Little Do You Know

Chapter 1

                                                                                              1986

"It's okay, baby, just tell me," Eddie begged. "You can tell me anything. Tell me so I can help you fix it."

"There is no fixing this!" Dani yelled hysterically, shoving him away as she jumped to her feet, tossing her arms in the air. "Shit! This is awful! You can't fix this! Everything is ruined!"

"What's ruined?" he pleaded, leaping up. She paced across the room and he followed, grabbing her hands and turning her to face him. "Sweetheart, please don't say that. Nothing is ruined. It's you and me, right? Everything's okay as long as we're together."

"Nothing's okay!" she sobbed, shaking her head. "Nothing! Eddie, you can't fix this."

"I could try," he offered. "I mean, how do you know if you don't tell me what's going on? Just tell me baby, please, so I can help you."

Dani paused, inhaling slowly through her nose, before she looked up at him, "I'm pregnant, Eddie."

"Fuck."

Dani yanked her hands away from his, glaring up at him, eyes turning hard as granite at his words. She didn't know why his words had sparked such an intense anger within her. White hot rage flashed over her at his reaction even though she'd said the exact same thing when she'd looked down at that pregnancy test and saw two pink lines. It was a completely understandable reaction but right now she didn't need him to react like she did; she needed him to do what he always did for her. She needed him to not be panicked Eddie but the Eddie who lied to her and pretended everything was fine even when it clearly wasn't. She needed him to tell her that it would all be okay, that they'd figure it out, that the two of them could do anything together. She needed him to take her hand and lead her from the deep end where she was drowning, unable to keep her head above water, and guide her back to the shallows.

When he'd mentioned how lucky it was that she'd been about to start her period when their raft popped a leak at dinner last night, it felt like the world had just crashed down around her because she instantly knew. She hadn't had a period in the two months they had been gone. In all the fun and excitement, the thought hadn't crossed her mind but with his words, it didn't just cross her mind, it crashed through her mind with the force of a sledgehammer, a sledgehammer that was going to smash everything in its path.

Dani had been hoping she was wrong, that maybe she was just late. Wasn't she supposed to feel sick? Shouldn't she have noticed some kind of change in her body if something that earth shattering had happened? The whole ride home she sat in the van, contemplating what this was going to mean for them. She'd told Robin and Vicki, the only two she trusted to be quiet with this news, what she was fearing in the backyard and the two of them had immediately ran to get her a pregnancy test from the drug store. Dani was losing her mind and she couldn't wait one moment longer to find out. She had to know one way or another and now she knew. She knew that her and Eddie's lives were completely ruined. There would be no bookstore, no college, no writing some epic book for him, no Disneyland family vacation, no traveling. None of the random plans that had been so fun to talk about but now just seemed ridiculous, juvenile dreams that would ever come to pass. How would either of them have time when they would now be in charge of a whole human being?

"Dani..." Eddie said softly, running his fingers through his mess of hair, his eyes desperately searching hers as if she could fix all this somehow, as if she could make it go away, as if she was the strong one right now. "I mean, are you absolutely sure? Aren't those tests wrong sometimes? Like a...fake positive or something?"