Page 36 of The Fire Between High & Lo (Elements 2)

My hands started shaking uncontrollably as Erika helped me stand up, swiping all of the pregnancy tests into a bag before she shoved them into her oversized purse. “Come on,” she said, washing her hands, forcing me to wash my hands, and then nudging her head toward the door. “Let’s go.”

“No,” I whisper-shouted. “I can’t, I can’t see her right now. I can’t go out there.”

“You can’t just hide in here,” she said, wiping my eyes. “Don’t worry. We won’t say anything to her. Just breathe.”

She walked out of the bathroom first, and I followed behind her.

“Erika? What are you doing here?” Mom asked, with a heightened voice.

“I just thought I’d stop by to visit. Maybe have dinner with you both.”

“It’s rude to just show up for dinner without calling. What if I didn’t get enough food for you? Besides, I was ordering in tonight. Alyssa has to finish packing all of her boxes in her room, even though I told her she should’ve had it done last weekend. And—”

“I’m pregnant.”

Mom’s eyes shot up to me as Erika’s jaw shot to the ground. “What did you just say?”

The moment I said the word once more, the yelling began. She told me what a disappointment I’d become. She screamed her disgust toward me. She said she knew I’d screw up somehow, and called Logan a deadbeat.

“You’ll have an abortion,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s all there is to it. We’ll go to a clinic this week, handle this mishap, and then you’ll leave for college.”

My mind hadn’t even wrapped around the fact that I was pregnant, yet she was already telling me to make it disappear.

“Mom, come on. Let’s not be so irrational,” Erika said, standing up for me, because words weren’t able to escape my closed up throat.

“Irrational?” Mom folded her arms across her chest. She raised an eyebrow with a glassy stare. “No, what’s irrational is getting pregnant five days before starting college. What’s irrational is dating a loser with no life plans. What’s irrational is Alyssa having a child when she hasn’t even grown up herself.”

“He’s not a loser,” I swore about Logan. He was so far from being a loser.

Mom rolled her eyes, and started off toward her office. “I have a case tomorrow, but then we are going to the clinic. Otherwise, you can figure out a way to pay for college yourself. I will not put my money into you going to a school for a fake major, when you’ll end up dropping out and becoming nothing,” she ordered. “You’re just like your father.”

I inhaled sharply, and the knife in my heart dug deeper.

Erika stayed at our place that night, moving furniture around the living room. Rearranging things was how she always got her frustration out. Other times, she broke plates and glasses from her frustration. “She’s being unreasonable, Aly. You don’t have to listen to her, you know. And if she threatens you, don’t take it to heart. I’ll help you figure it out.”

I smiled, then frowned. “I have to tell Logan. He’s been texting me all afternoon, and I haven’t texted back. I don’t know what to say.”

Erika frowned, then frowned some more. “That’s going to be a tough talk, but it should happen sooner than later.”

I swallowed hard, knowing that it had to happen that night.

“I’m worried though, Alyssa. I’ve known Logan for a long time, and he’s not always the most stable person.” Erika wasn’t the biggest fan of Logan, and I couldn’t blame her. He was the boy who almost burned down hers and Kellan’s apartment a year ago after going on a bender with drugs due to his parents belittling and hitting him.

“That’s only five percent,” I murmured.

“What?”

“He’s there ninety-five percent of the time, Erika. Ninety-five percent of the time he’s gentle. He’s kind. But sometimes that five percent slips in, and he’s not himself. He loses the battle between his truths and the lies that his parents feed him. But you can’t judge him on those moments.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because if you judge him solely on his few moments of lows, then you miss out on his beautiful highs.”

***

When it rained, it poured, and poured, and poured.

I’d seen Logan’s low points quite a few times within the past two years. Whenever it happened, he turned into a person I didn’t recognize. His words slurred, his body wavered, and his voice was always so loud. He was angry, and somewhat mean, whenever he used drugs other than smoking pot. I knew it mostly happened when his parents hurt him, though, when they left abusive scars on his heart. The bruises on one’s heart were always the hardest ones to heal, they seemed to last the longest. When those low moments happened, I knew it was best to just let them pass, because afterwards, he always found his way back to the Logan I loved and adored.