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her purse over her shoulder and leaves the room.
    “Thanks,” I tell the nurse.
    She turns on her stool and holds out black-and-white photos for me to take. “Don’t forget these.” Her forehead’s creased. She’s concerned. For me. Or the baby. I’m not sure. Maybe both.
    I take the photos and stuff them into my pocket. “Thank you.”
    • • •
    “I don’t think she looks like me,” Hope says, holding the ultrasound pictures over her head, toward the light.
    We’re lying on our beds. I’m trying to figure out how to bribe Mom to take the prenatal vitamins. Maybe I can dissolve the vitamins in coffee.
    “Why do you have these, anyway?” Hope tosses the pictures toward my bed. I catch two, but the third falls to the floor.
    “ ’Cuz the nurse handed them to me. Mom doesn’t want them.” I stretch my arm out, reach the picture on the floor with my fingertip, and slide it over to myself.
    “Why do you?” She hoists one leg in the air and reaches for her toes, stretching.
    I shrug. “I don’t.”
    “You kept them.” She switches legs.
    “You can’t just throw something like that away. I’ll give them to Dave next time he comes over to bang Mom.”
    “Eww. Don’t say that. You know I can’t stand to think about her and men . . . right in there.” She points toward Mom’s room with her toes. “Four and a half more months and I’m out of here.”
    I sigh and roll to my side, facing her. “Don’t remind me.”
    She lowers her leg. “You’ll be fine. It’s not like I’m here all that much now.”
    “No, but I know you’ll be back every night. I’m not alone in this hell.”
    She laughs. “So, it’s a case of misery loves company, is that it? You don’t want to suffer alone?”
    The corners of my mouth turn up. “Maybe.”
    “I’ll sneak you into my dorm room overnight a few times this summer, okay?”
    “Gee, thanks.” I roll my eyes. “You’re a lifesaver.”
    She gets up and flips off the light. “It’s all I can do. I’m sorry. You know you have to find a way out of here, right? I don’t know how I’m going to get through even one semester without worrying about you.”
    I dig my feet under my blanket and pull it up to my shoulders. “I know. I’ll think of something. Don’t worry.”
    “I’ll always worry. I love you, Faithy.”
    “Love you too.”
    In the morning, I make a pot of coffee, dissolve two prenatal vitamins in it, and leave a note, pretending to be a wonderful, thoughtful daughter who just happened to make her mom coffee before she left for school.
    She’ll know something’s up, but I don’t think she’ll know what. She’ll drink it.
    I ride with Brian and Hope again, staring out the window in the backseat, listening to them make plans for the weekend. Again, I’m nagged by the urge to call Jason. All I do is work and go to school. I need more in my life, and not just because I want to have somewhere else to go besides home.
    Strands of Hope’s golden hair glint in the winter sunlight streaming through the windshield. A pang of sadness reverberates through me. I don’t want her to go. I hate that she’s eighteen, graduating, and moving out. I hate that the track team starts practice over the summer and she has to be there the third week of June. I hate that she’s brave enough to go out and live her life.
    I wish I was brave.

chapter
    four
    The car’s trunk is about to burst, and so is Mom’s stomach. The doctor put her on bed rest, and she’s pissed. Now that she can’t drive and has no reason to deny me using the car, I’ve spent most of spring break driving around to get away from her.
    “Do you need help with that?” the woman asks. I’m at a yard sale and bought a stroller for the baby.
    “No, I’ll get it in here.” I shove a car seat and a Pack ’n Play to the far sides of Mom’s trunk and jiggle the stroller in between. “There. Got it.”
    “Hope your baby likes it!” she calls, and waves over her shoulder,