Jason sat with his cell phone gripped tightly in his hand, reading the words on the tiny illuminated screen over and over again as they failed to quite sink in.
Still wearing his lacrosse gear, his senses, previously inflamed in the heat of the game had now dulled and deadened. The locker rooms had been bustling with his teammates but they were now empty and silent leaving him with only his thoughts for company. And more than anything, in that moment, he did not want to be alone with only his own musings. He wanted to be back on the field, to be lost in the battle of sport which would offer a million distractions. But here, in the stillness post game which he usually relished, he felt ill at ease, and desperately alone.
It was the message which had sent him reeling. Poised to change, he had briefly glanced down at the cell phone in his gym bag and spotted that he had a message from Charlene. He had smiled a cheeky grin as he lifted the phone to read the text, already anticipating that it would be of a suitably sexy nature so that he would gain some bragging rights amongst his friends. However, when he read the message his smile immediately evaporated and a cold sense of shock split through his teenage body like lightning.
Charlene Adams was a beautiful blonde with a big bust and relatively loose morals. She and Jason had gone on a few obligatory dates; to the movies, out for pizza, before finally doing what was termed as going all the way in the back of his mother’s car.
Pressure. Jason had felt an immense amount of pressure from his teammates, his friends, to lose his virginity before he left for college in the fall – on a scholarship, no less. They teased and taunted him and made him feel like his virginity was something to be ashamed of, something which he needed to cast out and be rid of.
The corridors of his high school were rife with legendary tales of college life, the promiscuity and the girls, and how they didn’t tolerate guys who were lacking experience in the bedroom. And then Charlene came along, batting her eyelashes at him through American history. She was more than pretty enough and carried with her the faint hush of whispers which promised that if he pursued her, his efforts would not be in vain.
But on losing his virginity to her nothing had changed. He didn’t suddenly feel like a man or have an epiphany about the meaning of life. It had all seemed a little…disappointing – as though it didn’t really live up to the hype. Jason had reasoned that perhaps he just needed more experience and Charlene was more than willing to aide him in his quest for perfection. Jason had thought of nothing more than the moment, than this summer, and then he had received the text.
Still clutching his cell phone in disbelief Jason sighed as a thousand questions stampeded through his mind, squashing some of his hopes and dreams which he had stored up there. He read the words again feeling sick to his stomach with fear.
“I’m pregnant”.
It was succinct, to the point, and devastatingly brutal. When retrospect was employed, Jason would find that Charlene’s delivery had been unnecessarily cruel, but that didn’t bother him in his current state. He assumed that she was too afraid to face him directly with such epic news and thus had taken the coward’s route of putting it together in a digital message. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. Did he need to respond or would his reply require some exchange to be carried out in person?
The worst part was the slight sense of shame which had started to gnaw at the back of his throat. How would his parents react when they learned that their golden boy, their college-bound son, would soon became a teenage father? Guilt made Jason’s head heavy as he anticipated their shock, their anger. He should have been more careful, he shouldn’t have listened when Charlene insisted that she was on the pill and that everything would be fine. He’d heard echoes of horror stories but always assumed that was all that they were; horror stories.
Running a hand through his sun kissed golden hair Jason tried to gain some clarity within his thoughts. He ran over in his mind the last time he had seen Charlene, forcing himself to remember any minute details which hinted that there was something different about her.
“So, I’ll see you next week?” she turned to him and asked, her flirtatious smile faltering slightly, hinting at the insecurities which she desperately tried to keep under control.
“Yeah, sure,” Jason had replied nonchalantly, sitting behind the wheel of his mother’s car. He didn’t really have any intention of seeing her again. What with school and lacrosse, he found he had little time for anything else and had decided that Charlene had now provided him with enough experience to see him through to his college days.
“We could go to the movies,” Charlene suggested brightly, though her eyes had dulled slightly with a faint sadness.
“Yeah, maybe,” Jason shrugged, remaining non-committal.
“Okay, well call me,” and with that she left the car, leaving only the vanilla scent of perfume in her wake.
Jason hadn’t called. Not intentionally, but because he was too busy living his life. Dating, serious dating would come later, when all the fun of high school and college was behind him. He didn’t want to date yet and he suspected that Charlene sensed as much, but he would never admit it to her, as that would be cruel and she was a sweet girl who didn’t deserve that.
Feeling frustrated, Jason read the text again, still trying to determine what he was expected to do. He wished that he had spoken up when a few concerned team mates noticed how he had paled and asked what was wrong.
“Nothing, nothing, I’m fine,” he’d falsely assured them. “My Mom just texted me about some family stuff.”
He could have used their counsel, their advice. Now the only person he could talk to was his father, a man who had always loomed larger than life to him. He lived to make his father proud, loving how elated he looked when Jason would bring home sporting trophies and straight A’s on his report card. How would he look when he learned that his son would be bringing home a new life? Would his eyes, usually so bright with excitement and pride, fade with disappointment?
Taking a deep breath, Jason typed into his cell phone, his fingers expertly working the keypad. He briefly regarded the message before selecting to send it. It was to Charlene, a simple, straight forward question which required a much more in depth answer.
“So what now?”
Jason asked himself the very same thing as he sat on the bench in the empty locker room, the smell of sweat still hanging in the air. He was on the precipice of adulthood, but by no means ready to be a father. But then, was anyone ever really ready? He allowed himself to entertain the reality of having a child, someone who would look up to and depend on him. It felt so surreal, as though his life suddenly belonged to someone else and was not his own anymore.
The certainty of his life, his future, was suddenly gone, swept away by two small words. Would he still be able to leave for college? Or would he now be expected to get a job, to support a family he didn’t even ask for. Would Charlene expect them to become a legitimate couple? He had so many unanswered questions that he felt that he might go mad from them.
The locker room started to feel unbearably small, as though Jason was suffocating amongst all his own fears and anxieties. Reaching down he grabbed his gym bag and began to leave, but before he did, his cell phone whirred to life, notifying him of an incoming message. It was from Charlene.
“I don’t know. I’m scared.”
Her own admittance of fear made Jason feel instantly better about his. However he felt, he reasoned that Charlene must feel ten times worse, as while he wasn’t exactly an impartial observer, it was her body that would be going through so much change. He didn’t love her, but he cared about her enough to weather the storm of her pregnancy with her, whatever the outcome.
Stepping out in to the fading afternoon sunlight, Jason squinted across at the playing field where only moments before he had been running with his friends, carefree, and lost in the jubilance of youth. Already he felt older as changes had begun within him which he wasn’t yet aware of. He paused before continuing, savouring the moment, when for him, for better or for worse, everything had changed.