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  As I climbed down the embankment, I tried to calm myself. I hiked away from the highway along the raging river and sat at the base of the waterfall. It seemed both frightening, with all that power, but also beautiful. I took a deep breath and suddenly felt kind of giddy.

  I had escaped. I had taken the first step in just leaving all that crap behind. I could do this. I could just disappear. Go somewhere else where no one knew me and no one would find me. Forget about Ashley and the stupid pregnancy. Forget about what everyone back there thought of me.

  It would be that easy.

  The giddiness lasted for almost an hour. And then the doubt set in.

  I scooped some of the icy cold water into my hands and splashed it onto my face once and then twice.

  And then reality slammed back into me like a freight train.

  Could I do this to my parents? Did I really want to leave everything behind?

  Yes, maybe I could do this if I had to. But not yet. Not now. I felt vulnerable. I’d only been gone a few hours, and I was already feeling lost and lonely. It would be dark soon. Then what? I felt like a lost little boy.

  The hitchhiking back home wasn’t so easy. I think the first driver who stopped, a middle-aged woman with sunglasses, was drunk. She slurred her speech. The next driver turned out to be a church minister who kept asking me what was wrong. I didn’t tell him. It took three more short rides, each after a long wait, to get me back to my neighborhood.

  I’d missed dinner, and my mom and dad wanted to know where I’d been.

  “You’ve been acting weird,” my dad said. “Want to tell us what’s wrong?”

  My dad’s an okay guy, just a little old-school. Always did everything by the book. How could I answer him?

  And my mom. She stood there looking so worried. I knew that she’d never approved of Ashley. Maybe it was the age thing. Maybe something else. They were both good parents. I hated doing this to them, but I was going crazy keeping my problems to myself. So I said it.

  “I got Ashley pregnant.”

  I saw the muscles in my father’s jaw tighten. I saw the shock in his eyes. And my mom—she sucked in a gasp of air and then looked quickly away out the window.

  I went upstairs to my bedroom and lay on my bed. Ten minutes later my mom and dad came in with my dinner and watched in awkward silence as I took a few bites. Finally, my father cleared his throat and asked, “Have the two of you gone to speak to a doctor or someone at Planned Parenthood? You have options, you know.”

  There was that word.

  “I’m not sure Ashley will talk to me.”

  “Call her,” my mom said. “Talk to her.”

  After they left me alone, I did call her. And, amazingly, she did not hang up.

  “I nearly ran away today. For good.”

  “Why did you come back?” I didn’t hear any anger in her voice.

  “I don’t know. I just couldn’t leave.”

  “What you said today in the coffee shop, was it true?”

  I took a deep breath. I couldn’t lie to her. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure I know what love is. I just know that I do care what happens to you. I know it’s my fault, but I’d like to be there for you.”

  “I’m not sure what to say. One minute I hate you and the next I want to be with you. It’s like an emotional roller coaster.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “I want us to go together to Planned Parenthood. I want to find some stuff out. Okay?”

  There was a long dead silence on the line.

  Then she said, “Okay.”

  Chapter Six

  We went to the clinic the next day after school. Neither of us told our parents. We were both nervous, but the clinic staff treated us okay. We sat in a room with a lady doctor. She said her name was Dr. Benson. She seemed nice enough, and you could tell she’d done this a thousand times before. I tried to hold Ashley’s hand, but she pulled away. I think it was just the nerves. This was hard on both of us.

  “You could have a procedure,” the doctor said, “if this is not the right time. If you really don’t want to have a baby, we can schedule you in. I’m not advising you to do this. It’s just that the earlier it’s done, the simpler the procedure is.” She paused. “The other option, of course, is that you can have the baby. Then you could put it up for adoption. There are a lot of married women out there who can’t get pregnant. To them, it would be a blessing.”

  “What if we didn’t want to give it up?” I heard myself blurt out. The room went silent, and Ashley looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

  “I’m just saying, what if ?” I added.

  The doctor cleared her throat. “It’s an option,” she said. “This is all about choices—your choices. What’s best for you both and what’s best for the baby. If there is a baby.”

  Ashley took my hand now but didn’t look at me. “When do we have to decide?” she said.

  “The sooner, the better,” Dr. Benson said. “Just be sure you decide on something you can follow through on. Something you can live with.”

  When we left the office, we didn’t say anything to each other. I think we were in shock. I walked Ashley home and tried to start a conversation—first about the decision, but then anything just to fill the dead air. Each time Ashley said the same thing: “I can’t talk about this right now.”

  As we approached her house, she said, “I’m okay from here. You go on home. Let’s sleep on this and see what things look like tomorrow.”

  I nodded and gave her a hug. I knew she didn’t want me anywhere near her house or her parents. Best to keep a low profile, I thought.

  I slept terribly that night. I’d doze off and then wake back up. At school the next day, Ashley still looked like she was in shock and didn’t want to talk to me about the clinic or the decision. I got that. I didn’t want to talk about it either. On my second near-sleepless night, I got up and sat down at my computer. I visited websites on teenage pregnancy and abortion. Pro and con. I tried to stay away from the sites where people expressed strong views one way or the other. I wanted this to be our decision. Ashley’s and mine. Man, there were a lot of strongly opinionated people out there on this topic. I didn’t know who was right or who was wrong. And I didn’t know what I thought about it myself. I guess there were a lot of things I was uncertain about.

  Then I googled teen fathers. It was weird just keying in the words. I mean really weird.

  I ended up at a website in New Zealand, of all places. Teenage guys had posted their stories about being fathers.

  Now I was wide-awake. Some of them were eighteen and nineteen. Some of them younger. One guy was only fifteen. They wrote about how difficult it was. Some of them had been pushed away by the girl or her parents and were angry. A couple of the older guys had actually moved in with the girl and the baby and were trying to make it on their own. They were struggling. But a couple of younger guys had decided to just stay in the picture. Both parents were still going to school, both lived at home. They sure as hell didn’t have it easy. But these guys were committed to being the baby’s father. One guy named Mark made it sound like it wasn’t so bad, and he seemed totally committed to being there to help his girlfriend and to be a good father.

  I read every posting on that site. There were pictures—some with the mother and father. Some with just the dad and the baby. There was even one dude who was raising his kid at home with his own parents. After the baby was born, the girl had said she wanted nothing to do with him or the baby. None of the stories suggested anything was easy.

  I kept wondering why and how these guys had been able to go this route. Man, it must have been damn hard. But some of them seemed proud of being a father. They were helping to raise their own kid. One part of me thought that was awesome. But the reality of such a decision was starting to kick in. Helping to raise a baby. Being there for a little kid who is growing up. Just thinking about it made me shake. This was all g
etting way too weird.

  Chapter Seven

  I don’t exactly know why I did what I did next. It was nearly midnight when I woke up my parents. “I need to talk,” I said. I had already told my parents about the meeting with the counselor at Planned Parenthood, and they had been surprisingly cool about it all. I think they were pretty sure we would get the abortion, but they weren’t pushing me one way or the other. Now I was having second thoughts.

  “What’s wrong, Zach?” my mom asked, sitting bolt upright and suddenly fully awake.

  I sat down on the edge of their bed and suddenly felt like a little kid again, coming into my parents’ room in the middle of the night because I was scared. “I’ve been thinking,” I said. I swallowed hard and then continued. “I’ve been thinking about Ashley and about her being pregnant.”

  “We know it’s not easy,” my mom interrupted, trying to sound comforting.

  My father rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on me. “What is it, Zach?”

  I swallowed hard. “What if we decide not to have the abortion?”

  My mom turned on the table lamp to look at my face. They both looked a little stunned.

  My father cleared his throat. “I thought the two of you went to the clinic to talk to the doctor about…well, having a procedure to, um, terminate the pregnancy.”

  “We did. I’m just not a hundred percent sure it’s the right thing for us.”

  “What does Ashley think?”

  “I haven’t talked to her yet about this. I mean we’ve talked about a possible abortion or her having the baby and giving it up. But what I’m thinking about is different.”

  “I just don’t see how it could work,” my father snapped and was about to say more, but my mom touched his arm. He didn’t say anything else.

  “I think you need to have a serious talk with Ashley,” my mother said.

  “I know. I just didn’t want to phone her. I need to do this face-to-face.”

  “Of course,” she said. My dad still looked a little stunned.

  I waited until lunchtime the next day. I stood by the cafeteria door until Ashley came along with a couple of her friends. She looked a little pale. The two other girls just glared at me. Around school, I didn’t know what to expect from anyone. Many of my classmates knew something or thought they knew something about me—I just didn’t know what. Maybe some knew the truth, and others had been told a bunch of bullshit about me. I was tired of the looks I was getting.

  “Ashley, can we talk?” I asked. “Alone,” I added.

  Ashley nodded okay. “I’m not feeling all that great. I don’t think I can eat anything.”

  This made me feel more than a little guilty. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay. Let’s go over to that empty table by the window.”

  Everybody stared as we walked across the room. The lunchtime music was blasting away. We sat down by the window.

  Ashley spoke first. “My parents think terminating the pregnancy now while it’s still early is the way to go. They’ve backed off on talking to the police about having you charged.”

  I didn’t even want to think about the legal side of things. I didn’t believe anyone would really have me charged with a crime. But then, what did I know?

  “I think my dad feels that’s the way to go too,” I said.

  “It’s the easy way out,” Ashley said. “For you at least.” There was an edge to her voice when she said that last part.

  “What about you? What do you want?”

  “I still don’t know. It’s too big of a decision. I can’t make up my mind.”

  “Do you want to know what I think?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah,” she said. “But I’m almost afraid to ask.”

  I didn’t just blurt it out. I told her about my conversation with my parents. And I told her about the website. I told her about the stories of the teen dads, and that I had even emailed the guy named Mark, who had posted his contact info after his story. By this morning, he had sent me a response. Having the baby and being there for my son was the smartest and most important thing I ever did in life, Mark had written.

  Ashley looked puzzled. “You’re taking advice from someone you don’t even know, who is on the other side of the planet?”

  “That’s not it,” I countered. “It’s just that it is such an important decision and I’m trying to figure out what is right.”

  She looked a little sick again, and she turned her head away from me and just stared out the window.

  I left things there hanging in the air for a minute, wishing the damn music wasn’t so loud. Finally I asked, “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking I want my life back. I want to go back to being just a girl going to high school. I wish this never happened. I wish I never met you.” There was no anger in her voice.

  “I’m glad I met you,” I said. “I think we can do this thing together.”

  She was still staring out the window, and I saw tears begin to form in her eyes. And then she turned to me. And she kissed me. She held my face in her hands and kissed me like she meant it.

  Chapter Eight

  I walked Ashley to her class after that. As I drifted off toward math class, I felt warm and fuzzy. Happy. I’d never felt like this before, and I was sure my gut reaction was right. Everything was going to be okay. Ashley and I would see this through.

  After school, I tried to convince her to go back to the clinic with me. I wanted to sit down and talk some more with Dr. Benson—more about pregnancy and about the possibility of not giving up the baby.

  Ashley just shook her head. “I have to talk to my parents first. I owe them that.”

  All of a sudden that warm fuzzy feeling was gone. “I understand,” I said. “Can I talk to them with you?”

  “No,” she said. “That wouldn’t be good. I need to do this myself.”

  So I walked her home, but I didn’t walk her up to her door.

  That night, the shit hit the fan. The phone rang, and it was Ashley’s father. He talked to my dad at first. All I could hear was the conversation on this end. My father was trying to be polite, but Mr. Walker must have been screaming. This was not good.

  I heard my dad say finally in a nervous but controlled voice, “I’m sorry, I have to hang up now. Maybe we can have this conversation another time.” And he hung up the phone.

  Not a minute passed before the phone rang again. This time I picked it up in my room.

  “Hi,” I said. “It’s me. Zach.”

  “Put your father back on the phone,” he growled.

  “No,” I said. “I think it’s me you need to talk to. Not him.”

  “Well, you are the source of the problem here.”

  “I know.”

  “What’s this crazy idea you’re putting in my daughter’s head?” he asked.

  “We’re just trying to come to a decision that is right for us.”

  “Decision? Who are you to decide?”

  I paused for a second. “I’m the father. I should have a say in this.”

  “You get my daughter pregnant and then tell me that you want to decide what’s right for her future?” He was losing it now. I could hear it in his voice.

  I was working hard at keeping my cool. My father walked into my room then and just stood there. “Put me back on the phone,” he said. I shook my head no and then tried to ignore him.

  I spoke slowly and carefully into the phone. “I want Ashley and me to decide together what comes next.” And I probably should not have said what I said next. But he was pushing me. “Maybe the right thing is for her to have the baby and not give it up.”

  I waited for whatever was going to come next, but all I heard was a kind of ragged breathing into the phone. And then Mr. Walker slammed the receiver down.

  My father was still standing there. I turned around to face him. And I waited for him to say something. Maybe I even hoped he was going to say how proud he was of me for taking responsibility a
nd also for not getting angry on the phone. Instead he just turned and walked away.

  Chapter Nine

  Soon everyone at school knew the situation. Or they knew at least that Ashley was pregnant and that I was the one who got her that way. Ashley had told Elisse and, well, Elisse told just about everyone. As you can imagine, there were various versions about how I got her pregnant.

  Some of the guys I hardly knew were slapping me on the back. “Congratulations, dude,” someone would say out of the blue as he walked down the hall giving me a thumbs-up. Actually, I don’t think they were congratulating me. They were making fun of me. For Ashley’s brother Stephen and his buddies, it was another story. No one actually did anything physical. It was always just a nasty look or someone saying, “We’re watching you.” Or Stephen’s favorite line, “This isn’t over yet.”

  The reaction from the girls was mixed as well. Some treated me like pond scum. Other girls who had never even paid attention to me would look my way in the hallway or in class. I could see that they were curious about me. I wasn’t used to being the center of such attention.

  And it seemed that every time I turned around, Kiley would show up and want to know how things were going. “Are you going to be all right?” she asked.

  “Everything is going to turn out fine,” I said.

  “You are actually even considering having the baby? Don’t you think Ashley would be too young to actually go through with this?”

  “No,” I said. “I think she’d be fine as long as I’m there to help.”

  “You mean it, don’t you?”

  “Well, we’re considering the options,” I said. I was becoming more certain every day that having the baby was the right way to go. I loved Ashley, and she loved me. All I needed, all Ashley and I needed, was for everyone to leave us alone.

  Then Kiley gave me this really strange look. It didn’t register at first, but after she walked away it clicked. It wasn’t the kind of look that a friend gives you. It was more than that. And I discovered that I liked how that made me feel.