Submitted into Contest 2 in response to: Write a story about someone who defies social conventions. When Cassie was sixteen, she had her first boyfriend. They dated for one year. Toward the end of their relationship, the subject of kids came up because one of his cousins had announced that she was pregnant.
They were in his bedroom with the door open. David looked at her funny. They broke up not long after that conversation. Cassie went to a small liberal arts college in the northeast. It was close enough to home that she could take the train in and out of the city without much trouble, but far enough that she had some distance from her parents. She felt at home at school almost right away. Her roommate was a pink-haired girl named Vanessa, and she introduced Cassie to clove cigarettes and hard seltzer.
She distracted herself by experimenting with her appearance and becoming an active member of the college student body. The blue streaks in her hair became fire engine red a few weeks later, and she was a bleached blonde for a short time during her sophomore year.
She pierced her eyebrow, her tongue, her belly button, and subsequently got tired of the piercings and let them close. She joined the art club and the Political Action Committee. She eventually declared political science as her major. In her junior year, Vanessa, who Cassie had become close with and continued to room with, confided in Cassie that she was pregnant. This happened late one Sunday afternoon while Cassie was studying for an exam the following day in her Political Theory class.
Cassie felt her eyes widen. Cassie stared, not understanding what her friend was saying. Vanessa shook her head. I mean, we both want kids someday anyway. Years later, Cassie would look back on this moment as a turning point. Cassie graduated with her Bachelor of Science in Political Science. Vanessa attended graduation and sat in the audience with her baby. But she had not dated, her fear of the future or even discussion of the future so strong that she had no choice but to stay away from it.
