Desperate Teens, Textfreak1 [online e reader .TXT] 📗

Suburbia. Perfect setting for unexpected tragedies. The distribution of roles is clear, of course. Men work hard to earn money and call the shots. Women do the housecleaning take care of the children and make their husbands believe they call the shots. One thing about women in suburbia shall be added, though. They like to tattle with their friends. In summer one can see housewives sitting on porches in the streets, chatting with their girlfriends about random stuff like the scandalous found of the neighbor’s affair. Unfortunately they neglect their precious, dearly-loved children. The problem is that unattended teenagers are prone to get into trouble and trouble often begins with little secrets every teenager hides so despe-rately. And that’s where our story begins:

Splendidly, the red sun throned at the evening sky and shone through the little bathroom window, changing the white tiles into a light red. It had been the hottest day in summer, but the more the day came to its end the more heat vanished, leaving only a slight, comfortable wind blowing gently through the neat streets of suburbia.
The bathroom was a huge, pompous room in which all windows had been opened. From the inside you could hear everything what happened in the neighborhood, if you would listen carefully. The rustle of green leaves dancing in the wind, birds’ twittering filling the air or conversations and laughter of passing citizens (and if you are in luck an argument). All that you could hear from that particular bathroom if you would just listen carefully. But the one who sat in that bathroom hadn’t had the least intention to listen.
Next to the toilet a teenager, not older than seventeen years, sat on the floor, looking pale. She had closed her eyes, leant her head against the wall, mouth opened and felt the warm breeze playing with her hair. The girl didn’t show any sign of life, only with a closer look one could see her slight breathing. It made the impression as if she was asleep. Her long, black hair covered half her face and her make-up looked smudgy. She had taken off her black high heels and had opened the tight red jacket which had wedged her the whole evening, but that is the price you pay for looking good (she always kept that in mind when she wore a new pair of shoes).
Isabella Foster, cheerleader and applicant for the homecoming queen was the most popular girl at her school, especially popular among male students. Always looking to die for, always friendly, always smiling and never bothered blinding people with her extraordinary white teeth. But her perfect appearance began to fade.
In the backyard her whole family had a barbeque, waiting for her to come back, because she had ran into the house without saying a word, fifteen minutes before. Of course, they had no idea why, but Isabella just found out what exactly was happening to her. She had thrown up twice this morning and felt dizzy all day long. Her best friend Katrina Jenkins had bought her a pregnancy test (in school they called her ‘the town slut’. The worry was, that she liked to be called the town slut). She would have bought it herself, but the pharmacist was a friend of her father’s and without fail it would be the number one talking point at the local golfclub. Isabella could even imagine the highly embarrassing scene:
“Oh, George,” the pharmacist would begin conversationally and her father would look at him with his cigar in his mouth. “Do you know who just came to me and bought a pregnancy test that morning?” and Isabella’s father would take his cigar out of his mouth, cheeks blushing of curiosity.
“You tell me!” he would say, grinning about the dirty secret he was about to hear.
“Your very own daughter!”
‘And that would be it. My father’s head would burst into a thousand pieces and his ghost would haunt me until my dying day,’ Isabella thought full of exasperation.
The dreadful scenario in Isabella’s head was interrupted by a cellphone ringing. Slowly, her eyes opened and she ran her finger through her hair to have a clear sight. She stretched for her jacket, searched for her BlackBerry in the right pocket and mumbled: “Hello?” as she found it.
“Hey Bella,” Katrina’s voice sounded cheerful through the telephone. “So?”
Instantly, Isabella understood what the ‘So’ meant. She paused. With a sigh she replied quietly: “I’m pregnant.”

* * *

When Katrina hung up, she put the BlackBerry at her bedside table and lay with her back onto the pink blanket on her bed. She starred at the ceiling, thinking about nothing. Then Isabella’s words resounded in her head: ‘I’m pregnant.’ She sounded desperate, confused and tearful. Katrina promised her to come later that evening and kept company with her in that miserable situation. As a matter of fact, that’s what best friends do, isn’t it?
But as Katrina lay on her bed curiosity arose and that was actually the only reason why she was going to Isabella’s, later that evening. A little smile appeared on Katrina’s face, because she just found some advantage in Isabella’s pregnancy: No boy would look at her again, when she was gaining weight in the next few months. ‘Nobody likes girls who look like hippos,’ she thought and giggled.
One have to know that Isabella had always been the prettier one and that made Katrina go nuts, because she didn’t get the attention from students (first and foremost from male students) she’d like to get. Especially from one particular boy. Since Isabella and Katrina had become friends, Katrina hadn’t received as many compliments as she used to. People were laughing and talking behind her back, calling them: ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ ‘With something more creative they couldn’t come up, stupid lowlifes,’ Katrina thought. She hated, being in Isabella’s shadow, couldn’t show it though. She couldn’t end their friendship, because Isabella knew too many secrets about her.
When she banished the thoughts about the complicated friendship from her head for the moment, she thought about the boy she fancied. Katrina stood up, marched through her room towards the window and looked out of it.
The sun was setting and Lincoln Avenue was nearly empty. Only a few neighbors were enjoying the last few hours of the day, sitting on their porches. Of course, they were only waiting for something scandalous to happen. Katrina was about to lay down again when she saw him.
He was a good-looking, tall, muscular boy, at the same age as she was, and the football captain of the team in Katrina’s school. Pauly Stuart the most fancied boy in school jogged down the street with headphones in his ears, coming straight in the direction of Katrina’s house. Nobody knew that Katrina had a crush on him, even Isabella didn’t know.
She opened a window and stuck her head out of it, about to say hello to Pauly. She was feeling like Julia on her balcony, seeing her Romeo coming for her to confess his love and nobody could ruin that moment. “Now or never,” she whispered.
“Hey, sis!” somebody said and she looked around confused. “Right here,” the voice shouted and when Katrina realized that it was her brother, on the floor above her window she looked up.
SPLASH.
The water balloon directly hit her face. “That’s what I call a payback, silly cow!” Katrina’s brother shouted and roared with laughter.
“JASON!” Katrina shouted and tried to wipe the water out of her eyes. Her hair was wet and adhered to her cheeks and her make-up wasn’t really that perfect, anymore. When she could see again she saw Pauly watching the highly embarrassing scene, smiling and then he began to jog again. Slowly, seethed with rage and her face red with shame and embarrassment

Katrina murmured something like: ‘I will kill this boy,’ and ‘Everything had been working well for me when I was an only child,’ and tromped through her room into the bathroom to get a towel to dry her hair. While opening her wardrobe, still thinking about ways to hurt Jason she noticed some familiar voices outside, talking in angry tones.

* * *

“Could you repeat that?” Pauly said horror-stricken.
“I’m pregnant and I’m pretty confident that you’re the father,” Isabella repeated in a rather casual tone.
For a few seconds Pauly just stood there, looking into the eyes of that stupid girl he got pregnant. He didn’t want to be a father of anyone and that was never going to happen until he was ready for it. ‘I am fucking seventeen and on my best way to become a famous football player,’ he thought and couldn’t imagine a baby-boy or baby-girl in his near future. The question was how would he get out of this? “Well-,” he began and thought about a good way to make his position clear. “Of course you don’t keep the baby and have an abortion.” Even he should have known that this was not a clever thing to say, but rather moronic.
He could see the destructiveness of his sentence in Isabella’s face. First, her mouth opened a bit. Apparently the answer had been a slap in her face. Secondly, her eyes filled with tears and she looked just as if she would burst into tears. Thirdly, her face blushed and her eyebrows moved so close that it looked like they had grown together. “Could you repeat that? I truly hope I misunderstood you,” she hissed, doubling her fists a tear running down her blushed cheek.
“Come on. Do you want to be a mother, yet? That would only ruin your figure and wouldn’t do any good to us. We are too young to be parents,” said Pauly. “I mean you can’t even handle your little brother and he is the nicest boy I’ve ever seen. You would definitely be a horrible mother, as you are a horrible sister. Everybody thinks that way.”
And before he knew what was happening, Isabella had stricken him with the flat of her hand. Pauly didn’t know how to react, that was why he was just looking perplexed at Isabella who had turned her eyes away from him. He had never been hit by a woman before, but didn’t like the feeling at all and he was sure that this was never going to happen again. Silently he put his headphones on and started jogging away without looking at Isabella once more.
After a while he thought about the situation he found himself in. He could still feel the spot on his cheek where Isabella’s hand had hit him. Unconsciously he was aware of the fact that he needed to have a proper conversation with her, because this wasn’t anything you could handle easygoing.
Pauly had never thought much about his future. He only wanted to be a football player and this was the only thing he could think of when he pondered on his future. But now the most fancied boy was forced to think about Isabella’s and his future and this was way too much for him. The only thing he was sure about was that there wasn’t going to be an ‘us’ for Isabella