Another choked sob tore through me, and my hands dropped down to my stomach.
“Jesus, will you stop?” he hissed, and pulled my hands back so they were at my side. “Everyone can hear you, and when you do shit like that, they’re gonna figure out what’s happening.”
It was the end of the last day before winter break, there were only a handful of people still at the school, and none of them were near us. I’d been trying to figure out how to tell Austin, and hoped that he’d help me find a way to tell my parents over break. Hoped that the couple weeks from school we could spend figuring out a way to get through this together.
I’d been wrong.
I stood there, staring at his hardened features for a few minutes before backing away from his grasp. “I can’t rid of the baby. I won’t.”
“You’re screwing with your future, Ray, think about that. That thing,”—his nostrils flared, and lips curled as the word left him—“is not a damn baby yet. Last chance . . . I’m not going to tell you again.”
He called our baby a thing. A thing!
I didn’t know how far along I was since I didn’t pay attention to my cycles that were never on time anyway. Something my family doctor said probably had to do with my dancing and cheerleading. I hadn’t had any morning sickness; and it hadn’t been until my cheer skirt stopped fitting, and the captain of our team told me I should start eating less, that I’d even thought I could be pregnant. By the time I’d gotten over the denial, gained the courage to even buy and take a test—or five—and gotten over the denial again, I was already sporting a small bump on my otherwise flat and toned stomach. A bump proving there was a life growing inside me . . . not a thing.
Squaring my shoulders, I ignored the tears still falling and my quivering chin, and looked directly into Austin’s blue eyes. “I’m keeping the baby.”
A look of shock crossed his face for all of two seconds before he was glaring at me again. “Just remember . . . you’re the one that threw us away. You’re the one ruining your life. Try to bring me down with you, and I’ll say that thing isn’t mine.”
Locking my jaw, I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much this was killing me. How much I wanted to beg him not to do this. Well, more than I’d already shown. I knew he was hoping his ultimatum would change my mind, and nothing could at this point.
His eyes searched mine for a few more seconds before he straightened with a huff. “Fuck it. Goodbye, Reagan.”
I watched him walk away toward the parking lot, his head turning to each side to see who’d witnessed our conversation. Once his shiny black Camaro peeled out of the lot, I finally unlocked my knees and somehow made my way to my car.
I didn’t remember the drive back to my house. I didn’t remember climbing the stairs to my room. The next thing I knew, I was in my bathroom with my shirt pulled up, my yoga pants pushed down a little, and my hands were gently running over my stomach when a gasp sounded behind me.
My head snapped up before I whirled around to see my mom standing there. Even through my blurred visio
n from the tears, I could see her standing there, her head shaking back and forth, her hands over her mouth.
“No . . . Reagan, no!”
I burst into strained sobs, unable to try and brush it off as something else. My boyfriend of the last sixteen months had just broken my heart. He’d called our baby a thing. I’d been stressing over hiding my bump with loose-fitting clothing for almost a month now. I’d barely turned sixteen and was having a baby.
All the emotions crashed down on me, and no matter how much I wanted to deny it, I needed my mom right now.
“M-mom.” I somehow managed to say through the near-hyperventilating crying.
“No. What have you done?” she shrieked as she backed away from me.
“Mom, please!”
I’d followed her into my bedroom, and our heads turned toward my door when heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. My older brother burst into my room quickly followed by my dad.
What is he already doing home? He usually isn’t home for another few hours.
I panicked when I saw the look of horror cross both their faces. Their eyes glued to my stomach. I quickly pulled my shirt down to cover it, but my arms stayed in front of my little bump, like I was protecting my baby from what was about to happen.
“Daddy,” I cried, and started to take a step toward him, but he took one away.
“I’m going to kill him,” my brother, Keegan, whispered. “I swear to God I’ll kill him.”
“What have you done, Reagan?” Mom screamed again.
My chest ached, and the tears somehow—impossibly—fell harder. “Mom, I’m—”
“Tell me you’re not pregnant! Damn it, Reagan, tell me!”