January 2nd was a Monday which meant Meg had to go to school. The overwhelming and in-your-face irony of that fact was not lost on her. When she woke up that morning, there was a split second where she thought the events of the day prior were a dream conjured up by an anxious mind. It was only when she became aware of the dried tear tracks lining her cheeks and her swollen and tired eyes that she remembered crying herself to sleep when she had returned home. And now she would have to finish her high school of all things. She slumped down the stairs, irritated that she wasn’t even offered the privilege of an education waive for her misfortunes.

“Good morning” stuttered Meg’s mother, Carol Chukar, with an awkward tilted smile. Meg could tell that her mother desperately wanted to return to normalcy as soon as possible. “G’morning.” Meg mumbled as she opened a cupboard and grabbed cereal and a bowl.

“Do you have any plans for the week, Meg?” Carol was usually quite the talker and always came with a topic to discuss which meant she was easy to interact with for those who wanted to. Meg did not want to.

“No” she replied, directed more towards the milk gallon she was grabbing than the middle-aged woman at the table. She didn’t sit at the table and contented herself with mechanically munching on her cereal, hunched over the kitchen counter.

Carol Chukar was surprised at this lack of response, obliviously so. Considering the wedding ceremony that she had adamantly brought about, Carol Chukar gave off the impression that she wanted to deny its existence more than Meg. Trying to drown the day prior with additional words she exclaimed enthusiastically, “I bumped into your English teacher Mr. Garfield the other day at the library, and he mentioned you,” a pause, naively awaiting a reaction that never came, “he said that you always have the best responses to the readings out of everybody in the entire class and he is always impressed by your unique takes. Is it true that your favorite assigned book was George Orwell’s 1984? He said that when you go to college, you should consider writing academic papers on the book, you grasp it so well!”

Still no response.

“I actually remember reading 1984 when I was in college. It’s been a while but to be honest, I don’t particularly remember liking it very much. It was a little too cynical about religion and Christianity for my liking.”

The most apparent weakness of a talkative person is silence and Meg knew that full well. Her mother’s constant attempts to get through to her were becoming unbearably annoying but Meg wanted to twist the awkward knife and keep it deep. She was doing all she could to get out of the house and head to school quickly and she had the sneaking hunch that her mother wanted her out for the day even more. Mr. Chukar had already left for work earlier that morning and Carol was increasingly feeling his absence. Realizing that her daughter was not going to talk to her, she just sat there and sipped her coffee steadily observing the empty bird feeder out their dining room window as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.

Meg gathered the rest of what she needed for the day and drifted out of the house without a glance in her mother’s direction, who was still utterly enthralled by the bird-less bird feeder. As she hopped in the driver’s seat of her Kia, she thought about the absurdity of the situation she was in. She felt like she was just hacked into, and a virus was sent out that was programmed to corrupt her daily life, routine and habits, bit by bit.

Her high school was a twenty-minute car ride from her house in the downtown of Pipersville, Ohio, the town closest to them. It was a high school of no significant size or status. Meg’s senior class was about one hundred and fifty students. It was a bored school and as with bored people was always looking for something that would spice things up. Meg knew she was about to become the spice.

Up to the day where she got married, she had told no one of her pregnancy and the subsequent consequences. But Meg knew information was like fluid and could drip its way through the cracks and punctures of unexpected places. She halfway expected the whole student body to be waiting for her at the entrance gates rearing to hear juicy details. Her heart sunk at the prospect of the next few months. It would stay under wraps at first, but someone was going to talk. She hoped Devon had the common sense to stay silent on the subject though she couldn’t help but doubt it. After all high school boys gossip just as much as high school girls do. The difference is that it comes out in huge sporadic bursts as opposed to consistent drip feeding. It was all pointless anyway because she knew that the baby was inevitably going to want to introduce itself and the swelling was going to be hard to miss. Hopefully it was going to show up later rather than sooner.

Meg parked in the school lot and was welcomed by what was, in her opinion, the most glacial gust of winter wind that had ever graced a human’s face. Meg shivered in her bones, suddenly more excited than ever to graduate from high school. Hers was a unique senioritis.