Even so, she stayed surrounded by friends all day and almost got away after the last bell because she didn’t stop at her locker the way she usually did. She zipped out of class and shot across the commons for the front door like an Indy 500 driver with her foot to the floor. Fortunately, Trev had been careful to take the desk closest to the door himself in his last class, he clock-watched and, since he’d never even pulled out his binder to take notes, was able to launch himself through the door while the bell was still ringing. The two of them reached the double exit doors at almost exactly the same minute. They were the first there although the commons was now flooded with jostling bodies.
“After you,” he said, bowing and opening a door.
“Um…I was going to wait for Jenna.”
“You don’t have dance today.” He had her schedule down.
Her cheeks flushed. “I was going over to the school, anyway.”
Sure she was. “Then I’ll walk you.”
She gave another desperate glance behind him in hopes of spotting a whole crowd of her friends, no doubt, that would provide her with camouflage. Not happening. He had her in the crosshairs now.
“Is talking to me so bad?”
“I know what you want to say.”
“What’s that?”
“You want me to…” Her eyes got super wide at the same time as she shut up.
Wow, good thing. He shouldn’t have pressed her when there were other people around. Trevor took her arm and steered her toward the sidewalk. “Were you really going to dance?”
Her gaze slid his way. “I guess I don’t have to.”
“We can just walk, then. Cut through Terrace Park.”
“Okay,” she agreed.
She looked really hot today. Not that she ever didn’t. Her hair was the prettiest he’d ever seen, especially in the sun. And there was some sun today, the first in close to two weeks. Cait wore jeans, flip-flops that showed off toenails painted bright pink and a formfitting long-sleeved T-shirt. Also hot pink, which gave, like, a pink tint to her reddish-gold hair.
God, he’d had such a thing for her. He was still confused about how it could have gone so cataclysmically bad. Well, the pregnancy part he got; that was his fault. But the rest.
They were all by themselves when she spoke. “Abortion. That’s what you want me to do.”
His heart began to pound hard, as if he was about to go out on the court for a big game. “You can’t really want a baby.”
Her blue-violet eyes flashed at him. “Of course I don’t!”
“Then what’s the deal?” he asked reasonably. He thought.
“The deal is that we made a baby, okay? This isn’t like…like I shoplifted something I can get rid of in a Dumpster so no one ever knows I did it.”
“It’s hardly even some cells yet.” Trevor didn’t actually know. Didn’t want to know. And why would she?
“I think it might be a couple of inches long now,” she said in a small voice.
He looked down at her, scared by that voice. Even more scared by the expression on her face. She was sort of inward looking, her eyes soft.
“See, my mom got pregnant with me by accident. She was only twenty, a junior in college. She could have had an abortion, but she didn’t.” She stole a look at him. “Your dad doesn’t look like he’s very old, either. How old was he when you were born?”
“Nineteen. He was nineteen,” Trevor answered, feeling hollow.
“See?” Like that said it all.
“But you’re fifteen. You’re not nineteen or twenty. That’s really different. You’re not even close to graduating from high school.”
“I’m not talking about keeping the baby.” She wasn’t looking at him anymore. They’d almost reached the park. “Only…only having it, and giving it a chance. You know?”
“You’d keep going to school? Do you know how everyone would look at you?”
“I could maybe take second semester off. Or go to the alternative school.”
“Everyone would still know.”
She stopped dead and faced him. “So I should kill this baby just to keep people from talking?”
Kill this baby. Oh, man. He was so screwed.
“It’s not a baby yet.”
Cait ducked her head. “I don’t know.”
“We made a mistake. Mostly, I did,” he admitted. “This can ruin our lives. Yours more than mine. No one will ever look at you the same way again.” He paused. This was really crummy of him, but oh, well. “You’ll have to quit dance.”
She jerked, and he saw that it hadn’t occurred to her.
“Going back after a year would be really hard.”
“Not a whole year.”
“Close.”
“Why are you doing this?” Eyes drenched but angry, too, she looked at him. “No, forget it. I know why. It doesn’t feel good.” Her contempt ripped through him. “You didn’t care about me, and now I don’t care about you. So stay away from me.”
She turned back the way they’d come and started walking, faster and faster, finally breaking into an awkward run. Her flip-flops slapped against the sidewalk, her book bag bounced on her back. Feeling like he had a big, jagged rock in his chest, Trevor watched her go.
* * *
MOLLY STOOD IN THE MIDDLE of the restroom, crossed her arms and stared at the two boys. Aaron Latter had a bloody nose, Trevor an eye already swelling and discolored. The opposite one from last time, she noted clinically. Chuck Loomis, football coach, six foot three and beefy, stood between them, a meaty hand locked on each boy’s arm. Trevor at least stood straight. Aaron seemed to hang like a wet noodle. He held wadded toilet paper to his nose and was sniveling. A third student hovered by the urinals. He was a scrawny kid with a huge Adam’s apple, eyes wide and scared. Molly sorted through her mind for his name. She knew he was a freshman. Something Russian, or maybe Ukrainian… Something like Russ…Ruslan. Ruslan Balanchuk. Did he go by Russ? She had never actually spoken to the boy before. Had Chuck bullied him into staying?
“Ruslan…” She hoped she’d gotten the pronunciation right. “I gather you saw this fight.”
The boy bobbed his head, his nervous gaze flicking to the two taller boys. Trevor wasn’t looking at him, but Aaron had turned his head. Molly could imagine what he was trying to convey with his stare.
“Let’s step out in the hall,” she said. “Then you can go back to class. Chuck, if you don’t mind waiting with Trevor and Aaron.”
She escorted Ruslan through the swinging door. The hall, five minutes after the bell had rung, was deserted.
“What did you see?” she asked gently.
“Aaron was bad-mouthing Cait.” A lurid red tide rose from his skinny neck to his face as he likely remembered who Cait’s mother was. His accent was subtle; his family must have been here since he was a little boy. “He called Trevor names and said, um, that he’d done bad things to Cait. And then he punched him.”
“He punched first. You’re sure.”
He nodded hard. “Trevor kept saying, ‘Shut up. Don’t talk about her that way. You don’t know anything.’ He said it over and over. But Aaron was totally in his face.” His voice was gaining enthusiasm and speed. “He never did punch back. He just, kind of, grabbed Aaron and threw him away. He fell against one of the bathroom stalls, you know, face-first. That’s when his nose started gushing. And I opened the bathroom door and yelled, and Coach Loomis was going by.”
“Okay.” Molly smiled at him. “You did right. You might have been hurt if you’d tried to break it up yourself. There’s some hard feelings between those two.”
“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 h
im 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.
How could he, when she was so confused herself?
“Mr. Ward…Richard. Perhaps I can call you tomorrow?”
He gave a clipped nod. “Trevor’s free to go?”
“Yes.” She looked at the boy. “Trev, it would have been better if you’d walked away, but I understand why you felt you had to defend Cait.” She hesitated. “I even appreciate that.”
He gave her a lopsided grin that must have hurt, because he winced. “But you’ll deny it if anyone asks?”
Despite the now ever-present ache, Molly laughed. “Something like that.”
The bemused lines on Richard’s face were still there, but now his eyes were warm. He nodded. “Molly.” And steered his son out.
She sank back into the chair with a groan. Dear God, now what?
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHAT NOW? THE ANSWER wasn’t really that tough. Take action, of course, which they should have done long since. It was nearly the middle of November, for Pete’s sake. To make the right decision, they needed information. Molly would make sure they got it.
The next evening she spoke to Richard on the phone. “We saw our family doctor today. He gave Cait something that should help reduce the nausea. I wish she’d told me sooner.”
“Why didn’t she?”
“She didn’t realize anything could be done, and she was sure nobody had noticed.”
He grunted in a male commentary that said it all. Of course someone had noticed. Several someones. And they’d told someone else, who’d told someone.... It was likely that the entire school was now talking about why Caitlyn Callahan was having to excuse herself from class to hang over the toilet several times a day.
“You were never that naive?” Molly said defensively.
“Nope.” Then, as if curious, he asked, “Were you?”
Her irritation subsided. “No. But I didn’t grow up…”
“Protected.”
She had to clear her throat. That gentle voice he sometimes used had an unsettling effect on her. Colton, Cait’s father, had been demanding, exciting, charismatic, but never tender.
Which should have been her first clue, she thought wryly.
“Yes,” she admitted. Forge on. Don’t let him know he got to you. “I made appointments for us to visit a couple of adoption agencies tomorrow,” she said briskly. “I’ve let Cait drift, which wasn’t smart. She needs a clear picture of all her options.”
“Are you always smart?” he asked mildly.
“Doesn’t everyone try to be?”
“I don’t know. I doubt most people think it through like that. What’s the smart thing to do? What’s the dumb thing? Which am I going to do?”
She chuckled at that. Hard not to.
But he went on. “Kidding aside, most of us react, don’t you think? Emotions get in the way of clear thinking. Sometimes that’s even good.”
“Is it?” Had any decision she’d ever made for emotional reasons turned out to be right?
Refusing to consider terminating her pregnancy. That was right. And an irony, since Colt was the one who’d wanted her to abort pregnancy and inconvenient problem all in one go, while barely three years later he was pushing her to get pregnant again. Having to get married while he was still a student didn’t suit him. The minute he was finished with law school and ensconced in the family firm, having a son and heir had become all-important. He’d wanted a Colton the Fourth—and seriously talked about naming his son that, despite his jokes when she first met him about how ludicrous it was for his parents to have made him the Third. She’d tried to imagine a family barbecue if someone called out, “Colton!” and four generations of men and boys came running.
Water under the bridge.
“How can Cait’s dec
ision not be made with emotions?” Richard asked simply.
“Because that doesn’t help. There’ll be grief no matter what she decides. Abortion or adoption, one kind of grief. If she were to keep the baby and raise it, she’d be giving up everything a teenage girl and young woman expects. Still loss.”
“I do see that,” he said after a pause.
“Does Trevor?”
“He’s already grieving in his own way, you know. He’s discovered he isn’t who he thought he was.”
“Invincible?”
“That, of course. He also knows he wronged Cait in several ways. That’s damaged his sense of self. The responsibility you’ve talked about…it’s pretty damn scary for a kid his age.”
Unsaid was how well Richard knew what his son was feeling. “What about you? Did you and—Alexa?—is that her name? Did you discuss abortion?” Molly asked.
“Not to speak of. I raised the idea once—she got hysterical. It was our baby. How could I possibly suggest any such thing.”
Curled on one end of the sofa, conscious of the quiet house around her since Cait had disappeared upstairs to her bedroom shortly after dinner, Molly continued tentatively. “Have you thought about that? I mean, this is our grandchild.”
He made a noise she couldn’t quite interpret. “I’m thirty-seven years old. You’re, what, thirty-four, thirty-five? Doesn’t the idea of becoming a grandparent at your age secretly horrify you?”
“Um…yes?”
Richard laughed, a quiet, rich sound. “Honesty,” he teased.
“I’m so confused,” she heard herself admit. She clutched the phone, as if it was a lifeline.
“I don’t totally see why. Caitlyn still has the chance to walk away from this. To say, ‘I’m too young.’”
“You could have done that, too. So could I.”
“But we were both…”
“A few years older. I know.” All these feelings crowded in her chest like an overfull room. She needed air to breathe. “I’ve got to go,” she said, knowing she sounded abrupt and suddenly not caring. “Good night, Richard.”
She cut him off, still speaking. Why had she thought he of all people would understand? Dropping the phone on the coffee table, Molly stood and walked to the French doors that led out to a patio and her tiny backyard. She stared out at the darkness, not sure she was seeing more than a few feet past the glass. It felt symbolic. Maybe if she stepped outside, there would be enough moonlight to ease her panic. But she made no move to open the door.
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