily having sex with me. The only way he could be that sure is if he's met someone, someone male - and slept with him. Crap, crap and a huge pile of it.
At dinner, I figure I might as well talk to Mum about it. She's been really, really good about the whole thing so far.
“Mum, those STI tests I had - did those cover everything?”
She looks up from her dinner and frowns.
“All the major ones, hon - why? Are you having problems? Pregnancy does some weird stuff down there, you know.”
“And they were all negative, right?”
She nods, still frowning.
“What's wrong?”
“I just worked out I'm not the only one Mark's been sleeping with.”
“WHAT?”
“It's alright, we weren't... committed, or anything, I guess.”
“Oh,” she says, and it's pretty obvious to me that she's carefully not saying a few things, like 'are you fucking mad?' and 'I thought I brought you up better'.
She sighs, gets up, and sits next to me to give me a hug. I don't know why, but a few tears start leaking out, enough to give me a bad case of the sniffles.
****
Church is bad. No one points and whispers like at school, most people are kind to my face but darn it, I can almost hear the judgment coming down in waves as soon as my back is turned. They kind of avoid me where they can get away with it, I think. Georgie's mum, God bless her, is a breath of smelly air. She practically snarls whenever I come near her. If she wore skirts, she sure as hell wouldn't let them touch me.
“I can't talk to you,” Georgie says at youth group, looking at her feet, “Mum says you're a bad influence, I'm not allowed...”
“Your mum's always said I'm a bad influence!”
“Yeah,” she says, still not meeting my eyes, “but this is serious, Maisy, this is - big, you know?”
“What does she think I'm going to do, get you preggers too?”
She turns and walks away. End of convo, I guess. Stupid mummy's girl.
The other kids at youth group are almost as bad. I get the distinct impression that I'm being held up as a “this is what happens if you don't do exactly as you're told” example at home. Fan-bloody-tastic. I feel like getting me one of those posters that says, “Maybe the purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others”. Everyone's polite, but they avoid me like the plague, as though they think they'll catch pregnancy off me. Actually, a lot of these kids go to Christian schools - maybe they do think that's how people get preggers. Did I mention they're kinda cotton-wooled? But anyway, youth group's gone from kinda boring but something social to an opportunity for feeling like a social pariah. Not so much fun.
Ben tells us that the youth services once a month have been called off. He's looking really uncomfortable, and I'm guessing it's because the worship leader turned out to be Satan incarnate and another of the team is Slut-Girl. Apparently they don't have the blessing of the council like they needed, and assumed they'd get. Uh huh - score one for Satan and Slut-Girl.
So I come home and tell Mum that I don't want to go again for a while, then go to my room and cry. This whole thing sucks. I don't feel like I belong anywhere any more, no one wants me around in case I turn them evil.
Yeah, it has o
ccurred to me that people might be avoiding me because I'm a complete and utter miserable mess, not because I'm pregnant. So I'm as much fun as a wet paper bag over the head! You'd think someone'd try to cheer me up.
Chapter 18: Connection
I haven't talked to Mark for ages - not properly. He's back at school after a couple of weeks, and seems to be dealing OK with the guys. At least no one's bashing him up or abusing him in the corridors. They're boneheads, but apparently they have some sensitivity - or the teachers have had a word to them all. I dunno. No-one's talking to me about the whole mess, except Mr Hunt, and I'd really rather he didn't.
Mark and I exchange hellos, chat about how I'm feeling, how his father went ballistic as expected... and that's it, really. Superficial. He cares, I know, but I've got too much else to worry about to care what's going on with him, and I wonder if he's feeling the same. And then there's this big wall between us, of love and anger and secrets and - am I gonna sound like a complete drama queen if I say, betrayal? I want everything back to normal, and I know that's never going to happen, and I don't want to deal with that either. And maybe Mark feels like his crap is all my fault, too, although I fail to see how.
I know I need to get out of this funk. I'm trying, really I am. But the harder I try to snap out of it, the worse it gets. I dunno, maybe this is just everything I'm trying to deal with weighing me down. Maybe I can't just snap out of it. Maybe I have to deal with each and every thing that's bothering me. But I don't know how to do that. I don't even know where to start. The clueless would probably say I should talk to Mr Hunt about this stuff, get him to help... but no bloody way. There's no way he's going to be helping me through this. A dead fish would be more useful.
So, counsellor - out. I don't think Mum's going to be much help with this stuff, she's more in the 'buck up and get happy' camp. So that leaves me with one option - the church.
Mrs Jansen is the minister's wife. Not too sweet, not judgmental, kinda quiet but not shy. People do seem to go to her when they need help. She's still talking to me, too. So - I figure she's worth a shot. She'll already know the basics of my dirty little not-so-secrets, and she might be willing to at least try to sort me out.
I can't cope with trying to talk over the phone, so I grab her after church on Sunday and ask for an appointment sometime. She looks at me so kindly that I almost burst into tears on the spot - I swear, I really have gotten that pathetic. And then she says of course, name a day, come after school and we'll have tea and cake and a good natter, OK? I bite my lip to stop the waterworks going again, then say thanks and flee to the toilets. Stupid niceness destroying my defenses.