Things I can't forget

sketch #323
what happened on april 6

Girls like me do not buy pregnancy tests.

I drag my pencil down the paper, drawing tears rolling from her eyes.

Girls like me sing in the church choir. Every spring break, I go on mission trips to Honduras, where we renovate houses for the underprivileged. I do all my homework every night, and before I go to bed, I kiss Daddy's cheek and tell him I wish he'd go to the doctor about his blood pressure and start getting more exercise than walking Fritz and scooping his poop.

I've only kissed one boy my entire life.

Emily called that day, crying. "Kate," she said between sobs. "You can't tell anyone. Not even your mom."

I drove to Walmart two towns away, over in Green Hills, so no one would see me buying the test. I trembled as I carried the box to the self-checkout lane. I scanned, bagged, and paid, and bit back tears, because my best friend of fifteen years-since we were three years old-might have accidentally gotten pregnant by her long-time boyfriend.

I didn't even know they had had sex. It's not something they would tell. If anyone found out that Jacob, son of Brother Michael-our preacher at church-got a girl pregnant out of wedlock? Chaos.

It wouldn't look good for Emily either. She's like me. Always wears clean T-shirts and none of her jeans have holes or loose strings. She would never even think about smoking a cigarette. She doesn't go over the speed limit. She plays the violin and has a scholarship lined up to attend Belmont University in Nashville.

But Emily made a mistake.

I use my black coloring pencil to shade her hair. My red pencil fills in her lips, turned upside down in a frown.

And then I made an even bigger mistake: I helped her.

Excerpted from Things I Can't Forget by Miranda Kenneally All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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