hellbound; cory | ACKLEY BRIDGE

OH BABY, BABY...

┍━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━┑
heaven can wait
we're only watching the skies
┕━━━━ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ━━━━┙

suddenly, the room felt very hot. i could feel my heart beating all over my body, pounding in my chest, my head, my wrists, my neck. silence settled thickly upon us, gathering like dust on my lungs as i was quickly finding it hard to breathe.

"oh my god," he finally uttered, once he was done staring at me intently. mr bell pinched the skin between his eyebrows. he looked about as pained as i felt. "have you done a test? does cory know? is cory even the dad?"

"of course cory's the dad!" i exclaimed sharply, a little offended. "i mean, if there is a baby, which their might not be!" i reminded him. "and no, i haven't told him, and no, i haven't done a test."

"then why —"

"my periods four days late, i know it's not a lot, but i'm always really regular. and i've started throwing up everywhere in the mornings," i explained, my cheeks heavily red by this point.

a baby. a whole ass baby. a child. a human.

and i'd been so chill when i'd found out about jamie? god knows how.

'at least i didn't get knocked up, eh?' i could hear my own voice from the start of the school year ringing around in my head. like the universe was playing some sick prank on me.

"right. okay. nothing to be ashamed of, let's get that straight. i'm your teacher and i'm here to support you," mr bell reassured me, even though i could see the oh my god i thought you were one of the good ones look in his eyes. me too, sir, me too. "what i'm gonna do is give you some advice. i cant force you to do anything, but i think it's definitely in your best interest to buy a couple tests, maybe go and see a doctor, and i think that your boyfriend has the right to know."

i hadn't taken a test cause i were scared too. i didn't want to pee on a stick and i didn't want to see the lines that appeared on it and i didn't want to know. i didn't want to know. and how were i supposed to tell cory? yeah, sorry mate, you're not even 18 just yet and you've already got two kids knocking about to two different mothers. yeah, sounds great.

"cece? are you listening?"

"huh? oh, sorry sir, the idea of my potential child being related to a murgatroyd is actually makin me feel more sick than the fucker inside me," i groaned, massaging my temples as i stared at the floor, not even minding my language by this point.

mr bell let out a little chuckle, probably out of pity more than anything else, and repeated himself. "i said, did you use protection?"

"oh, i wonder!" i asked, sarcastically. "urgh, i'm sorry, i'm being a cow i know. as a catholic we get taught in church about, like, the flow method? you heard of that? where you wait until a certain point in your cycle to avoid pregnancy? the way they described it, i thought it were foolproof."

"whilst you were busy being brainwashed by the church...don't you also get taught about no sex before marriage?"

"you are not even funny," i mumbled.

"aren't you wearing a purity ring?" mr bell snorted, before quickly composing himself as i stared up at him from where i'd sat myself down, but even at that point a smile had worked its way onto my face.