We Are Stars | OLD DRAFT

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Is There Somewhere

The air inside the car is warm, and yet I'm shaking. It's as if I have spiders crawling there way across my body. Soft, stifled sobs still manage to escape the doors of my mouth, despite my attempts at muffling them.

I hear my mom's heavy breathing as well. She still fears for my well-being, even though I have not taken any of the Avaracil. Every few minutes, from the corners of my eyes, I see her take hers eyes off of the road just to catch a glimpse of me, to ensure her worrying mind that I'm alright and safe.

"How much did he tell you?" I finally ask in the middle of a secluded whimper.

The minute I speak, my mom glances in my direction, eyeing me briefly before turning away again.

"Enough," she answers.

I too turn away, placing my eyes on the window and looking up into the glistening sky. It may seem joyous, but each and every star has their glares rested upon me, knowing full and well of what I was about to do. I was about to accomplish the the greatest of sins without even the blink of an eye. If my mom hadn't found me when she did...

The drive back home finally becomes too quiet for my liking. Now that my mom is aware of the situation, I can't imagine what her plans are for moving forward, or whether or not she wants be to keep the baby. If it were truly up to me, I think that the best choice would be for me to give the baby up for adoption. It would be for the best. I'm only a teenager in high school. How am I supposed to care for, nurture, and be a mother to a newborn baby.

Then again, it isn't all up to me.

"What are we going to do about the baby?" I ask.

"I don't know yet," Mom responds. "But we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, we have to tell your father and Noah's parents, and we'll go from there."

I'm snapped out of my current state of concentration. "Why do Noah's parents have to know?"

I can't see why my mom would feel the need to let others know that her underaged daughter is preganant. If I were her, I would want to keep the news on high alert and on a need-to-know basis. I get that she and my dad are close with Noah's family, but that doesn't automatically entitle them to get in on the situation. Though I love them both dearly, this is something I don't want them knowing, especially since I'm currently in a romantic relationship with their son, or at least I hope I am.

"Rowen, they have a right to know. It would be wrong to keep something like this from them and it wouldn't be a good idea if we held it off until the very last minute," she explains.

"But they have nothing to do with it."

"You're carrying their son's baby, Rowen. Whether we like it or not, they need to know what's going on and you and Noah are going to be the ones to tell them."

My blood runs cold as it curls within the walls of my veins, freezing every muscle and thought. Noah didn't only tell my mom that I was pregnant. He told her that I was pregnant with his child.

Not that long ago, him and I made a pact. He told me that if anyone were to find out the truth, he would step in and claim the responsibility of the father. Otherwise, I would have been forced to Darian, meaning that the news would spread more quickly than a bacterial disease. I would become the joke on social media and all throughout school, leaving Darian and his family to pick up the pieces.

My mom seems to notice my hesitance as I analyze the situation. This is just another lie that will eventually spawn a whole new string of lies, each one webbing and tying themselves together until it's one, gigantic knot.