decide to have the baby, but if nature intervened, well, then, who was she to stop it?
“How long should we wait?” Max said.
“I don’t know,” Cleo said. Forever, she thought.
They decided they would wait until Thanksgiving to tell their families. It was three weeks away. If she was still pregnant by then, they’d suck it up and tell them.
“They’re going to kill us,” Max said. He sounded so young then, like a seven-year-old in trouble, and even though it was the exact same thing Cleo had been thinking, she found she was annoyed.
THEY WENT THROUGH THEIR DAYS, going to class and watching TV. Cleo studied for midterms harder than ever, trying anything she could to keep from thinking about being pregnant. She stayed in the library for hours, eating only bananas and drinking water. There was one cubicle she liked, on the fourth floor near the back. It was right by a window, and she could watch people below as they scurried around the campus, sometimes laughing with a friend, sometimes staring down at the ground with a serious look.
Cleo got more done at this cubicle than anywhere else. She began to think of it as only hers, and a couple of times when she arrived at the library to find it taken, she sat nearby, keeping her eye on it until the person there decided to leave. Once, when someone left an empty Coke can there, like it was his own personal garbage can, she’d followed him out.
“You forgot this,” she said, and handed it to the boy.
“Oh, I’m done with that,” he said.
“You’re not supposed to have food or drink in here,” she told him. He’d just shrugged. She felt like someone had come into her home and littered.
TWO WEEKS LATER, CLEO FELT LIKE she was losing her mind. She was still pregnant, there was no doubt about it. And even though almost every night she or Max would say, “Let’s not talk about it tonight,” they couldn’t help it. They always came back to it. Even if they were just watching TV or a movie, there was always a baby somewhere on the screen, and one of them would look at the other, or Max would lean over and rub her leg, and just like that they were in the middle of it again. There was no escaping it.
Cleo managed to avoid talking to Elizabeth much on the phone. She was afraid if they talked too long, Elizabeth would hear it in her voice. It was a lot like after she had sex for the first time and was afraid to look Elizabeth in the eye, like she’d be able to tell right away. Cleo kept her phone calls short, told her that she was really busy with school-work, that she was spending every minute studying.
“I’m glad you’re focused,” Elizabeth said. “Senior year is important.”
Max stayed in the apartment with her every night. She wondered what his friends must think. Maybe that they were fighting, that they’d break up soon. Or maybe that she was making him stay home, controlling every part of him. If she thought about it too long, her head hurt.
One afternoon, Max was at class and Cleo was walking around the apartment. She felt jittery, like she’d been drinking Red Bull. And before she could think about it, she pulled out her phone and called Monica.
Monica answered on the first ring. She probably thought something was wrong, since even when she and Cleo were a pair, they mostly just texted. They preferred talking in person.
“Hey,” Cleo said. She suddenly felt nervous. “I was just thinking about you and thought I’d call.”
“Oh, hi,” Monica said.
“I was—do you want to get lunch? I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Sure,” Monica said.
They met in the cafeteria. Monica looked thin, but she got a salad and she seemed a little less angry. The frown line between her eyes was gone.
A new girl that had transferred, Trish, had moved into Cleo’s old room and Monica said she was nice. “She’s clean—like almost OCD—so, you know, Mary and Laura like her.”
“That’s great,” Cleo said. She felt weirdly jealous, like she was being cheated on.
“So, how’s Max?”
“He’s good. He’s really good.”
Monica poked at her salad. “I can’t believe you guys are living together. It’s so grown-up.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Cleo knew she’d never tell Monica now.
Monica told her that she was almost definitely going back to Boston at the end of the year. “My parents want me close by.”
“That seems like