Stepping Stones to my Heart (Sodapop Curtis Love Story)

Chapter 31: Just the Flu, Right?

The warm water hit my face.  It had been a week since the wedding and things have gone back to normal.  I just stood there while the water rushed down.  I rinsed my hair out right when I heard someone enter the bathroom.  They quickly pulled back the curtain exposing me. 

“Damnit Shepard!” I shouted trying to cover myself.  “What the hell do you think you’re doing!” 

“Oh, well sorry Col didn’t know you were in here.” Tim said as he let go of the curtain. 

I sighed with relief, “Don’t you dare leave before I’m out.” I quickly turned off the water and I heard Tim hurry towards the front door.  Wrapping my raggy yellow towel around myself, I ran to the door and slid in front of it closing off Tim.  “Sit.” I pointed him to the couch.  At this point, I was soaking wet, my hair dripped with shampoo, and only one shaved leg. 

“Now lets be rational here.” He tried to explain.

“No, what I’d like to know is that you hear a shower running and you hear somebody in it and you just flat out open the curtain.  Please explain the logic behind that.” I told him.

He smirked, “I wanted to make sure nobody left the water running by accident.” It was obvious he was lying.

“Hell with that! Tim I know you and all you want is a poor little girl to fool with.  Now you know the rules and Sodapop’ll kick your ass when he finds out.”

“Soda ain’t gotta know.”

“Yeah he does.  Whether I tell him or not, he’ll find out.  I’m a married woman now and there’ll be hell to pay Shepard.”  I snapped at him. 

“Fair enough, he knows where to find me.”  With that Tim got up, put on his black leather jacket and started off for wherever he was headed. 

With Tim gone, I could go back to my shower.  I figured since I was already pretty much dried off I would just get dressed.  I went back to the bathroom after I threw on my faded jeans and Soda’s flannel shirt.  For the past couple of days I haven’t been feeling well, but I figured it was just my monthly friend since I was due a week ago.  It hadn’t come, so Evie suggested a test.  It’d been awful; I would be throwing up in the middle of the night and start sweating.  It was winter so I was just getting a cold probably. 

I reckoned I’d just take the test to prove Evie wrong, so I call her over.  Thirty minutes later she bursted through the door.

“Who’s ready to find a baby!” She hollered.

“Would you stop? I’m not even pregnant.  I’m just sick.” I said.

“We’ll see after you take the pregnancy test.  Now go pee on the stick.” She said crossing her arms.

I took the stick out of the box and looked at it for a minute.  How was I supposed to do this?  I’ll admit I was a bit worried what the outcome would be.  After I did my stuff, it said to wait five minutes.  There we were, staring at the test in the bathroom while listening to the kitchen timer tick down the seconds.  Five minutes felt like five years, and then the timer rang.  We both slowly peered over the counter peeking at the symbol.  It was hard to make out, but the faint lines started to appear.  Two lines started to become stronger and stronger.  Pregnant. 

Evie started to squeal.  “Oh my gosh!  You’re pregnant, you’re pregnant.”  She was swinging me around like a rag doll and every time I swung by the test I looked at it while my mouth the dropped.  It was all too soon.  “How are we going to tell him?” Evie asked.

“Tell who?” I was still shocked and didn’t make sense of anything. 

“Sodapop of course!”

“Oh you don’t say!” I was a sarcastic bitch.

“Oh my god, this is so exciting.  Can I be the godmother?  Rose is a nice name don’t you think or Jonas or Katherine.” She kept rambling. 

I paused and paced around the small room.  “How are we going to do this?” 

“Over dinner!” Evie suggested.

“Nobody has the money.  You think he’ll be happy?” I asked.

“I’m sure he is. When have you known an unhappy Sodapop?  What about over a movie?  He won’t react bad if it’s in a public place.” 

“But you just said—never mind.” It dawned on me. “Grab your car keys.” 

Evie drove like a maniac down the road.  She was going twenty over the speed limit, but luckily the cops don’t hang around that area.  Evie swerved into the DX station.  I had the pregnancy test in my shaking hands.  She stopped right next to Soda who was fooling around with the gas pump.  I threw him the test and he caught it in mid air startled.  The look on his face was different, confused then freaked.  I was sitting on the open window in the passenger seat.  He still had the test in his oily hands and kept looking at the stick and back up at me.  Steve came up next to him and peered over his shoulder then scooted over to Evie to get the dirt. 

I jumped out and went over to Sodapop.  He was still freaked out. “So.” I said to him waiting for a reaction.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m late, I’ve been throwing up, sweating, it all adds up.”

He puffed, “Lets go somewhere private.” He took me to the empty garage and we sat down on the old dusty couch.  Soda was sitting with his legs apart, exhausted.  He was still looking at the positive pregnancy test.  “Well, what now?”

“I don’t know, what can we do?” I asked.  I was sitting on top of my legs anticipating his answer.

“Not much except wait for the baby.” He sounded as clueless as I was.

“Do we stay at the house with Ponyboy and Darry?” 

“I guess we have to, we don’t have the money to move.” He didn’t sound too excited about the baby.

“You’re not happy about this are you?” I asked him.

“I never said that.” Soda looked me in the eyes, “I’m so happy that we’re having a baby.  In fact, I couldn’t be happier.  You’re going to be a great mom.” 

“Good and you’re gonna be one hell of a dad.” I said grinning as he grinned back.  “Are you ready for the fat ankles, mood swings, and vomiting?”

“Yeah, I think I am.”

“Look on the bright side.” I told him.

“Yes?”

“I’m still trying to think of a bright side.” I confessed.  We laughed and got up to join Steve and Evie who congratulated us.  We didn’t have a clue what we were going to do.