One-Night Stand Forever - [Six]
"What the hell do I do with it? Stick it up my ass?"
"Fuck no, you idiot. Piss on the end."
"And then what?"
"And then you check if it's positive or negative."
"And then?"
"And then yo- we'll know, obviously!"
"Then why did you get three?"
"To make sure! Jesus, Ryan, just fucking get on with it already!"
Ryan rolled his eyes. William mirrored the action, but wasn't shaking nearly as intensely as the other. He kept his eyes trained on Ryan while the boy made the journey to the bathroom across the hall.
It was a painful minute anticipating his return. William sprawled out under the lines of the sun stretching across Ryan's mattress, then rolled over, then stood up, then moved to the window to gaze outside. When he heard footsteps behind him he shut his eyes tight and remained turned away.
"So?" He clenched his teeth and tensed every single muscle in his body. It felt like all of his organs were being squeezed together and twisted around one another, forming knots nearly everywhere within him. Ryan's audible sigh only increased the slight nausea.
"Um, it's not showing anything," Ryan said. William could hear the fingernails running across the skin of Ryan's neck. "That means negative, right?"
His voice rang with hope, but William was regretful to have to take it away. "No, Ryan. That just means it's not ready. Read the box."
The thin cardboard shifted under Ryan's fingers as he raised it to his view, first taking in the unnecessarily bright "Men's Pregnancy Test" label and then flipping the container around to read the directions. "Wait ten minutes," he read aloud. "Ten minutes?" he asked. William started back over to join him on the sorry excuse that was his bed. "That's like a lifetime."
"What happened to Mr. I'm So Confident I'm Not Pregnant?" William questioned. He smoothed a handful of hair down under his head and laid back, counting scratches in the ceiling, clutching and releasing Ryan's sheets in his fist, gazing around the almost empty room, doing anything in an attempt to remove his mind from the current situation even though he would be dealing with it in full force in only a matter of minutes.
Ryan was no better. Worse, even. His heart was pulsing and thrumming throughout his body, threatening to burst out of his chest along with his lungs. He couldn't decide if it would be better to throw up or pass out. Then again, he was becoming pretty accustomed to revisiting the contents of his stomach on a daily basis. This was more terrifying. Like he couldn't get rid of it at all; it was stuck inside of him, clawing at his insides so he would be aware of its existence. "Just shut up, Bill. I don't see you dreaming of unicorns over there."
"Yeah, but at least I never said I was sure it wasn't going to happen."
"Whatever," Ryan mumbled. He turned on his side so he was faced away from his friend. He wasn't in the mood for another argument. They had fought each day at school that week by growling complaints under their breath and nearly stabbing each other with sharp eyes during class, and it hadn't stopped there. The walk to and from the convenience store had consisted solely of pointless, childish bickering.
William swallowed a breath and glanced over at Ryan's hunched form. He loved the boy to pieces, but he was honestly one of the most stubborn people William knew. "Ryan?" he asked. His voice sounded small in the silence of the bedroom. It might have just been the fact that he was hesitant to trigger another disagreement.
The rickety fan whirred above them and Ryan sniffled, but it was clear he wasn't crying. "Hm?"
"Will this change us?"
The thin boy shrugged in his flannel shirt. "You make it sound like you're the father or something; like we're gonna have to deal with this together."
"The first part isn't true, obviously. But the second..." William trailed off, still gazing at his friend's back. He wished Ryan would at least turn around so he could see his facial expressions or his eyes. Ryan's eyes always gave him away. The fact that he couldn't just venture through them and into Ryan's brain was almost killing William. And if he hadn't forgotten what they were anticipating at the moment, he would already be dead.
Then, as if in response to his prayers, Ryan heaved his body so that he was resting on his stomach and facing William. But much to his best friend's dismay, his eyes were tightly shut. "I don't want you to worry about it, Bill. It's not your problem." Ryan quickly sat up and appeared oddly excited for a moment, but his face was brisk in returning to its previously serious expression. "But we need to stop talking about it like it's a certainty, because it's not."
William's eyes met the other boys and they considered one another for a brief second before Will mentioned the test. "Has anything shown up yet?" he asked.
Ryan fixed his vision on the wall adjacent to them. Without even a glance, he picked up the stick and tossed it in William's general direction. It missed and fell through the crack between the mattress and the wall. William retrieved it, but didn't bother to check it out.
As if he could already decipher William's thoughts and intentions, Ryan blurted, "I don't want to look."
"Well I'm not going to be the one to look first!" William exclaimed. He threw the white stick up in the air and away from his body as if it were a venereal disease.
Ryan twisted around to glare at him.
William knew that look. He had a million stored away in his memory, each with their own definition. This one was Ryan's you're-supposed-to-be-my-best-friend look, and the twitch of his upper lip added a distinct you-jerk vibe. With his own facial distortion, William cast him an unspoken, You've gotta be kidding me. This is your problem. Grow a pair and deal with it.
A pair of thin, pink lips pressed together and Ryan was instantly scowling.
"I think we just discovered a method of fighting without the use of words or physical contact," William droned. He remained emotionless as he stared Ryan down. Ryan attempted to scrunch his face together even further to intensify his grimace. And then, with a faulty slip of a smirk from one boy, both became immersed in a fit of laughter.
The taller and older of the two was swift to resurface. "No, seriously. Check the test."
Ryan resorted to an even more grade-school approach at condemning William to hell by squinting his eyes as far as possible without closing them. Without removing his glower from the other boy, he felt around for the stick lying on the sheets in front of them. When his hand met hard plastic, he grasped the test and brought it close to his nose. Just as rapidly as his eyes moved downward, they were jumping back up. The smoldering gold in his corneas brewed a nasty mixture of hatred with a hint of fear.
"I'm pregnant, you prick." Ryan released the test and it fell where his legs were kneeling on the bed. He slid back and climbed off of the mattress, strutting away on thin, wobbly legs and only glancing back to say, "Make sure you're gone by the time I get back."
Seconds later William heard the slam of the screen door and Mrs. Ross' meek voice questioning her son's fleeing.
Following his 30-minute stroll in the corn field across the street from their home (which was oh-so-conveniently placed in the middle of nowhere, leaving Ryan with nowhere else to go), Ryan returned, but wasn't exactly surprised to find his friend softly snoring on top of his bedsheets. He quickly noted that it was a Wednesday night, and they had school the next day, but ignored the fact. William's parents wouldn't give it a second thought. They were much more lenient than Ryan's own. Well... one of Ryan's.
He shrugged to himself and then climbed out of his shoes and jeans, switching off the light and crawling into his bed. He feigned sleep when he felt the fingers ruffling his hair and heard the soft, "It's going to be okay." It was proving difficult to perfect drawn-out breaths with tears running down his face and what felt like a boulder resting on his conscience.
And William lied. It wasn't okay. Especially not when said boy was shoving his nearly naked body into the tough bark of a large oak tree just two and a half weeks later.
"You've gotta tell him."
Ryan shut his eyes and shook his head briefly. "He doesn't need to know."
"Look at him, Ry," William begged. He ran a hand through his damp hair and Ryan followed his gaze to the boy currently sprinting along the dock. Brendon did a cannonball into the lake and his audience cheered, all howling in laughter at their now soaked forms and Brendon's cries of, "I think I lost my swim trunks!"
Ryan raised his shoulders and dropped them back down, then turned back to William. "That's not exactly helping your case," he sneered. "He's obviously enjoying his life as a teenager. I'm not going to be the one to take that away from him."
"Well, Jesus, Ryan!" William shouted. The laughter only a few hundred feet away on the dock abruptly died down. William caught a glimpse of some people inching closer and lowered his voice. "You said an abortion was out of the question and then when I asked about adoption you didn't come out of the bathroom for two hours. Sorry to be Captain Obvious here, but the only option left is keeping it, and you and I both know damn well that you can't afford that. The only way this is going to work out is if you tell him. He can help you, Ryan. There's a little sweet something called child support, and your kid is going to desperately require support."
Ryan twisted his neck to look around the tree at Brendon again, who was now among the group of teenagers lounging around the picnic tables in an attempt to hear a bit of their conversation. A good number of people looked away, shame evident in their eyes, upon seeing Ryan's questioning gaze. Brendon sat oblivious to everything going on around him, attempting to start a discussion about butterflies with Gabe. Gabe was the least bit interested. He shooed Brendon away and craned his neck closer to the tree.
"I'll get a job," Ryan mumbled.
"Yeah? Doing what?" William questioned. In his opinion, Ryan was being completely ridiculous. "Are you going to stock shelves at the grocery store? Or are you going to flip burgers? Congratulations, Ryan!" A sarcastic syrupy sweetness fell from his lips. "That earns you minimum wage! Oh, yippee! Enough to buy a diaper a day! I'm sure your baby won't mind starving or, you know, sitting in it's own shit."
Ryan finally hissed, "Shut the fuck up!" Tears were threatening to spill from his eyes. He had done enough crying in the past days to gain a permanent migraine and he wasn't up for added intensity.
William rolled his eyes. "We'll talk about this later." Unexpectedly, a comforting hand appeared on Ryan's shoulder. "And don't think I'm mad at you or anything. I just really think you should tell him while you have the chance. Yeah, I know you don't want to and you think he doesn't need to know, but he deserves to, Ryan. It's his just as much as it is yours."
As William retreated back to the crowd, Ryan stayed behind, picking at his fingernails and listening intently.
"Sorry, guys. I guess Ryan likes to get into heated arguments about dick sizes after peeing in the wild."
Brendon was the only one to let out a genuine, hearty laugh.
Out of view, Ryan slumped against the tree, then pushed himself off of it, swinging around to add, "Yeah, whoever cares to know, William is extremely lacking."
Upon confirmation that Ryan was in fact alive and okay, the group allowed themselves to join in with Brendon. William scoffed and threw a playful punch at Ryan's upper arm, but the look in his eyes was only for Ryan. They lingered on Ryan's for a moment. You know what you need to do played on full blast in Ryan's head.
Gabe bounced to his shoeless feet and took off running. "Last person in has the smallest dick!"
"I don't even have a dick," Maja called, but chased Gabe anyway, tackling him to the ground at the beginning of the wooden structure and then continuing on in front of a line of kids Ryan barely even knew the names of.
"My dick isn't small, but I'm not going back in there. I swear to God a crab was trying to dig into my ass earlier," Brendon shouted. He sat back against the wood of the picnic table and observed all of the people doing different leaps into the lake. He jumped when Ryan took a seat next to him on the wooden bench.
"Fuck! Warn me next time, yeah?"
Ryan remained silent. He could feel the perspiration gathering above his brow, on his palms, and under his knees.
Brendon chuckled. "Why aren't you going in? I know for a fact you aren't horribly endowed. Oh!" Realization dawned on his face and he was speedy to adopt a smirk. "Let me guess, you came back to a-"
"No, I didn't come to ask you to fuck me again! Can you give it up already? That was once!"
"Someone forgot to take their PMS pills this morning," Brendon mumbled.
Ryan hastily retorted with, "Someone's balls forgot to drop this morning." The boy beside him laughed in disbelief.
"And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Maybe that you're the most immature person I've ever met."
The dark-haired boy continued to snicker in amusement. Ryan had a slight urge to punch him in the face, but kept his eyes trained on the reflection of the bright blue sky on the lake. "I always thought you were the quiet, shy type. I guess I just bring out the real tiger in you. In fact, it's kind of turning me on. How about we take a trip over behind the bushes so I can hear you beg for me like a little whore again, yeah?"
Ryan shifted on the seat so that he could lay his head on the table and made a point to turn his head away from Brendon. As he examined the towering trees around them he secretly hoped with everything that he had that his kid wouldn't inherit any of Brendon's traits. Except maybe the smooth hair that probably didn't require much product or care, and possibly the adorable lips, and definitely the wide eyes.
With the absence of a supportive companion and the knowledge that his family barely had a thousand bucks to their name, thoughts had been prevalent throughout Ryan's mind since he had taken the rest of the pregnancy tests and had gone to the school nurse, who had told him that yes, he was carrying a baby and he should go see a doctor and decide if he wanted to keep it or not. He was pro-choice, but abortion was something he would never be able to do himself.
And adoption? Ryan had heard the stories of planning out the adoption perfectly, couples being content right up until the last second when they took one look at their baby and knew it belonged to them. Ryan already had the feeling it belonged to him, but at the same time he still couldn't grasp the idea that it was in him.
With that, a hand slid out from under his head and went under the table to caress his stomach, which was becoming more convex each day. He had noticed that it was pretty much instinct to rub it whenever he thought of the baby.
"So, I'm guessing you're gonna do it yourself?" Brendon asked. Ryan's head popped up, confused, and he turned to look at the other boy. Large brown eyes fell to the hand on his shirtless stomach.
Ryan's mouth fell open. He was in shock. His eyes raced around the scenery and his hand remained firm on his stomach. It was likely that William told Gabe the news, but he had never expected it to reach Brendon. But who was he kidding, it was going to happen sooner or later, and Brendon seemed to be taking it rather well, so he went along with it.
He ran his index finger in a circle on the wood and bit his lip, looking up at Brendon under dark eyelashes. "Actually, I was kind of hoping you'd help me."
Brendon smiled and reached down into the black backpack at his feet. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, inhaling deep as soon as the end of a stick lit up. Ryan grimaced.
"I'm not that type of person," Brendon said, as if it were the lightest topic in the world and rejecting his child was as easy as ordering off of a menu.
Ryan's face fell. He wasn't surprised to hear that Brendon didn't want anything to do with it, but he wasn't expecting to feel like his world had crashed down around him. "Well could you at least act like you care? Or show a tiny bit of respect and take that fucking cancer stick out of your mouth?"
"I'm serious, Ryan." Brendon ignored him and blew a few rings of smoke into the air. "I'm trying as hard as I can here," he spoke around his cigarette. "I think you need to realize that I don't need to conform to your demands. I'm going to live the life I want to live and you and your stupid problems aren't going to get in my way."
"So now it's a 'stupid problem'?" Ryan asked. He couldn't believe his ears. He was expecting maybe a hug, or at least an I'll give you ____ dollars each month, but Brendon was acting like the baby was as big of a deal as spilt milk. "I think you need to realize that this is a life we're talking about. It's not this kid's fault that its parents are stupid, horny sixteen-year-olds that got wasted and made a horrible mistake."
Brendon was staring out at the bodies splashing around in the water, but spared a glance over at Ryan. "You were a mistake?"
Ryan furrowed his eyebrows. "What? No!" He lunged forward to snatch the cigarette from Brendon's lips, but Brendon quickly removed it and held it up high in the air.
"You can't do that," he said. "Go somewhere else if you're so against smoking."
Ryan plopped down, defeated. "Well, God, now it just seems like you're trying to kill our baby."
In a second, the burning cigarette landed on a pile of pine needles below them. Brendon's fingers remained in the position that was used to hold it up.
"What the fuck did you just say?" His voice came out choked. Ryan had never heard it like this before. It was usually booming with confidence and wit.
Ryan was more than confused. "What?"
Brendon remained silent, breathing heavily through his nose and sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. He looked up and to the side, his glare slicing into Ryan. "What have we been talking about this entire time?"
The boy let out a laugh. "Um, the thing growing inside me, obviously. What the hell did you think?"
All color was released from Brendon's face. Ryan wasn't sure where it went, but not a hint remained. For a moment, he was worried Brendon was going to collapse, but then the boy spoke.
"I thought you wanted me to fuck you," he breathed, his voice monotone. He slowly stood up and Ryan watched, thoughts jumbled like an assortment of jellybeans, as Brendon moved towards a nearby tree. It was quiet for a while, save the chatting of their friends and the constant push and pull of water onto the shoreline, and Brendon just stood there, gazing at the tree like it had a personality of its own. Ryan had absolutely no idea what was going on.
He thought back on their conversation, from the moment he had taken a seat until now, and oh. Oh. That was where they got lost in translation.
"Fuck!" Brendon screeched. His fist came in contact with the unrelenting wood only seconds later.
Ryan's eyes went wide. He wanted to scream, he wanted to call for help, he wanted to run over and cover Brendon's blood-drenched fist with his unused t-shirt, but all he could do was stare. A few gasps and splashes made their way to his ears, and he could barely make out the shape of William next to that of Brendon's. A fuzzy Gabe came into view and then everything became too blurry. All Ryan could see was the outline of Brendon, kicking, punching, throwing limbs in every direction in attempt to release himself from the others' grips.
"You fucking whore!"
Ryan knew the words were for him. A beautiful gift. This is what you get for carrying my baby.
"It's not even mine! You've probably begged so many guys to fuck you, you don't even look twice before spreading your legs!"
"Brendon, just calm down," Ryan heard a familiar voice purr.
"You and your fucking baby can burn in hell for all I care, you sick fuck!"
Ryan sat, calm and collected on the splitting wood. He folded his hands on his lap and took in the sight around him: the orange leaves adorning the tree limbs, the slight ripple of the water's surface, the diverse collection of pebbles on the shoreline.
This is what you get for carrying my baby. I hope you realize what you've done.
"Fuck no, you idiot. Piss on the end."
"And then what?"
"And then you check if it's positive or negative."
"And then?"
"And then yo- we'll know, obviously!"
"Then why did you get three?"
"To make sure! Jesus, Ryan, just fucking get on with it already!"
Ryan rolled his eyes. William mirrored the action, but wasn't shaking nearly as intensely as the other. He kept his eyes trained on Ryan while the boy made the journey to the bathroom across the hall.
It was a painful minute anticipating his return. William sprawled out under the lines of the sun stretching across Ryan's mattress, then rolled over, then stood up, then moved to the window to gaze outside. When he heard footsteps behind him he shut his eyes tight and remained turned away.
"So?" He clenched his teeth and tensed every single muscle in his body. It felt like all of his organs were being squeezed together and twisted around one another, forming knots nearly everywhere within him. Ryan's audible sigh only increased the slight nausea.
"Um, it's not showing anything," Ryan said. William could hear the fingernails running across the skin of Ryan's neck. "That means negative, right?"
His voice rang with hope, but William was regretful to have to take it away. "No, Ryan. That just means it's not ready. Read the box."
The thin cardboard shifted under Ryan's fingers as he raised it to his view, first taking in the unnecessarily bright "Men's Pregnancy Test" label and then flipping the container around to read the directions. "Wait ten minutes," he read aloud. "Ten minutes?" he asked. William started back over to join him on the sorry excuse that was his bed. "That's like a lifetime."
"What happened to Mr. I'm So Confident I'm Not Pregnant?" William questioned. He smoothed a handful of hair down under his head and laid back, counting scratches in the ceiling, clutching and releasing Ryan's sheets in his fist, gazing around the almost empty room, doing anything in an attempt to remove his mind from the current situation even though he would be dealing with it in full force in only a matter of minutes.
Ryan was no better. Worse, even. His heart was pulsing and thrumming throughout his body, threatening to burst out of his chest along with his lungs. He couldn't decide if it would be better to throw up or pass out. Then again, he was becoming pretty accustomed to revisiting the contents of his stomach on a daily basis. This was more terrifying. Like he couldn't get rid of it at all; it was stuck inside of him, clawing at his insides so he would be aware of its existence. "Just shut up, Bill. I don't see you dreaming of unicorns over there."
"Yeah, but at least I never said I was sure it wasn't going to happen."
"Whatever," Ryan mumbled. He turned on his side so he was faced away from his friend. He wasn't in the mood for another argument. They had fought each day at school that week by growling complaints under their breath and nearly stabbing each other with sharp eyes during class, and it hadn't stopped there. The walk to and from the convenience store had consisted solely of pointless, childish bickering.
William swallowed a breath and glanced over at Ryan's hunched form. He loved the boy to pieces, but he was honestly one of the most stubborn people William knew. "Ryan?" he asked. His voice sounded small in the silence of the bedroom. It might have just been the fact that he was hesitant to trigger another disagreement.
The rickety fan whirred above them and Ryan sniffled, but it was clear he wasn't crying. "Hm?"
"Will this change us?"
The thin boy shrugged in his flannel shirt. "You make it sound like you're the father or something; like we're gonna have to deal with this together."
"The first part isn't true, obviously. But the second..." William trailed off, still gazing at his friend's back. He wished Ryan would at least turn around so he could see his facial expressions or his eyes. Ryan's eyes always gave him away. The fact that he couldn't just venture through them and into Ryan's brain was almost killing William. And if he hadn't forgotten what they were anticipating at the moment, he would already be dead.
Then, as if in response to his prayers, Ryan heaved his body so that he was resting on his stomach and facing William. But much to his best friend's dismay, his eyes were tightly shut. "I don't want you to worry about it, Bill. It's not your problem." Ryan quickly sat up and appeared oddly excited for a moment, but his face was brisk in returning to its previously serious expression. "But we need to stop talking about it like it's a certainty, because it's not."
William's eyes met the other boys and they considered one another for a brief second before Will mentioned the test. "Has anything shown up yet?" he asked.
Ryan fixed his vision on the wall adjacent to them. Without even a glance, he picked up the stick and tossed it in William's general direction. It missed and fell through the crack between the mattress and the wall. William retrieved it, but didn't bother to check it out.
As if he could already decipher William's thoughts and intentions, Ryan blurted, "I don't want to look."
"Well I'm not going to be the one to look first!" William exclaimed. He threw the white stick up in the air and away from his body as if it were a venereal disease.
Ryan twisted around to glare at him.
William knew that look. He had a million stored away in his memory, each with their own definition. This one was Ryan's you're-supposed-to-be-my-best-friend look, and the twitch of his upper lip added a distinct you-jerk vibe. With his own facial distortion, William cast him an unspoken, You've gotta be kidding me. This is your problem. Grow a pair and deal with it.
A pair of thin, pink lips pressed together and Ryan was instantly scowling.
"I think we just discovered a method of fighting without the use of words or physical contact," William droned. He remained emotionless as he stared Ryan down. Ryan attempted to scrunch his face together even further to intensify his grimace. And then, with a faulty slip of a smirk from one boy, both became immersed in a fit of laughter.
The taller and older of the two was swift to resurface. "No, seriously. Check the test."
Ryan resorted to an even more grade-school approach at condemning William to hell by squinting his eyes as far as possible without closing them. Without removing his glower from the other boy, he felt around for the stick lying on the sheets in front of them. When his hand met hard plastic, he grasped the test and brought it close to his nose. Just as rapidly as his eyes moved downward, they were jumping back up. The smoldering gold in his corneas brewed a nasty mixture of hatred with a hint of fear.
"I'm pregnant, you prick." Ryan released the test and it fell where his legs were kneeling on the bed. He slid back and climbed off of the mattress, strutting away on thin, wobbly legs and only glancing back to say, "Make sure you're gone by the time I get back."
Seconds later William heard the slam of the screen door and Mrs. Ross' meek voice questioning her son's fleeing.
Following his 30-minute stroll in the corn field across the street from their home (which was oh-so-conveniently placed in the middle of nowhere, leaving Ryan with nowhere else to go), Ryan returned, but wasn't exactly surprised to find his friend softly snoring on top of his bedsheets. He quickly noted that it was a Wednesday night, and they had school the next day, but ignored the fact. William's parents wouldn't give it a second thought. They were much more lenient than Ryan's own. Well... one of Ryan's.
He shrugged to himself and then climbed out of his shoes and jeans, switching off the light and crawling into his bed. He feigned sleep when he felt the fingers ruffling his hair and heard the soft, "It's going to be okay." It was proving difficult to perfect drawn-out breaths with tears running down his face and what felt like a boulder resting on his conscience.
And William lied. It wasn't okay. Especially not when said boy was shoving his nearly naked body into the tough bark of a large oak tree just two and a half weeks later.
"You've gotta tell him."
Ryan shut his eyes and shook his head briefly. "He doesn't need to know."
"Look at him, Ry," William begged. He ran a hand through his damp hair and Ryan followed his gaze to the boy currently sprinting along the dock. Brendon did a cannonball into the lake and his audience cheered, all howling in laughter at their now soaked forms and Brendon's cries of, "I think I lost my swim trunks!"
Ryan raised his shoulders and dropped them back down, then turned back to William. "That's not exactly helping your case," he sneered. "He's obviously enjoying his life as a teenager. I'm not going to be the one to take that away from him."
"Well, Jesus, Ryan!" William shouted. The laughter only a few hundred feet away on the dock abruptly died down. William caught a glimpse of some people inching closer and lowered his voice. "You said an abortion was out of the question and then when I asked about adoption you didn't come out of the bathroom for two hours. Sorry to be Captain Obvious here, but the only option left is keeping it, and you and I both know damn well that you can't afford that. The only way this is going to work out is if you tell him. He can help you, Ryan. There's a little sweet something called child support, and your kid is going to desperately require support."
Ryan twisted his neck to look around the tree at Brendon again, who was now among the group of teenagers lounging around the picnic tables in an attempt to hear a bit of their conversation. A good number of people looked away, shame evident in their eyes, upon seeing Ryan's questioning gaze. Brendon sat oblivious to everything going on around him, attempting to start a discussion about butterflies with Gabe. Gabe was the least bit interested. He shooed Brendon away and craned his neck closer to the tree.
"I'll get a job," Ryan mumbled.
"Yeah? Doing what?" William questioned. In his opinion, Ryan was being completely ridiculous. "Are you going to stock shelves at the grocery store? Or are you going to flip burgers? Congratulations, Ryan!" A sarcastic syrupy sweetness fell from his lips. "That earns you minimum wage! Oh, yippee! Enough to buy a diaper a day! I'm sure your baby won't mind starving or, you know, sitting in it's own shit."
Ryan finally hissed, "Shut the fuck up!" Tears were threatening to spill from his eyes. He had done enough crying in the past days to gain a permanent migraine and he wasn't up for added intensity.
William rolled his eyes. "We'll talk about this later." Unexpectedly, a comforting hand appeared on Ryan's shoulder. "And don't think I'm mad at you or anything. I just really think you should tell him while you have the chance. Yeah, I know you don't want to and you think he doesn't need to know, but he deserves to, Ryan. It's his just as much as it is yours."
As William retreated back to the crowd, Ryan stayed behind, picking at his fingernails and listening intently.
"Sorry, guys. I guess Ryan likes to get into heated arguments about dick sizes after peeing in the wild."
Brendon was the only one to let out a genuine, hearty laugh.
Out of view, Ryan slumped against the tree, then pushed himself off of it, swinging around to add, "Yeah, whoever cares to know, William is extremely lacking."
Upon confirmation that Ryan was in fact alive and okay, the group allowed themselves to join in with Brendon. William scoffed and threw a playful punch at Ryan's upper arm, but the look in his eyes was only for Ryan. They lingered on Ryan's for a moment. You know what you need to do played on full blast in Ryan's head.
Gabe bounced to his shoeless feet and took off running. "Last person in has the smallest dick!"
"I don't even have a dick," Maja called, but chased Gabe anyway, tackling him to the ground at the beginning of the wooden structure and then continuing on in front of a line of kids Ryan barely even knew the names of.
"My dick isn't small, but I'm not going back in there. I swear to God a crab was trying to dig into my ass earlier," Brendon shouted. He sat back against the wood of the picnic table and observed all of the people doing different leaps into the lake. He jumped when Ryan took a seat next to him on the wooden bench.
"Fuck! Warn me next time, yeah?"
Ryan remained silent. He could feel the perspiration gathering above his brow, on his palms, and under his knees.
Brendon chuckled. "Why aren't you going in? I know for a fact you aren't horribly endowed. Oh!" Realization dawned on his face and he was speedy to adopt a smirk. "Let me guess, you came back to a-"
"No, I didn't come to ask you to fuck me again! Can you give it up already? That was once!"
"Someone forgot to take their PMS pills this morning," Brendon mumbled.
Ryan hastily retorted with, "Someone's balls forgot to drop this morning." The boy beside him laughed in disbelief.
"And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Maybe that you're the most immature person I've ever met."
The dark-haired boy continued to snicker in amusement. Ryan had a slight urge to punch him in the face, but kept his eyes trained on the reflection of the bright blue sky on the lake. "I always thought you were the quiet, shy type. I guess I just bring out the real tiger in you. In fact, it's kind of turning me on. How about we take a trip over behind the bushes so I can hear you beg for me like a little whore again, yeah?"
Ryan shifted on the seat so that he could lay his head on the table and made a point to turn his head away from Brendon. As he examined the towering trees around them he secretly hoped with everything that he had that his kid wouldn't inherit any of Brendon's traits. Except maybe the smooth hair that probably didn't require much product or care, and possibly the adorable lips, and definitely the wide eyes.
With the absence of a supportive companion and the knowledge that his family barely had a thousand bucks to their name, thoughts had been prevalent throughout Ryan's mind since he had taken the rest of the pregnancy tests and had gone to the school nurse, who had told him that yes, he was carrying a baby and he should go see a doctor and decide if he wanted to keep it or not. He was pro-choice, but abortion was something he would never be able to do himself.
And adoption? Ryan had heard the stories of planning out the adoption perfectly, couples being content right up until the last second when they took one look at their baby and knew it belonged to them. Ryan already had the feeling it belonged to him, but at the same time he still couldn't grasp the idea that it was in him.
With that, a hand slid out from under his head and went under the table to caress his stomach, which was becoming more convex each day. He had noticed that it was pretty much instinct to rub it whenever he thought of the baby.
"So, I'm guessing you're gonna do it yourself?" Brendon asked. Ryan's head popped up, confused, and he turned to look at the other boy. Large brown eyes fell to the hand on his shirtless stomach.
Ryan's mouth fell open. He was in shock. His eyes raced around the scenery and his hand remained firm on his stomach. It was likely that William told Gabe the news, but he had never expected it to reach Brendon. But who was he kidding, it was going to happen sooner or later, and Brendon seemed to be taking it rather well, so he went along with it.
He ran his index finger in a circle on the wood and bit his lip, looking up at Brendon under dark eyelashes. "Actually, I was kind of hoping you'd help me."
Brendon smiled and reached down into the black backpack at his feet. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, inhaling deep as soon as the end of a stick lit up. Ryan grimaced.
"I'm not that type of person," Brendon said, as if it were the lightest topic in the world and rejecting his child was as easy as ordering off of a menu.
Ryan's face fell. He wasn't surprised to hear that Brendon didn't want anything to do with it, but he wasn't expecting to feel like his world had crashed down around him. "Well could you at least act like you care? Or show a tiny bit of respect and take that fucking cancer stick out of your mouth?"
"I'm serious, Ryan." Brendon ignored him and blew a few rings of smoke into the air. "I'm trying as hard as I can here," he spoke around his cigarette. "I think you need to realize that I don't need to conform to your demands. I'm going to live the life I want to live and you and your stupid problems aren't going to get in my way."
"So now it's a 'stupid problem'?" Ryan asked. He couldn't believe his ears. He was expecting maybe a hug, or at least an I'll give you ____ dollars each month, but Brendon was acting like the baby was as big of a deal as spilt milk. "I think you need to realize that this is a life we're talking about. It's not this kid's fault that its parents are stupid, horny sixteen-year-olds that got wasted and made a horrible mistake."
Brendon was staring out at the bodies splashing around in the water, but spared a glance over at Ryan. "You were a mistake?"
Ryan furrowed his eyebrows. "What? No!" He lunged forward to snatch the cigarette from Brendon's lips, but Brendon quickly removed it and held it up high in the air.
"You can't do that," he said. "Go somewhere else if you're so against smoking."
Ryan plopped down, defeated. "Well, God, now it just seems like you're trying to kill our baby."
In a second, the burning cigarette landed on a pile of pine needles below them. Brendon's fingers remained in the position that was used to hold it up.
"What the fuck did you just say?" His voice came out choked. Ryan had never heard it like this before. It was usually booming with confidence and wit.
Ryan was more than confused. "What?"
Brendon remained silent, breathing heavily through his nose and sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. He looked up and to the side, his glare slicing into Ryan. "What have we been talking about this entire time?"
The boy let out a laugh. "Um, the thing growing inside me, obviously. What the hell did you think?"
All color was released from Brendon's face. Ryan wasn't sure where it went, but not a hint remained. For a moment, he was worried Brendon was going to collapse, but then the boy spoke.
"I thought you wanted me to fuck you," he breathed, his voice monotone. He slowly stood up and Ryan watched, thoughts jumbled like an assortment of jellybeans, as Brendon moved towards a nearby tree. It was quiet for a while, save the chatting of their friends and the constant push and pull of water onto the shoreline, and Brendon just stood there, gazing at the tree like it had a personality of its own. Ryan had absolutely no idea what was going on.
He thought back on their conversation, from the moment he had taken a seat until now, and oh. Oh. That was where they got lost in translation.
"Fuck!" Brendon screeched. His fist came in contact with the unrelenting wood only seconds later.
Ryan's eyes went wide. He wanted to scream, he wanted to call for help, he wanted to run over and cover Brendon's blood-drenched fist with his unused t-shirt, but all he could do was stare. A few gasps and splashes made their way to his ears, and he could barely make out the shape of William next to that of Brendon's. A fuzzy Gabe came into view and then everything became too blurry. All Ryan could see was the outline of Brendon, kicking, punching, throwing limbs in every direction in attempt to release himself from the others' grips.
"You fucking whore!"
Ryan knew the words were for him. A beautiful gift. This is what you get for carrying my baby.
"It's not even mine! You've probably begged so many guys to fuck you, you don't even look twice before spreading your legs!"
"Brendon, just calm down," Ryan heard a familiar voice purr.
"You and your fucking baby can burn in hell for all I care, you sick fuck!"
Ryan sat, calm and collected on the splitting wood. He folded his hands on his lap and took in the sight around him: the orange leaves adorning the tree limbs, the slight ripple of the water's surface, the diverse collection of pebbles on the shoreline.
This is what you get for carrying my baby. I hope you realize what you've done.