At my question, he glanced up, his mouth falling open in shock that—yes—I was actually going to talk to him.
Kiera tried to open her eyes when I spoke, but there must’ve been a light directly behind my head because she winced and lifted her hand to shade her face. “Who’s talking?”
“Grace,” Ryder answered her without taking his gaze off me. His eyebrows crinkled. “Why do you want it? There’s only one.”
“I just do,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. I had an idea that just might prove to be a perfect use for that one glove. “Do you have it or not?”
He stared at me a moment longer, most likely trying to dissect my ulterior motive behind the question before answering, “Yeah. It’s in my locker. I keep forgetting to give it back to you.”
When he set his notepad beside him and pressed his hands against the floor as if to push to his feet, Kiera shifted on his lap, turning in to face him. “I’m not moving,” she announced.
Ignoring her, I stared at the picture he’d been drawing. It was something architectural, full of lines and angles making a shape. He’d sketched in little trees and a street beside it to show how massive it was in size, but I couldn’t for the life of me decide what the object was supposed to be. Still, something melted, reminding me about the part of him I still liked.
I liked Ryder Yates. There was just no way around it.
“Don’t worry about it now.” I waved my hand in a dismissive manner, unable to take my eyes off his design. “I’ll get it from you later.”
When I turned away, Kiera asked Ryder, “Why do you have her glove?”
Smirking because I managed to make Evil Cheerleader Barbie jealous, I almost bumped face-first into Todd before I realized he was right there. His eyes squinted with curiosity as he glanced down at Ryder then turned back to me with a determined glint in his features, making me even more suspicious Ryder just might’ve been right about him; Todd’s interest in me was contingent upon his friend’s interest. The more attention Ryder and I paid attention to each other, the more Todd wanted to butt in and keep us apart.
“What’s up?” he asked.
I shook my head, hoping the slight narrowing of my eyes got across the whole message that I didn’t want to talk to him and he should mind his own business. “Nothing.” I muttered and sidestepped to move around him.
But the irritating jerk dodged in front of me. “Grace.” Though his tone was apologetic, it did nothing to inspire forgiveness in me. “I’m really sorry about yesterday.”
“What happened yesterday?” Ryder asked from his lounge by our feet.
Both Todd and I ignored him. I made my eyes narrow even more until the slits were as thick as a piece of paper and I could barely see. The corners of my jaws bulged as I clenched my teeth. “Oh, today you’re sorry, huh? Well, that makes things so much better, after Mrs. Gruber has already called my mother and told her everything she saw.”
This time, I bulldozed by him, jostling the side of his arm as I escaped. Since my locker was only about ten feet away, it wasn’t hard for him to follow me as I marched to my cubby and began to work the combination.
With my back to him, I couldn’t see his face, but I heard the humble tenor in his voice as he asked, “Did you get grounded?”
I kept my spine to him until I had all the books I needed for first hour, then I slowly shut the locker and veered around to look up into Todd’s wincing expression.
I wanted to lie and say yes so bad. Make him feel rotten for compromising me. But I never had been able to make a good poker face, so I sighed and grumbled, “No. It was worse. I got a freaking lecture and the third degree.”
Todd’s face relaxed; he even smiled. But I continued to glower, so I think he finally caught on that I wasn’t going to forgive him any time soon. He mumbled another apology before bowing his head and slumping off. As I glared after him, I caught sight of Ryder watching us from his spot on the floor, Kiera still snoozing in his lap. He looked smug, probably happy his best friend and I were on the outs.
Transferring my gaze to him, I felt tempted to stick out my tongue and blow a raspberry, but my scowl seemed to settle him down and wipe the smirk off his expression sufficiently enough.
I spent that school day, and pretty much the rest of that week, hanging out with Laina. She didn’t show a liking or disliking for much of anything, but she was a good listener, so I told her a lot about the nerd herd. I’d finally received an email from Bridget on Wednesday. Adam had indeed visited; I’d tried to call her house the night before, but they’d been on their first date. She hadn’t written much but sounded excited because Adam was coming over and she wanted to clean her room. So she signed off after a few lines.
I’m not sure what had become of Schy. I didn’t hear anything from her.
The situation with my mother never improved.
I was honest when I told Todd I hadn’t been grounded, but I set up my own punishment of sorts. As soon as I would arrive home from school, I buried myself away in my room and didn’t come out except when I had to. Mom had never grounded me before; she probably didn’t even know she could. I was grateful to maintain full use of my computer and cell phone, though I didn’t use much of either since I’d lost all contact with my old friends and I was trying to avoid the new ones.
Little did I know Mom had something much more devastating in mind than a mere, irrelevant grounding.
That Friday afternoon, I found her car parked at the curb, exhaust clouds puffing out the back pipe as I exited the school soon after last period let out. I frowned, surprised to see her, and slowed to a stop. When she caught sight of me and waved through the front windshield, I hurried toward the passenger side door.
“What’re you doing here?” I asked as I opened up and slid into the warm seat.
Mom waited for a car and bus to pass, then pulled out into traffic before she answered. “We’re going to a doctor’s appointment.”
I blinked.
A doctor’s appointment?
Heart dropping into the base of my spine, I sat stiffly and stared out the window at the houses and buildings we passed. My mother had a doctor’s appointment and she wanted me to come along?
This couldn’t be good. Though it had to be fifty degrees warmer inside the car than it was outside, my body froze solid inside my dad’s logging jacket.
What was wrong with my mommy?
I felt nauseated. Physically ill. Every vile word and dirty look I’d sent her in the past few weeks piled on top of my shoulders. I’d been so nasty, so rude, and all this time she’d been sick, maybe dying? My throat went dry and tears prickled my eyes, but I swallowed them back. All that anger I’d felt toward her suddenly seemed so petty and selfish.
I wanted to demand she tell me what was wrong, but I didn’t feel I had the right. If I’d known something was wrong with her, I never would’ve been such a brat. I never—
I closed my eyes tight against the panic and fisted my hands in my lap.
My mother was okay, she was fine, I repeated to myself. She would’ve told me if something was really wrong. She would’ve said something. No, if anything, today was probably just a few tests. They’d come out normal, and everything would be okay again. I was flying off the handle for no reason.
Still, my nerves continued to clench with worry and my hands remained icicles fisted inside my gloves.
We drove all the way to Yancy, a larger town with a medical district that held specialized clinics. As we passed the cancer center, relief left my lungs in a grateful sigh. At least I didn’t have to worry about cancer. But then Mom went and pulled into a parking lot that made me sit up in alarm. We’d come to a gynecologist’s office.
Maybe it was cancer, after all. Breast cancer, possibly. Or uterine cancer? A woman’s health doctor could cover so many problems. And no wonder Mom had never mentioned her ailment to me before. She was probably too embarrassed.
I quietly followed her up the sidewalk and into the warm bu
ilding. Mom motioned me toward a waiting room chair. Numbly, I turned and slumped to the nearest seat, glancing around in the vain hope of filling my attention with something other than fear.
Most of the women waiting for their appointments were pregnant. I figured that wasn’t my mother’s condition, though honestly, she was only forty-two, still perfectly able to have children.
Oh, man. Maybe she was pregnant but there were complications. Or maybe she just wasn’t sure how to tell me she was starting a new family with her new husband. Maybe she thought I’d feel left out.
I frowned. No. That theory didn’t seem to fit. As I watched her chat quietly with the receptionist and then fill out a clipboard full of forms, I recalled every awful word I’d said to her lately and wondered how I was going to make things better between us. Was there still enough time to prove how much I loved her?
After she handed the clipboard back, she came and sat next to me. I had the sudden urge to reach for her hand and hold on for dear life. But I kept my fingers tightly clenched in my lap, praying everything was okay. My mom was okay. Life was okay. I just had to breathe. Relax.
When the nurse opened a door off to the side and poked her head out, I nearly began to cry. But she called another name besides my mother’s. It took my brain a moment to register the name she called was mine.
“Grace?” the nurse repeated, her brow puckering with confusion.
Mom had already pushed to her feet and paused to look expectantly down at me. “Well, come on.”
What?
I’m not sure I spoke aloud or not, but no one answered my question.
I blinked up at Mom, then swiveled my gaze back to the waiting nurse. I waited a beat, expecting someone else named Grace to get up and disappear behind the mysterious door, but when no one did and my mom even reached down to grasp the sleeve of my dad’s logging coat, I finally stumbled upright.
Mom let go of me and led the way to the opened door and the smiling nurse.
Inside, a hallway loomed forward with a dozen closed doors branching off in both directions. The moment felt so surreal, I expected the walls of the hallway to slant off to the side any moment, giving me a distorted view of the world.
But everything remained normal, all too clearly normal. The nurse kindly introduced herself to me as Sheila before she asked me to step to the side and sit in a chair to be weighed and get my blood pressure taken.
I didn’t ask questions, I numbly sat, obeying without thought. Finally, I raised my eyes to my mother. As Sheila strapped the chilly cuff around my arm, reality slapped back into me. Mom had brought me to a gynecologist’s office. Mom, who had just discovered I’d been kissing a boy and thought I had “befriended” three more, had gone behind my back and tricked me into coming to a freaking OB-GYN.
As the sphygmometer cuff increasingly tightened around my bicep, my blood pressure no doubt inched higher and higher. Sheila asked me to stay still and relax. I don’t think I moved a muscle; I was too petrified with shock—devastating, unreal, coma-inducing shock. After frowning at my results, Sheila took my blood pressure one more time before she finally jotted down the results.
Then she led me down the hall that still refused to morph into some wonky Twilight-zone walk of horror and showed me and Mom into a room with an examining table set in the corner, though obviously still the centerpiece of the tiny chamber.
I avoided the table and took the chair probably meant for Mom, leaving her to stand awkwardly by my side, readjusting her purse to cover her waistline.
“So what’re we doing here today?” Sheila asked as she followed us into the room, gently closing the door behind her. After she flipped open a file, she slipped a pen from her pocket and lifted her face with a smile.
The smile slipped a little as she looked at me. I could only guess how awful I looked, my face probably some pasty shade of gray, my shoulders drawn in and hands tightly gripped in my lap. The nurse glanced questioningly at my mother.
Mom pursed her lips tight before saying, “I want to get her checked for every STD out there and make sure she’s not pregnant.”
A squeak of sound left my mouth. But honestly, I could not believe my mother had just said that aloud…to a complete stranger.
It’s hard to describe the feelings that roared through me. I think I’ve blocked most of the experience. I remember lifting my hands to cover my face, trying to shove the squeak back inside my mouth, but I’d already let it out and it gained Sheila’s attention. Her eyes went sympathetic.
She sat in the doctor’s rolling stool in front of me and softly asked, “Have you become sexually active, Grace?”
My face flamed so hot, probably going from stark white to violent red in a nanosecond.
“No,” I gasped, utterly appalled anyone would even dare to ask me such a thing. My lips trembled.
She must’ve sensed I was on the edge of a breakdown because she glanced at my mother once before turning back to me. “Would you be more comfortable if your mother stayed in the waiting room?”
Mom huffed, looking like she wanted to argue. I had the urge to say I’d be more comfortable if I stayed in the waiting room, or better yet if I went home, far, far away from any of this. But she was being so nice I just couldn’t get snarky. So I shook my head. I really didn’t care what my mother did at this point. Nothing, absolutely nothing, would make me feel better.
Sheila nodded. She asked me a few questions, jotting down my answers. Then she rose, offered me an encouraging smile, and said the doctor would be with me shortly.
Shortly took another fifteen minutes. In that time, the patient room echoed with an eerie silence as both Mom and I refused to say anything to each other. Frankly, I couldn’t even look at her. I mean, honestly, how could she do this do me? Why? Without even talking about it with me first.
I didn’t even know who she had become.
Never having felt so alone and forsaken in my entire life, I dabbed at the tears swimming in my eyes. I was on the verge of that breakdown I kept pushing deeper inside me when the door breezed open and a tall, stately looking gentleman strolled in, eyeing my folder as he said my name. Then he lifted his face and smiled. There was no censure in his eyes, no “you’re way too young to be having sexual relations, young lady” grimace on his face at all. That was almost more traumatic to deal with than if he’d started off with a disapproving lecture.
Lowering himself onto the rolling stool, he sat at eye level with me.
I don’t remember a lot of the conversation we had, but I recall how professional he remained, though clearly he had to deal through the drama brewing between my mother and me.
At one point, he came right out and said, “Grace, you’re clearly upset. I won’t do an exam while you’re in this state.”
For a moment, relief flooded me. I’ve seen movies and TV shows about women in these offices, dressed out in capes with sheets covering their waists and their knees lifted up and spread apart. I so did not want to go down that horrifying road.
Mom, however, wasn’t so reassured. She stepped forward, clearly upset. “But, what if she’s—”
The doctor lifted his hand. “Ma’am, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but my patient right now is Grace, and I will only do what is best for Grace.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Here was a complete stranger, defending me against my own mother. Something was seriously wrong with this picture. When had my mom turned from my protector, my provider, the one person I went to when I was in trouble, to the enemy?
“I’ll do it,” I blurted out.
Both the doctor and Mom paused to gape at me.
I nodded, bolstering my courage. “I want to take the exam. I want to prove to her I’m still a virgin. Can I do that?”
The doctor had to have seen the determination and desperation in my gaze because after a moment of holding eye contact, he slowly nodded. “If that’s what you want, we can do an exam.”
So I took my first exam. The movie and television
s shows make it all so funny.
It wasn’t.
Didn’t matter how kind the doctor was, how professional and clinical he remained, it was still the most humiliating moment of my life. I felt invaded and exposed, and I couldn’t even reach out to clasp Mom’s hand for emotional support. I suffered through it alone.
The doctor—I still can’t remember his name—talked in a calm voice the entire time, explaining the procedure, which still didn’t stop me from jumping like a scalded cat when he first touched me there.
I stared at the little dots on the ceiling tiles and tried to pay attention to what he said. I guess he had to test for something called HPV. Whatever it was, it sounded downright nasty, and the younger a girl was when she started having sex, the more likely she was to catch it.
Not that I had to worry.
Afterward, when the doctor confirmed my virginity plus negative results on the pregnancy test, I was too humiliated to even be smug. I changed back into my clothes with so much speed I’m surprised I managed to put everything back on in the correct order.
Back in the waiting room, I bypassed the checkout station where my mom paused to speak to the receptionist and I pushed out the front door, walking swiftly with my head down. The car was locked, so I was forced to stand and stew in the miserable snow until Mom approached and remotely unlocked the doors.
Unable to lift my face in fear I might actually make eye contact with someone, I yanked open the door, slammed it, and pulled on my seatbelt, all before Mom had even opened her door.
She slowly slid inside, sat beside me, and shut her door.
The silence in the car was deafening. She started the engine without a word, without an apology for assuming I’d turned into some kind of hooker, without even a “whew, that was a close call.”
When she still hadn’t spoken as she pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road, I couldn’t take it any longer.
“Where to now?” I snarled. “The hospital to take a drug test? An AA meeting to stop me from becoming a drunk?”
My mother harrumphed and paused at a red light. “There’s no need to be nasty, Grace.”