Coach

Megan: Pick me up at the school

Mom: Be there in ten

I start the car and pull out of the driveway. I have to beat my mom to the school. I don’t want her to see me driving Chris’s car.

When I get there, I pull the car into the backlot, dropping the keys into the side panel of the door. Pulling my phone from my purse, I see a ton of missed calls and texts from Chris. Without reading them I type out a message as I head to the front of the school to wait for my mom.

Megan: Sorry I took your car but I left it at the school in the staff parking lot. Keys are in the side door. I need time to think. Please give it to me.

When my mom pulls up to the curb, I jump into her car. My distress is clearly showing.

“Baby?” she whispers, and the floodgates open. Tears stream down my face, and I no longer try to fight what I’m feeling.

“Home, Mom, please,” I beg, looking out the window. I know if I look at her, I’ll just cry harder.

“Megan, you have to tell me if someone hurt you. You’re scaring me. I’ve never seen you like this,” she pleads with me.

Looking over at her I reassure her. “Just my heart, Mom.”

Her eyes soften at my words. “Ice cream and shopping it is.”

We pull away from the school, and a silent breath leaves my lungs, thankful that Chris didn’t make it there before we left.

“I don’t think I’m up for it.” I stare out the window, wiping tears from my eyes.

“They opened a new vintage game shop in the shopping center by the lakes.” I look back over at her and see she has a soft smile on her face. “If he made you cry and isn’t chasing you down, he’s not worth it, baby. They should always chase.”

“I just have no idea what I’m doing, Mom. I’ve never been—”

“In love?” she finishes for me, and I just nod my head. I’m totally clueless. Part of me thinks I’m overreacting, that I should sit down with Chris and talk this out, but the other part of me is telling me to run scared. I don’t know if I can’t handle what he might have to say.

“Then we’ll talk it out,” she says, like it’s that simple.

“I don’t think I can with you, Mom. It’s, well, awkward.” The idea of talking to my mom about boys seems weird, but maybe because I’ve never done it before. There was never anyone else. Only him.

“Megan, you’re eighteen years old. I know what your father and I were doing when I was eighteen. You’re a woman, I’m a woman. It’s only awkward if you let it be.”

“Ice cream it is,” I say.

She smiles and nods, heading in the direction of the ice cream shop.

* * *

Lying in bed, I stare up at the ceiling. I told my mom as much as I could without giving away who I was crying over. We spent the day shopping and talking, I texted Croy to let him know I wasn’t going to the dance, and I felt a little better about everything.

My mom was right. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. It just crushes me to think that Chris might have had what we shared with someone else at one time. That he considered having a baby with another woman eats me alive. I felt so special when I thought of this being something we only felt for each other. This need to be together clawing at both of us was special. Uncontrollable and unexplainable, it was just there. How things were supposed to be.

Chris came crashing in when I wasn't sure what I wanted from life. Feeling a little lost, like I didn't fit in anywhere. But with him, it felt like I fit perfectly. That I’d just been lost in my head, waiting for him to come find me and pull me out.

It’s why I can’t talk to him right now. I don’t want to hear what he has to say about everything. About who or what that woman was to him. I already feel like I could shatter into a million pieces.

Before he came along, I was so scared about the next chapter in my life and of what it was going to bring. College was the obvious next step. I had filled out the forms, made the grades, took the test, and had no problems getting early acceptance letters. Except the thing is, I don't want to go to college. I was driven to get in because I thought it was what I was supposed to do. Pushed from one world I didn’t fit into to another.

The dream of making a life with Chris and continuing to write was what I wanted. But part of that dream might be slipping through my fingers. When I told my mom today I wasn't sure I wanted to go to college, she told me she stood behind whatever I chose, that I’ve always been a smart girl and I would figure it out. I think she was so happy that I was showing interest in the opposite sex for once in my life. I can see dreams of grandbabies floating around in her head already.

It’s why I went so hard for Chris and didn't hold anything back. For the first time in my life, things seemed to line up. I pushed my insecurities away and went after him. Maybe this was all my doing. I pushed myself on him during a time he was vulnerable. Maybe he was still torn up about this woman, and I slid nicely into the role for him.

I’m so confused about where to go from here. I even talked to my mom about withdrawing from school. I have the credits to graduate. I don’t need to be there. I just need to decide what I want to do with my life, and a big portion of that involves Chris.

My mom was hell-bent on finding out who I was seeing. She tried incessantly to get it out of me. I was sure she would tell me that the feeling would pass and that I was in too deep too fast, she surprised me by telling me that from the first moment she saw my dad, she knew. They were inseparable from day one, so she made me feel better about heartache after such a short time.