Jasmine

As a seventeen year old boy, Charlie Jackson expected his life to be full of adolescent fun. Never did he suspect that anything tremendouly devastating would happen to him. He was raised in a quite wealthy family, and was given lots of freedom to experience life as he pleased.

Unfortunately, as you probably concocted a prediction from the first couple of sentences, something went wrong. I cannot say that he went into this problem unknowingly, because that would be somewhat false, but I can tell you he was not expecting things to turn out this way.

On a chilly November night, right after a football game in which Charlie scored a couple touchdowns at, he made love to a fifteen year old girl in the locker room. Of course he knew it was not the best place nor time to, but what happened did.

Three months later, Rose Keller, the fifteen year old freshman, went to his house.

"What's up?" Charlie said, opening the door.

"We need to talk." she frowned.

As she explained to him and his parents the quite unfortunate situation she was in, Charlie could feel his heart pounding in his chest with fear. His parents were in tears with anger and disappointment.

"I can't take care of the baby. You need to. If you don't, my parents will file a case against you and they will destroy you and your family." she spoke as if she was playing a recording from her parents through her mouth.

A couple minutes later, she left the house with her head low and her heart lower. She did not feel affection or love for the baby, but pure hate, as it was produced partly by a boy she thought took advantage of her.

The next couple of months were a blur. She went to her doctor's appointments and he tried to ignore the fact that his baby was coming and continued improving on football.

Mid- August, right before the fall semester started again, Charlie got a phone call from Rose's mother saying that she was going into labor. He didn't care.

A week later, Rose bought the beautiful baby girl home. She kissed her cheek, and left.

He hired a nanny to take care of the baby all day when he was at school. Every single day was awkward. Everybody would stare and talk about how he was irresponsible and a failure.

He still had not named her, and he didn't want to. He did not listen to his parents when they would ask him to pay attention to her, and show her love.

At about 8 o'clock one day, she started crying hysterically in her crib. The nanny was trying to soothe her, but nothing seemed to be working. Charlie was in his room at the time studying for a test he had the next day. He kept listening for the wails to stop, but they didn't. He tried to block out the noise, but it kept bothering him. Angrily, he stood up and stormed to the nursery.

"Julie, what the hell? I can't even listen to myself think!" he shouted.

"I'm sorry sir. She won't keep quiet. I tried picking her up, but she won't stop." she humbly said.

He thought to himself for a minute. Her skin was like caramel, and her hair was beautiful brown curls, just like his. She had chubby cheeks and short plumpy limbs, which Charlie always thought was funny and cute.

"Give her to me." he said. The nanny handed the baby to Charlie. He rocked her in his arms for a few moments, and her cries eventually stopped. The nanny stared in astonishment, as this was the first time he had touched her since she was born.

"Well?" he snapped. "You can leave."

She left the room. He sat in a rocking chair on the other side of the room and held the baby to his chest.

"You're actually not that bad. I can't wait till you can catch a football. Do babies even understand us? You know, because of you, everyone stopped talking to me at school. I don't even have friends anymore. Even the football coach keeps asking me if I knocked up anymore girls." She looked up and him and sucked her thumb. He smiled back.

"You're adorable man. I always thought babies were kinda gross. All they do is poop and stuff." he laughed. She sneezed, and it made him laugh even more. Watching babies sneeze is hilarious.

She placed her head back on his chest, and he could feel her heart beat on his own skin.

"Your mom is named after a flower. I think it's a little weird, but she was really hot, so I didn't say no. Wouldn't it be cool if I named you after a flower too? Like Daisy or something? Okay, wait. Daisy Duck. So no."

He thought about it for a while.

"What about Jasmine? It sounds exotic and pretty, just like you." he touched her nose. She was asleep, so he didn't know if she liked that or not.

"Oh well, I like Jasmine, so that's your name I guess."

He fell asleep in the chair with his baby on his chest, and he finally felt relief.