were a warmer April, even a stormy April, he would’ve just walked back from Tom’s party. But because it was fucking snowing and it was cold and his eczema acts up when it’s snowing and his whole fucking neck would’ve flamed, he drove home in his Tercel and crashed it against a stop sign. “The stop sign broke in half and went flying, pirouetting in the air like a ballerina,” Peter said. I thought it was poetic. I didn’t tell him that, though. 

I think he crashed his car because he’s sad I don’t love him anymore. Peter would never tell me that to my face, but ever since I and Tom have been going out, he’s been acting strange. He’s been angrier, drinking more, and his skin has been worse, flaking and peeling like something underneath is cracking and pushing to get out.

I told Peter that I stopped loving him on a Tuesday, and he retorted that he had stopped loving me on a Sunday. He said he and his dad went to church, and when he was kneeling on the hard wooden pew, praying for his mom, it struck him. And then he went up to get communion, and he said it tasted so wonderful that he almost cried. I was so frustrated with him. He’s always got to have some kind of spectacular story for everything. 

As we walked, picking up our pace because we just wanted to get the whole damn thing over with, Peter asked me how Tom had been, since he hadn’t seen him since the party. I tell him, oh, you know, Tom’s been good. He got that job at the outdoor swimming pool as a lifeguard since it’s been warmer out. Peter snorted. 

The town pool is notorious for being absolutely filthy; hardly anyone is swimming in it but bugs. There were shiny black beetles the size of your palms, with feathery antennae that trembled every time you spoke, and thin, grasshopper-looking things that skimmed along the surface, never making any ripples. At night, the pool glows bright green, the type of green that you see only on a stick of gum. When we were kids, Peter and I would name pinecones and then toss them into the pool at night, and the pinecones would sizzle and turn over like hotdogs. 

But I liked that Tom worked at the pool, even if nobody really went there. I liked sitting on the uncomfortable, white plastic chairs that semi-circled the pool, reading my novels, and staring at him from time to time in his tight orange swim trunks. He looked so sexy. He even had a whistle tied around his neck that he would play with by placing it in his mouth and chewing on it, sliding it around his mouth with his tongue. Sometimes, when I’d get too engrossed in my novel, Tom would play with me, whistling sharply to scare me. I’d giggle and so would he.

“So Tom is going to rescue fat old men from the pool from drowning; that’s wonderful,” Peter said. He’s gonna be stuck in this town forever, and so will you. Whatever babies you guys will have will be fucking green because they’re gonna swim in that Chernobyl-ass pool. 

I responded with nothing. I just carefully tiptoed around a broken glass bottle. I cursed myself for not bringing my crocs. It’s going to hurt to walk across the uneven ground of the woods, and there’s probably going to be pine needles everywhere. I wondered if Peter would pick me up and give me a piggyback ride. 

I wanted to ask Peter a bunch of different things. I stared at him through the corner of my eye, at his face and at the red skin that was stripping itself from his cheeks. At his crooked nose, broken by his dad a few years back. At the cupid’s bow of his lips, how that curved line was always moving in expression, a scowl, a frown, curling back to snarl. 

I wanted to hold his hand. Or, maybe I just wanted him to grab mine. “It’s been months since we’ve seen it,” I said, almost slipping and calling it Charlotte. If Peter ever found out that I’ve named it or even given the “i” in it capitalization in my head, he’d be livid. 

Yeah, it’s been months, he said. I don’t know why you keep insisting that we should visit it. It’s not like it matters. 

Ouch. I try not to let my facial expression change from cool apathy. What if we go to visit it, and it’s gone? I wanted to argue. What if we go there and it’s grown a whole foot? What if we go there and it’s dead, curled up on the ground decaying? What if we go there, and it has your eyes? The same curve of your lips? What the fuck would we do then, Peter? But I didn’t say anything.

We finally reached the woods, and we stopped walking for a moment so I could pull the map out of my pocket. It’s wrinkled to shit, and the pencil marks are faded, but I can make out what I drew. I started to walk on the balls of my feet, almost like a penguin, because it’ll hurt less. 

The trees are tall and evergreen, so high and shadowy they remind me of my father. The ground is always littered with crushed beer cans with holes in their bottoms, used condoms, and things that feel misplaced. Like the shiny plastic torso of a Barbie doll or a cast iron pan. 

Peter walked ahead of me but spoke to me without turning his head back. “Did you move in with Tom yet?” he asked. 

“No, I didn’t,” I answered. I didn’t tell Peter that I wanted to, though. Mom and I were fighting more than usual. Just yesterday she barricaded the door to the bathroom with a kitchen stool because she heard me having bad thoughts in there, whatever that means. I had to shove the door open with my shoulder, and it was bruised an ugly yellow, like it would taste weird if you licked it. 

The thing is, Tom’s mom doesn’t like me. Tom asked her if I could stay with them, and she said no. She wouldn’t give any reasons, Tom said, but I knew it was because she thinks there’s something off about me. 

As Peter walked, I stared at the back of his neck, at his broad shoulders. I suddenly had an ache in the lower part of my stomach when I remembered waking up next to Peter before school, everything dark, except for the whites of his eyes. He would grab me and toss me from side to side when we had sex. Having sex with Peter felt like swimming. I loved making him admit the dirty, sinful things he wished to do to me. He would get bashful, and he’d murmur all those dirty things right into my ear,

and then leave prickly pinecone kisses right where his words had just touched my skin. 

“It should be here,” Peter called out. He’s much farther than I am now. I drop my penguin walk and jog up to meet him, ignoring the pain. Peter stood in front of the tree where we first left it, but it wasn’t there. 

“Where’s Charlotte?” I whispered, and Peter took a shaky breath out. It was an accident. Aren’t they always accidents? But ours, our accident, wasn’t like how other people have their accidents. Like Sarah Bukowski from chemistry class, she got pregnant, ballooned up, and now she lives at home with her grandma, and her fat little baby goes to swim in the outdoor pool. I kept getting my periods, heavy and black, like exorcism goo. I’d triple-stuff pads in my panties, and I always smelled funny. My stomach grew slowly, as if it couldn’t care less. Over a year, it pushed out inch by inch. I stopped reading because letters made me nauseous. I spent a lot of time staring at walls and massaging my jaw. I missed a lot of school, so Mom got angry and asked what was wrong with me, as if I could’ve pointed it out. She’d ram her fists against the bathroom door when I’d be in there, poking at my stomach. Peter and I ran away when she got more suspicious, to live with her uncle. On the way there, driving in Peter’s Tercel, is when it happened. 

We had to pull into a gas station and ran to the bathroom. I bit into my hands to keep from screaming as my body lurched backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, like a wave from an ocean. It crawled out of me, hands first. Peter pulled it out and vomited green all over the floor. 

It wasn’t a baby. It wasn’t even a thing. It was hard like a rock but felt smooth and rubbery. It didn’t have eyes or a nose, only a mouth, which it used to scream.

wet, scraping, choking scream. Three fingers and three hands, one jutting out of its chest. I can’t even think of its other attributes, because Peter and I hardly looked at it; it was just so hideous. Peter quickly took his hoodie off and wrapped the thing in it to muffle its cries and to hide it from our sight. We drove back into town and stopped at the woods, where we left it under a particularly tall evergreen tree. 

But as days passed, I was horrified at myself for what we did. How could we just leave it there, all alone in the woods? What if someone found it? What if it was scared? I named it Charlotte in my head, because I thought it at least deserved that, a pretty name. 

I would visit it by myself at first, and then I convinced Peter to come along with me. It was always fine, wrapped in Peter’s hoodie. It wailed sometimes, but most times it was quiet, its arms outstretched and its fingers twitching. Sometimes I cried, which would always set Peter off. He’d tell me to be quiet or he’d shove me into the tree. And now we can’t find it. 

“It’s gone,” Peter said quietly. It probably learned how to crawl and just crawled away somewhere, you know? His voice was strangely tender. 

My eyes began to burn and my throat tightened. I didn’t want to cry, not now, not in front of Peter again. 

Don’t worry about it. It crawled away. It’s gone now. “Everything is normal again,” Peter continued saying, not stopping. It’s gone now, gone, gone. We walk out of the forest, hand in hand, and I swear I can hear something wailing through the trees as something stirs in my stomach.