Young and Pregnant

Alec stood gaping at Cassandra. He couldn't believe what he had heard, and it took a second for him to fully register her words. "You're pregnant? As in, a baby is growing inside of you?"

"Yes Alec, that's what pregnant means!", Cassandra screamed at him as she sobbed into her hands.

He stood there for awhile, not saying or doing anything but breathing and thinking. Cassandra continued to sob and slipped down the railing until she was sitting on the deck. Alec stooped down and sat next to her, cradling her head in his arms. She wasn't fully forgiven for trying to keep him there, but he tried to comfort her. For however mad he was, he still cared about her. Not to mention that she was now carrying his child inside of her.

"Wow", Alec breathed as the realization of it all hit him. He was going to be a father. He was going to be one of those fathers who went into the army and might miss the birth of his newborn baby. The kind that would go away to war, unsure if they would ever return to their family. The family he had accidentally started.

Cassandra's sobs started to quiet down and she snuggled closer to Alec. She knew he was still angry, and he had every right to be. She shouldn't have tried to keep him here, but how could he just decide to leave her like that? It wasn't like he asked. He had simply told her that he was going into the army and signed up. No talking it out before hand. Just a decision on his own. "I'm sorry", she whimpered into his shoulder. Maybe he would forget all about it now that he knew she was pregnant. Yeah, he'll stay now, she thought.

"Cass, it's alright. You couldn't get pregnant on your own." He patted her head and held her close. He looked down at her stomach. It showed no signs of pregnancy and he wondered how it would look in a couple of months.

"N-no", Cassandra stammered. "I'm sorry for trying to get you to stay."

"Oh." Alec just sat and stared down at her. At least she apologized, he thought bitterly. His anger wasn't fully gone, but it had died down.

He stood up and offered his hand to help her. She looked up at him for a few seconds before taking it. "What will we do?"

Alec just shook his head. "I have no idea. We live with our fucking parents Cass!", he shouted. Not at her, not at anyone, but the universe it seemed. He was yelling at fate for doing this to them. "We were so stupid."

Cass wasn't in the mood for words. She just nodded and stood there staring at her boyfriend. She loved him, that much was true, but they were too young for this. She was too young to be having a baby.

"Gah!", Alec yelled as he pulled at his hair. He was stuck calculating how long it would take for the baby to be born and when he would get back. If the baby came on time he might be able to make it back, but if it was early, he had the chance of missing it. It was now the middle of May. That would mean the baby was due in about the middle of February. If he was supposed to leave in the middle of September and return in late January he could make it back in time to see the birth of their baby. Only of course if the baby wasn't early. It would be a rush.

"Alec." Cass wrapped her arms around him. "I could fix this. I could." She whispered the words to him, not wanting to say the real name for it out loud.

"No Cass, I wont make you do that. We wont do that. We aren't those type of people. We can do this." Panic rose in him. He didn't want her to resort to that. He was a Christian through and through. He didn't always attend church, but he wasn't about to end a life that he had started. The irony of it all was that he had joined the army, where he could be forced to end lives for the sake of the country. It was a cruel world.

He held onto Cass and they walked into the house. It was empty for now, but soon her parents would be home and she would have to tell them. They would be angry at first, but then they would be sad. She knew they would be disappointed in her. She was only nineteen afterall.

When they walked into the door she could see the questioning looks on their faces. They set down the few groceries they had picked up and looked to see Alec standing there holding Cass's hand. "Mom, Dad, can we talk."

Her parents looked at each other before sitting down at the table. "What do you want to talk about hun?" Her mom asked calmly, but there was a definite panic in her eyes. The same blue eyes that Cass had; that maybe her baby would have.

Alec squeezed her hand letting her know that he was there for her, and that she could do this. "Well..." she froze up. Her words couldn't form. She knew what she should say, but the more that they stared at her, the harder it became.

Instead Alec spoke up for her. "What she's trying to say is...", and he found his words lost too. The way that her parents stared him down made him wish he had already left.

"Just get to the point dammit", her dad finally said. Her mom glared at him, wanting to keep calm, but the tension had reached a turning point.

"I'm pregnant." Cass squeezed Alec's hand hard as her mom began to weep and her dad looked as he might very well kill Alec.

"Is it his?", he demanded, pointing a finger in Alec's face.

"Dad, stop, it is. It isn't his fault though. It's our fault. We know we were dumb, but", Cass trailed off as her mom looked up from her arms.

"But what Cass?", she gasped through her tears. "How could this happen? Didn't you use protection?"

Alec gulped at the thought. He should've. He knew that they should've, but no guy wants to wear a condom. That was just a fact. He knew she wasn't on birth control, but what were the chances? It was spontaneous and it was great. Who knew that good sex would come back to haunt them.

Cassandra's dad got up from the table and began to pace in the kitchen while her mom continued to cry at the table.

Alec just sat there feeling slightly uncomfortable. To think that he had been so close to walking away from Cass, only to have her say one sentence and pull him right back in. She had been doing that for awhile now. Everytime they fought she would come up with someway to get him to stay. Like the time she had wrecked his car, or even the time that she had cheated. He had been so angry both of those times, he threatened to leave. The moment he did though, she gave him those big, sad, blue eyes and told him she loved him. He knew that she did, and he loved her, but why stay with a girl who is nothing but trouble? Then she would explain how sorry she was, and that she didn't mean to cheat. That she was drunk and that she was pressured into it. She even asked Alec to beat the guy up, and he did. As for the car, she took it to get it fixed. Anything to keep him. This time he wasn't sure he'd ever leave. Maybe if he had really wanted to, he would've by now. Cass just had this way about her that made it hard to do that.

"I think your father and I need sometime to talk." Her mom had tears streaked down her face and her makeup smeared all around.

Cass nodded and her and Alec went up to her room. Her parents had nothing to worry about now. She couldn't get pregnant twice.

They sat on her bed staring at each other. Occassionally they would glance down at her stomach then back up at each other. They strained to listen for any sign of what her parents were talking about, but picked up nothing. Instead they just held hands and thought to themselves about what was to become of them. Finally Cass spoke up. The question was gnawing at her insides.

"Alec, do you hate me?"

He shook his head solemnly, "No Cass. I was just angry with you. I love you."

She nodded at this. "I love you too. I'm sorry I wrecked our lives."

He shook his head again. "You didn't, we did, remember?"

She nodded again and they went back to silence. Cass thought back to that night. She could remember every second of that night that she became pregnant. It had been so magical and romantic. It still felt like it was. She just wished they had remembered one small detail; that tiny piece of cheap plastic that could've saved them a lot of trouble. "It was incredible though wasn't it?"

Alec smiled. "Yeah, it was." He kissed her lips softly.

Maybe they were just dumb teenagers who didn't know what love really was. They could say they loved each other, but where was the proof at? They had survived a year together. Others could say the same, but time didn't measure love.

All that mattered at that moment was that in their time of need they had each other. They could figure out the rest later, but for now, they thought they loved each other, and for them that was enough.