I turned around a total of six times to go back to that house and wait for him to wake up. And each time, I talked myself out of it with the same argument. I used him to finally get rid of my stupid virginity. Did I really want to know why he did it? I was definitely not the best looking girl in that place. People tell me I’m cute and I guess I probably am, but what exactly did he see when he looked at me? Maybe he could just tell I would be a sure thing that night. I'd rather remember him as the sweet, buzzed, hot guy who rid me of my virginity and made me laugh. I didn't want to know if he was some skeezy womanizer that was sleeping his way through the student directory, and I was just lucky enough he finally made it to the M's.
When I got home that day, Liz made me retell the story over and over so she could squeal and tell me how happy she was for me and that it was no big deal she struck out with his buff friend because she found some guy named Jim who was all alone at the party and it was love at first sight.
Her squealing and patting on the back continued until five weeks later when she came home from class and found me sitting on the bathroom floor surrounded by little white plastic sticks that all said "Pregnant" on them, crying hysterically with snot running down my lip as I rambled incoherently about milk and cows taking pregnancy tests.
For two months Liz helped with my crusade to find this guy. She never got his friend's name either because as soon as she made eye contact with Jim "the rest of the world disappeared" or some disgusting shit like that. We contacted the admissions office and we poured through a dozen yearbooks in the hopes that we might recognize him in one of the pictures. We even tried locating that skanky chick Niki that slammed into me, with no luck.
Did these people just appear out of thin air or something? How is there no f**king record of their existence at this school?
Liz even tried talking to the guys at the frat house herself, taking Jim along with her, but she didn't have any better luck than I did. She did however come home completely trashed because every guy she talked to made her and Jim do a shot every time they said the word “goat testicles”. Honestly, I have no idea how that word came up in their conversation so many damn times. Do you have any clue how annoying drunk people are when you are forced to be sober? Especially drunk people who are in love, touchy-feely and quoting Walt Witman to each other while you've got red, puffy eyes from crying, haven't showered in four days and just got done throwing up the contents of your stomach because you saw a commercial about goldfish - the crackers, not the real fish. But those damn things looked so much like real fish all I could think about was swallowing a live, slimy goldfish that stared at me with its beady little eyes before I put him on my tongue.
I knew the chances of me finding this guy were slim to none. I couldn't very well move into the frat house and be the boys' token pregnant roommate in the hopes he would one day come back there before the child I was carrying was in college and possibly living there himself.
I also couldn't hold off on telling my dad any longer. I saw the campus nurse that morning and she confirmed with a blood test that I was pregnant, and going by my calculations of the one and only time I had sex, I was thirteen weeks along.
Now, I'm all for a woman's right to choose. I believe it is your body and do with it as you may and blah, blah, blah. With that being said, as much as I dislike tiny little humans, I could never get rid of my own flesh and blood, by abortion or adoption. It just wasn't something I was personally comfortable with. So, with Liz holding my hand, I took the chicken shit way out and told my dad over the phone.
Let me explain something about my dad. He's six-foot-four, two hundred and fifty pounds, has tattoos up and down his forearms of snakes and skulls and other scary shit, and he always looks pissed off at the world. He scared the shit out of several boys in high school when they knocked on the door and my dad would answer. When I came to the door, they’d tell me they thought my dad was going to kill them and I’d reassure them that no, that’s just the way his face always looks.
In all honesty, my dad was a nice guy. He got his tattoos when he was young and in the army and he always had a scowl on his face because he was exhausted. He worked twelve-hour days, seven days a week for months at a time before he got a day or two off. He wasn't big on talking about his feelings or being affectionate, but I knew he loved me and would do anything for me. He was a great guy, but he was still a force to be reckoned with and God help the person who ever hurt his little girl. Liz started spewing Chuck Norris quotes in high school and replacing Chuck's name with my dad's. She did it so much that I find myself doing it from time to time. He reacted to the pregnancy news pretty much like I expected him to.
"Well, I'll get your room ready so you can come back home when the semester is done. And if you find this guy in the meantime, let me know so I can rip off his balls and shove them down his throat," he said in his usual deep, monotone voice.
If you spelled George Morgan wrong on Google it didn't say, "Did you mean George Morgan?" It simply replied, "Run while you still have the chance."
After the semester ended, I applied for a leave of absence with the school so they would hold my scholarship. They would only keep it active for one year before I would have to reapply. I never intended to be away from school that long, but I also never intended on a baby completely f**king up my life. Er, I mean, bringing me years of great joy.
For the next six and a half months, I worked as much as my growing stomach and cankles would allow so I could save plenty of money for after he was born. Unfortunately, in the small town of Butler, there's not much to choose from employment-wise that would pay well. Unless of course I wanted to be a stripper at the town's one and only strip club, The Silver Pole. I was approached by the owner at the grocery store when I was seven months. In the middle of the cereal aisle he told me there were plenty of patrons in his club that thought the pregnant body was beautiful. If there weren't children around at the time, I would have told him off. Oh, who was I kidding? If Jesus himself was standing next to me, I would have still told that douche bag that if he ever came anywhere near me again I would rip his dick off and choke him with it. I would have apologized to Jesus before leaving though of course.