Harry was in the kitchen with his mother, Anne, one evening. Anne had decided she wanted brownies for dessert tonight. So they were in the kitchen preparing them together.
"So, have you decided how you're going to deal with your relationship with Zayn?" Anne asked.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"Well, you're going off to college away from him and he's going to college here. You'll be three hours or so away from each other."
"Oh... I know that." Harry poured the batter over into the pan. "But we have the whole summer to talk about it. Or at least most of it. I didn't want to end senior year talking about being apart from each other."
"Mhm."
"I will talk to him about it though. I will. But tomorrow is the last day of school and I just want to enjoy it with him."
"Alright. But don't put it off too long. You know what putting things off does to a relationship. Just look at me and your father."
"I know."
And he did know. His father, Desmond, and his mother had been putting off talking to each other until eventually his father cheated and they divorced years ago.
When Harry finished, his mother picked up the pan.
"I'll put this in the oven and set a timer for it. You can eat the leftover batter if you want."
Harry jumped for joy and looked over at the bowl. He did always like eating the brownie batter even though it probably wasn't good or safe for him to do so. But the second he picked up the spatula and thought about putting it into his mouth, he felt the sudden urge to puke.
"I have to go."
"What? Are you okay?" His mother called out.
But he had already ran out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the bathroom to puke whatever was left of his school lunch into the toilet. When he finished, he wiped the back of his mouth with his hand and frowned. Over the last three days, he had been puking two or three times a day. It seemed like he just couldn't keep anything down. He wondered if he was coming down with something.
As he was washing his hands, he heard a slight knock at the door. It was his twenty year old sister, Gemma.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I don't think my body liked the idea of me eating raw batter today though."
"Hmm."
"What?"
"Have you been having sex?"
Harry gasped. "What? No."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. I haven't."
"Mhm."
"What? I haven't."
"You don't have to hide not being a virgin anymore, you know. It's no big deal."
"Well, I'm not hiding. I am still a virgin. And what makes you think I've had sex anyway?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Look at you. You've been puking and having unpredictable mood swings. You've been sleeping a lot."
"Okay."
"And yesterday you were craving a hotdog and peaches."
"So?"
"So a hotdog and peaches? Those two things never go together and you never eat them together."
"So?"
"So... I think you're pregnant."
Harry's eyes bucked and he scoffed in between laughter.
"Pregnant? What? How can I be pregnant when I'm... a virgin? That's... so funny."
"I'm not laughing." She said and her facial expression was serious.
"I've had friends who have had babies. I knew when something changed with them and I know when something changes with you because you're my brother. I really think you should just make sure. That's why I put a test under your pillow."
"Gem, you do know pregnant men is a very rare thing, right? Only one in like... thirty nine thousand men even posses the Dual Male Reproductive System and most of them aren't even gay."
"So then there's no harm in making sure you aren't that one in thirty nine thousand then, is it?"
When she left the bathroom, he exhaled heavily and looked at himself in the mirror.
Pregnant? He couldn't be pregnant. Not after the first time he ever had sex. Not to mention he had an entire future he was planning for and he was only seventeen. Being a pregnant teen male would ruin everything. And he just couldn't deal with that right now. So putting it out of his mind, he quickly brushed his teeth and headed back to his mother.
"Are you alright, Harry?" She asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Do you still want the brownie batter?"
He frowned and shook his head. "No. It's fine you can throw it out."
"Alright. Well you go do whatever. I'll let you know when the brownies are done. Okay?"
"Okay."
But the truth was everything wasn't okay. He couldn't stop thinking about what his sister said to him. So all through dinner, dessert and a little late night TV, he couldn't get his mind off that pregnancy test. What if he was one in thirty nine thousand?
So therefore after everyone had gone to bed, he got up and took the pregnancy test into the bathroom with him and locked the door behind him. It only took him a short moment to read the instructions. But they seemed easy enough. Pee on the stick and wait forty five seconds for the results. So he started to open the box and remove the test. Once the wrapping was off, he removed the overcap and placed it on the counter before standing over the toilet.
It turned out that peeing on a whim wasn't hard for him to do. Being nervous made him have to go anyway. So after peeing on the stick for five seconds and then covering it with the overcap, he placed it on the back of the toilet, finished peeing and washed his hands. He even washed his face too so he could distract himself from looking at the test.
Finally after a minute or so, Harry knew that the results had to be there. But he realized he was afraid to look at it. Even though he was taking this test, he didn't really want to know. At least not by himself. If he didn't have to see it with his own eyes that might be better. Maybe...
Of course he knew his reasoning wasn't rational. But it was his reasoning nonetheless and he had to try to rationalize it some way. So he opened the door to the bathroom and went down the hallway to his sister's room where he quietly knocked on the door.
After about thirty seconds, she came to the door looking very tired. Gemma was never really a good sleeper. Neither was Harry for that matter. They both always looked awful when they woke up in the morning.
"What are you doing up?" She asked groggily.
"I couldn't sleep." He whispered.
"Why not?"
"I kept thinking about what you said and I couldn't sleep."
"What I said?"
"Yeah. You know. The one in thirty nine thousand thing."
"Oh."
"I took the test, but I'm afraid to read the results. So can you just come here and read them for me so I don't have to?"
"Harry."
"Please? I'm scared, Gem."
She exhaled. "Okay. Fine. I'll do it." So she dragged herself to the bathroom like a zombie.
"Where is the test?"
"On the back of the toilet."
"Okay."
Harry stood just inside the bathroom as she went over to the toilet. He watched her pick it up and read it. But as instantly as she picked it up, she quickly turned to him. Well, she certainly wasn't dragging her feet anymore and she definitely didn't look sleepy.
And that's when Harry knew. She didn't have to say word. He was one in thirty nine thousand.
➡️ ➡️ ➡️
The worst thing about Harry finding out he was a pregnant high school boy was having to come to terms that sooner or later, his family and Zayn were also going to find out he was. Thank goodness he was graduating this summer so the entire school never had to. But he was having a baby. He could never be able to hide that from everyone. He couldn't even hide his symptoms from his sister.
That night, Gemma brought Harry into her room. Harry had explained that he wasn't ready to tell Anne yet and that he would do it when he was ready. He was afraid of what she might say. But even more than that, he was afraid of what Zayn might say. Would he blame Harry? Himself? Would he hate him? Would he break up with him? Would he stick with him? Would he push for him to get an abortion? Could pregnant boys and men even get an abortion? Was it safe?
There were so many questions. And they were questions he had no answers to. But he wanted those answers. And he knew in order to get those answers he was going to have to face him first. That meant he couldn't procrastinate this time. He needed to do it as soon as possible so he could at least have the proper time to really weigh his options.
So that's why instead of staying home from school the next day, he decided to get up and go. The sooner he told Zayn what was going on, the better. But he also didn't want Zayn to take one look at him and know something was wrong. So instead of riding with Zayn to school, he texted him and told him that he would be taking the bus and that he would meet him there.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Gemma had asked him that morning as she was just about to leave out for work.
Harry had just woke up and Anne had already left for work.
"I don't know. I didn't get any sleep last night. But at least we won't be doing anything in class that I have to stay awake for."
"Are you really going to tell him?"
"I have to, don't I? He's the only one I've ever been with so it's obviously his baby. He should know."
"I agree."
"But I'm really scared. What if he hates me?"
"Zayn? Hate you? He seems like such a good guy and don't think he will hate you."
"Yeah right and why not? It's not like he loves me. We've only been together for four months. And stupid me had to go and have sex without a condom and get pregnant."
She put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"Listen to me. You're not stupid. This is just something that happened. It's not like you were trying to get pregnant. None of us even knew you had that dual thing you were talking about."
"Dual Male Reproductive System."
"Yeah. That. We didn't know. So we're not going to blame you or hate you. And by 'we', that includes mom. Just watch."
At the thought of his mother, Harry started to cry again.
"How am I going to tell her? She's going to be so mad."
But his sister pulled him in for a tight hug.
"You're going to take this one minute at a time. That's what you're going to do. You said you want to tell Zayn. Well, that's up to you. But that means you focus on him first and don't worry about anyone else until you've told him. Everything will be okay. I know it."
"Will you be with me whenever I sit mom down and tell her?"
"Of course I will. And if you want to wait for me to come home, we can do that. I promise. But right now I really do have to go to work. I'll see you when I get back, okay? Love you."
He didn't really want her to go but he knew he couldn't stop her either.
"Love you too."
* * *
The wait for the bus to arrive was rather long for him. But the bus ride to school was even longer. Zayn was always happy to see him on school mornings. But he was going to ruin that mood by telling him the big news. He wasn't sure if he was really ready.
When he got off the bus, he draped his bag over his shoulder and headed inside. The first thing he needed to do was find Zayn. And that wouldn't be too hard because whenever they didn't ride together, Zayn always waited by his locker for him.
As soon as he stepped foot in the doorway, he heard a conversation between students.
"And Nick is gay? That's so crazy. I've only ever seen him with girls. I wonder how he even got him to give him oral."
"I know right."
Harry was confused by the conversation he'd just heard, but he couldn't ask them what they meant because suddenly the same people he heard talking turned towards him. And right away he got this feeling that they were judging him.
But they couldn't be. Right? They may have been gossiping about Nick but they certainly didn't know he was pregnant. His paranoia was probably because he knew he was pregnant. Still he put his head down so he didn't have to meet their eyes and headed down the hallway.
"I guess the whore has arrived." One of the students suddenly said and the sound of her voice was so close that it made Harry stop and look up.
Sure enough, a girl and her friend group were looking at him.
Or were they? Maybe they were just looking in his direction. Maybe it was meant for someone behind him. So he looked back to check.
"What are you looking back for? I'm talking to you, nerd. You must be so happy that you got to sleep with Zayn Malik. Too bad it meant absolutely nothing to him."
When they went off laughing, Harry let out a big breath. What? How did they know he slept with Zayn? He didn't tell them. Did Zayn tell them?
Feeling upset, he turned away to go to his locker. But before he could reach it, he realized another group of people were looking at him while pointing down at a yellow sheet of paper. That was the third group of people to look at him that way. It couldn't be a coincidence. So he took a look around.
And that's when he realized almost everyone had one of those yellow sheets of papers and that many of them were even taped to the lockers. What was on that paper?
Feeling curious, he pushed everyone in front of his locker out of the way and took one of the papers from it. As soon as he saw what was at the top of it, his eyes grew big.
Zayn Malik's To-Do List
And then there were was a paragraph.
Zayn Malik bet $200 he could sleep with as many students as he needed to reach 100 points. Sluts are worth 5, virgins are worth 10, nerds are worth 15, virgin nerds are worth 20 and male athletes are worth 25. Let's find out how he did:
"What..."
Below that was a list of nine names. Next to them was how many points they were worth, what they did with Zayn Malik, where they did it and the date it happened. And when he saw his name last in that list and came to realize everyone now knew that he had sex with Zayn in the back of his car on prom night, he balled up the sheet of paper and started to cry.
"Crazy senior prank, isn't it?"
Harry slowly turned around and saw Nate and Josue looking at him and smiling so smugly like they had won. He wanted to hurt them, but they might hurt him back and possibly hurt the baby too. So he pushed through them to get by.
Only he came face to face with Zayn who was holding a messy stack of the yellow sheets of paper in his hands.
"Harry." Zayn gasped out.
"You are such an asshole!" Harry said and heavy tears were flowing.
"I can't believe you would do this for two hundred dollars. That's all you think of me?"
"No. I don't. Let me-"
"No, you're right. You think less than that. Apparently I'm only worth twenty percent of it to you. So in that case I hope you enjoy spending the forty dollars you made off of me."
He turned to leave but Zayn dropped the papers and tried to stop him.
"Wait-"
"NO! Leave me alone!" He said and he pulled away.
"I hate you so don't talk to me."
"No you don't."
"No, I do! I HATE YOU! So whatever it was that we were, if we ever were anything, it's over! And I never want to see you or talk to you ever again! So leave me alone."
This time time when he stormed off, Zayn didn't try to stop him. And Harry was very much glad for that. Because at least he could cry alone to himself as he took that long walk back home.