It was Frank.
The person who impregnated Jennifer was sending messages non-stop to her since this morning. The messages reminded Jennifer of her experience with Gregory. Jennifer had no idea how a older teen like him knew her. The way Frank typed and texted to Jennifer felt like as if he was a college student. Jennifer approached her phone and saw how desperately Frank tried to grab her attention. Frank’s messages had very needy and manipulative undertone to them. It was like as if he was begging from Jennifer to give him what he wanted. Frank really wanted to meet with Jennifer. He tried to manipulate Jennifer to talk to him with his constant barrage of messages.
Frank acted like a total creep.
Jennifer scrolled through her phone and thought about sending a message to Alex. Jennifer looked at Alex's named on address list. He was too immature to understand the crisis their family was going through. Jennifer looked at Alex's named again. There were only seven names on Jennifer’s phone and two of them were labeled “Mother” and “Silvia”. Which meant that Jennifer had to pick him as he seemed to be the best option she had left. Frank in other hand kept Jennifer's phone busy vibrating. Jennifer had tried to ignore Frank’s messages but as they kept coming one after another. Jennifer had enough and decided to sent a single message to Frank. She wanted to ask why Frank was so desperate but she couldn’t. Instead Jennifer typed an one single emoji to Frank which expressed worry. Thankfully it was enough to stop the avalanche of messages and Jennifer was finally able to place the phone back on to her nightstand.
Jennifer wanted to go back to the living room and have a talk with her mother but she feared that her mother had given her an ultimatum when she had gone there the second time and scared her. Jennifer wanted to vent her problem to someone and after some deliberate thinking. She decided to call Alex and have a normal talk with him.
“Hi. It’s Jennifer. How are you?”
“Jen? What’s up. Sorry but I don’t have much time to speak with you. I’m still at school and the next class is starting soon.”
Jennifer had forgotten that Alex was still just a middle school student. Of course he would have less time to talk with Jennifer than a high school student would.
“Nothing much. I was just wondering if you could have come here to study with me after the school?”
“Come over to your place? I guess I could but is your sister okay with it?”
Jennifer could hear from Alex’s voice that he was worried of Jennifer’s mother. Jennifer felt desperate and needed Alex to come as Jennifer’s sense of normal was dwindling fast.
“Sis said it’s okay for you to come. Actually that’s the reason why I am calling you this early. Sorry to ruin the surprise for you but I asked her if I could call my boyfriend over for a sleepover. We could study and chat all night in my room.”
Jennifer didn’t know what other thing she could said to Alex to convince him to come. Jennifer wanted someone other than Frank or her mother to come and hug her. It didn’t matter to Jennifer who it was. She wanted someone.
“Sleepover? Tonight? That’s…” Alex’s sentence was cut short as Jennifer heard the school bell ringing in the background.
“Sorry Jen. I need to go now. The next class’s starting. I call you as soon as I can but I really need to go now. Bye.”
Jennifer closed her eyes and hated how she had to lie to a middle school student. She hated how she had no friends or normal family. Her mom had her own issues, Frank tried to manipulate her and her current boyfriend was a 14-year-old kid. None of them fully understood Jennifer’s situation. What made things even worse was her mother’s mental health. Jennifer was able to read between lines and see that her mother was going through a lot. Jennifer didn’t know all the details but she could only assume how traumatic it was to raise her daughter at such a young age. Jennifer couldn’t get over the fact that she was only 13-year-old teenager while her mother wasn’t even past her thirties.
Jennifer sat on the bed and thought how young her mother looked. Silvia looked almost like Jennifer before she got cursed. Maybe the curse was making her mother appear younger or maybe Jennifer saw her mother younger as Jennifer compared Silvia to Jennifer’s older 18-year-old self. Silvia wasn’t that tall either. If Jennifer was four feet tall or shorter it would have made Silvia somewhere between five and five-and-a-half feet tall. Jennifer guessed that her mother’s height was closer to five feet but slightly above it.
“Five feet?” Jennifer thought.
If her mother was only five feet tall it meant that Silvia was shorter than an average freshman student at Jennifer’s high school. Jennifer hadn’t realized how messed up it sounded until she really thought about it. A 27-year-old woman being shorter than an average high school student. Jennifer felt dread when she imagined in her mind how her mother stood next to Alex and both of them shared the same height. What made the thing even worse was how Jennifer hadn’t thought how curvy her mother was compared to other people who shared her height. Jennifer couldn’t previously imagine a freshman student with D-cups. It felt absurd idea but Jennifer could now easily imagine her mother looking much normal as an high school student than a working adult.
Jennifer looked down at her own body and couldn’t imagine how her future was going to look like. Jennifer was sure that she going to be stuck at 5-feet like her mother and never get taller than that. Jennifer wondered how much it must have sucked for her mother to be constantly mistaken for a high-school student.
There was a knock on the door.
Jennifer jumped out from her bed and asked from the knocker who was behind the door. She got no answer. Soon the knock was followed by a loud thud. Someone was trying their best to enter Jennifer’s room by force. Jennifer's first thought was that it must have been Frank but soon she saw who had such a difficult time getting into her room as they finally grabbed the handle and swung the door open.
It was her mother.
Silvia held a can of beer in her hand when she stumbled into the room and almost fell to the floor. Jennifer backed away from her mother every time Silvia got closer. Jennifer noticed Silvia’s face looked more red and she stared at Jennifer with her sorry eyes. Silvia looked more worn down, week and tired than she did moment ago. Her mother’s bleeding forearm cut now had a piece of cloth on top of it. Jennifer’s mother looked more intense and unpredictable. Silvia wobbled like a drunkard in front of her daughter and knelt down to put her motherly arms around her daughter’s back like a mother bear. The half empty can Silvia had in her hand fell to the floor when her mother wanted to hold Jennifer firmly in her place with her both hands.
“I’m so sorry that I’m such a failure. I wanted you to grow like any other normal girl. I knew everything was going to get more complicated if I said it to you but I had to do it. I was under so much pressure at the time. I’m sorry that I lied to you all these years. I’m sorry that I can’t educate you properly.” Silvia sobbed.
Jennifer didn’t know what to do or what to say to her mother. Silvia’s mouth stank like a rotten brewery. Jennifer had to choose her words carefully as a single wrong word could trigger her mother. Jennifer had too many paths she could have taken. Jennifer considered if it was better to say something encouraging to her mother or just let her weep her worries on Jennifer’s shoulder. Or should Jennifer wait her mother for to leave the room. The phone was also at Jennifer’s hand’s reach. She wondered if it was good time to call their grandmother to take care of Silvia.
The time was running short. Jennifer had to make a decision.