The Color of Destiny (The Color of Heaven Series Book 2) (5 page)

As I mentioned before, Glenn and I were together for five months before I gave him my virginity. I say ‘gave’ because I can’t bring myself to use the word ‘lost.’ It’s simply not accurate. There was no feeling of loss on my part, only a deep and meaningful satisfaction, without regret.

Glenn waited a long time for me to be ready, and he would have waited forever if I’d asked him to. I knew how much he loved me.

As it turned out, we didn’t actually plan for my deflowering. There were no candles, or rose petals placed between the sheets in anticipation of such a momentous event. It was just like every other time we fooled around in his bed when his parents weren’t home. The only difference was that I didn’t tell him to stop when our clothes came off.

It all happened very naturally.

I won’t try to paint it with a soft brush, however. It was excruciatingly painful, but I didn’t mind because I loved him.

We were lucky that day. We were lucky for most of that year, in fact, because we took a few chances, and I wasn’t on the pill.

I know now that I should have gone to the doctor and gotten a prescription for birth control, but the world was different back then. If you were a sixteen-year-old girl, you made sure no one knew you were having sex.

o0o

It wasn’t unusual for my periods to be late, even as much as two weeks. My monthly cycle had always been unpredictable, so I barely noticed the following spring when I skipped a period—until I woke one morning, sat straight up in bed and struggled to remember when I’d last menstruated.

I should have been keeping better track of those things under the circumstances, but what can I say? I didn’t think anything like that would ever happen to
me
.

When I arrived at school and stepped off the bus, Glenn was waiting for me at the curb. “You’re late,” he said with a smile.

My stomach turned over. “What did you say?”

“I’ve been waiting here for ten minutes,” he explained. “What happened? Did your driver fall asleep at the wheel?”

I numbly placed my hand in his and allowed him to lead me along the paved sidewalk. “No, but I need to talk to you.”

We had at least fifteen minutes before the first bell, and I had to get this off my chest. The stress was killing me and Glenn was the only person I trusted with this secret.

We headed toward a picnic table around the back of the school. We dropped our book bags and sat down. There was a chill in the air; I could see my breath, but the early morning sun was blinding. I had to squint. Glenn frowned at me.

“What’s the matter?”

Of course he would know something was wrong. He could read my moods like no one else.

“My period’s late,” I bluntly said.

Glenn’s eyebrows pulled together. “How late? A few days?”

I swallowed uneasily. “I’m not sure. I haven’t been keeping track, but I think it’s been at least seven weeks since the last one.”

Glenn squeezed both my hands in his. “I thought we were being careful.”

“We were,” I replied. “We didn’t take any chances last month. I don’t know how it could have happened.”

His eyes lifted. “Maybe it didn’t. You said you weren’t keeping track, and you’re always late. Aren’t you?”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “It’s been a long time. Unusually long.”

“Can we find out for sure?” he asked. “Can we get a test from the pharmacy? Or is it too early to tell?”

There was no Internet back then, no way to Google the answer to a question like that.

“I’m not sure. We should go at lunchtime and see what it says on the box. Do you have any money? I brought what I could. I have ten dollars.”

“I have twenty. Will that cover it?”

“I don’t know.” My heart was racing and I felt sick to my stomach.

The bell rang. It was an abysmal sound because it meant we had to go to class and be apart until noon. How was I going to get through the morning?

Chapter Sixteen

We bought the pregnancy test during our lunch hour, and let me tell you, it was the most stressful thing I’d ever done. First we had to linger in the feminine products aisle, searching for the right box while keeping an eye out, hoping no one from school would come along and discover what we were looking for. It was a small town and there was no way to remain anonymous.

When we found what we were looking for, Glenn agreed to take the box to the cashier while I discreetly slipped out to wait for him on the street corner.

He handed me the plastic bag and I shoved it deep into my purse.

“I’ll do it right after school,” I said.

We were so shaken by the experience that we spoke not a single word on the way back to school.

o0o

The bus ride home seemed to last forever. Thankfully, no one sat beside me, which was exactly how I wanted it, but it left me no choice but to stare out the window and imagine the worst-case scenario.

If the test was positive, how would I ever find the courage to tell my parents? My father especially. What would they say? And what would they think of Glenn? No doubt, Dad would place all the blame on him. He had certainly warned me enough. ‘Boys that age are only after one thing...’

I felt sick and nauseous at the mere thought of it. God, it was going to be rough. But that wasn’t the worst of it. What about the next nine months? I was in the tenth grade. What would my teachers think if I came to school with a belly the size of a basketball? I was a good student. A good girl. I couldn’t bear to imagine it.

o0o

Two hours later, I stood in front of the mirrored medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom and read the test results.

God help me.

My knees buckled. The next thing I knew I was sitting on the fuzzy blue bathmat, staring dazed and wide eyed at that plastic white stick.

No. It couldn’t be true.
There had to be some mistake. I couldn’t possibly be pregnant. Not me.

I dropped the stick on the floor, covered my face with both hands, and took a deep breath. I needed to think this through.

Though I was in a state of shock and panic, I did not cry or fall to pieces. I remained outwardly calm and picked up the stick and the rest of the packaging—heaven forbid if my father should come in later and find it on the floor.

Then I went quickly to my room to call Glenn.

o0o

Glenn met me an hour later at the public park in town. He had biked all the way there and was out of breath and perspiring when he leaped off his bicycle. Pulling me into his arms, he said, “I love you, and no matter what happens, I’ll be right here beside you, and in front of you with a big stick if I have to be. Everything’s going to be okay. I promise. As long as we’re together, that’s all that matters.”

In that moment I realized there was no ceiling on what existed between us. He was my partner, my dearest, most trusted friend, and we were in this together, come hell or high water. I believed him when he said he would be at my side, and that gave me the strength I needed to survive anything...
everything
that was about to come our way.

Chapter Seventeen

The first matter of business was to break the news to my parents. Maybe I should have told Mia first and asked for her advice, gained her support, but we had grown apart since Glenn and I started seeing each other. So, when it came time to sit down with Mom and Dad and spill the news onto the table like a heavy can of nails, I was on my own, with only Glenn at my side.

“Mom. Dad. We have something to tell you.” My heart nearly burst out of my chest. After a brief pause, I said, “I’m pregnant.”

Glenn squeezed my hand under the table.

Mom and Dad stared at me in disbelief for a full ten seconds. They did not look at Glenn.

“Are you sure?” Mom asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “I took a test from the pharmacy.”

“Have you been to see a doctor?” she asked.

“No, not yet, but I don’t need to see anyone to know it’s true.”

My father sat forward in his chair. “You can’t trust those over-the-counter tests,” he said. “You need to see a doctor.”

“I’ll see one as soon as you want,” I replied, “but it won’t make any difference. I’ll still be pregnant.”

No one said anything, and the silence had weight, like a giant sack of wet sand on my shoulders.

Though my father was strict, I had never feared him before. Not until that moment when his eyes darkened with rage and his fists clenched and unclenched on top of the table.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” he said to Glenn. “Are you proud of this? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“I love your daughter,” Glenn replied, “and I’m sorry for this. We didn’t plan for it to happen.”

“Well, that’s obvious!” Dad shouted. “You didn’t plan for anything! You were reckless, selfish, and irresponsible! Just like your father.”

Dad stood up and knocked his chair over onto the floor.

Mom clasped his hand. “Please, Lester, sit down. Let’s hear them out. We need to decide what we’re going to do.”

My blood grew hot and sped out of control through my veins. I was terrified Dad was going to leap across the table and beat Glenn to a pulp.

At the same time, I was infuriated. Glenn and I were in love. He was nothing like his alcoholic father. It was
my
life, and I would run away and marry him before I would let my father separate us.

To my immense relief, he sat back down and worked hard to calm himself. His chest heaved and a muscle twitched at his jaw, but he didn’t throw any punches.

“How could this happen?” he asked.

My mother covered his hand in hers. “I don’t think there’s any point in discussing that. We all know how it happened.”

Her eyes bored into mine. I felt ashamed.

“Why didn’t you come to me sooner?” Mom asked. “I would have taken you to the doctor, Kate. We could have prevented this.”

I lowered my gaze. “I didn’t want you to know.”

“Well,” Dad said, “the whole town is going to know soon enough—when you’re walking around with a...” He stopped himself.

The neighbor’s dog barked savagely outside at something. I wanted to run out the door and escape all of this.

Glenn sat forward. “I want you to know that I love your daughter, and I’ll marry her tomorrow if it will make things right. I can increase my hours at the grocery store and support us.”

A wave of love moved through me, and I squeezed his hand.

My father scoffed with derision. “If you think I’m going to let my daughter marry
you
, you have another think coming. And do you really believe you could support a family by packing groceries? Honest to God. You’ll ruin everyone’s lives, if you haven’t already.”

“Dad!” I couldn’t let him talk to Glenn that way. “This is just as much my fault as it is his. You can’t blame
him
.”

“I blame both of you,” Dad coldly spat.

My heart broke at the sight of his disgust. I was no longer his smart, clever daughter. I was ruined. Dirty. Soiled by teenage sex. That’s what he thought. I could see it in his eyes.

I had no idea what the law said about teenage marriage. I was only sixteen. Could we get a license without my father’s consent? I certainly hoped so, because that was all I wanted—to walk out of there with Glenn at my side and make our own way in the world. We could get an apartment and be together forever. We would be happy, loving parents. That’s what my heart wanted.

Yet the sensible, more prudent side of my brain knew it could not be that easy. Glenn would have to quit school and so would I. He would never become a teacher. I wouldn’t go to college and enrol in a program I had yet to decide upon. I wasn’t stupid. I knew we would struggle financially, and those struggles would eventually bring stress down upon us. What if, down the road, Glenn grew to resent me for taking away all his choices?

He had so much potential. We both did. I wanted us to be happy and fulfilled. Was any of that even possible if a teenage pregnancy shifted everything out of order, created chaos, and crushed all our dreams?

I tried hard to think rationally, but in the end, all that mattered was my wild, mad love for Glenn. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, yet I had no real knowledge of the world outside my little bubble of romance. I didn’t know that disappointment and grief could become all consuming. I couldn’t comprehend how those feelings could cripple a person permanently and cast a shadow over an entire future.

Unfortunately, in time, I would learn more than I ever wanted to know about that.

Chapter Eighteen

In the days following that dreadful conversation under the bright light at our kitchen table, my parents decided that my best option was to have an abortion. It was the
only
option, they said. Glenn and I weren’t capable of supporting a child. Clearly trying to do so would ruin our lives. They argued that with a baby, I wouldn’t be able to finish high school. Neither of us would go to college. My reputation would be ruined. The shame would be momentous, and that was a major factor in the decision. My father was an elementary school principal, and he dreamed of being superintendent of all schools eventually. He was ambitious. In those days, my scandalous pregnancy would ruin everything. We would be forced to move to another town and start over.