Some Things Never Change

Barbara's secret, Part III

Three minutes later, Stevie exited the bathroom, joined her mother on the bed and set the pregnancy test aside on her nightstand.

Stevie was far away from being nervous, she knew the results were going to turn out negatively, so she picked up her mother's magazine and flipped through the pages. Barbara on the other hand, was about to nearly freak out and breathed heavily.

What if Stevie was acutally pregnant? What should she do? How should she explain to her daughter that it was Lindsey's, the man that had caused her so much pain and still continued doing just that? How should Stevie ever recover from all that, if she would be surrounded by him all the time? Stevie still loved Lindsey, Barbara knew that, but the current distance from him was doing wonders for Stevie. She was finally recovering and getting over her broken heart. A baby would change everything!

Barbara's thoughts were exploding inside of her head – questions over questions. She hadn't even noticed how quickly the time had passed.

“Oh, it's been 10 minutes!”, Stevie suddenly said, nonchalantly she picked up the test and looked at it.

“What does it say..?”, Barbara asked carefully, expecting the worst.

Stevie kept unbelievingly staring at the pregnancy test, the small thing shaking in her hands.

“That can't be true!”, she mumbled, got up from bed and locked herself in the bathroom.

In there, she threw the test into the sink, grabbing the other two boxes of pregnancy tests and did them, as well.

“Stevie?”, Barbara was softly knocking at the bathroom door.

Stevie hadn't come out for over 15 minutes.

“Stephanie? Stevie, are you okay? May I come in?”

Stevie unlocked the door and opened it slowly. She had cried.

“Positive?”, Barbara asked, holding her breath for a moment and praying she was wrong.

“All three of them!”, Stevie shrieked and showed them to her mother.

“Oh my God..”, Barbara gasped.

“Mom, that's a disaster! I mean.. I was thinking.. I thought I didn't have sex with anybody.. But obviously I was wrong! This baby ain't coming out of nowhere! Someone is its father!”

“I know..”, Barbara said quietly.

This was the moment she had tried to avoid for weeks. Now, she had to tell her daughter about Lindsey, about....

“It must be Henry's!”

“What?!”

“I must have slept with him. I left that party in Austin with him! And obviously we had sex!”, Stevie exclaimed and fell onto the floor.

“Who's Henry?”, Barbara asked slowly.

“Some guy I met at that party. It's the only thing I can remember of that night. I went with him home.”

“What are you going to do, now?”

Barbara joined Stevie on the floor and looked at her daughter. Stevie didn't answer for a long time. Then suddenly, she placed her right hand on her stomach and rubbed it gently.

“There is a baby in there, Mom..”

“I know...”

“My baby...”

“You wanna keep it, don't you?”, Barbara asked softly and looked into Stevie's eyes that were filled with tears. She saw love, confusion, fear and excitement in them all at the same time.