"baby, please don't cry"
Candice "Candy Cane" Marshall hasn't seen or talked to any of her friends in a long time. Dallas and Johnny are gone and she's terrified to face the fact that Steve and Sodapop may have met their fates in Vietnam. But when t...
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The next Sunday officially marked my twelve weeks, which marked my start into the second trimester. Today was the day that Sodapop and I were going to tell the whole gang. We decided on having a big family dinner. We didn't tell them that we had important news, just that we wanted to have a big hang out with just the gang. Had we mentioned we had news, they all would have figured it out pretty quickly, considering they all already knew that we were engaged.
We decided to just flat out tell everyone that we had big news. I ended up talking to Two-Bit beforehand, to remind to him pretend to be surprised. Sodapop was aware that Two-Bit knew, as I'd warned him just in case Two-Bit got too excited and blew the big surprise. Besides Two-Bit being a dad himself, I don't think I'd ever seen the guy so giddy about anything in his life, which was saying something because Two-Bit got excited about going on car trips to the gas station.
The whole week after Ponyboy and Cathy's wedding and leading up to Sunday dinner, I was a nervous wreck. I hoped they wouldn't be mad at us for keeping it a secret and I especially hoped Hannah wouldn't be angry with me for not telling her, especially since she knew what I'd gone through; not to mention, I'd been the first person Hannah told when she found out she was pregnant.
In that week, despite being nervous about the dinner, I got moved to the office to work, which made me happy. Even though I was only eleven weeks along when I started my office work, it was nice to know I could still work efficiently while being pregnant. It was only a matter of time before I started to get big and my feet started to swell. As much as I loved working in the garage, it was no place for a pregnant lady.
By the time Sunday rolled around, I was just looking forward to getting the night over with. I knew I shouldn't, as it was just our family and friends there, but I just wanted to fast forward to the part where everyone was excited and no one was sad or disappointed that Sodapop and I had kept this massive secret for so long.
"Will you stop scrubbing the dishes?" Sodapop laughed as I scraped furiously at a pan. "I think it's clean enough to be brand new, doll."
"I'm sorry. I just need to be doing something or I'm just going to pace around."
"I still don't understand why you're so nervous," Greg quipped as he sat at the table with Robin, who was busy coloring.
"Because--" Sodapop took the pan from my hands and pushed me out of the way gently before going to rinse it. I dried my hands against my jeans, my fingers trembling with anxiety. "Because, what if they're upset that we kept it a secret? And Hannah--"
"Listen," Sodapop said, turning off the tap and placing the pan in the dish rack to dry. "No one's going to be upset. They're going to be excited. I'm sure maybe they'll be shocked at first, but once we show them that picture of the baby-- our little baby-- I don't think they're going to want to be mad. They're going to see Baby Curtis and fall in love with him or her just like we did." Soda placed his hands around my upper arms and squeezed them reassuringly.
