I walked into my parents’ house, in search of my mom. I needed to talk to her about washing stuff. I saw a note on the table:
Mom,
Dana got shot. Tay’s at the hospital with her. I’m going there.
Go over there as soon as you get this note.
Love,
Isaac
I walked back out of the house, and down the street to the bus station. I was gonna go visit Dana.
The doctor walked out into the waiting room and looked at me. “Are you Taylor Hanson?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but your girlfriend passed away.”
“No!” I screamed, and burst into tears.
I woke up and shook myself. I looked down at Dana’s sweet face and stroked it with the back of my hand. “I love you.” Then I drifted off once again.
The doctor walked into the waiting room and looked at my family and I. “Are you the Hansons?”
“Yes,” I replied for them.
“I understand that you are family friends of Miss Turner?”
“That’s correct,” my dad replied.
“Was Miss Turner dating anyone at the time of the shooting?”
I spoke up again. “She broke up with me about two weeks before hand.”
“Then you need to decided whether or not to put her baby up for adoption, because I doubt she’ll live to decide for herself.”
My eyes bugged out. “She’s pregnant!?”
“Isaac!” My mother exclaimed.
“She can’t be pregnant!” I declared defiantly.
“Well, she is. If you don’t believe me, you can come look at the sonogram. We were examining her wound using an X-ray, when we noticed it. We did a sonogram, and bloodwork. She is definitely pregnant. Actually, about two months along. You’re her baby’s father, and you need to take responsibility.”
“But, it’s impossible!”
“How long were you two together?”
“About three months,” I admitted.
The doctor just looked at me.
“Look, I’ll get tested to prove it’s not mine! ‘Cuz it’s not!”
“Okay, step right this way.”
I walked into the other room, and sat in a chair, while they drew some blood.
“This won’t take ten minutes,” the nurse assured me.
I returned to the lobby.
A few minutes after Isaac got back, a nurse walked into the waiting room and declared, “It’s not his baby.”
Isaac sat there looking all righteous.
“But it is one of his close relatives.’”
Everyone gasped. Oh God, I thought. Not only will Ike never speak to me again, but Mom and Dad’ll never let me out of the house again!
“It’s either his father’s, one of his cousins,’ one of his uncles,’ one of his grandfathers,’ or one of his brothers.’”
“It has to be either Zac or Taylor’s,” my father concluded. “And Taylor’s her age. it must be his.”
Everyone gasped and looked at me. My mom exclaimed, “Taylor!”
“Don’t look at me! Look at Zac!”
My mom looked at Zac and exclaimed, “Zachary!”
“It was Tay,” he said calmly.
My mom looked at me and exclaimed, “Taylor!”
The nurse decreed, “Well, if no one can be responsible and claim this baby, we’ll just have to do more blood work. Come on, young man!” She grabbed my arm and pulled me up.
“It’s his baby,” the nurse announced.
My family looked at me in disdain. I hung my head in shame.
“Taylor, you’ll have to come on back and look some forms over,” the nurse told me sympathetically.
“Okay,” I agreed in defeat.
His baby! I mentally exclaimed. I had been expecting Zac. He was the horny ‘I need a girl every night’ one, not Tay. I thought he was a virgin.
I cried. I couldn’t believe that the love of my life had had a one night stand with my brother.
“So, do you want to give the baby up for adoption, or raise it yourself?”
“Uh, I think I’ll keep it,” I decided, the full reality of what I was doing not sinking in yet.
“Okay. We won’t be needing to do any paperwork then. When the baby’s nine months, we’ll just do a Caesarean if she’s still in a coma. If she’s woken up by then, she can make her own decisions. If she dies before it reaches maturity, we can Caesarean it out of her dead body, and hope it lives.”
“Okay,” I agreed weakly. “Good. I’m glad you understand the procedure.”
I got up and ran out of the room, and into the nearest bathroom. I bent over a toilet and threw up. Twelve consecutive times.
“Isaac, get over it,” Zac commanded.
I continued to cry like a baby.
“My God,” he muttered, walking off.
A few minutes later, Tay walked over to me quietly.
“You want a cookie?” he asked me timidly.
“No.”
“Please forgive me.”
“No.”
“Then, uh, I will place upon your head the Curse of the Seven Swords!”
I looked at him sceptically.
He walked around me in a circle, and said in a chanty voice, “The Sword of Happiness, The Sword of Luck, The Sword of Truth, The Sword of Love, The Sword of Courage, The Sword of Stability, The Sword of Death!”
He bent over, hit the palm of his hand on the floor, at the exact same moment he said the word ‘death,’ and stormed away.
“Uh, sure, Tay................” I muttered, shaking my head.
I had seen a movie where a gypsy girl put a ‘curse’ on someone by doing the same thing, only saying the words to a nursery rhythm in Italian, to some English dudes, and they all though they were cursed. I just said the words to some fucked up email I had gotten the other day.
“Uh, Tay?” I asked my brother, after seeing him perform his little gypsy curse or whatever.
“Yeah?”
“Have you been impersonating gypsy girls again?”
He ignored me.
“I think you need therapy for that. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed.”
Chapter Fourteen
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