Aftercare Instructions Page 2

  ROSE

  Ignoramuses.

  GENESIS

  Yeah, well, it felt different when Peter said something. It seemed like he really cared.

  ROSE

  Maybe he’ll pray for you.

  GENESIS

  Oh, shut up, Rose.

  ROSE

  You’ll probably have to wait until marriage to lose your virginity if you go for that.

  GENESIS

  (Throws french fry)

  Shut up.

  ROSE

  Shut up? Okay.

  (She stuffs the rest of the fries into her mouth, including the one GENESIS threw at her.)

  GENESIS

  Save some for the starving children.

  (ROSE covers her mouth and mutters something like “I’m shutting up.”)

  GENESIS (CONTINUED)

  Okay, okay. Forget I brought it up. I don’t know why he said anything to me. He’s probably just a nice person.

  (VANESSA enters stage left and walks up to their table. She sits down next to GENESIS and immediately starts crying. The other girls sit, awkwardly.)

  ROSE

  Uhhh, is something the matter, Vanessa?

  VANESSA

  I just feel so sorry for you, Gen. I can’t imagine.

  ROSE

  Relax about it, okay? Jesus Christ. Gen doesn’t need other people losing their shit.

  VANESSA

  (Straightening up)

  You guys got cheese fries?

  (Neither answers.)

  I am really sorry for your loss, Genesis. I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry.

  GENESIS

  Thanks.

  VANESSA

  I tried to call you and text you and stuff.

  GENESIS

  I know. I saw. And I appreciate that.

  VANESSA

  Will you please just tell me if you need anything?

  ROSE

  She’s going to be fine.

  GENESIS

  Sure, Vanessa. Thanks.

  (Beat)

  I think your friends are staring at you.

  VANESSA

  Okay, well, I should probably get back to them.

  ROSE

  You do that.

  VANESSA

  I know we haven’t been, like, close for a while, but you’re still a really important friend.

  GENESIS

  I know, V. Don’t worry about me. Rose has got me.

  ROSE

  Damn straight.

  VANESSA

  (Gesturing toward her friends)

  They’re waiting for me, and we’re going to the game. Are you guys going?

  ROSE

  No chance in hell.

  VANESSA

  You don’t have to be nasty about it.

  ROSE

  Proud to be a nasty woman!

  VANESSA

  My mom wants to bring by food for you and your mom and sister if you need it.

  GENESIS

  Yeah, Ally isn’t staying with us right now.

  VANESSA

  Oh yeah. Sorry. I did hear that.

  ROSE

  Anything else?

  GENESIS

  Thank you. That would be nice.

  VANESSA

  (Lingering a beat longer than comfortable)

  Bye, guys.

  (Exit stage right.)

  GENESIS

  You were kind of rude.

  ROSE

  I’m sick of fake pity too.

  GENESIS

  At least she knows my family.

  ROSE

  Yeah, but no one really knows.

  GENESIS

  That’s right. And that’s the way it needs to stay.

  ROSE

  Oh, shit. It’s five already? Where’s my stupid brother?

  (ROSE throws money down on the table and GENESIS follows her offstage.)

  (Lights fade.)

  SCHEDULE FOLLOW-UP

  I sit up in bed, and my hair sticks to the back of my neck with sweat. Not my bed. Delilah’s bed. Delilah’s dorm. Dull golden light trickles through the paneled windows, and I look around to see three other empty twin beds. I think this building used to be a hotel or something because all the rooms have their own bathroom. Not so common for a dorm living situation. I’m happy not to be in a communal bathroom as I sit on her toilet and see blood has soaked through my underwear. I search through their cabinets for pads, but they only have tampons. Not supposed to use those just yet, so I wad up some toilet paper, stuffing it into my fresh underwear. I can’t find a plastic bag or anything to put the old pair in, so I throw them away, tucking them under the top layer of trash so no one discovers the evidence.

  Back in Delilah’s room, I see a note taped to my bag:

  Can’t believe how much you slept, lady! Hope you’re okay. Had to run to class. If you’re still asleep when I get back, you’re going to the hospital. Call or text pronto! Be back around 3.—D

  Stayed the night? What? Is it really the next day? Did yesterday just disappear? Or maybe it didn’t happen at all?

  I’m still with Peter.

  I wasn’t pregnant.

  Everything is normal.

  If I wasn’t leaking blood and so exhausted and so nauseous, then maybe I would believe that. But it must have happened. The whole thing happened. I must be here in New York City because Peter drove me to my appointment yesterday morning.

  My phone blasts a thousand messages at me from Rose, wondering why I’m not at school.

  I should have told her. I should not be doing this alone. I said I wouldn’t tell, though. That’s what I promised. My stomach growls and I remember I haven’t eaten, well, in over twenty-four hours. How am I alive? I chug a glass of water and leave Delilah’s room. It’s 1:30 p.m. I can’t wait until she gets back. I have to get home to Jersey. I have to figure out where Peter went. Why he left me at the clinic. Why I’m suddenly all alone again.

  I pull up directions to Port Authority, and after a quick hop uptown on the subway, I’m walking through Times Square, home to Broadway and the New Year’s Eve ball drop and the M&M’s store. Mmmm. M&M’s. Can my first meal be M&M’s? I don’t think so. I bump my way through the sidewalks filled with tourists and their cameras and strollers and their general inability to walk in a straight line. I hold my stomach to avoid any extra trauma as I weave through the crowd under blinking marquees. My dad used to take me to the theater in Manhattan, though we never made it up here. He said all the good stuff was downtown. I took his word for it. I imagine myself onstage right now, in front of all those lights—red and yellow and blue. I’m not here fighting the crowd and the gray city snow. I’m onstage and the audience is tossing roses at me, and I’m smiling so hard I’m crying as I bow and blow kisses, and bow and blow kisses.

  At the station, I purchase a ticket from the kiosk with my emergency-only credit card. I’ll hear about this. I swear the grandparents must have the screen up on their computer at all times, waiting for me to purchase something so they can ask me about it. Hence paying in cash yesterday. That’s a question I never want to have to answer. Not from them, anyway. The next bus leaves in twenty minutes, so I make my way to the waiting area. A boy around my age with a ponytail of dreadlocks and a dog in his backpack plays the accordion. His head falls forward and he picks it back up with effort. The dog whimpers a little. I sit in a hard plastic chair and dig out my phone to call Peter.

  Again, I get the voice mail. Anger boils up from the new empty hole in my stomach.

  “Fuck you, Peter,” I say after the beep. Then pause for a second because I’m unsure if I actually said that, if my voice actually came back to me.

  I touch my throat. It has.

  And so I go on. “Seriously? You want to know where I am? Port-fucking-Authority. Taking the bus home because you’re a coward. Where are you? How could you do this to anyone? Let alone me. Let alone … me.”

  I choke on the word me a little and know I need to hang up. I rea
lly want to string together every nasty word and thought popping into my head and spit them at his face, but I’m tired. And I’m done.

  The night before last, before he left my house, he placed the cash on the edge of my bed. Like he couldn’t put it directly into my hands. Like I was microscopic. I didn’t know if he’d come the next morning.

  I board the bus and take a seat toward the back. It hasn’t been easy to be with Peter since the incident. I don’t even mean getting pregnant, though that certainly wasn’t a stroll down the beach. But I mean the secret that got out. Things haven’t been easy, but he stuck by.

  Now where is he?

  I’m suddenly terrified that I left too hastily. That maybe he lost his phone and maybe he stepped out and got mugged or something and maybe he’s stranded somewhere too, trying to get home, and he thinks maybe I’ve left him. What have I done? What about the message I just left him? He’s probably lying in a ditch or something and I’m going to be the one who has to tell Mrs. Sage.

  But no. You know how you just know sometimes? I know he’s not in a ditch. I know he left me at Planned Parenthood in New York City.

  We arrive in Point Shelley in front of the Walmart. My head spins a little as I scan the parking lot, and I have to close my eyes for a second to regain my stability. I walk into Walmart and sit at a table in the McDonald’s connected to the store. The fluorescent light buzzes in my eyes, and I know I’m too exhausted to walk home from here. I need a ride. I brace myself for the tornado that is my best friend, Rose, and I dial her number.

  “What the hell, Gen! I thought you were dead!”

  “Hello to you too.”

  “Seriously, where the hell are you?”

  “I, uhhh…”

  How to say it? Is my no-tell promise all null and void now?

  “Are you okay, Gen?” Her tone softens a little.

  “I’m sorta stuck at Walmart right now. In North Point. Can you come get me?”

  “Walmart?”

  “Yeah, Walmart.”

  “What the hell are you doing at Walmart?”

  The word Walmart is turning surreal.

  “I’ll tell you later. I just, um, don’t feel very well and need you to hurry, okay?”

  She assures me she’ll be there in no longer than a half an hour, and so I decide to finally fill my belly with the ever-so-healthy option before me. I didn’t go for M&M’s as my first meal, but salty, greasy french fries and a Coke will do just fine.

  “Will that be all?”

  The girl behind the register has a gap in her teeth and freckles so thick, they are more like splotches.

  “Hi, Genesis,” she says.

  “Yeah.” I realize I know her. “Oh, hi, Wendy.”

  “You look terrible!”

  “Gee, thanks, Wendy.”

  “No, I mean, sick or something. You okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m sick.”

  “You weren’t at school today.”

  “No shit.”

  She doesn’t respond.

  “Can I just have my order?”

  “Oh,” she says, and looks down. “Sorry. Yeah. That’ll be three dollars and nine cents.”

  I drop some change on the counter and wait for Wendy to fill up my cup.

  “Not too much ice, please.”

  She puts the cup down gently in front of me next to a bag of fries.

  “Here you go. Feel better.”

  I try to say thank you. Thank you to Wendy who works at McDonald’s. She’s always been sweet to me. But it just won’t come.

  “You missed Advanced Writing today. You’re supposed to schedule your follow-up.”

  Follow-up? That sounds far too clinical for my liking right now. “Excuse me?”

  Her eyes widen for a second like they’re going to pop out, and I hold on to them with mine in an unannounced staring contest.

  “Ms. Jones wants a follow-up conference for the papers we turned in last week. Like, one-on-one. We all failed as a class or something.”

  She blinks.

  “Oh,” I say. Still staring. I honestly can’t think of what paper she is talking about.

  “Yeah, she said none of us wrote from our hearts or our guts or something. We just wrote what we thought she’d want to hear. Then she was all squeaky and saying how none of us were brave. Sheesh. You know she writes romance novels? How gross is that? Can you imagine Ms. Jones, like, doing it?”

  Someone clears his throat behind me.

  “I’ve got to take care of the other customers now.”

  Fine, Wendy, I didn’t want to stand here all day chatting about your theories on love. And certainly not the reason why I wasn’t at school today. Or yesterday. I move out of the McDonald’s and over to a bench by the main entrance, then sit, listening to the doors open and close. Open and close. I sip slowly through the straw, sometimes letting it get millimeters from my mouth, and then watching it plunge back down. I scratch lines into the wax on the side of the cup. I lick my lips. I watch security check receipts on the way out. I try not to think, really. As if that’s even possible.

  ACT I

  SCENE 2

  (This scene takes place in a crowded high school hallway, between classes. Students trickle through, slide books from lockers, gather, gossip, goof off, and so on, continuously around the main action.

  At rise, GENESIS searches for something in her locker. She pulls everything out and makes a pile on the ground. It is clear she can’t find what she is looking for.

  PETER enters stage right, passes her, stops, does a double take, and then watches for a second. He gestures for her attention, but she is buried in the contents of her locker.

  He turns away, and this is the moment she finds what she is looking for. She stuffs everything back into her locker and closes it, turning around to lean against the wall in relief.

  Now, she sees the back of PETER, walking away. She starts to go after him but stops, thinks better of it, and walks off in the other direction.

  PETER turns around one more time to see her walking away. They don’t ever see each other turn back.)

  PETER

  (Reaching)

  Hey.

  (Blackout.)

  MONITOR BLEEDING

  Rose texts me as she pulls temporarily into a handicapped parking spot. I jump into the front seat of her hand-me-down silver Mercedes. The music blasts about three levels too loud as she backs out and exits the parking lot. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t pry, but she fidgets. She likes to be the first to know what’s going on, and clearly, I’ve let her down.

  I keep my eyes on the passing auto body shops and liquor stores littering North Point, and I crunch on ice cubes. Wendy didn’t listen to my request with the ice.

  “You look like shit, Gen,” Rose finally says.

  “Thanks. Everyone seems to think so today.”

  “Well…”

  The north part of town is a faded version of the city. A wasteland of boarded-up shops that never got it back together after the hurricane. Head south and it’s much more conservative. There’s more money down there. My house is right in the middle. Rose’s, slightly south.

  She parks in my driveway, turns off the music, and leaves the car running. In the new quiet, I stare at the house I share with my mom. Icicles hang from the rain gutter and drip into the soggy purple cushion on the wicker rocking chair.

  “I didn’t know how to tell you,” I say when neither of us moves to exit.

  “Tell me what?”

  “What happened to me.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “Well, I had an abortion yesterday.” Rip-off-the-Band-Aid style. Cut to the chase. I think that’s the first time I’ve even said the word. That eight-letter word. Peter and I were so good at dancing around it. A silent waltz.

  Rose takes off her driving glasses and tucks them into the console between us. She puts her hand on my arm.

  “What?”

  I nod.

  “You were p
regnant?”

  “That’s how it usually works.”

  She drops her face into her hands for a second, then lifts back up into dead-on eye contact. “Does Peter know?”

  My eyes fixate on the water marks dotting the side-view mirror. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And he took me to my appointment yesterday morning, but…”

  “But?”

  “He left me there.”

  “What?”

  I don’t even believe the story myself as I say it out loud.

  “I walked into the waiting room so he could take me home, and he was gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “And he hasn’t answered the phone or any of my texts.”

  “What the flying fuck?”

  I unbuckle my seat belt, and feel sweat collecting in my armpits. I turn down the heat.

  “Why in the world did you go all the way to Manhattan to do this?”

  “He was worried about his mom.”

  Mrs. Gloria Sage: ringleader of our community’s pro-life, anti-choice movement. The irony is not lost on anyone.

  Rose shakes her head. She shakes it so hard I’m afraid she might hurt her neck.

  “And why didn’t you tell me? I would have taken you. And I would have taken you home.”

  “He asked me not to.”

  The head shaking continues like an uncontrollable twitch. “We couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on with you. Our guesses were way off. What a piece of shit.”

  “No, Rose.”

  But wait. He is a piece of shit, isn’t he? If you drive someone 58.2 miles away from home, put a blindfold on them, spin them around, and then tell them to find their way home, that’s like the definition of a piece of shit.

  “Yes, Genesis.”

  “Please don’t get mad at me.”

  “I’m not. I just…”

  “He didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “You said that. But I’m your best friend.”

  “I know.”

  “Now what?” Rose asks.

  “The nurse told me to rest.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  I want to ask her about school. About seeing Peter. But I hold off. Let the blow I just struck settle.

  When we walk in the front door, my mom grabs me hard on my arms and shakes me. Ambushed. Her eyes are fire, and I am burning rubber, my body bending as she shakes until she finally pulls me in to her.