Page 39 of The Nerdy Girl

Dad snorted at me and not in a good way. “I wouldn’t go that far, Abby.”

“You wouldn’t be as concerned,” I grumbled.

He agreed with me. “Because Tyson wouldn’t be carrying the consequences of his actions for nine months.”

Mom tossed the towel in her hand down on the island. “Someone else’s daughter would though Tyson,” she snapped at him. Then she scowled harder. “That child would be our grandchild still, you moron.”

He ran his fingers through his dark hair in frustration.

“Tyson whether it is Abby or Ty if either of them had an unplanned pregnancy the consequences are the same for each of them. Their life is affected. Get that through your head right now,” she told Dad. “Ty doesn’t get to walk away from his responsibility just because he’s a boy and doesn’t carry the baby. So, if he’s having sex, he needs to know he should be using a condom.”

My brother walked in at the point of mom declaring that if he was having sex, he should be using a condom. His eyes were round and afraid. He was loud so everyone stopped talking and looked at him.

“What did I do?” He asked.

“Are you having sex?” Dad asked.

“Fuck no,” he said. “If I were, I do know to use condoms.”

“Watch your language, Tyson,” Mom warned him.

Somehow, I thought my brother wasn’t telling the entire truth here. I knew my twin well even if Mom and Dad weren’t picking up on his tells.

“Sit down Tyson,” Dad told him.

My brother grumbled but did as he was told. We were about to get another lecture about sex and protecting ourselves because we were at that age where hormones were affecting our judgement. I glanced at Tyson and he scowled at me like I had caused this somehow.

Dad started exactly with what I thought he would.

“You’re at that age where hormones are affecting your better judgement,” he started the lecture. It took everything in my being to not roll my eyes at Dad. My feet swung back and forth, and I let my mind wander. I heard Tyson sigh a time or two. Mom giggled.

“It’s not funny, Kat. They are horny teenagers.”

I wasn’t horny. I was falling in love, I thought. I didn’t know. I was a teen who knew nothing about this emotion. Cal was my first boyfriend. I knew he made me feel things that I had never felt before. Was that love? He used the word like. No, he had said he was falling for me.

At our age that was probably enough.

We liked kissing and making out.

Dad used the word second base. What the hell did that mean? I glanced at Ty and his eyes met mine. He was bored. He wasn’t listening either. “No one gets a home run in this house,” Dad warned us. “Not at sixteen.”

“I know nothing of sports so using these analogies is useless for me,” I interrupted Dad.

Mom burst out laughing. Dad was flustered. “I’ll explain it to her later, Ty offered. “We’re neither one having sex so why is this conversation happening right now?” My brother asked.

“Because I walked in on a conversation your mother was having with your sister about birth control.”

Tyson’s head shot around, and he was glaring at me. I could see fire in his eyes. I knew that he was ready to go after Cal if he thought he was having sex with me. “Relax,” I told him. “It was hypothetical conversation.”

He wasn’t relieved at all.

I turned back to Dad. “Are we done? I have a writing assignment to work on,” I lied not thinking about my brother having the same English class as me just at a different time.

He frowned at me but didn?

?t give me away.

“You can go,” Mom replied before Dad could object.

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