P
PenJay
Guest
Chapter One
I take the long way to my house after hanging out at my best friend, Kira's, house. I take the long way, because I've had a lot on my mind lately and I want time to think to myself before I get home and have to chat it up with my father.
I stare down at my favorite Nike sneakers with the extremely bright highlighter-yellow shoelaces. I've had these shoes for two years, and they still fit me, though they are getting a little shabby: the white parts not so white, but the other color parts of fine aside from a scuff mark on the toe of my right foot, but that should come right off the plastic-like material those parts are made from.
I stop walking and shake my head. I shouldn't be thinking about my shoes, I should be thinking about what Jay had said to me just yesterday, as we walked down the sidewalk in his development.
“Are you ready, Lily?” he asked me, taking my hand and gazing into my eyes.
I knew what he was talking about, it was something that we had gotten pretty close to doing, but then the both of us would decided that it was time that I went home.
“I'm not sure,” I answered, faintly blushing—only faintly because we had talked about this other times before. “I'll have to think about it.”
“You can think about it for as long as you'd like,” he told me sincerely, his bright blue eyes serious and excited.
I nodded, but I knew he would start to get impatient soon.
I sigh and glance down at my wrist, adorned with the thin silver chain Jay gave me. I like the way the streetlights glint off of it when I move my wrist around, almost making it seem to sparkle.
I'm pretty sure that I love Jay, but I can't really be sure. I haven't been with enough guys to be able to tell a difference between immense liking and love, and I want to sleep with someone that I love. But then there's the biggest worry of all that I have: pregnancy. School has done the trick, always saying that birth control and condoms aren't foolproof, and where the heck am I gonna get birth control from anyway? I've heard about girls saying that they can just walk into a clinic and they give it out like candy, but it seems crazy, and to tell you the truth, I'd be to mortified to do it. But the crux is that I'm sixteen years old, and I do not wanna get pregnant.
But there is so much pressure. It seems as if everyone is doing it, and about one tenth of the girls in my school are already pregnant, and I do not want to be like them.
After I realize that I have been standing in the same spot for about a minute, I start walking.
As I walk down the side walk, going under the streetlights, then disappearing in the shadows as I pass them, I decide that I don't want to try it any time soon, and if Jay has a problem with that, then he can go do himself. I nod to myself, proud with my sensible thinking.
__
When I get back to my house, I quickly pull my key out of my back pocket in my jeans, and open the door.
The lights are all out aside from the dim, yellowy light coming from down the hall, probably from in the living room.
“Lil?” my dad calls from that direction, his voice rough.
“Um, yeah?” I answer, and walk down the hall.
“You are late, little missy,” he tells me, his voice not only sounding rough, but a little off.
I warily peek into the room, through the threshold, and sure enough, just as his voice led me to believe, he's sipping on a brewski as if his life depends on it.
I groan, and hurry over to him. “You know you're not supposed to drink without anyone around!” I chastise. “How many have you had so far?”
“Who are you to tell me what I'm not s'pose to do, woman?” he hisses, then burbs.
I frown at him in disgust, but a part of me is glad that he can hold his beer and not hurl. But I can tell that he's had quite a few and is past buzzing right now.
“I'm gonna call Mr. Andrews.” I start to back away, moving slowly, my eyes catching every movement from my dad as he sits in the large leather recliner in the corner of the room.
“I don't need any Andrews, Lilian,” he complains, rising.
I freeze because he called me Lilian, my mother's name. My name is Lilith. I swallow, and reach my hand into my hoodie pocket and withdraw my cell phone, hoping that I have Mr. Andrews's number in my contacts because I really need Mr. Andrews, our helpful neighbor and my dad's friend, over now, because when my dad drinks too much he is not the funny drunk who's all mellow and cracking jokes, he's not the aggressive drunk who wants to attack people, but he's the delusional drunk who thinks that I am my mother right now when my mother is six feet under in Blackwood Cemetery.
Crap. I don't have Mr. Andrews's number. I try to think, but my father is stumbling his way over to me, so I move backwards, wishing that our phone book wasn't in the living room, on the table right beside my father's chair, and wishing that Mr. Andrews's number wasn't unlisted in the county phone book.
“Dad, why don't you take a little n
I take the long way to my house after hanging out at my best friend, Kira's, house. I take the long way, because I've had a lot on my mind lately and I want time to think to myself before I get home and have to chat it up with my father.
I stare down at my favorite Nike sneakers with the extremely bright highlighter-yellow shoelaces. I've had these shoes for two years, and they still fit me, though they are getting a little shabby: the white parts not so white, but the other color parts of fine aside from a scuff mark on the toe of my right foot, but that should come right off the plastic-like material those parts are made from.
I stop walking and shake my head. I shouldn't be thinking about my shoes, I should be thinking about what Jay had said to me just yesterday, as we walked down the sidewalk in his development.
“Are you ready, Lily?” he asked me, taking my hand and gazing into my eyes.
I knew what he was talking about, it was something that we had gotten pretty close to doing, but then the both of us would decided that it was time that I went home.
“I'm not sure,” I answered, faintly blushing—only faintly because we had talked about this other times before. “I'll have to think about it.”
“You can think about it for as long as you'd like,” he told me sincerely, his bright blue eyes serious and excited.
I nodded, but I knew he would start to get impatient soon.
I sigh and glance down at my wrist, adorned with the thin silver chain Jay gave me. I like the way the streetlights glint off of it when I move my wrist around, almost making it seem to sparkle.
I'm pretty sure that I love Jay, but I can't really be sure. I haven't been with enough guys to be able to tell a difference between immense liking and love, and I want to sleep with someone that I love. But then there's the biggest worry of all that I have: pregnancy. School has done the trick, always saying that birth control and condoms aren't foolproof, and where the heck am I gonna get birth control from anyway? I've heard about girls saying that they can just walk into a clinic and they give it out like candy, but it seems crazy, and to tell you the truth, I'd be to mortified to do it. But the crux is that I'm sixteen years old, and I do not wanna get pregnant.
But there is so much pressure. It seems as if everyone is doing it, and about one tenth of the girls in my school are already pregnant, and I do not want to be like them.
After I realize that I have been standing in the same spot for about a minute, I start walking.
As I walk down the side walk, going under the streetlights, then disappearing in the shadows as I pass them, I decide that I don't want to try it any time soon, and if Jay has a problem with that, then he can go do himself. I nod to myself, proud with my sensible thinking.
__
When I get back to my house, I quickly pull my key out of my back pocket in my jeans, and open the door.
The lights are all out aside from the dim, yellowy light coming from down the hall, probably from in the living room.
“Lil?” my dad calls from that direction, his voice rough.
“Um, yeah?” I answer, and walk down the hall.
“You are late, little missy,” he tells me, his voice not only sounding rough, but a little off.
I warily peek into the room, through the threshold, and sure enough, just as his voice led me to believe, he's sipping on a brewski as if his life depends on it.
I groan, and hurry over to him. “You know you're not supposed to drink without anyone around!” I chastise. “How many have you had so far?”
“Who are you to tell me what I'm not s'pose to do, woman?” he hisses, then burbs.
I frown at him in disgust, but a part of me is glad that he can hold his beer and not hurl. But I can tell that he's had quite a few and is past buzzing right now.
“I'm gonna call Mr. Andrews.” I start to back away, moving slowly, my eyes catching every movement from my dad as he sits in the large leather recliner in the corner of the room.
“I don't need any Andrews, Lilian,” he complains, rising.
I freeze because he called me Lilian, my mother's name. My name is Lilith. I swallow, and reach my hand into my hoodie pocket and withdraw my cell phone, hoping that I have Mr. Andrews's number in my contacts because I really need Mr. Andrews, our helpful neighbor and my dad's friend, over now, because when my dad drinks too much he is not the funny drunk who's all mellow and cracking jokes, he's not the aggressive drunk who wants to attack people, but he's the delusional drunk who thinks that I am my mother right now when my mother is six feet under in Blackwood Cemetery.
Crap. I don't have Mr. Andrews's number. I try to think, but my father is stumbling his way over to me, so I move backwards, wishing that our phone book wasn't in the living room, on the table right beside my father's chair, and wishing that Mr. Andrews's number wasn't unlisted in the county phone book.
“Dad, why don't you take a little n