Pregnant with My Roommate’s Dad by Sofia T Summers
Maxie
This was the exact thing I’d been nervous about.
When Brandy wanted to throw a party, I’d suggested that we keep the guest list down to maybe fifty to sixty people. It sounded like enough people for a fun time, but I hadn’t realized a men’s basketball game was also Saturday night. After the team conquered some conference rival, every Michigan student was looking to celebrate, and it felt like half of them showed up on our doorstep.
It was fun drinking with Brandy’s cooler sorority sisters and dancing in the living room, but now I was just trying to save Ian’s house from destruction. If this had been the old apartment, it wouldn’t have mattered. That place was garbage, anyway. Here, this house was actually nice. It was going to make some young family very happy this summer. I didn’t want to destroy the chances of someone else’s joy with our reckless party.
“Hey!” I shouted, jumping up to catch a football mid-air. “Cut it out, dumbass!”
The drunk guy laughed. “Nice catch.”
“Yeah,” I grumbled, shoving the football into his chest. “Whatever, dude.”
The fraternity brothers tossing a football down the long hall were the least of my problems. The dining room had turned into a beer pong tournament arena. The large front porch was littered with drunk strangers being loud and obnoxious. Cutting through the crowded kitchen, I realized the party had spread into the backyard too. The fenced-in area was filled with people watching two guys have a keg-chugging contest.
Where was a Michigan blizzard when I needed it? It seemed only an act of God would clear these people out. The two amaretto sours and the Jell-O shot I’d consumed were fading away. My panic had me sobering up fast.
Shivering without a coat, I hurried back inside to find Brandy. We needed to shut this party down, or at least turn it way down. Some old hip-hop song had the walls shaking from the bass, and this was largely a family area. Most people liked to have their neighborhoods quiet by eleven.
I looked for Brandy around the kitchen, walking down the short hall clustered with couples flirting in the shadows. Brandy was there chatting up some guy.
“Brandy!” I yelled over the music, grabbing her elbow. “This is getting out of hand!”
“I know!” She laughed gleefully. “Isn’t it great?”
“No!” I shook my head. “It’s not!”
“Have you met, um . . .” Brandy said, looking back to the tall and kind of cute Indian guy leaning against the wall.
“Leo,” he introduced himself with a lopsided grin.
“Nice to meet ya, Leo,” I offered with a half-smile.
“Cool party,” he complimented. “Nice digs too.”
“Thanks,” I replied, but I needed this party to be way less cool.
“Brandy, we need to tone this down,” I insisted. “What if some neighbor calls the cops or something?”
“That’s not gonna happen.” She laughed, obviously drunk.
She was so petite, it didn’t take much for Brandy to be swimming in booze. Her blue eyes were clouded with the fizz of her light beer.
Realizing she was not going to help me, I sighed. “Just remember to drink some water, okay, Brandy?”
“I could get you some, Brandy,” Leo quickly offered.
“Okay, Maxie!” She giggled. “Why don’t you go find Chris? He’s around here somewhere, right?”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
I’d forgotten he was here. He went to compete in the beer pong games, and I got distracted by my own horror. I didn’t know where he’d run off to, but I guessed he had to be around somewhere. As I made it back to the living room, that damn football flew by my head again.
Meaning to catch it, I only got my palm around it this time. My hand batted it across the living room. I was terrified it would go through one of the little windows on either side of the fireplace. I couldn’t afford to replace one of those for Ian right now. We still hadn’t gotten our check from the renter’s insurance claim, and our old landlord was dragging his feet after promising to return our deposits. All my money was too tied up to be paying off party damages.
I felt relief when it just hit someone in the back of the head. That solace was short-lived.
“Ow!” A familiar nasally voice screeched. “What the hell?”
“Amber!” I exclaimed as I picked up the ball. “I’m, um, I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
Rubbing the back of her head with a bony hand, her almond-shaped eyes narrowed on me, shoving her cup into one of her sister’s hands. The dancing around us stopped. People wanted to see what would happen next. Maybe we were becoming notorious.
I hoped not.
“You just threw that at me, didn’t you?” she accused me over the music.
“No!” I scoffed. “I didn’t even throw it. I was just trying to catch it!”
“Liar!” She fumed, throwing an intoxicated temper-tantrum. “You’re just jealous of me, Maxie, you white-trash whore!”
Gasps and oohs could be heard around us as more eyes looked our way. I could only roll my eyes at her smug expression. She batted her fake eyelashes, waiting for a response, acting like she’d already won. She presumed I’d be embarrassed by such a cheap line.
I crossed my arms. Amber didn’t even know the weapons I carried. She brought a knife to a shootout, and I hadn’t just brought a little revolver. I brought a shotgun that could blast the snotty look off her face.
“That’s rich coming from the girl who gave a grad assistant a blow job just to get a few extra points on our final last year,” I shot back. “It didn’t save you from being second in the class, did it, Amber? You still couldn’t beat me.”
Smirks and snickers rippled through the room. Amber sneered. I wasn’t supposed to know that, but sorority sisters could be such sloppy drunks.
“Who told her?” Amber screeched at the sisters around her. “Which one of you brats snitched?”
They all shrugged, feigning innocence. The truth was that I’d heard that from more than one of them. Amber was willing to do anything to put me in my place, and most of her sisters thought it was hilarious that she hated me so much.
“Fight!” one of the drunk football guys yelled.
“That ain’t happenin’!” I yelled out, glaring at Amber’s grimace. “She’s not worth it.”
As I turned on my heels, Amber insisted on having the last word as she whined, “Why don’t you just go back to your damn mountain and marry some first cousin, you fat bitch?”
“Because they all married each other!” I called out, not bothering to turn around. “I guess I’ll just marry one of yours!”
Laughter echoed through the living room as I shoved through the crowd. I was sick of everything. I wanted Amber and the rest of these self-involved people to vanish from the house. I ached to crawl into my bed and forget this night ever happened.
I didn’t know why my bedroom door was slightly cracked. I thought I’d locked it for safety, but then I realized why when I threw the door open. I’d finally found Chris. He knew I was hiding my keys in one of the bathroom drawers, and I guess he took the opportunity to get some privacy with the ginger-haired girl perched on my bed.
They laughed over something in the dim light of the star lights strung over my bed frame, but the sound of the door caught the girl’s attention. Her wide hazel eyes stared at me with embarrassment.
She didn’t even look that old. She was maybe just a freshman and flattered by a good-looking senior’s attention. It was easy for her to laugh at his lame jokes and listen to the stories I’d heard a hundred times. Looking a little tipsy, she couldn’t have considered that Chris was flirting with her on his girlfriend’s bed.
“Maxie,” Chris mumbled, his golden eyes flicking my way. “This isn’t what you think.”
I held up a hand. “Save it.”
Now, I really was embarrassed. Amber couldn’t touch me, but this cut me deeper than I could’ve anticipated.
It wasn’t the first time Chris had strayed, but it was the first time he’d tried it in my own damn bedroom. My bed didn’t feel like a safe hiding place anymore. Shutting the door behind me, I felt desperate to escape. There was no amount of alcohol that could numb the growing ache inside me. I couldn’t use this godforsaken party as a distraction. It was the reason I was in this nightmare.
I couldn’t get some air in the back yard. I thought about just sitting in my cold car until the police inevitably arrived to break up the party, but my black velvet jeans and evergreen sweater weren’t thick enough for a long-term stay outside. I definitely didn’t want to go back into my room to grab a coat from my closet.
I could only think of one place to hide.
Grabbing a beer from the kitchen, I pulled an old metal key from the top of the beige-colored fridge. Nobody even noticed me wandering among them. They were too lost in their own frivolity to see me unlock the attic door in the hallway, slipping inside before anyone could follow.
The world was already quieter as I shut the door, twisting the latch shut. I knew Ian’s team was building a master suite up there. I’d never bothered to sneak a peek at it, and there was no time like the present.
I tiptoed up the steps with my beer and my old key in hand, arriving at a spacious bathroom with a shower big enough for two. A walk-in closet was just to the right of it with other doors leading to the attic’s eaves. Turning around at the stair’s landing, I passed by two large linen closets to reach the bedroom-to-be.
The plywood subfloors were still exposed, with new hardwood planks wrapped up in plastic. The walls were just hung drywall, begging to be painted with a soft color. The heels of my ankle boots echoed as I crossed the empty room to look out the wide window. I could see the chaos unfolding in the quaint front yard. Drunk kids were wandering along the sidewalk and making a mess. I couldn’t stand to look at it for long.
This was partially my fault. I’d gone along with Brandy’s scheme when I shouldn’t have. I thought a party might be fun, but house parties would leave a bad taste in my mouth for a while now. My cheap bottle of beer couldn’t wash it down.
The only other thing in the massive bedroom was a gas fireplace built into the wall. It was missing a mantle and tile, but the firebox actually worked. Flipping a wall switch, it looked like actual birch logs were burning there. I kicked off my ankle boots, sitting down on the bare floor. I drank my beer and let the fake flames keep my body warm. The gentle vibration of the party hummed underneath me.
Even in a house crowded with people, it seemed my life always came back to this. I got lost in the sight of the fire until the sound of a siren snapped me from my trance. My heart wouldn’t stop racing as I went back to the window, seeing Ian Weiss on a tirade in the front yard.
This couldn’t end well.
