One Two Punch - Chapter Five: "Flashbacks"

I just finished Chapter Five... it was one of my favorite chapters to write.

Chapter Five: “Flashbacks”

Showing up at the gym early on Saturday, I decided to get some practice in before Danny came so I wouldn’t need to take up his time practicing. I took a few jumpers here and there, hitting most of them. I still got it. In just ten minutes after I arrived, so did Danny.
“Hey, buddy,” I greeted him.
“Hey,” he replies. “Is it all right if I ask you something?”
“Sure… is it about school or the fact that I’m your biological father?”
“The second one. I just want to know more about you and my mom… how you guys got pregnant and why you aren’t together now,” Danny says.
“Oh boy… that was a long time ago, and I’m not sure we have the time,” I reply.
“How would you feel if you hardly knew anything about your parents?” he asked.
“Fine. I’ll tell you. I guess it all started the summer of junior year…”

I was seventeen years old, and I worked at the local pizza joint. My job included cleaning up the place and delivering the people their pizzas at their tables. I remembered every face that came in. But there was this one that I could not forget for even a minute. She strode about with the grace of an angel, and she always had friends with her. I longed to be with her so much.
She and her friends were regulars and were also classmates of mine. Even though I was a star on the basketball team, they didn’t seem to deem me popular enough to be in their clique.
One Friday evening I’m delivering a pizza to a table and I see that one girl I liked, and for the first time, she was alone. This was even harder to do.
“Here you go, enjoy,” I say as I give her her small pizza.
As I start to walk away she catches my arm and says, “Wait.” I turn around and for the first true time, our eyes meet. I could have sworn I started drooling at this point.
“I was wondering if you would like to go out with me… Mike”, she says.
“You know my name?” I ask.
“Of course, you’re the best athlete at our school!” she says. This made my heart feel so good.
“I’d love to.”
“Great! Here’s my number, why don’t you give me a call?”
“Okay, I will. See ya.”
“Bye.”

“And that’s how I started dating your mother,” I tell Danny.
“Cool. How’d you guys get pregnant?” he asks bluntly.
“What? 'How’d you guys get pregnant?' What kind of question is that?” I ask.
“I just wanted to know how my parents could be so stupid to get pregnant while still in high school,” Danny says.
“Look, we were not stu-” I say, but then realizing, maybe we were. “Fine, I’ll tell you. But if you think it’s all gross and weird that you’re hearing about your parents’ love lives, well then, that’s your own fault.”
“Fine,” he says.

Her name, as I have told you, was Jennifer. Jennifer Widmore. She was head cheerleader and vice president of the student government. And she was dating me.

“Yeah I know that,” Danny says bluntly.
“Hey, she was the head cheerleader, and I was dating her! I mean, are you dating the head cheerleader?”
“No…”
“Then let me tell my story. Anyway…”

Homecoming was approaching fast, and we’d already decided to go together. To make a long story short, we won Homecoming King and Queen. But that wasn’t the big news kids talked about at their lockers the next day.
Later that night, I decided to drop Jennifer off at her house. However, she invited me in and we talked for the longest time. I found out her parents were on a trip to Las Vegas. So we were in the house, all alone. One thing led to another, and we were making out, right on her parents’ sofa. Then, after she takes her tongue out of my mouth, she starts unbuttoning my shirt…

“Ew. I don’t need to know all the details of how you had sex,” Danny interrupts.
“You asked for it.”
“No, I thought I was asking for everything leading up to it.”
“Fine. I’ll jump after it.”

So as you already know, we did not use contraceptives. Of course we knew about them, but we figured a few things. We’d probably not get pregnant in the first place and even if we did, we loved each other so much we thought we could handle it.

“Wait. You guys had been going out for a few months and had already talked about kids?” Danny interrupts.
“Let me tell you this Danny. Our first four months were the greatest four months in the history of all relationships. I had already told her I love her by the first day of senior year.”
“Wow. So, is there more?”
“Yep. Anyway…”

I drove home and went to bed. I drove to Jennifer’s house to drive her to school the next day as I always did and as she came out she told me, “Hey, Mike, can you me to Bartell’s on the way to school? There’s just something I want to get.”
“Okay, sure,” I say. So I drive there and let her out. A minute later she emerges with a small bag.
“What did you get?” I ask her.
“Nothing, never mind,” she says.
Over the course of the four months of knowing her, I knew I shouldn’t ask anymore, so I didn’t. I assumed possibly it could be a birthday present for me, but my birthday wasn’t for a few months.

“When is your birthday by the way?” Danny asks.
“January 17, 1972.” I respond.

Anyway, we got to school, and we said our goodbyes as we had different first periods. We met after first period and as I walked up to her she had a glum look on her face. Even when I went to kiss her, she didn’t kiss back.
“What’s up?”
“I’m pregnant.”
My jaw dropped. I could not believe it, me, a father?
To make a long story short, that’s all I thought of that day. And since she told her friend who told her friend and so on, the whole school knew. Our classmates found out, our teachers found out, and then of course, our parents found out.

“Wow,” Danny says. “So, what about the adoption process? How’d you guys end up picking my parents?”
“That Danny, is for another time,” I say. “We’re wasting valuable practice time, now come on, let me show you the basics.”