The Girls in Skirts

Chapter Five

 Maddie's universe turned upside down and inside out in a matter of days. The day after taking her pregnancy test Maddie's mother drove her to the doctor's office where a blood test confirmed that Maddie was indeed pregnant. Maddie was nearly ten weeks pregnant and all of the tests that she was subjected to said that the little baby in her stomach was healthy and thriving.

Maddie's mother spent that entire afternoon and the next day on the phone with Adam's mother and they discussed the couple, the couple that they both had decided absolutely did not need to see each other right now, even if they were going to be married in a matter of days.

Then it was Sunday and Maddie was firmly seated in between her mother and step-father in a pew. They arrived after church started and left as soon as Pastor stood up and dismissed the congregation.

Maddie did not get to talk to a soul,not even her best friend Laura. Maddie instead got to spend the entire service staring at the back of Adam's perfect brown head of hair. Maddie had stared longingly at that gorgeous head of hair so many times before, but always when he had been on the platform, behind the drum cage trying to sneak a smooth wink in her direction.

Adam was not sitting on the platform or playing the drums this Sunday however. This Sunday he was seated in between his parents, just like her. She had tried desperately to catch his eye and to get to talk to him. She could not take the not talking to him. Everything had been decided for Maddie and Adam by their pastor and their parents. Maddie desperately wanted to talk to him, she desperately wanted to hug him, she desperately wanted to tell him how sorry she was because she felt like she was ruining their lives, how she was ruining his life.

It would not be until Wednesday night when Maddie would get to talk to Adam. At the Wednesday night Bible study Maddie rushed to the bathroom to throw up thanks to the 'all day sickness' that she had been experiencing. When she exited the bathroom her mother was in a deep conversation with the First Lady and she saw Adam lurking near a fellowship hall.

Maddie made a bee-line to a Sunday School classroom that she watched Adam sneak into. She had snuck into that classroom behind him dozens of times before but her heart beat faster this time than it had any of the others.

When she closed the door behind herself and turned she saw Adam standing against the wall with the same frightened animal look that he had when he was sitting on the couch in her living room just days before.

"Hi." It felt like the only word she could find in her entire brain.

Moments earlier she had wanted to hug him. She had wanted to feel the familiar feeling of her body pressed up against his and his hands stretching to places that they should not be.

"Hi." his voice whispered back. It wasn't in the seductive tone that she had grown so accustomed to, the tone that she heard in her dreams, the tone that made her skin feel alive. His whisper was faint and sad. His whisper was filled with heart-break.

A silence filled the room before his hand reached out and touched hers. The touch was not like the impassioned and hungry touch they normally shared, it was gentle and slow.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Adam finally managed to whisper. His voice cracked.

Tears came to Maddie's eyes at the hurt in his voice. "I did not have a chance." Slowly Maddie whispered as much of the story as she could to him. She shared her panic, her sadness and her overwhelming fears sitting in the Pastor's home office.

Adam was silent.

"I'm sorry." she finally added as she finished up her recap and explained how far along she was. "I'm sorry I did not find out sooner and that it all happened like this." She rubbed a tear off of her face. She was sorry. She was sorry that she had ended up pregnant. She was sorry that she was the one destroying all of his hopes and dreams.