The Debt of Guilt [BxB]

4: before

March
1989

The snow had melted away and the early signs of spring had started to blossom, colourful daffodils breaking through the icy ground as the trees finally began to sprout life again. There was still a chill in the air, and the residents of the Lower Heathlow trailer park couldn't discard their winter gloves just yet, but the prospect of summer was enough to keep them going, for now.

Peter, Danny and Jenifer were sat cross legged on the floor of Peter's cramped bedroom, textbooks spread out between them, all wearing thick woolly jumpers to try and combat the cold.

"You think I can get out of doing my GCSEs if I tell them I'm pregnant?" Jenifer groaned into her notebook, dropping her pen in frustration.

"You might actually have to tell Kev then, too." Danny teased her.

She kicked him, leaning back against the wall. She looked a little more like herself these days; she was wearing colourful eyeshadow again, and let her curly hair fall down her back gracefully, if not a little wildly. She had taken to wearing to baggy jumpers a lot though, even though the boys had promised her that no one would know she was pregnant for a least another couple of months.

"I still don't understand why you broke up with him." Danny was dying for a distraction from his textbook. It seemed like talking about Jenifer's pregnancy was all the three of them did these days, but if it got him out of revision, he wasn't complaining.

"It's too complicated right now." She shrugged, avoiding eye contact with either of them.

"He'd be a good Dad." Peter pointed out, finally looking up from his notepad, "Since you've decided to keep it and all..."

"I haven't decided that yet." She snapped, a little too sharply. She took a deep breath to try and calm herself down, "I'm sorry...I just... This is a lot for me right now. I'm trying to make the right decision."

"You want me to tell you what the right decision is?" Danny asked her sarcastically. He'd been nagging her constantly about getting an abortion. Peter's approach was a lot more gentle, but it was clear that he agreed with Danny. The idea of Jenifer having a baby was crazy to the both of them.

"No, Danny, I don't." She shot back.

"This is why condoms exist-"

"Oh, fuck off, at least someone wants to have sex with me." She wasn't usually so rude to her friends. She blamed it on the hormones. And the stress.

"Wow." Danny couldn't help but laugh, "I'll have you know that I actually have an admirer."

Peter's brows shot up in surprise, "What are you talking about?"

Danny smirked proudly, "Someone left a note in my locker on Valentine's Day."

"You didn't tell us." Peter tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

"Yeah, well, Jen had bigger news." He scoffed, "We were a little busy talking about how Kev knocked her up, remember?"

Jenifer rolled her eyes, "Well, who wrote you the note?" She pressed.

"I dunno. There was no name."

"You still got it?" Peter pressed.

"Uh...yeah, somewhere..." He pulled his backpack towards him and begun rummaging through his schoolbooks, finally producing a crumpled up piece of paper. "Here."

'Please excuse how dumb this is, but you have the best smile in school. Maybe try to notice me sometime.'

"Gross." Jenifer recoiled as she read the messy scrawl, "Who would write something like that?"