He wasn’t in his room, he wasn’t eating breakfast, and he wasn’t in the pool area. That left only one place: the arcade. Sure enough, she found him there, engrossed in a game of Street Fighter.
“Who’s there?” he said upon hearing the footsteps.
“It’s just me,” Christine replied. “I-I wanted to talk.”
He finished his game and turned around. “Fine. What do you want to talk about?”
“I think you know.”
“No, I don’t know. Do you want to chat about you and Brian, why we broke up, maybe the weather? I don’t know, Chris!” he snapped.
Christine rolled her eyes. “I want to talk about you and me, Nick, that’s what I want to talk about!”
“Simple. There is no ‘you and me.’ You ruined that,” Nick said.
“Then what the hell was that on the elevator?” Christine exclaimed. Nick looked puzzled. “Was that someone else that kissed me? It certainly didn’t seem like it to me!”
His look of confusion turned to a look of irritation. “That was a mistake,” he said matter-of-factly. “A stupid mistake that I shouldn’t have made, because I obviously led you on. Sorry, Chris. There’s nothing between you and me anymore.”
When she heard the commotion, Andrea stuck her head in the room. “What’s going on? Everything all right?”
“No, everything is not all right. Guys are assholes, Andie. Complete assholes,” Christine said, storming out.
Andrea followed her, wanting an explanation. “Chris! Chris, slow down! What happened?”
Christine ignored her until they got up to the suite they shared with Sandra and Jessica. She opened the door and immediately collapsed on the floor, sobbing. “I hate Nick! I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!”
“What happened?” Andrea exclaimed.
“Last night, when we got stuck on the elevator, he kissed me, and then today I went to ask him about it, and he told me it was a mistake, and there’s nothing between him and me anymore.”
By now, Sandra and Jessica had come into the room. “What’s going on?” Sandra asked.
Andrea was just as angry as Christine. “Nick is a fucking bastard, that’s what’s going on. He kissed her last night, and told her it was all a mistake this morning.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Jessica exclaimed.
Christine shook her head sadly. “No, she’s telling the truth. And it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t been so stupid with Brian in the first place, Nick and I would still be together! It’s my fault!”
“This is not your fault, Chris. You’re seventeen. He’s playing with your emotions,” Sandra said.
“More than you know,” Christine said, referring to what Nick had said about Jeff. She meant to say it to herself, but said it aloud instead.
“What? What do you mean?” Andrea inquired.
“Shit, did I say that out loud?” After a moment, Christine decided that the girls had a right to know, too. “Well, I guess I’ll tell you. When I was a junior, I was going out with this amazing senior named Jeff. He went to an all boys’ private school near mine. He was hot, sweet, popular… We went to prom together, and afterwards, we sneaked back to his dorm. He tried to pressure me into sleeping with him, and when I said no, he tried to rape me. I guess I was just too much work or something, because he finally just threw me out. I called my roommate, and she got me a cab. The only people I told about it were my roommate, Kate, and Nick.”
Silence had fallen over the room. Andrea finally broke it. “I’m sorry. Did Nick bring that into your fight?”
“Yeah, he did. He told me I deserved everything Jeff did to me,” Christine sobbed. She paused. “Even though he said all that to me, I’m still in love with him. I miss him so much.”
“Girl, he doesn’t deserve you. You’re so much better than him,” Jessica insisted.
No one knew quite what to say, so they were quiet once again. “Could one of you maybe take me to a clinic around here today?” Christine asked. She pointed to her stomach. “I need to get that taken care of.”
Andrea nodded. “Sure, I can do it.”
“I can go with, too, if you want,” Jessica said.
“I would, but Fatima wants me to do some work for her today,” Sandra said apologetically.
“Get cleaned up a little, then we’ll go,” Andrea said softly. She led Christine into the bathroom and went back out to talk to Jessica and Sandra.
“I can’t believe he would do something like that to her,” Jessica said in her slight southern drawl.
“She’s seventeen. She can’t deal with all this,” Sandra whispered. “This is crazy. I never thought Nick would hurt her.”
“I know! He was so in love with her. Two weeks ago, he would have done anything to make her happy,” Andrea agreed.
Sandra clenched her fists angrily. “I am so mad! She’s become like a little sister to me, and I am ready to kill that jerk!”
“I think we all feel that way, Sandra,” Jessica said with sympathy.
“I feel terrible for her,” Andrea said in a hushed voice. The last thing Christine needed was to know that people were talking about her. “This is a lot to go through. Her best friend of eight or nine years won’t talk to her, and the man she loves, also the man who got her pregnant, is screwing with her head. That’s enough by itself, without her messed up past. I’m not saying that what she did was right, but it was just a stupid mistake.”
Sandra looked at the clock and stood up. “I gotta go, girls. I’ll see you later. Let me know how everything went when you get back.”
“Okay. See you later, Sandra,” Andrea said.
As Sandra left, Christine stepped out of the bathroom. She had applied makeup to her puffy eyes, making them look not quite as red. To cover what was left, she had thrown on a pair of sunglasses. “Ready?”
“Yeah, we are,” Jessica said.
Andrea had spent a few years living in New York, so she knew where she was going. Though there were horns honking, tires squealing, and engines revving outside, the inside of the car was dead silent. Finally, Christine sighed. “I always used to say how wrong this was, and now I’m doing it, myself.”
“Oh, hunn, it isn’t your fault. This is an exception to the rule,” Andrea assured her.
“I still feel so guilty. I’m killing a human being.”
“Chris, you’re not doing anything wrong,” Jessica said. “The baby wouldn’t have the best life, anyway. It would have no father, and if you were to say that Nick was its father, it wouldn’t matter. They’d never come in contact. Nick is always busy recording or writing songs, going on tour, doing promotional stuff…”
“I know, I know, but I shouldn’t have gotten pregnant in the first place. I’m such an idiot,” Christine mumbled.
“How many times do we have to tell you, girl?” Jessica teased, trying to lighten the mood. “That was not your fault! He took advantage of you.”
An hour later, they were driving back from the clinic. Everything had been taken care of, and Christine was relieved. She wouldn’t have to deal with her parents or bad publicity at all, and now every solid bit of Nick had been washed away. Of course, there were still thoughts of him, but those would always be there…
After leaving Christine in their room, Andrea knocked on Nick’s door, prepared for an argument. He answered the door. “Hey, Andie, what do you want?” he said kindly.
“Give it up, Nick. I think you know what I want,” Andrea replied angrily.
“What is it with girls expecting me to know everything today? I don’t know!” he exclaimed.
Andrea sighed and pushed her way into the room. “Do you know what you’re doing to that poor girl? She’s not even an adult, and she’s far from emotionally stable. She spent her morning crying over you, and then Jessie and I took her to the clinic to get her abortion.”
“Wait, she got an abortion?”
“Yes, maybe you would have known that if you actually talked to her without destroying her self esteem.”
“I can’t believe she would get an abortion without telling me!”
“I don’t think you’re in any position to say that. She can’t believe you would kiss her and then tell her it was all a mistake and you didn’t mean it.”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt her. It was just one of those spur of the moment things, and I thought she knew that. That doesn’t mean she needs to go and kill our baby without even talking to me about it.”
“You know, if you hadn’t taken advantage of her in the first place, then you wouldn’t be in this situation, now would you? God, guys are so stupid!” Andrea crossed her arms over her chest.
“So this is all my fault, then?” Nick muttered sarcastically.
“Yeah, actually, it is. It’s also your fault that she’s so upset now. She is so in love with you, and you keep leading her along when you don’t care about her.”
Suddenly, Nick turned away from Andrea and burst into tears. “I do care about her! I care about her more than anything, but I don’t think I could ever fully trust her again.”
For a few moments, Andrea’s features softened. “I don’t think you understand, Nick. She hates herself for doing all those things to you. You have nothing to worry about. If you were to get back with her, she would never hurt you again, provided you didn’t hurt her. The only reason she did anything with Brian was revenge. She loves you. Take her back.”
“Is that why you came over here? To get me and Chris back together? I’m not going to take her back, Andie. Forget it.”
“That’s not why I came over here. I came over here to make you feel bad, and I obviously did, so I’m leaving. Think about what I said, Nick.” With that, she left.
“I’m not taking her back-not now, not ever,” Nick said determinedly to the empty room. He wasn’t going to get hurt again.