Round 4

“So you’re back again…I’m surprised actually, after our last session.”

She glared at me and if looks could kill I wouldn’t be writing this.

“And where is the father?” I asked.

At that she lowered her glance and for the first time since we had met I felt a little sorry for her because I knew if the father didn’t show at the next meeting that it would prove that I was right about him and that she was wrong. And I wanted to be proved wrong in that.

“He had to work” she said, and again she didn’t make eye contact.

“OK, lets move on from there” I replied, “and lets sort this pact out ourselves because I feel bad about how we left things last time we met.”

“I’m a guy that never got a girl pregnant until I was thirty four and to tell you the truth, this whole thing just pisses me off so badly that I can’t believe that I’m sitting here talking to you. There…it’s off my back, I said it, so now at least I can move on.”

“I mean, when I was a teenager it was pointed out to me that education was the primary motivation…not children. I took that to heart and now what I’m doing? Sitting down with you.”

“I don’t want to be here either” she shot back.

“So why are you?” I asked.

“Because I need a person to talk to” she said, and at that she started crying.

“I don’t want this to happen to me” she blurted out.

I sighed and slumped back in my chair because I realized that she had finally come to terms with the reality of the situation in front of her.

I handed her a tissue and waited for her to gain her breath before continuing.

“No one will talk to me anymore” she said, “It’s as if I don’t have any friends.”

“What do you mean…they won’t talk to you anymore?” I asked.

“My friends, the people that I used to hang out with, …they act like I don’t exist now, and I have to talk to someone.”

“Mary” I asked “how do you see yourself?”

“As you were before or as you are now?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You’ve changed” I replied “Because you’re pregnant, and because most kids of your age understand that’s a bad choice. What do you want me to tell you? That life’s all cherries and roses? You’re pregnant!”

“Sheesh!”

For once she didn’t have a comeback, and she sat there in her chair deflated, and the thought that I’d pushed her too far popped into my head.

“Are you alright?” I asked her.

“Are you alright?”

“Why are you talking to me?” she asked.

“Because I have nothing to gain or to loose in all of this” I replied.

“I am simply here.”

“So you’re not my friend?” she said.

“That’s up to you.”

“If you want a friend in all of this…I told Steve that I’d be there for you. But it’s up to you, and you have to make a call…because I see this going nowhere without a commitment from you.”

“And why are you doing this for me? What do you get out of this?” she asked.

I thought back to when I was sixteen and immediately had an answer.

“I could have been where you are now, admittedly on the other side of the gender spectrum…but dealing with the same problem.”

“So I’ll support you in any intelligent choice that you make, and I’ll criticize any stupid choice you make. How’s that?”.

She finally said OK.