Then a day before Colleen was scheduled to leave for school and Teyler was heading onto his own campus, Colleen’s life changed forever.
“What do you mean you’re late?” Diana asked. “Oh, my God!”
“I know! Don’t freak me out more. Maybe it’s just the stress from starting school.”
“Or maybe it’s the condom breaking thing,” Kim added, and Colleen turned a glare at Diana.
“I thought I said to tell no one?”
“I didn’t think she counted as no one.”
“Yeah, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know. The more people I said it to, the more real it would get. I didn’t want to think about it.”
“What are you going to do?” Diana asked. “You’re leaving for school tomorrow.”
Colleen shrugged. “I guess I need to buy a pregnancy test. Can you drive me to Waterland Isle? The last thing I need is to run into someone in the store. My mother will know before I even have time to pee on the stick.”
Diana nodded, and the girls loaded themselves into the car for the twenty-minute drive north to the closest Walmart where they crossed their fingers no one from Falls Village would be shopping.
They lucked out; they were in and out of the store in under ten minutes and didn’t see one person they even recognized. The cashier shook her head and offered Colleen a sad, knowing smile though.
Once in the car, Colleen began to hyperventilate. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. She had spent the last few years having sex with more than her fair share of Falls Village boys. She finally met a guy that might have been more, and this is what happened? She knew if the test was positive, she’d never speak to Teyler again. She wouldn’t ruin his life, not with the bright future he had in front of him.
Things between them had been strange since he left. She’d felt the shift in their easy banter. Now, they rambled on about nothing of any kind of importance when they spoke. Colleen had been suspecting for a while now that once Teyler left for school, she would never hear from him again.
And why would she? He was going to be a college athlete with beautiful, skinny girls throwing themselves at him. Why would he want to be tied down to a fat girl? And now she might be adding pregnant to her list of flaws.
“Where do you want to go?” Kim asked. “My mother is home and she’ll be in my room asking us about school while you’re peeing on the freaking stick, so my place is out.”
“We can go to mine.”
Diana pulled into Colleen’s driveway and the girls let out a sigh of relief that Dorothy’s car wasn’t in the driveway. They’d have the house to themselves. Georgia had been going with her mother to the shop all summer for extra money and Miles had left last week for school.
Of course, as they were clamoring up the stairs to Colleen’s room, Georgia peeked her head out of her bedroom door. “What are you doing here?”
“Me?” Colleen demanded with a startled yelp. “Why are you home?”
“Um…” Georgia cleared her throat and Colleen heard the rustling of bedsheets. “I told Mom I didn’t feel good today.”
Colleen raised an eyebrow. “I don’t want to know.”
But unfortunately, Tommy Ingram wanted her to know. “Hey, Coll,” he called from Georgia’s bed.
“Jesus, how stupid can you be?”
Georgia shrugged. “Teyler called a little while ago. I answered your line. He didn’t sound right.”
“He’s fine,” Colleen said in a clipped voice as she rolled her eyes at her sister. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “He’s using you. He’s leaving in like two days, why would you sleep with him?”
Georgia shrugged. “I always had a thing for him. I wanted to know what it was like. Once he leaves, I might never get the chance again.”
“It’s not worth it,” Colleen whispered. “Trust me. I could’ve told you.”
Georgia turned and closed her door, and Colleen led her friends into her room. “This is just freaking perfect. Now I get to pee on a stick and find out if I’m pregnant while my sister is fucking Tommy in the next room. How did my life turn out like this?”
“Just get in the bathroom. Call us when you’re ready.”
“Just come in there with me. I pee in front of you guys all the time.”
Colleen hated her body, but her two best friends and she had always been close. She’d stopped getting completely naked in front of them, but she still would sit on a toilet with them there. She needed the support now.
Colleen peed on the stick and then pulled up her shorts to wait out the processing of the test. She, Diana, and Kim were silent; no one dared to speak until they had the results. After the designated time, Colleen huffed out a deep sigh and said, “Well, I guess I’ll know for sure now.”
She picked up the indicator and flipped it over to find a blue positive sign. Colleen plopped down on the closed toilet seat, her head going into her hands. “I’m pregnant.”
Later that night in her bed alone, she allowed herself to cry until sleep took her away. The next morning, she pulled her shit together and called Teyler.
She never mentioned the test or the baby they would share. Instead, she told him that these few weeks have been hard, but they had made her see that a long-distance relationship wasn’t going to work out for them. She wished him well and fought off his argument over the matter before she hung up. That was the last time she spoke to Teyler Walker.
She kept her situation to herself for a few more days, lying to her mother that her roommate wasn’t arriving on campus until the following weekend and she didn’t want to be alone in the new place. But when Dorothy insisted on starting to pack her belongings for college, her hormones and emotions got the best of her.
In a fit of tears, Colleen blurted, “I’m not going to school. I’m staying in this small fucking town for the rest of my life.”
Dorothy raised a confused eyebrow as Georgia entered the kitchen to see what the other women were yelling about.
“What do you mean, you’re not going to school? Of course, you’re going to school. You’re just having first time jitters.”
Georgia chuckled then mumbled under her breath, “Her first time was years ago.”
Colleen shot her an evil glare then let the tears flow freely.
Dorothy wrapped her up in her safe and warm embrace and asked what was troubling her.
With a deep breath, Colleen quietly admitted that she was pregnant and had already called the school to withdraw her attendance. “I’m staying here. I’m keeping the baby. I’ll work with you at the shop. It’ll all be good,” she said without an ounce of conviction.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Who’s the father?” Georgia asked then groaned. “Oh, God! Please don’t say it’s Tommy.”
Colleen sent her another evil stare before she said, “Jesus, no! It’s not Tommy.”
“That boy that was here on vacation? The basketball player’s son?” Dorothy asked.
Colleen nodded.
“Have you told him?”
“No. And I’m not going to. I cut ties with him and that’s that. This isn’t something that needs to ruin his life.”