“The stuff he said about Cait…I mean, I don’t know why he would.”
She half laughed when she didn’t feel at all like it. “I can only imagine what it was. I’m sure he was only trying to get a rise from Trevor. I suspect it was all nonsense. Cait was his excuse.”
“Oh.” His face cleared. “Okay.”
She scribbled a hall pass and sent him on his way, then returned to the bathroom.
“Trevor, please go to the nurse’s office and get some ice on that eye. I’ll talk to you after that. Aaron, you come to my office with me.”
He launched into a scurrilous attack on Trevor’s motives and parentage. She raised her eyebrows. “Coach Loomis, perhaps you won’t mind escorting him.”
“With pleasure.”
Aaron had clamped his mouth shut by the time he got to her office. He sat sullenly refusing to talk to her or make eye contact until his mother retrieved him. Molly spoke to her alone, telling her the same thing she had Richard—if her son got in one more fight, he would be expelled. No recourse. “In the meantime, he’s suspended until Monday.”
Mommy argued and repeated things she’d no doubt heard from her son about Trevor, but Molly stood her ground.
“This time, Aaron is entirely at fault. He knows the rules. His behavior was unacceptable.”
Then she sighed and went to the nurse’s office, where she was startled to find Richard already sitting next to his son. Trevor’s head was down and he still held the ice pack to his eye, which must hurt like the dickens. Richard had an arm around him.
His eyes, dark and hot, met hers. He looked considerably less friendly than he had yesterday when she’d had lunch with him. He squeezed Trevor’s shoulder and then stood.
“Mr. Ward,” she said formally. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Trev called me.”
“Really.” She glanced at his son, who was peering at her through the one good eye. More déjà vu. “Trevor, how’s that eye?”
“It hurts like a mother…” Intercepting his father’s warning look, he didn’t finish.
“I’m sorry,” she said, taking the seat on the other side of him. “Please tell me what happened.”
“It wasn’t me.”
His father loomed, but to his credit didn’t say anything. Molly didn’t let herself look up at him.
“I know.” She smiled at his surprise. “Ruslan said Aaron was bad-mouthing Cait, you told him to stop and Aaron punched you. He said all you did was push Aaron away. That he fell against the bathroom stalls.”
“He said that?”
“Yes. Isn’t it true?”
“Did he tell you what Aaron said?” He sounded desperate. She saw him scan the office as if to be sure they were alone. “He said everyone’s talking about her. That she keeps having to go to the bathroom to puke. People think she’s knocked up.”
Molly was glad she was sitting. “Oh, no.”
“You didn’t know she was sick?”
“I know she’s nauseated every morning. But she seems okay in the evening. She didn’t tell me she was sick at school.”
“He said everyone knows she’s pregnant and I’m a…” Again he hesitated. “A you-know-what for fu…uh, screwing her and then dumping her.”
Molly didn’t say anything. She was still combating the dizziness. You did screw her. You did dump her. Not helpful. Not even the entire truth. Cait had her share of responsibility. She could have said no. Or, at least, you have to wear a condom. Or, better yet, you have to wait a month until I can get on birth control. And you have to wear a condom.
Water under the bridge. She was overwhelmed by the knowledge that disaster had struck. They shouldn’t have dawdled. If Cait was getting an abortion, she should have done it. Before the whispers started.
“Did you know people were talking?”
He shook his head. “But maybe they wouldn’t in front of me.”
“Or around her.”
She pulled herself together and stood. “Okay. She and I will talk tonight.”
There was hope on his face. “Do you think she’ll agree, you know…?”
“I don’t know,” she told him honestly. She didn’t. She didn’t know how she felt about it. No, not true—she did know. She felt as if she was being pulled apart. What was easiest for Cait, what would be right for her in the long run, what really was right…if there was any such thing. And then her own ache, the one she couldn’t seem to squelch that kept her from being clearheaded. Finally she looked at Richard, and saw lines of puzzlement on his forehead as he studied her. So he hadn’t figured her out yet. Imagine that.