Just Like Heaven Read online

  “I’ll go get him settled again,” Arthur offered, before turning and touching his mother’s arm gently.

  “It’s just a tattoo Mom; I’m not getting married or anything. Stop worrying so much, please.”

  His mother looked in to his face and saw that her young boy had become a man right before her eyes, and it both scared and saddened her. She knew all too well the trappings of young love and hoped against hope that nothing would happen to stop her son from fulfilling his potential at Duke as so much already stood in his way.

  ####

  “How have you been feeling?” Doctor Shapiro asked, his old eyes gazing at Demi kindly, as he shone a light down in to her ears.

  “Fine,” Demi shrugged. “I was sick a couple of times over the last few weeks, but apart from that I’m fine.”

  “Uh huh,” the doctor nodded as he continued with his examination. He listened to Demi’s heart, checked her temperature and regarded her with a slightly concerned look.

  “Do you mind if I check your tummy?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Demi replied casually.

  She went and lay on the bed made up in the room, and after calling a nurse in, Doctor Shapiro began to feel her stomach. It didn’t hurt and Demi wondered what the point of it was.

  “Demi, when was your last period?” he asked directly once she’d settled herself again on the chair opposite his desk.

  “Oh,” Demi felt herself blushing. “I’m not sure…a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Would you mind doing a urine test for me?” the doctor asked.

  “Umm, yeah, okay,” she answered hesitantly. “Is everything alright?”

  “Everything is fine. It’s just to check you aren’t pregnant.” The doctor explained.

  “Oh!” Demi gasped and then turned even redder at the thought that her family doctor, whom she’d been visiting since she was in diapers, was now aware that she was sexually active. It was almost as humiliating as her Dad finding out.

  Taking the small plastic tube, Demi dutifully went and did a sample before being told to sit in the waiting area until they called her in again in a few minutes.

  “Why do you have to go back in?” her Dad asked nervously.

  “I’m not sure,” Demi answered, not wanting to tell him about the pregnancy test, it would only cause him to worry further unnecessarily.

  “I hate being at the doctors, it always makes me think of…” he was going to say her mother but stopped himself. He had to remember that not everyone who came to the doctors feeling unwell died a few months later.

  Demi reached out and held her Dad’s hand, sensing his pain.

  “Everything will be alright,” she told him, feeling so confident that it would be.

  ####

  “Pregnant?” Demi almost choked on the word as she repeated what Doctor Shapiro had just told her. She felt her heart rate rise in panic and she became teary.

  “It’s okay,” Doctor Shapiro knelt before her so that he could look her directly in the eye as he placed one hand gently over hers which lay clenched in her lap. Frantically Demi looked from the doctor to the nurse standing close behind him, each were eyeing her with a sad, poignant gaze.

  “This happens to more young women than you realize. Would you like to discuss your options?” the doctor’s voice was low and soothing but it did nothing to alleviate Demi’s distress.

  “I can’t be pregnant!” Demi declared, almost shaking with shock and emotion. “I’m going away to college in the fall; I’m going to be a nurse!” The nurse in the room smiled fondly at this.

  “There’s no need to panic right now,” Doctor Shapiro told her kindly.

  “I can’t be pregnant,” Demi spluttered again as she began to cry. The nurse handed her a tissue which quickly became soaked.

  “I’m… I’m on the honor roll and I’m going away to college,” she tried to make sense of what was happening but nothing seemed to be making any sense at all.

  “Don’t upset yourself now,” Doctor Shapiro told her. “Go home, think things over, talk with your boyfriend and discuss all the options you have available to you.”

  “Options?” Demi sniffed.

  “Most young women when they fall pregnant find it isn’t the right time to start a family,” the nurse stepping in now, handing Demi a pamphlet and placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  “I know that this is all a lot to take in. There’s no need to rush in to a decision now. Go home and think about things.”

  Demi thought of her Dad, still sitting outside in the waiting area and how ashamed and disappointed he’d be if he knew the conversation which was going on just a few feet away from him.

  “We won’t tell your father anything,” Doctor Shapiro told her as he sensed her apprehensions.

  “This is between you and your boyfriend.”

  Oh no, Arthur! Demi had no idea how she would tell him that she was pregnant. He was already leaving for Duke, perhaps he would misconstrue it as an attempt to make him stay and then he would hate her! Demi held her head in her hands wondering how everything had become such a mess.

  ####

  Arthur caught the ball effortlessly and just as quickly threw it to another of his friends. A group of them were out playing basketball in the sunshine, enjoying the last of their time together.

  “We barely see you these days,” Mickey Conridge noted as he made a swift pass.

  “I’ve been busy,” Arthur said, panting from the exertion of play.

  “Busy with a girl,” Mickey said dismissively. “It’s always bros before hoes, you know that.”

  “She’s not a hoe,” Arthur laughed.

  “They are all hoes!” Mickey said with a knowing wink. “The good girls end up being worse than the bad ones!”

  “Only because you corrupt them!”

  “True, true.”

  They continued playing before Mickey pointed at Arthur’s arm which was now emblazoned with the freshly tattooed lyric, the skin still hidden beneath cling film as the ink set.

  “What’s with the ink?”

  “Oh this? It’s just a song lyric,” Arthur said dismissively.

  “As long as it doesn’t stop you from playing!”

  Arthur was so consumed with playing basketball with his friends on the courts near his house that he didn’t once check his phone that evening which lay discarded in the grass along with his jacket, and so he failed to notice all the texts and calls from Demi insisting that they need to talk. When he eventually he left the courts and headed home it was almost ten in the evening and too late, he decided, to call Demi. Whatever she needed to say to him so urgently could wait until the next day.

  ####

  Demi had barely said a word since leaving the doctor’s. If her Dad had any suspicions about what was wrong he didn’t air them. Instead he kept a respectful distance and when they got home let Demi run to sulk in the privacy of her room. It was obvious that whatever news she’d received at the doctor’s hadn’t been good and her Dad feared that perhaps she had picked up one of those STDs which were always being mentioned in the news. Apparently the youth of today were rampant with them.

  Lying on her bed, her head throbbing, Demi called Arthur. When he didn’t answer, she texted him but all that came back was silence. She needed to talk to him, if only to share this burden which now sat upon her young shoulders. As Demi lay with her eyes upon the ceiling she rubbed her stomach which felt so hollow and empty. How could it possibly be harboring a new life? How was she expected to be a mother? She couldn’t even legally drink alcohol yet? It was as if her life were suddenly a freight train, storming through all the big moments with such rapidity that they were at risk of losing all meaning.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Demi was supposed to go away to college, become a nurse, work down south helping sick children and eventually meet and marry a handsome, successful doctor. After at least three years of marital bliss, Demi would eventually become pregnant and she would have
three children, two girls and boy. In her mind it was all mapped out perfectly, but now a gigantic spinner had been thrown in to ruin everything!

  Demi loved Arthur, she genuinely did. Her tattoo was proof enough of the level of her feelings. But she didn’t believe she’d marry him. She was still a teenager; so much would change as she entered adulthood, including herself. She was mature enough to know that the person she loved now may well not be the person she loved at twenty five.

  If she looked at the guys she was crushing on at even twelve and thirteen, which wasn’t that long ago, she hated them now. People’s tastes change. People change. Demi felt fresh tears moisten the pillow beneath her head as they cascaded down her cheeks. The thing which frightened her the most was that she was potentially becoming a mother but how could she, when she had no idea how to do it? Her own mother had been gone so long now that she had no idea how a mother was supposed to behave.

  Wiping away her tears she called Arthur again, needing to hear his voice, to feel reassured of his love for her, but still, he didn’t answer.

  ####

  The following morning Arthur removed the cling film from his tattoo and noted proudly how dark the ink looked against his skin.

  “Why did you get a tattoo?” Jared asked between mouthfuls of waffles. Waffles were Jared’s favorite therefore he ate them each and every morning, always drenched in syrup.

  “Because I wanted one,” Arthur answered simply.

  “Mom, can I get a tattoo?” Jared asked innocently.

  “No.”

  “But Arthur has one.”

  “Arthur is a lot older than you.”

  “I’d get a tattoo of a space shuttle,” Jared told his older brother, all the while eyeing his new tattoo enviously.

  “That sounds cool,” Arthur smiled.

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Nah.”

  “You’re so brave,” Jared said admiringly.

  “Not as brave as you.” Arthur told his brother honestly, feeling a lump form in his throat as he did so.

  “Will you come with me to the hospital today? We can play Risk?” Jared asked his face sweet and angelic if washed out and hollowed by illness.

  “Yeah, of course. Just let me cancel Demi. She’ll understand.”

  “No need,” Arthur’s Mom called from the kitchen sink where she was washing dishes. “Demi is here, just walking up the drive.”

  ####

  Fuelled by anger and panic Demi had come over to Arthur’s house that morning, tired of him ignoring her calls and she was also eager to leave her own home and her Dad’s interrogating questions. He was desperate to know what was wrong but she wasn’t ready to tell him, not yet.

  “What are you doing here?” Arthur asked, embarrassed as he pulled the front door to his house shut behind him so that they were standing alone on his driveway. “I thought we weren’t meeting until later.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Well it will have to wait. I’m going to the hospital with Jared now, he’s just asked me.”

  “Where were you yesterday when I called?” Demi asked, looking hurt.

  “With the guys.”

  “All night?” she asked accusingly.

  “Yes all night!” Arthur snapped. “Look I don’t have time to stand here and argue with you, I need to be getting ready to go with Jared. We can talk later.”

  “Please, it can’t wait!” Demi pleaded.

  “Dem, it will have to, I’m busy!” Arthur said impatiently, moving to go back inside his house.

  “Seriously, it can’t wait!”

  “Jeeze, Dem, what can be so important! I’m busy today!” Arthur had his handle and was about to go inside when Demi blurted out;

  “I’m pregnant!”

  “Is it mine?” Arthur asked childishly as he went into shock and suddenly felt completely distanced from the situation, like he had just been dropped in to a life which wasn’t his own.

  Demi reached out and slapped him hard across the face before turning on her heel and storming away from the house. He could hear her crying as she disappeared from view. Bewildered, Arthur raised a hand to his cheek which was smarting. It all seemed so surreal, surely she wasn’t seriously pregnant? Before he had chance to process anything his mother was calling him as it was time to go to the hospital.

  ####

  Curled in to a ball, Demi lay on her bed and sobbed so hard that she feared her body might break. Beside her, her dad sat patiently stroking her hair. He knew from the frightened look in her eyes what was wrong. When she came home, her eyes now red and raw from crying, looked at him like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car; inevitably heading for a crash but unable to move away.

  “It will be alright sweetheart,” he told her gently as she tried to cry away the pain.

  “No it won’t!” she sobbed.

  “We’ve been through worse things sweet pea, we will get through this.”

  “I don’t want to get through it,” Demi declared as she burrowed her head in to her pillows which were wet from her tears.

  She wanted her Mom to come and sing to her as she had done when she was a little girl. Whenever something was wrong, if Demi had had a nightmare or felt unwell, her Mom would sit on the edge of her bed and sing a sweet melody about the changing of the seasons. It was Demi’s favorite song. She wished now that her Mom could sit beside her and sing in her sweet voice and ease the pain of her mistake. Her Mom had seemed ethereal then, like an angel, and time had cemented that image of her so Demi felt utterly incapable of being able to be a mother herself when own had been so heavenly.

  “I’m having a baby,” Demi admitted to her Dad through the tears.

  “I know sweetheart,” he whispered softly to her. “I know.”

  What Was Left of Us

  Arthur Cooper threw the basketball through the hoop with frightening force. As it came bouncing back to him he repeated the action, again and again, in a hope to relieve some of his frustration.

  It was night and Collinswood was covered in a blanket of darkness. It had been three days since Arthur had found out Demi was pregnant and they had not spoken since then. She had called and texted him, begging him to talk to her, but he wasn’t ready, not yet.

  Arthur was many things; an athlete, a friend, a son and he intended to add college graduate to that list, not father. He loved Demi more than anything but he wasn’t ready to start a family. The idea of settling down terrified him. He yearned to see the world beyond the boundaries of Collinswood. And what would his father think? He could see it now; the disappointed stare before he just left the room unable to vocalize just how betrayed he felt by his son.

  As he thrust the ball through the hoop yet again Arthur tried to gain some clarity in his thoughts but found none. The worst part of it all was that he felt betrayed by Demi, that she had somehow deliberately gotten pregnant to stop him from going to Duke. Throwing the ball with every ounce of energy he had, Arthur tried to also throw away his problems, but just like the ball, they kept coming back to him, demanding to be resolved.

  It was cool in the night air but Arthur’s body was slick with perspiration. He remained on the court for hours, hammering the hoop with the ball, knowing that if he went home he wouldn’t sleep. He suddenly felt like a caged tiger and had an overwhelming desire to roam, to feel free.

  ####

  “Have you still not spoken with Arthur?” Demi’s Dad asked, clearly concerned as he handed her the plate of pancakes he had just prepared.

  “Not since he accused me of having another man’s baby, no,” Demi answered sadly.

  “He didn’t mean what he said sweet pea, he was just in shock.”

  “I’m in shock too but I’m not being horrid to him!”

  “Men are different about things like this.”

  “Men are idiots,” Demi declared bitterly.

  “True,” her Dad smiled. “Arthur will come around; he just needs some time to straighten his head out.”
r />   Demi sighed and dug into her breakfast, wondering just how long it was going to take Arthur to come round, and what if he never did? Despite her Dad hovering so close and the new life growing inside her she felt utterly alone.

  ####

  It was four more days before Arthur contacted Demi to meet and talk. The text he sent seemed so ominous that she found herself throwing up just minutes before they were due to meet. He didn’t even offer to pick her up, instead suggesting they meet in town for a milkshake. Demi wasn’t even sure if she could drink dairy while pregnant. All the signs indicated that Arthur didn’t care and she braced herself for the fact that he was about to break up with her, and worse, perhaps insist he be estranged from their unborn child.