《The Partridge in the Pear Tree》January (7) – A Ghost in the Mirror

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The rest of the week was mostly quiet. Meg would reluctantly depart for school in the morning and leave immediately after the last bell to return home. Devon was nowhere to be found which was the best thing Meg could have asked for. There was a little tinge of pride gnawing at her that she had scared her boyfriend away allowing her to breathe a little easier.

Interaction between Alicia and her were sparce. Alicia had texted her on the day she had had her nauseous episode, lovingly asking her if everything was okay between her and Devon. Meg had been asleep when the texts came in and answered her the next morning, informing her that that the fight was of not much gravitas and to not worry about it. Alicia never addressed it again at school, mostly because they never had much time to interact, as Alicia always had something on her calendar. It was obvious however, that Alicia didn’t believe a word that Meg had said, but she remained quiet on the matter.

When Meg had brought up the pre-calc assignment, Alicia had apologized, stating that she had been roped into a teacher’s study session during lunch and couldn’t get the assignment to her. She had tried to tell Meg that, but her friend was already gone in the desperate attempt to avoid Devon.

Dizzy spells were sporadic during the week and never to the extent of that first Monday, but Meg found herself having to go to bathroom on multiple occasions to regain some stability or alleviate some gas.

School would end and Meg was immediately in her car and on her way home. Playing pool was now the only thing that consumed her mind during the day. After the drought of the last few months, her love of the game had sprung back in full and feverish force. She would return home, ignore her mother and drift down to the basement, sometimes to play for hours on end. With every difficult maneuver she performed, memories of Devon faded away. Every time the cue ball made contact with her target, anxiety about her pregnancy was also knocked out of mind. Focus on the game was all that remained. It was her drug to make her forget. The moment she finished a game, she would set the next one up before the memories flooded back.

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She only stopped when her mother called her up for dinner, shocking her back to reality and allowing the dread to flow back in, uninterrupted.

Dinners were the same. Quiet and awkward. A sparse “Pass me the vegetables” or “Would you like some sauce?” would break the silence from time to time. Mr. Chukar usually returned home the moment dinner was ready as if he timed it intentionally to avoid unnecessary interactions. Meg would sometimes catch him watching her from across the table with uncomfortable eyes, as if she were some homeless women they had taken in out of obligation. That was what Meg felt. Homeless in her own home.

The meal would end and Meg would go to her room. Mr. and Mrs. Chukar would speak quietly as they cleared the table. Afterwards, the former would light the fireplace with a book and the latter would sometimes join her husband, sometimes go down to the basement, probably to watch television.

Saturday morning, Meg had slept in until ten and woke up feeling she had slept through the day. She groggily made her way to the bathroom to wash up. Her eyes caught another person in the mirror and she jumped back, startled. What she had thought was a ghost in the mirror was in fact her. She shook her head in disapproval of herself but as she looked more closely, she noticed a change in her silhouette. It was subtle, but the Meg in the mirror was a little more bloated the real-life Meg. Concerned, she took of her shirt to inspect herself and sure enough, real-life Meg was bloated too. She caught the hint of a bulge in her lower abdomen and the reality that was already ingrained deep enough, sunk a little more.

School was about to get a whole lot worse. It was time to decide what her course of action was going to be, seeing as hiding her pregnancy was going to become less and less of an option. It ate at her mind the whole weekend. Would she wear baggier clothes? Would she skip school entirely? Would she just quietly wait until people noticed and hope the swell wouldn’t get too bad before graduation?

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At first, she was calm, seemingly understanding it as an inevitability of her situation. But as each hour inched closer to that Sunday night, tightness began to snake its way into her chest. She had to distract herself. She had to forget. So down to the basement she went.

But before she could make it past the living room to the basement door. Mr. Chukar, who seemed to be harmlessly invested in a thrilling book on the intricacies of grain farming, picked up his head and called out to Meg.

“Meg, we need to have a father-daughter chat.”

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