One Night in January

Chapter 3: Positive

"Jake, you know I hate that," mom said glaring at his pipe.

"It's fine, Maggie. I've won state championships, surely I've treated my body well enough over these years to have fun now and then." Mom rolled her eyes. And, there it was, the sizing up was already beginning. "It's about time you got here, I've been forced to smell your mother's cooking for nearly an hour. You better stop being late or else you won't be able to get a job." We tightly gripped each other's hand before I rolled my eyes and let go. I caught the corner of mom's death glare that she shot dad as I headed into the kitchen.

Throughout dinner Buddy laid across my feet. It seemed everyone was excited to see me home except dad. He was excited in his own way, I guess. He wanted to hear about everything going on at school, and remind me how awesome he was at everything the nearly twenty-five years ago that he had been there.

"You'll never believe who I saw at the store today," mom said as she scooped more mashed potato's onto her plate. "Mable Lee, Brittany's mother." I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

"I know who she is."

"Well, she was telling me how much she misses seeing you. She made sure to tell me that Brittany is still single, if you get what I'm trying to say." She smiled at me softly. One of the hardest parts of breaking up with Brittany was not seeing her family. We had been together for years, and we had really become a member of each other's family. I know mom missed her, especially, they had been really close, and Brittany was like the daughter she never had.

"I know mom, but it just can't work out. We want different things. She wants to do marine biology, I need to go to Yale."

"Plans change, honey," look at me and your father. "He always said we'd never move back to this town. But look, here we are. Love is about sacrifice and compromise, and when you love someone you make sacrifices."

"Not all sacrifices are worth making. She could have changed her plans. I mean, c'mon, how long will working at sea world, or whatever she wants to do, last?" Mom shook her head.

"That's not how love works. Love makes compromises."

"I'm not giving up on my dreams."

"I hear there's an unranked law school in Orlando," dad chimed in as he looked at me with a smirk. "You could still be a lawyer." I read between the lines. Sure, you want me to go there. To some unranked school so you could still say how much better you are than me. Anger began to boil inside me. I hadn't even been home and hour and already his antagonizing had started.

"May I be excused?" I asked. Mom looked visably upset.

"What? We haven't even had the pie yet." Before she gave a response I briskly walked out of the room and up the stairs, with Buddy quickly following behind.

The rest of the weekend revolved around me trying to spend equitable time with mom and Ryan and avoiding my old man at all costs. I needed to focus on school and not let him get under my skin. I returned to school Monday afternoon and allotted myself some time to sort through my next section of my "Books to Read Before You Die" list. I had put of Greek philosophers for nearly two years, but I figured they'd help me have some good quotes to use in my law school applications and interviews. I had already read the Nicomedian Ethics for my philosophy course, and figured that would be the quickest to get out of the way.

I rested a pillow against my backboard and comfortably situated myself as I began to read. When I had read the book for philosophy class, Aristotle's obsession with habits fascinated me. He explained throughout the book that a man does not become good, or X, or Y by chance alone. Instead, the kind of man he becomes is based upon his habits. If you always study before a test, you will get into a study habit, and get better grades. If you always yes "please" you will become respectful. Likewise, if you begin to slip in an area of your life and don't correct it, you will quickly become a man of poor character.

I paused as I looked at a quote I had previously stared in the text: "A state of character arises from the repetition of similar activities." I tried to make a list of the habits I was concerned about. If I didn't go running one day it was easy to stop working out, which hurt my performance on the lacrosse team; if I wasn't nice to someone one day, I noticed that I was more likely to be a jerk to them in the future...as I began to think about these things the sound of a knock at my door broke my chain of thought. Who could that be? No on in my dorm every knocked.

"Come in," I called. The door slowly creaked open and when her frame stepped through the door I knew. I just knew. I shifted uncomfortably on my bed and a knot began to form in my stomach. I had never been this nervous before in my life. Not when I took the LSAT, not when I made it to the state championship, never.

Corrine was visibly shaking as she stepped closer to my bed. She couldn't make eye contact and she awkwardly moved a ring on her finger up and down.

"Hey Blake," she said trying to force a smile. "So, I just—" she tried to say it but she couldn't. "I just need to tell you something." She took a deep breath. "I'm pregnant." Tears began to fill her eyes and she wiped them away.

"Are you sure?" Was all I could manage to ask. She rolled her eyes and reached into the brown purse draped off of her shoulder.

"Positive. I wouldn't come over here if I wasn't completely sure," she said. She removed a white stick and handed it to me. Positive the screen read.

"But aren't those, aren't those wrong sometime?" Oh my God. This couldn't be happening. She let out a sigh of frustration and quickly removed her purse from her shoulder and turned it upside down on my bed and out fell a pack of gum, a wallet, and a pile of similar pregnancy tests.

"Oh my god," was all I could manage to say. She lowered her chin in embarrassment and quickly scooped up the contents and put them in the purse.

"I came here to tell you because I thought you should hear it in person," she said. "But look, I want to make it clear, I'm not asking anything from you. My parents will know you're the father, but that's it. I won't come after you for money. I'm strong, I'm tough, I can figure this out on my own. But, I at least wanted to give you the choice. But I know," she took in a deep breath to regain her compure. Her crying had become more intense and it was difficult for her to talk. "I know you have such a bright future. And that night that we were here, I was really, really excited for your future. And I'm not going to ruin that. I'm not going to have you resent me." I placed my hands to my temples and rubbed in a circle. I felt like I was a million miles away and was trying to take in everything she was saying. But holy shit. She looked at me, waiting to saying something. But I couldn't there were no words.

"Okay, I just wanted to tell you." She nodded at me and began to head for the door.

Aristotle's words quickly flooded my mind as I watched her walk towards the door: A state of character arises from the repetition of similar activities. I knew that if I let her go right now I wouldn't be talking to her again. No matter what I did in the next second my life would change; either I sat her and let her go and never know what happened, or I stood up and said something. No matter what my life changed. But I couldn't do this, I couldn't ruin my character.

"Corrine, wait," I said as I stepped off my bed. I went and wrapped my arms around her and she quickly melted into a hug as her bag dropped onto the floor. Her cries became dramatic and caused her entire body to shake. And I was thankful, because at least she didn't notice that, for one of the first times in y life, I was crying, too.