Story #24 - Cereal

Hi everybody! Sorry this story is a little late. I've had it ready for a while, but I've been traveling and couldn't get Internet until now. So, without further ado, here's this week's story!

Title: Cereal
Warnings: unplanned pregnancy, discussion of abortion, family feuds
Summary: A Garcia-Smith child cannot exist.
Length: ~3,300 words
Notes: Third person point of view, present tense. Genre is drama.


Cereal
The blood rushes to Carla’s head and her vision dims as she struggles to make out the symbol showing on the stick. It is a plus sign. She has the slightly hysterical thought that maybe she can wish hard enough to change it. Change her world. Just her world, and his, and its. (Oh God, its.) She’s not asking for much.
​She knows that these tests aren’t always 100% accurate. It might not be true. But she imagines that she can already feel it growing inside of her, unwanted, eating away her nutrients and energy and future.
​She stumbles past her textbooks on the way to the garbage, where she throws up.
***
​She is in agony of indecision. She went to get a blood test to make sure, and now it is A Fact – she is pregnant. Pregnant! Her!
​“Pregnant” is such a fat, ugly word. “Pregnant” is for people who are out of college. “Pregnant” is not for people attending Johns Hopkins for college and planning to go to Med School there.
​How could she have let this happen? What is she going to do?
***
17 Days Ago
​The party isn’t very good. It’s not even a party, really, just a dinner with an open dance floor that hardly anyone is using. There's a keg in the corner. Most of the people are congregated there.
​Carla has already had a glass of cheap champagne and she feels reckless and daring. She wants to rip apart the seams of the world. Since this is not possible, at least not right now, she settles for the next-best option. She goes to sit down by LukeSmith, who is sitting alone and looking as if God Himself could not touch him.
​Her mother had once told her, “Don’t have anything to do with the Smiths. Sara Smith is a horrible, rotten woman, and her crook of a husband isn’t any better. They have a child now – an awful little boy called Luke. Stay away from him if you know what’s good for you.”
​She had listened to her mom’s advice. Carla has always suspected that Sara Smith told Luke the same thing as well, because he mostly stayed away from her. The few times that they had met, they had just exchanged cool stares and occasional scathing remarks.
​She isn’t going to stay away from Luke now. She’s always felt a bit like their “rivalry” was only passed down by their parents and played out faded and meaningless between them. She has never explored that concept. But now she is at a party and she is bored and he is here and she is going to find out.
​Luke scowls at her when she plops down next to him and grips his own drink a bit more tightly, but stays silent. At least he didn’t get up and leave. Carla takes it upon herself to make conversation.
​“It’s a nice day today,” she says. They are inside, but she knows for a fact that the weather is awful. She hopes to provoke some kind of response out of him, if only through the idiocy of her comment. Luke gives her an incredulous stare, raising his thin eyebrows.
​Carla persists, “I always love days so hot and muggy that you burn to a crisp the moment you step outside and then start steaming from the humidity.”
​He turns his face away, but not before she sees the beginnings of a smile. Success.
​“What are you doing here?” he finally asks, staring at his champagne.
​“You looked like you could use some company.”
​His scowl returns. “I’m not a charity case. And I meant, what are you doing sitting next to me? Someone might see.”
​Her recklessness thrums in her veins as her heart beats faster. Carla takes a cursory glance around the room. “No one’s watching. And I don’t care.”
​He shrugs and takes a sip of his champagne. “Suit yourself. It’s your life on the line, not mine.”
​Now it is Carla’s turn to scowl. As if Sara Smith wasn’t just as bad! Although come to think of it, Carla’s mom was usually the one who led the snub of the Smiths. Hmm. That’s something to think about. Carla imagines the look on her mother’s face if she knew that her darling daughter was sittingwith Luke Smith, and suddenly just sitting next to Luke isn’t wild enough. She turns to him and holds her chin high.
​“I thought we could put aside all that for a while and make a truce,” she proposes.
​His eyebrow is up again. “A truce?” He looks at her then, and in his gray eyes she can see carefully guarded curiosity and that self-same rebelliousness. He thinks it over for a moment.
​“Okay,” he eventually says, and gives her a wicked grin.
​3 hours later
​The world is blurry and spinning pleasantly, the ground moving playfully beneath her feet. Carla is ware that she is straddling the line between “tipsy” and “drunk.” She is saying something meaningless to Luke, gesturing wildly. The truce is still on. Some part of her mind realizes that tons of people have probably seen them sitting together. Most of her is wondering at how normal Luke is, when you actually talk to him. She had always known that her mother was paranoid.
​She glances at Luke to find his drink-glazed eyes staring at hers. She trails off into silence, locked in his gaze. Silence settles between them, and suddenly she can’t breathe through the tension-filled air.
​After what feels like an hour, he looks away, but she finds herself still staring at him. Her gaze drops to his lips. They are full and red and strangely beautiful, considering whose they are.
​She goes through all the reasons why she can’t do this. The Smiths are a rotten family, and the Garcias have been feuding with them for years for… hell, she can’t remember why. No one can. It is one of those things.
​She tries to remind herself of the more personal reasons.Luke is a jerk. They have never really gotten along. They were born to fight each other, after all, being a Garcia and a Smith. No matter that he isn’t all that bad and he just seems to get hotter as he gets older –
​Oh, what the hell. She stares at his lips for a split second longer, and then leans in and kisses them. He kisses her back.
​And it continues from there.
***
​Present day
It’s bad enough that she kissed him. It’s worse that she slept with him. But pregnant? Seriously? This is not supposed to happen to her. She must be stuck in someone’s cruel, psychotic, sadistic dream.
​How is she going to tell Luke? It has to be his. She hasn’t been with anyone else in months. For a moment she wishes that she has, so she could spend her time playing a nice fun game of “Who’s Your Daddy?” instead of “How to Tell Your Daddy That He’s A Daddy.”
​Maybe he doesn’t have to know, though. Maybe no one has to know, except for her and her doctor.
***
​Carla has always been Pro-Choice. She reminds herself of this as she thumbs through the gaudy pamphlets, and ignores the voice that whispers, “You may be Pro-Choice, but you always said that if it were your decision you’d keep the baby…”
​There are so many options and yet so little. Becausereally, Carla knows she can only do one thing if she wants to do well in college and become a doctor on schedule. And, perhaps more importantly, she can only do one thing if she wants to stay a part of her family. A Garcia-Smith child cannot be born in any circumstance, especially when the two parents are completely unprepared and don’t even like each other all that much.
​The baby – no, not baby, the alien thing growing inside of her – has got to go.
​But Carla allows herself one moment. She pictures herself with a bulging belly, glowing in that happy way that all pregnant women glow. She thinks about the life she’s nurturing, and of that life becoming a little boy or a little girl that she could hold in her arms.
​She is not sure where Luke fits into the picture, or if he fits in at all. He remains a shady, indistinct figure in the background of her fantasies, unknown and uncharted. Their families don’t make an appearance at all.
​Carla reminds herself of that status quo and picks up the phone to arrange an appointment.
***
​She hasn’t seen Luke in weeks. Carla figures that he is avoiding her, or more specifically, the extreme awkwardness that will come with them meeting again.
​If only extreme awkwardness was the worst of their problems.
​She sees him as she walks down the campus to her bike. She hopes it’s okay to bike while pregnant. She doesn’t know anything about this. She doesn’t know anything about anything.
​“Carla.” His low, demanding voice stops her feet before her mind even registers the words. She looks at him in surprise. Why is he acknowledging her? Is his avoidance over?
​Luke turns to her and leans close (too close) to her. His eyes are intent. “We need to talk.”
​Suddenly Carla feels like she has no clothes on (but he’s seen all that already, hasn’t he?). He can’t know. He can’t possibly know. Oh, God, it would be just her luck for him to be some sort of superhero with x-ray vision, capable of looking at her still-flat belly and seeing the baby growing inside. Or maybe he can see the future and knows that she’s about to bike to an abortion clinic. Maybe he can read her mind!
​If he can, he’s probably laughing at you right now, she tells herself sternly. She’s being ridiculous. “What?” she asks.
​Luke rolls his eyes at her apparent inattention, but repeats, “We have to talk.”
​What she has to do is get away. She needs to go and get Itdone, and then they can talk. She needs to leave before he finds anything out.
​“There’s nothing to talk about,” she says coolly. “So a Garcia and a Smith had sex. We all make mistakes.”
​His expression darkens and Carla has to fight not to take a step back. “Like hell we do!” he hisses. “You used me!”
​Oh, that’s rich. That’s rich. “I used you?” She nearly screams. Who’s the pregnant one here? She wants to say, but stops herself in time. “Yeah, right! You weren’t half as drunk as I was!”
​She shoves a finger at his chest, but he isn’t backing down. He moves even closer to her and she suddenly remembers the heat of his body and of his gaze in a whole different way. Her face heats. Angry blush, angry blush!
​“You’re the one who started that stupid truce,” he says. "And then you ignored me afterward. Had your little rebellious moment and now you're through, is that it? Whatever happened to the truce?"
​“Yeah, well, the truce is OVER!” Carla yells, and find to her horror that she is very close to crying. She needs to GO.
​“It’s over, and good riddance! My mother was right about you Smiths; you’re all the same! Soulless assholes who don’t know their head from their feet!”
​As she quickly turns away, Carla almost thinks she sees hurt in Luke’s eyes. But that’s impossible. Luke Smith would never be hurt by something Carla Garcia said.
4 hours later
​She has finished her check-up. They were just making sure she was ready. The actual procedure – appointment – oh, hell, she’ll just call it the abortion, that’s what is it – will be tomorrow. They both want to get it over quickly.
​They say that everything is fine and the abortion should go smoothly. She’s still early enough that there shouldn’t be any complications. Three weeks, they said. Her baby – embryo – fetus (is it old enough to be called a fetus?) is only three weeks old, and in just a few days it won’t have a chance to get any older.
​This is what has to happen, Carla reminds herself. It does not make her feel any better.
***
​Carla runs into Luke on the way back. Well, not literally. But she is walking her bike to the nearest bike rack and then suddenly he is there.
​She remembers her comment from earlier in the day, borne out of embarrassment and fear. She shouldn’t have said that. Luke is the father of her baby, even if he won’t be for long.
​Carla turns to him. He is leaning against the wall, watching her. He doesn’t look away.
“I’m sorry,” Carla says.
She doesn’t know what she is expecting. Maybe a hostile look, or no acknowledgement, or a bow-to-me air. Luke does none of those. He simply gazes at her with an unfathomable expression, and replies, “As you should be. You Garcias –” He cuts himself off, and she stares at him in surprise. He was about to insult her family, she knows. But he stopped.
“Listen,” he says, leaning close to her again. “I know you said the truce was over. But if you ever want to start it up again… I’m game.” He smirks at her.
It is tempting. It is so tempting. But giving in to temptation is what got her pregnant in the first place. She should shut him down now. Instead, Carla says, “So I can use you again?”
Luke actually laughs. “I didn’t mind.”
She walks away with goosebumps covering her arms. She has to remind herself several times that he is a Smith, and she is a Garcia, and that she’s about to destroy their baby, and with it, probably any chance they ever had (if they had any at all).
***
She stops by the grocery store, and there is a family in front of her as she waits in line for the checkout. A man and a woman with shining wedding rings on their ring fingers and a little girl and little boy holding their hands. Another family tromps past her on their way to buy cereal or some wholesome, loving, kid-friendly food. Carla has to stifle half-hysterical laughter. Is the whole word against her? Why are kids everywhere? Including growing in her stomach?
​Good God.
​Later, in her dorm room while her roommate clanks away on her keyboard, Carla stares at her Cheerios and thinks about cereal. She thinks for hours.
Cereal has no will of its own. It spends most of its life in a box, and then someone randomly decides to pour it in a bowl. Then it's picked up in someone’s spoon or hand, and finally shoved in their mouth. Cereal is forced into decisions it doesn’t want to make and situations it doesn’t want to be in, and it can't do a thing about it. It is stuck, the moment it’s created.
​She is Carla Garcia. Some people may think that means that she is cereal, but Carla realizes that she does not want to be cereal anymore.
​The abortion is tomorrow, at 10:00 in the morning. Carla does not set her alarm.
***
​Carla wakes up slowly. She blinks up at the ceiling, admiring the play of light from the sun. She feels like there was something she had to do this morning, something that she had been dreading.
​The room is empty. Her roommate is gone. Carla pushes herself up into a sitting position and glazes blearily at the clock. 10:07, it reads.
​In a flash, she remembers. The pregnancy. The baby. The abortion. The cereal. The alarm.
​She could still make it, probably. They could take her in late, or she could reschedule the appointment. It would be the sensible thing to do. But Carla isn’t so sure she wants to be sensible anymore.
​Carla watches the minutes tick by for a while. Then she glances down at her stomach. It looks the same. But it’s not. There’s a life growing inside of her, part of her in the most intimate way. Part of her, and part of Luke. A Garcia and aSmith. A person, just like every person in the world. A person, not cereal.
​***
The next morning, Carla calls her mom. She is ready to announce her refusal to be cereal to the world. And who else to start with than her feuding mother?
"Mom, I'm pregnant," Carla states once her mom has answered the phone.
Her mom is silent (her mouth is probably hanging open in shock). Carla takes advantage of this to add, "The father is Luke Smith."
Her mom still hasn't said anything, except for a strangled sound that wasn't made up of actual words. Carla waits a moment, gathering her courage, and finishes, "I'm keeping the baby."
The unspoken 'And you can't stop me' hangs off the edge of the sentence like a bad smell. Carla's mom is quiet for a long while. Carla stares at the box of cereal on her desk and tries to stop biting her fingernails.
"I'm proud of you, Carla," her mom finally says.
"What?" She must have misheard. Or else she isn't talking to her mom. How embarrassing! She's just told a total stranger that she's pregnant!
"Don't get me wrong - what you did was stupid. You should always use protection," her mom says, and that's definitely her mom's voice, thank God. Besides, no one else (hopefully) would talk to her like this. "But what I meant was, a life is more important than any feud. You were right to look beyond that. It's funny, though." Now she seems to be talking more to herself than Carla. "It's gone full circle."
"What do you mean, full circle?"
"Hmm? Oh, I just meant that an unplanned pregnancy is what started this feud, and now it might be what ends it - though there's no way I'd ever willingly talk to Sara Smith."
"Mom!" Carla reprimands. "She's the grandmother of my baby!" Now isn't that a weird thought.
"Sorry, honey," her mom replies. "Old habits die hard."
Carla lets curiosity get the better of her and asks, "What did you mean about the origins of the feud?"
Her mom sighs. "I suppose now is as good of a time as any to tell you. Here's a little story. When the Garcias first came here from Spain, my grandmother - your great-grandmother- worked as a nanny for the Smiths. She was very loyal to the family and cared about the children a lot. After she had been working for them for over ten years, one of the Smiths's children got pregnant out of wedlock. Back then, that was a huge scandal. The girl came to my grandmother and asked her whether she should try to get rid of the baby. My grandmother was a very religious woman, and she said to keep it. She helped the girl and kept it a secret from the Smiths. When the Smiths found out, as they were bound to eventually, they fired my grandmother. They fired her for doing nothing but caring about their children! My grandmother never forgave them for that, and neither did I."
Carla sits quietly for a moment, absorbing this. She isn't sure what to think. She knows what she should think, but wait - she isn't going to do that anymore.
"I see," Carla says. "Thanks for telling me."
After she hangs up the phone, Carla finds herself staring at the cereal again. She redirects her gaze to her stomach. Her baby - hers and Luke's - is living in there. And eventually, it's going to live out here.
"Hi, baby," she whispers to her belly. "Welcome to the world."
Her baby isn't going to be cereal.
​THE END!