#dpmeg

“Hi, mom,” Meg started. When she was little, Meg didn’t understand why she had to talk to a gravestone when she was talking to her mom. But as she grew up, she began to understand that her relationship with her mom wasn’t like anyone else’s was. “I wish you were here. I wish you could meet Banzai. I actually really love him. He may not be the best person on the surface, but I know that he’s really a good person. He cares about me in a way that none of my past boyfriends did. He has a brother and a sister, and he’s the oldest of the three of them. He’s tall, and handsome, and kind, and caring.”

She smiled. “And you should see the way he always wants to take care of me. It’s really fucking annoying sometimes, but it is sweet. I don’t feel like I have to change myself to fit with him.” The soft smile that had graced her lips was now fading. “But… I really need you here. I’m pregnant. It’s really hard to not have a mom to help me out. And I know I can’t ask Faye. She’d rather see me in jail.” Meg balled her hands into a fist and her nostrils flaired in anger. “I really hate her. I don’t think you would like her much. And her son is a raging asshole. There’s no way I’m talking to either of them about my problems. And dad… He’s just as mad at me now as they always are. I don’t know what to do anymore. I told one of the teachers at school, but there’s not much help that she can give me. And the father’s not gonna be much help either. Fuck, I don’t even know who the father is. I’ll tell myself that the father is my boyfriend, but I’m not sure. I really hope he is, but, at the same time, I can’t doom him to a life with me. There’s another teen mom at school, and she and her baby daddy just got engaged. What happens when he wakes up in three years and realizes that he doesn’t want to be with her anymore? Fuck, I just can’t do that to Banzai.” Meg sighed and ran her fingers through her hair.

“Especially when I know we can’t grow old together. I would love to keep him mine forever, but that’s like making a promise I know I can’t keep. And I’ve told you how I am with promises. Banzai deserves better than that.” Meg sighed and went silent for a second. “That being said, I can’t stand the idea of Banzai with someone else. He’s such a flirt, and actually had a lot of people on his leash.” She went quiet. “It scares me, mommy. There’s a lot better people out there for him that are just waiting for me to fuck up our relationship. Hell, I’m waiting for me to fuck up our relationship. He’s far too good for me.” A car honked in the distance, and Meg knew that it was her brothers hurrying her up. “I have to go, but I’ll write you, okay?” Meg stood up and brushed off her pants. “I love you, mommy.” She turned and walked across the cemetery, careful to not step on any of the graves. Just like she did every time.

The drive home was quiet, the boys ignoring Meg and Meg pretending that she was sleeping.

When they were dropped off at home, Jamie went immediately to his room, and Meg to hers.

She laid out on her bed and thought of all of the things that she had confessed to her mother. God, she was fucked. And Banzai was, too. No matter who she told him the father was, he was fucked over. If she told him it was his, he was stuck with a kid. If she told him it was Rixon’s, then his girlfriend cheated on him and broke his heart. This was not a good situation. 

Needing a distraction and frustrated with her own stupidity, Meg got up from her bed and began to wander her childhood home. It was a miracle that her father still lived there. Meg imagined that her father and Faye had many fights about moving homes. The idea made her laugh. She hated Faye, and any potential unhappiness that she had made Meg happy. As she was wandering, Meg spotted her brother sitting at his desk and fucking around on his computer.

“Hey, Jamie,” she said, standing in his doorway. She waited for a response, but none came. “How are you?” She waited another minute for him to reply before getting pissed off. “You’re just going to ignore me, then?”

Jamie, as unresponsive as he had been all weekend, sat at his bedroom desk and stared at his computer.

“What the fuck is wrong with you dickheads?” she shouted. “You asked me here and you’ve ignore me all weekend! I know you’re still pissed at me, but yell at me and get it over with! Fuck!”

Meg could see the contempt rolling across his face. He wouldn’t yell at her. He would ignore her. Jamie could ignore her for months and it wouldn’t bother him. He was like a pathetic little girl giving her boyfriend the silent treatment. Meg would never say that, though. She was trying to talk to him, not get him to loathe her. “I just want my brother back,” she murmured, her anger and frustration turning to sadness. She was tired of everything. Her gaze stayed trained on the side of his head as he stared ahead at his wall. “Well fuck you, too.”



“No, fuck you,” he turned and shouted at her. “You were in a coma for three days, then you told the doctors to not inform us when you woke up? We all came to a cleaned up room. Do you know what we thought happened? We thought you died!”

“I-“

“You what? You didn’t want to bother us?”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I just thought-“

“No, you didn’t think.” He stood and walked rapidly towards her. “You never think unless it benefits you!”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she shouted back, getting in his face. “I heard you guys talking! You couldn’t wait to get out of there! I know I’m a fuck up, but I really don’t need to get reminded every time I see one of you!”

“And we don’t need to be reminded every day that our baby sister is trying to kill herself!”

That silenced Meg. She wasn’t trying to kill herself, but she knew that she was not trying to live a long life. She was already doomed to an early death, and she was trying to get things done that most people would only dream of. But that often put her in a bad place. To an outside viewer, such as her family, it could seem that she was suicidal. Depressed, maybe. What would you expect from someone that knew she would die early? But suicidal? No. She wanted to enjoy what life she had left to live.

“I’m not trying to kill myself,” she whispered.

Her change in demeanor did not affect him. “It sure fucking seems like that. Every time we see you you’ve done something new to fuck up your life. What is it this time? You killed someone?”

“Jamie,” she murmured her face twisting into a sad mask, “Please stop.”

“No, seriously.” At this point it must have all been frustration. “What did you do? Are you…” He paused, trying to think of something else she could have done to fuck up her life. “Are you pregnant?”

Meg could feel her face draining and her heartbeat going shallow. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“Tell me you’re not pregnant,” he said, his voice sounding hollow and terrified. Again, she opened her mouth and nothing came out. Jamie stepped back in shock. She had already known that telling her family would be hard, but she did not expect this; the emotions splayed across his face. Hurt, shock, anger, sadness, and frustration. All so similar, and yet all painful to her.

“Meghan,” he muttered, shaking his head at her. The two of them stood in silence. Meg waiting for him to shut the door in her face, and Jamie waiting for her to say something. Anything. He wanted her to tell him that it was all a joke and that she was lying to him. He couldn’t handle the idea of his twin sister carrying a baby. They were still babies themselves. 

“I fucked up, I know.” She hung her head as tears pricked at her eyes. “I’m just the biggest fuck up to enter the world since-“

“You’re not a fuck up,” he interrupted. Jamie wrapped his arms around his twin sister and held her close. “You’re just… tired.” He kissed the top of her head. “It’s gonna be fine. We just have to figure out what you’re gonna do.” The two of them stood in silence, Meg crying silently into her brother’s chest, and Jamie trying to comfort his sister. Finally, he spoke again. “Do you think you can make it the nine months without giving in to one of your vices? You’ll seriously hurt the baby if you keep that shit up.”

“I have no idea,” she answered honestly. “I can barely last a week anymore. I mean, I’ve been able to hold off since I found out, but fuck, it’s hard.”

“Well, we’ll figure it out,” he said, kissing her on the top of the head then stepping back to hold her at arms length. “You and I are in this together.” Meg nodded and wiped the tears from her face.

“Please don’t tell dad,” she requested. “I really don’t need him yelling at me on Mom’s birthday.”

“I won’t,” he promised.

“Pinky promise?” she questioned, holding up the crooked pinky finger on her right hand. I had been broken by Jamie when they were in fourth grade after she had broken a pinky promise with him. The two of them took their promises very seriously.

“Pinky promise,” he replied, capturing her finger with his own and shaking it.

“Good,” she said, nodding her head and smiling. At the very least, he would be there for her. A thought occurred to her and she laughed. “God, I’m gonna get so fat.”

Jamie smiled, “Brayden once told me that dad shoved all of moms stuff in the attic when she died. What do you wanna bet it’s still up there?” The idea that Meg would get to wear her moms maternity clothes was strange to her. She was slightly sad, the woman should have been alive to give it to her daughter herself. But Meg was also happy. Even if Serafina Carte was not there, she was able to help her daughter through what Meg knew was going to be the hardest thing she had ever done. The two of them exited Jamie’s room and climbed the nearby staircase to the third floor. Jamie, being the taller of the two, pulled down the hidden staircase and held it steady as Meg climbed up to their attic. He climbed up after her and the two of them began to search around the attic for the boxes of maternity clothes.

The two of them searched in silence for a while, until He spoke up. “Have you told the father?” he asked.

“No,” she murmured. “I’m not even sure who he is.” Meg wasn’t even sure what she would say, if she said anything. If Banzai was the father, Meg didn’t want to fuck his life over and tie I’m down to her the way that other men seemed to be to their children. He didn’t need to be forced to stay with her. If it was Rixon, the baby was fucked. She would not tell anything to Rixon be because she didn’t want to be connected to him in anyway. She wouldn’t mind being connected to Banzai for the rest of her life; she loved him. But Rixon was a terrible person.

“Who do you think is?” he asked, anger in his voice. Meg knew that her sleeping around pissed off her brothers, but this wasn’t from sleeping around. This had been entirely out of her control.

“Either my boyfriend or my old dealer,” she whispered.

“Jesus Christ, Meg,” he growled, kicking the box nearest him. She jumped a little, but kept her eyes trained on the ground. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you- You’ve never been the type to cheat, what were you thinking?”

“I didn’t…” she paused, trying to think of a way to properly explain what had happened. She sat on the ground and trained her eyes in her hands. “I Was dealing for Rixon for a long time. He supplied the things that fed my addictions, and I dealt with only a small commission. It was mutually beneficial.” She went silent for a moment before wringing her hands and turning her head to look at him. “Then I OD’ed, and tried to get out. But I had product that I hadn’t sold yet, so he threatened you and I kept selling because I didn’t want to know if he could hurt you or not.” She took a deep breath before continuing, “So I kept going until I sold everything. I went back to him and gave him his money without any commission taken out. He gave me what he called a dishonorable discharge before he let me go. I blacked out and I don’t remember any of it.”

“Were you ra-“

“Don’t ask that question,” she interrupted. “I don’t- I don’t wanna think about it. I just- I don’t know what to tell- I don’t think I can tell Banzai anything. The only person I’ve told about the baby, other than you, is one of the teachers at school.”

“Are you pregnant?” a shocked sounding voice came from the staircase. Meg and Jamie both turned to see their brother Ezra standing at the top of the stairs. Meg’s face went pale.

“Fuck,” Jamie muttered. “Ez, I’ll explain it to you later. Just don’t tell anyone else. Please.”

“Are you-” Ezra mumbled. “Am I-” He looked Jamie dead in the eye and smiled. “We’re gonna be uncles.”

Meg laughed and he crossed the attic to pick up his baby sister and hug her. This was not the reaction she had expected. Happily, she tucked her head into his shoulder and laughed.

“Alright, alright,” Jamie said. “Enough of the love-fest. We have maternity clothes to find.”

“Oh, is that what you two were doing up here?” Ezra asked, setting Meg down. “I’ll help look, too.” Ezra smiled and began looking through the piles of boxes in the attic. Jamie filled him in on the whole story, letting Meg remain silent. She would occasionally pipe up to correct a fact or two, but all in all, she was able to remain silent. She didn’t want to have to go through everything again. After the story was finished, they chatted about their life and everything they had done since she left for school. Ezra agreed to come to her school for one of her doctors appointments, and Jamie agreed to visit for her first ultrasound. They talked about how she was going to tell their father, and how they thought the rest of their family would react. The fact that they were able to talk without fighting made her happier than she had been in their company in months. Meg was the first to spot something.

“I think I found something,” she said, loud enough for them to hear. She pulled a box marked ‘Pregnancy’ and Jamie came over and pulled a pocket knife out of his pocket. He sliced the box open and the three of them were met with an interesting sight. Maternity clothes, yes, but also many pictures and five journals. One for each Carte child. They all pulled their journals out, and looked at them. Inside was documentation of their mother’s many pregnancies. Notes on what she ate every day, the symptoms of her pregnancies, and random thoughts that she had. Meg decided to read hers completely in privacy. She had a feeling that she would get emotional, and didn’t need to be that way around her brothers.

“Can we take this downstairs?” she asked. The boys nodded and set the journals back in the box and Jamie carried it down. Ezra checked out the surrounding boxes, and carried those down as well. There was one less thing she would have to worry about. “I owe you two so much.”