The teenage pregnancy pact

Melannie

After Melannie, Lizette and Jocelyn had dinner, the rest of the sleepover went by mostly silent. There was nothing else to talk among them, as Lizette had clearly made up her mind to throw away any future she had to nurture the seed of a total loser.

At 5 a.m., only four hours after they went to sleep, Jocelyn woke Melannie to tell her that she and Lizette had to leave. When Melannie asked why, they told her they were going to break the news to Paul.

Christ... this was really happening.

If Paul's parents weren't so intimately familiar with hers, she might have posed as a bystander and recorded everything for a good laugh. As it was, the best thing for her would be to stay out of it, maybe even cut ties with Lizette if the situation got bad enough.

The next time she woke up, the sun was already shining through the curtains. Her phone read 6:32 a.m., giving her more than enough time to eat and get ready.

Still, five and a half hours of sleep took a toll on her. She tried to remedy it by resting her eyes, but a warm hand gently shook her.

"Ah, ah, ah," she heard Travis say. "If you go back to sleep, you'll only wake up more tired. Next time you should consider having your sleepovers on the weekend instead."

Melannie groaned in irritation, sitting up on the bed for a moment, but a few seconds after her energy failed, and she fell back onto it, face buried in the pillows.

Travis's hands nudged her again.

"I've already prepared breakfast for you, and this time I won't heat it back up," he said, and Melannie took off her blankets to jump out of bed and go to the kitchen.

As she did that, Travis strolled towards the basket of Melannie's dirty clothes and exited the bedroom as well.

For the last few weeks, Melannie had done everything she could to skip breakfast. Travis didn't protest the first few days, knowing that the changes in her life with Sarah's engagement to her father were difficult to process.

But within a week of losing her morning appetite, she fainted in physical education class. Now, Travis wouldn't let her leave until he was sure she'd had some breakfast.

When she went down to the table in the kitchen, Melannie ran into the main culprit of everything, a filthy intruder sitting with petulance at that table, eating some weird "organic" food mix.

Ignore her, baby, she's not worth it. Melannie thought.

Luckily for her, it seemed that day Sarah was more interested in her phone than in trying to talk with her.

Her omelets and toasted bread tasted as bitter as yesterday's dinner, but bit by bit she regained her appetite.

It wasn't until her father hurried down with his briefcase in hand, dressed for work, and used his key fob to open the garage door and gate to the street that Melannie turned to speak to him.

"Dad! The clerk at the cinema told me that the movie doesn't have screenings in 3d anymore, I hope it doesn't bother you."

Confusion etched in the face of the man, so much so that he stopped dead in his footsteps.

And then Melannie saw his face turn white.

"Oh, yeah, about that..." he said, trailing off.

"You forgot, didn't you?" she arched and eyebrow, "well, I'm reminding you now, it will premiere tomorrow at 7 p.m., we'll have the best seats!"

Ever since the movie was announced last year, Melannie's father kept insisting that they had to see it in the best movie theater. Previously, Melannie would have tried to convince him to watch the movie she wanted to see. However, since the intruder arrived and started indulging him, only doing what he wanted, those moments became more and more scarce. To the point that months have passed since Melannie and her father did something together.