Carpe Diem by Rae Matthews Page B

class and me.
    I did win a contest ironically. Even though it was pretty silly, I still count it as a win. That May, the local radio station was giving tickets for a special viewing of Jurassic Park in June. It was a VIP pass that included four tickets, free popcorn, pop, a candy choice, and a tee shirt.
    All you had to do was call in and answer three questions. I ran to my phone and dialed the station’s number repeatedly until I got ringing instead of a busy signal.
    “Hi, you’re caller number ten. What’s your name,” the DJ said when he answered the line.
    “Oh my God, really?” I scream into the phone.
    “Yes, you are. What’s your name, hon.”
    “Piper, my name is Piper. This is so cool.”
    “All right, Piper, here is your first question. True or false, the name dinosaur means ‘terrible lizard’?”
    “Oh man, um, geez, I will go with true.”
    “DING DING DING, you are cooooorrect.”
    “I had no idea. That was totally a guess.”
    “It was a good guess. Okay, for your second question, a person who studies fossils and prehistoric life such as dinosaurs is known as a what?”
    “Oh, oh I know this one. It is a paleontologist.”
    “DING DING DING, you are cooooorrect again. One more and you win the prize pack. All right for your third and final question, which came first, the Jurassic or Triassic period?”
    “Oh, I think this is a trick question. You totally want me to say Jurassic since that is the movie so I’m going with Triassic period.”
    “DING DING DING, you got it!! You are our winner!”
    Winning that contest was the best. Jack, Flynn, Casey, and I all got to see the best movie of the summer. Actually, it was the first and last movie we saw that summer. After the pregnancy test came up positive, we didn’t do a whole lot that cost money.
    Most of the summer was spent doing the little things that would become harder to do after the baby came. Therefore, taking a walk with my mom and going fishing with my dad were easy things to cross off. Then there was the day that Jack said he loved me. Yes, we thought we were in love with each other long before, but we had agreed not to be one of those high school couples who went around kissing and declaring their love and then a week later they had broken up and were off declaring their love to someone new.
    No, we were not going to be that kind of couple. We agreed that we would not say those words until we knew we were actually going to mean it.
    I remember it was October and I was about five months pregnant. We went for a walk to look at the leaves changing color before they fall to the ground and the snow comes. We stopped at a large oak tree and Jack pulled out a disposable camera from his jacket pocket.
    “Stop right there,” he said.
    “Jack, stop I look like a house,” I joked.
    “No you don’t. You look amazing, and I want to remember this day for the rest of my life,” he told me.
    I leaned against the tree, held my belly, looked at the camera, and smiled. He snapped a picture and wound the film as a jogger was passing by.
    “Excuse me, could you please take our picture?” he asked the man.
    The man agreed and Jack ran to me, knelt down, kissed my belly, and pulled a small box from his other pocket.
    “I may not be the man you dreamed of, but you are the woman of my dreams. This may not be the life you expected to live, but I am glad I am in it. I know we are young and I know we are scared of what comes next, but today I make you this promise. Through the good times and bad, I will love you forever. I promise to do my best to make you the happiest woman in the world if you will make me the happiest man and say yes.”
    The world seemed to disappear. The jogger that was once standing in front of us was a blur. Jack opened the small box and in it was a ring. It was small but breathtaking, in my eyes.
    In that moment, I knew that I was truly in love with him and that I would always be in love with him.
    “YES, YES, YES!” I