Immaculate

“No, Isabelle, you’re right,” I said, meeting her gaze and forcing her to look, really look, at the sincerity in my big blue eyes that couldn’t possibly be faked. She knew me too well, too long for any serious deceit to slip past her radar. That was my one hope, at least, and I clung to it.

“I’m scared to say what I’m thinking, because you probably won’t be able to believe me. You’ll think I’m crazy, or even worse, crazy and a liar, and I don’t think I can handle that. Not right now, not with everything else going through my head.” I paused, twisting a pillow with my sweaty hands to calm myself. “But I’m going to try. I’m going to tell both of you exactly what I’m thinking, what I know, because you deserve that.”

And so, with much awkward fumbling and stopping and starting and backtracking, I told them about Iris. I told them every last detail I could remember, from what she wore to where we sat to every word and look she gave me. Strange, but even though I had rarely let myself think about her since it had happened, she was still there. Seared into my memory, as bright and vivid as the night we met, whether I wanted her there or not.

Neither of them said anything after I finished the story. Ha

Finally, right about when I couldn’t possibly wait another second without combusting, Ha

“I think we should go out and get you a pregnancy test. It might be nothing—it’s probably nothing—but we need to know that for sure.”

“You believe me?” I asked, so relieved and happy to have my best friend back at my side that the world almost felt right again.

Ha

“Are you . . . are you saying I might have been raped?” I stammered, my air cut off, suffocated by the massive weight of my disappointment. She didn’t understand, not at all. “You think I wouldn’t know, wouldn’t have felt something, some kind of pain that I would remember?” Of all the equally improbable theories, rape would never have occurred to me. Maybe it should have, I don’t know, but somehow I knew—I knew without a doubt, with every part of my body, every toenail, every hair, every pore—that it wasn’t the answer.

Ha

“Okay,” Izzy said loudly from across the room, keeping her distance from the bed. “We’re going to the pharmacy.” She sounded matter-of-fact and in control, the Izzy I knew and loved so well. “Let’s go. Now. I’ll drive.” And with that she grabbed her sneakers and her keys and walked out the bedroom door, not giving a single look back, not a hint of what was actually going through her mind.

Ha

“Thanks,” I said to Ha

“Listen. I don’t know exactly what’s going on with you, Mina. But I do know that no matter what shows up on that stick, whether it’s a pink plus sign or a blue minus or even a big green damn squiggle, I’ll be there right by your side and we’ll sort it all out together. Okay?”

“Okay.” I smiled for the first time that morning. “I should probably change out of this grotesque shirt first,” I said, catching a glimpse of myself in her full-length mirror.

“Sounds like a good idea. Clean yourself up a bit, and I’ll go down to the car and let Isabelle know that you’re on your way. I give her ten seconds before she starts laying on the horn, and I don’t want my parents asking too many questions about what we’re up to.” She squeezed my hand and let it drop, pulling the door closed behind her as she left the room.

I stepped closer to the mirror, so close that the tip of my still-red nose brushed against the cool glass, and my features became a hazy blur of blue and pink and milky white skin. I pulled back a bit, gripping the sides of the mirror so I could really see the girl standing in front of me. Frizzy nest of brown waves, swollen, red-rimmed eyes, cracked lips, stick-straight body without even the hint of any curves.

I couldn’t be a mother. I was still a girl. A sloppy, filthy mess of a girl at the moment.

I stared blankly at my reflection for another minute or so, until I realized that, without thinking about it, I had moved my right hand off of the mirror and rested it against my stomach instead, my fingers spread wide in an embrace. I jerked it back down to my side and turned away, moving toward the dresser for a change of clothes.

I’d buy the test, pee on the stick—maybe two or three or four sticks just to be sure, just to quiet those ridiculous crazy voices in my head. I’d know without a doubt that I wasn’t pregnant, and then I’d never have to think about Iris, not ever again.

chapter two

“I really wish we’d thought to bring ski masks or paper bags or something,” I said, looking out across the parking lot at the all-too-familiar Reed’s Pharmacy sign hanging above the faded brick storefront. This was where I’d gone with my mom when I was little to pick out bubble bath and candy bars, the store where Ha

Green Hill was like the fla