The Things We Do for Love

"How? How is it different?"

"Shes a seventeen-year-old with no one to take care of her and nowhere to go. Im helping her, but Im not crazy anymore with what I dont have. Ive made peace with not having a baby. Please," she whispered. "Give me a chance to show you that this is different. Come meet her. "

"Meet her? After what Sarah Dekker put us through--"

"This is not Sarah. The baby is Laurens. Just come and meet her. Please. For me. "

He looked down at her, long and hard, then he said, "I wont live through it all again. The highs. The lows. The obsessions. "

"Conlan, believe me, I--"

"Dont you dare finish that sentence. " He reached for his keys off the dresser and headed for the door.

"Im sorry," she said.

He paused. Without looking back, he said, "Youre always sorry, arent you, Angie? Thats what I should have remembered. "

IN HER WORLD HISTORY CLASS LAST YEAR, LAUREN HAD done a report on Victorian London. One of her research sources had been the film The Elephant Man. She remembered sitting in the library after hours, staring at the small television screen, watching the well-heeled Londoners taunt and ridicule poor John Merrick, whose face and body had been twisted and tortured far beyond what a man should have to endure. But the whispers and stares hurt him as deeply as any of his deformities.

Lauren understood that now, how much it hurt to be the object of gossip. In all her years at Fircrest shed strived for the kind of perfection that drew only positive attention. She was never late to class, never broke the rules, never said mean things about other kids. Shed tried, in all ways, to be like Caesars wife: above reproach.

She should have known how far the mighty fall and how hard the ground could be.

Everyone was staring at her, pointing and whispering. Even the teachers seemed shocked and unnerved by her presence. They acted as if she carried a lethal virus, one that could all too easily go airborne and infect innocent passersby.

After school, she let herself be swept along by the laughing, yelling crowd. Even in the midst of all these people--friends, mostly--she felt infinitely different. Separate. Head down, she tried to be invisible.

"Lauren!"

She looked up instinctively, though she immediately wished she hadnt.

The gang was gathered around the flagpole; Susan and Kim were seated on the bricked ledge beside it and David and Jared were playing hacky sack.

She steeled herself for the inevitable. Shed avoided them at lunch by hiding out in the library, but now she had no choice but to say hi.

"Hey, guys," she said, coming up to the group. She hesitated, saw David do the same.

They stared at each other from a distance.

The girls swarmed her, pulled at her arm. She followed them out behind the school, to their place on the football field. The boys followed along behind, keeping the hacky sack in motion.

"Well?" Kim asked when they were all standing around the goalpost. "How does it feel?"

"Scary," Lauren answered. She so didnt want to talk about this, but it was better to be talked to than talked about. And these were her best friends.

"What are you going to do?" Susan asked, scouting through her backpack for something. Finally she pulled out a Coke. Opening it, she took a drink and passed it around.

David came up behind Lauren, slipped an arm around her waist. "We dont know. "

"How come you didnt have an abortion?" Kim asked. "Thats what my cousin did. "

Lauren shrugged. "I just couldnt. " She was starting to wish she were far, far away from here. With Angie, where she felt safe . . .

"David says youre giving it up for adoption. Thats cool. My aunt Sylvia adopted a baby last year. Shes way happy now," Susan said, reaching for the Coke.

Lauren looked up at David.

For the first time she realized that he could walk away from this, leave it in the past along with all his high school memories. Someday it would be as forgotten as his tenth grade MVP trophy or his grade point. Why hadnt she seen that before?