Page 71 of The Summer of ’98

I nodded and she twisted her head to look at me.

“What are you going to do? Where’s Leroy? Girl,” she gasped. “Your mom must’ve gone postal.”

“Yeah, she was pissed,” I said and proceeded to explain the events that had occurred since I’d told Leroy about the pregnancy.

“He thinks you’ve come home for an abortion. But you’re just going to avoid him until you’ve given birth and said ‘see ya’ to the mini?”

When she said it like that, it sounded awful. It was awful, regardless of its wording, but I felt short of breath when I nodded.

“That’s not right, girl,” she said. “He’s coming here for college soon. What’s gonna happen when he sees you walking around with a massive bump?”

“Texas is huge. I might not see him at all.”

Her expression fell flat, and she sat up. “That’s still not cool. You have to tell him something. Break up with him. Closure. Something. You can’t just disappear on the boy. That’s so mean.”

My tears welled over for the millionth time and I buried my head in my hands. “I know, Amber, I know. I’m just c-c-confused and scared and Momma is—”

“Your mom is wrong too. Straight up, that woman is worse than my momma. She’d smack me if I got pregnant but no way she’d kick me out if I wanted to keep it.”

I looked at her. “You’re using protection, right?”

“We aren’t stupid. No offense.”

“None taken.”

She let out a loud sigh and gave me a light tap on the leg. “Come on. Let’s go and do something. You need a distraction. And a shower.”

As lifeless as I felt, she was right—I did need a distraction. After I was showered and dressed, Amber drove us into town, and we arrived at a rock-climbing hall, the biggest one in the city. There were dozens of walls for different skill levels and most of them were free at this hour of the morning. I hadn’t realized how early it was until I looked at the clock behind the front desk and saw that it was nine.

“Rock climbing is good for the soul,” Amber said, while we waited for the clerk to bring us a harness and helmet each. “Good for releasing tension and giving focus.”

“Ambs, we’re here. You don’t have to sell it.”

“I would have suggested that we drink but I didn’t think that’d be a viable option right now.”

Despite everything, I laughed. “Yeah, no.”

After we were harnessed and told the safety procedures by the clerk, we wandered farther into the hall and looked around. There were three separate halls joined by double swing doors. The first hall was toddlers to beginners. There was a colorful area with a foam pit and a little rock wall about two meters tall that kids could jump off and then the walls became a bit bigger, but the rocks were still relatively close together. We wandered through into the second hall, medium difficulty, deciding to start in here and move into the difficult hall if we felt like an extreme challenge.

Because we wanted to climb together, we had to ask a couple of the staff to belay us, which was no problem since it was still quiet. We checked our carabiners, thanked the two belayers, and then started climbing the green walls with multicolored rocks.

“So,” Amber said as we climbed, one foot up, the next foot up. “Aside from the situation, how was Colorado?”

“Basically, the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life,” I said.

“Really?”

My foot slid off the little rock I’d tried to put it on, so I stretched farther for the sturdier one. Amber was right, the focus that this activity required was distracting. “The Laheys are really good people, you know? Super kind and welcoming. I mean, Noah was a bit of a dick but not enough to ruin it.”

“What’s his problem?”

“It’s hard to tell. I think he’s sort of jealous of Leroy. Leroy is super athletic and good at football and stuff, which his dad loves. But Noah is book smart, and he thinks his dad doesn’t care about that as much. It’s kind of sad. He’s wrong too. His dad is so proud of him.”

We were starting to get tired, that much was obvious. It was a tall climb, so we went the rest of the way in silence, and when we finally got to the top, we hoisted ourselves onto the ledge and sat with our feet hanging over. The belayers at the bottom were chatting and gave us a thumbs-up to let us know that we were good here for a minute.

“It looks so far down from here,” Amber said.

“I always forget that we have to go down again afterward,” I said, my stomach turning over at the thought of falling, even though I knew that the belayers would lock our carabiners before we could get even halfway down. “How are things going with Eric?”

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