“What’s that?” Chad asked as he examined the stick in her hand.
She’d giggled like the stupid, silly schoolgirl she was. “It’s a pregnancy test.”
The color drained from his face, and he wobbled on his feet until she feared he might pass out. “What areyoudoing with it?”
She frowned in confusion. What did he think she was doing with it? Last she checked, people didn’t carry around sticks other people peed on. “It’s mine. Well, ours.”
“Ours?” he squawked, sounding more like a parrot than a man.
The uneasy feeling in her stomach grew until it felt like a small storm was brewing in there. Sweat beaded Chad’s forehead, and his eyes looked about to bug out of his head. He wasn’t all that handsome anymore.
Chapter Fifteen
“Yes,ourbaby,”she said.
“Aren’t you on birth control?” he demanded.
“No, I told you my parents wouldneverallow me to go on it even if I could ask them to take me for it. You know how they are. I could never ask them for such a thing; they’d never let me outside again.”
“You never told me that.”
The storm became a hurricane as she gawked at him. “Yes… yes, I did,” she insisted. “That’s why I asked you about wearing a condom.” Her parents may keep her as sheltered as they could, but she still heard the girls in class talking and learned enough from them to know some things about sex and birth control.
“I’m not wearing one of those fucking things.”
Which was pretty much what he told her the first time they discussed this too, but in a much more flowery way. Then, he’d told her that he didn’t want anything getting between their love and he had to feel her completely.
The ticking hands of the clock on the wall counted away the minutes as he stared at the stick before snatching it from her hand. He glanced at the wordpregnantin the little window. She was so naïve back then that the stone-cold look on his face didn’t tip her off to what was coming, but she wouldneverforget that look.
“It’s not my baby,” he stated.
Charlie blinked at him, uncertain she’d heard right. “Of course it is.”
“I know you’ve been spreading your legs for every man you encounter.”
Charlie felt as if he’d slapped her as all the breath rushed out of her and she recoiled. Now she feared she might be the one to pass out as the ground lurched beneath her feet. She couldn’t assimilate this man with the one who’d proclaimed his love for her while taking her clothes off twenty minutes ago.
“No, I… I would never sleep with someone else,” she stammered out. “You’re the only one I’ve ever been with, and… and I love you.”
“Lies,” he said and waved the stick at her. “And if anyone asks, I’ll tell them all the men you’ve been with. You can’t prove it’s mine.”
Of course, she could have proved it was his the second the baby was born, but her brain was too busy trying to process the betrayal burning through her for common sense to come into play.
“You’re saying it’s mine because I’m the only one of your many who has a stable job and who can take care of you. That’s not me. I will take you to have an abortion and pay for it, but that’s it.”
Now, she knew he’d offered to pay for her abortion so he could erase the evidence of what he’d done. If this came out, he could be arrested for statutory rape. He would lose his business as few would willingly let the man, who fathered a child with a girl not old enough to vote, teach their daughters. She realized all this now, but back then, all her dreams were too busy shattering around her feet to put two and two together.
“An abortion?” she choked as he continued to wave the pregnancy test between them.
“Yes. No one’s going to claim that bastard as theirs, and you know your parents will make you give it away.”
And that was what finally snapped her out of her stupor. She didn’t care; he was saying these awful things about her, but now he was saying them about herchild. He wanted her to get rid of the baby nestled in her womb, a baby she already loved.
She’d had high hopes for this child and the life it would have, but it was already experiencing the cold indifference of one of its parents, and she wouldnottolerate it. She would love this baby enough for twenty parents if that was what it took, but she was keeping it.
Her parents battered most of the defiance from her over the years, but she felt her spirit surging back to life as she snatched the test from him. Her anger felt much better than the hurt, and she allowed it to fester within her.
“I’m keeping my baby,” she stated.
