“It’s us. From last night. A few of them, actually. You’re leaning in pretty close to me in one of the photos. I know you were just whispering something to me, but in the picture . . . in the picture it looks like we’re about to kiss. And the others . . . Well, your arms are wrapped around me. It was after the guy with the camera popped out and scared you. But we look pretty close in the pictures, Mina. We look a little more than friendly.”
The phone was suddenly blazing hot in my hands. I wanted to look, but I didn’t want to look. I could already imagine the scene in my head more clearly than any photo could have captured. This was why I had said no when Jesse had kissed me. This was why I had pushed him away. It wasn’t right, dragging him into the spotlight next to me. I hadn’t been careful enough, but I would try harder. I had to.
“I’m so sorry this is happening,” I said, the guilt swirling in my gut. “Where did you see the pictures? Where are they posted?”
“They’re on the Virgin Mina site, which is where I first saw them. But they’re on a few news sites that I’ve found, too. No respectable ones, but they’re definitely up there pretty widely for people to see. There’s a lot of speculation about me now. About us. And the fact that I’m with your family for Christmas Eve makes it look like we’re pretty serious, I guess.”
“Did they say anything about my dad? About the fight?”
“No, actually. At least not from what I’ve read. The cameraman probably didn’t want to admit that he was wrecked by your dad, and on top of that, it is in exceptionally poor taste that he was lurking outside of a church to catch you. He probably didn’t want to bring any extra attention to that.”
“So people think you’re definitely the dad now?”
“More or less.”
“I’m sorry that you’re becoming such a big part of this,” I said, my face hot with shame. Even now I couldn’t stop thinking about our kiss, remembering the way his lips had felt so perfectly shaped to match my own. How sugary sweet they had tasted, how silky his hair had felt between my fingers. I pinched my eyes shut, willing it all away. “I never should have let you get close to me, Jesse. This is my fault. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen to you. Your reputation—”
“I already told you, reputation means nothing to me,” he said, cutting me off. I could practically see his head shaking through the phone line. “It was my decision to get close to you, Mina. We know the truth, and once we put our video out there for people to see, maybe at least a few of the intelligent people will, too. Besides, there are worse things in the world than people thinking I’m your boyfriend.”
“Maybe that would be true if I wasn’t some insane pregnant virgin.”
“Pregnant and a virgin, maybe, but not insane.”
“But aren’t you upset that people think you could be the dad? That you’re just as much a part of this lie as I am?”
He paused, a long breath crackling through the phone. “I mean, sure, I wish that total strangers wouldn’t make accusations about me. But I can’t stop them from making up their own stories. I can refuse to let them change the way I live my life, though. I’m not going to stop spending time with you. I’m not going to hide.”
I smiled, even as a tear dripped down my cheek. “I don’t deserve you.”
“I think we’ve had this argument before. Get back to your family, okay? We can talk about this tomorrow. Let’s do something fun this week—go on a day trip or something. We need to get you out and about before you’re too pregnant to move.”
He hung up before I could pretend to yell at him, and after a few minutes of staring blankly out my window, I drifted back downstairs. I decided to not tell anyone else about the photos, not until after Christmas was officially over.
And even though a large part of me knew I should be upset by the pictures, upset that people would jump to the wrong conclusions about Jesse’s role in all this, I couldn’t completely ignore the bubble of happiness floating above my head.
Jesse was right.
There were far worse things in the world than having people think that he could be my boyfriend—a girl could only be so lucky. But I still couldn’t let it happen. I couldn’t let myself be that girl. He deserved a normal high school relationship. He deserved to be happy without all the complexities and all the conditions.
And most of all, he deserved to love someone who wasn’t too scared to love him back.
“So, Mina,” Dr. Keller asked, wheeling her stool around to face me. “Have you given your birth plan much consideration since we last met?”
We’d already finished the rundown of checkups—weight and blood pressure, size and position of the baby, and the heartbeat, always my favorite part. Jamie had left to help with another patient down the hall, leaving the two of us alone in the exam room.
“I wrote some things down,” I said, pulling the paper out of my purse and handing it to her. “I’ve given a lot of thought to pain medication, and I’ve decided not to take it. I want this to be as natural as possible, unless of course something goes wrong and it’s absolutely necessary. It just doesn’t feel right to go about this in an unnatural way, if that makes any sense. I want the full experience, for better or for worse.”
Dr. Keller nodded, making some notes in my file.
“And I know I’ve been a little back and forth about this, but I need this to be a home birth. I’m positive about that.” I paused, bracing myself for any resistance. Dr. Keller looked up at me, calmly pushing a few stray red curls away from her eyes as she waited for me to continue. “I know there are risks involved, but I’ve had a normal, healthy pregnancy so far, and the hospital is only fifteen minutes away if there is an emergency. I can’t have reporters waiting outside of the hospital, outside of the room, Dr. Keller. The attention is only going to get worse the closer I get to labor, and I’m not putting my baby in the public’s hands like that. I want to be at home, in my own bed, with you and my family there. If you can’t be there, I understand. But I need to have this baby in private, one way or another.”
“I’m not going to lie to you, Mina. It’s not exactly . . . standard protocol for me to do that, to come into your home for the birth. But I’ve put a lot of thought into this, too, you know, because you’re not exactly my standard case.” She smiled, looking just as nervous as I felt, and I couldn’t help but smile back at her. “I want to do this for you. We’ll make it work, okay?”
I unclenched my hands from the sides of the exam table, relief spreading through me. I’d been certain that she was going to try to scare me out of the home birth, convince me that a traditional hospital birth was the better, safer choice. But I’d started having a recurring bad dream—our driveway so mobbed with reporters that I couldn’t get to the hospital fast enough, and I went into labor right there, right in front of hundreds of flashing cameras. I shuddered even then, fully awake in the brightly lit exam room, blinking my eyes to flush out the image.
“How are things, Mina?” she asked, closing her folder, a sign that the question was more personal than professional. She’d been different, less hesitant, since our talk, and she hadn’t brought up the idea of counseling since. She was still my doctor, serious and efficient and as crisp as her white jacket. But she was more than that, too. She was another guardian standing next to me and my baby, another defense I hadn’t expected to have.