Zander stood there, not moving, not blinking, and maybe not even breathing. All he could do was stand and stare, the word PREGNANT echoed in his head for what seemed like hours, but it had just been 7 seconds. Stevie was waiting for him to say something and he was waiting too. Zander was about to say 'Are you sure?', but he restrained himself; he was too smart for that. The word 'How' appeared in his mind, but he already knew how. So what was he gonna say. Zander never imagined this would happen. Ever. But Zander knew he had to say something because Stevie seemed to be getting impatient.
"How far along are you?" was all Zander could get out.
"6 weeks," Stevie said flatly crossing her arms across her chest "I thought I should tell you before I set up a doctor's appointment."
Once again, Zander was speechless. What was he gonna say now? How is he supposed to feel? Because right now he felt numb, not happy or sad, but numb. This was too much for him. Zander sat down on a tree stump that rested in the middle of the back yard. He didn't notice Stevie roll her eyes and start to pace. Thing were dangerously silent before:
"If you don't want it then just say so," Stevie snapped "But I'm having this baby with or without you."
Zander suddenly felt offended, couldn't Stevie understand that he was just needed a few minutes to get over his shock. Then It him, how was he supposed be a father? He'd just graduated high school for god sakes he still had yet to go to college. Would he have to skip college and get a job at Taco Bell? Zander shook the thought out of his head, no, he was going to college even if he had support a child. Suddenly he saw Stevie get her purse and begin to walk off to her car.
"Stevie," Zander said causing the brunette to stop in her tracks. She turned around and glared at him.
"What," She said sharply.
"I'm not doing anything Saturday, I'll set up the appointment tomorrow and let you know what time I'm picking you up."
That was 2 months ago and Stevie wasn't showing yet. Zander and Stevie haven't told anyone but Kacey about this. Their parents didn't know, Kevin and Nelson didn't know, and Molly especially didn't know. Zander was so glad that Molly was spending most of the summer in Ecuador with her relatives because he wouldn't be able to spend every day of the summer with her and act like everything was A-Okay. How was he going to tell Molly about the baby? More importantly, how was she gonna react? Molly was coming back in 30 days and right now he was looking the pictures she'd e-mailed him. She seemed to have a really big family, but god he missed her: everything about her, and it seemed like every day they spent apart he yearned to be next to her more and more. He gazed at the picture of Molly, her mom, and her grandmother. They seemed to look spectacularly alike; Zander wondered if Molly would look like her grandmother during her golden years. Then he opened up a picture he got from Molly a week ago, it said: Me and Chico in abuelito's garden and it was basically a picture of Molly holding a majestic looking black rooster in vegetable couldn't help but laugh at the picture; he wondered about the day Molly first saw the chicken. Knowing how Molly was with animals, Zander guessed that with one look at the rooster Molly was screaming her head off and the rooster was doing the best it can to psych her out, but in two days the two of them would figure out they'd be spending a lot of time with each other so they might as well get along. Somewhere along the way Molly would end up loving the rooster like it was her own child; that's what happened when Molly first met Lady, the bull dog had chased Molly out of the house and in 1 day Lady was making herself comfortable on Molly's lap. Zander had taken a picture of them and that is when he found out he was falling deeply in love with Molly Garcia. Zander smiled at the memory, but then realized he had to finish packing. He got up from his spot near his lap top and started to wrap his most prized possessions in bubble wrap so they won't get harmed during the ride to the university.
"I can't believe this is really happening." Zander heard someone say. Knowing it was no other than his mother, Zander turned around with a small smile plastered on his unique features. The smile suddenly disappeared when he saw the tear stains on his mother's face. The sight was so unnatural because Carmella Anne Vacuccia Robbins never cried, but now here she was with red teary eyes and small smile.
"Ma, what's got you so choked up?" Zander asked walking over to her "Did you and Dave get into a fight?"
Mrs. Robbins shook her head "No baby, I just can't grasp the fact that you're going to college and leaving the nest; I'm gonna miss you, Z." she said taking his hands in hers.
With the way his mother was looking at him with those deep brown eyes, Zander could have dropped college right then and there, but he couldn't, he had to go to college so he can get a good job to support his child. "You weren't this way when Aiden went off to college." Zander said.
"Well…you're my favorite." Mrs. Robbins said honestly. "And your brother and I don't really get along so well."
"C'mon Carmella," Zander said "You act like I'm gonna be gone forever. Mrs. Robbins mentally adjusted herself, no point in making this a big deal.
"You're right," she said "I 'm just gonna leave you to your packing, if you need any help I'm in the kitchen." And with that, Mrs. Robbins was out of sight.
Zander put down the picture of Gravity 5 he was holding and walked towards the window. Outside he saw a group of children playing in which they should be inside doing their homework. Zander cursed himself for having parental thoughts already. He suddenly heard someone knock on the door, thinking that it was his mom again he yelled for the person to come in. When he turned around he was surprised to see Stevie standing in his doorway with a small smile on her face. This scared Zander a little because for the last couple of months, she's been really mean.
"Hi Stevie," Zander said politely.
"Hi," Stevie said walking in and sitting on his bed. Zander wanted to ask Stevie why she decided to show up because she usually calls ahead of time.
"We need to talk about something very important." The brunette said reading his mind. "I think we should tell our parents about the baby."
Fuck. Zander knew he'd have to do this sooner or later, but why now? Why did Stevie want to tell them now?
"You're going off to college in a month and my mother is wondering why exactly I've decided not to go yet. I can't keep giving her bull-shit answers like 'I just need some time off, mom,' I need to tell her the truth."
Already defeated, Zander sighed and said "Fine, when do you think we should tell them?"
"Tomorrow" Stevie said "So it could just be done because I can't live with this weight on my shoulders."
Zander wished he would just crawl in a ditch and die right now because everything was so messed up. How was he going to tell his mom and is uncle, his brother would laugh at him for sure. What about Molly, she's never gonna want to see him again. Zander hated his life.
It was already tomorrow. Zander and Stevie had decided to tell their parents separately and now here he was with everyone in the living room, his brother texting, his mother filing her nails, and David sitting there drinking a beer.
"Guys, I have something important to say." Zander said.
"What is it, babe?" Mrs. Robbins asked not looking up from her nails.
"It's about Stevie."
Zander's older brother, Simon looked at him with raised eyebrows "You kicked her sassy ass to the curb months ago, aren't you dating that girl, Maria?"
"First of all her name is Molly and second I actually like Stevie, she's a smart and sensible girl." Mrs. Robbins stated glancing up from her nails to her eldest son.
"She's pregnant"
"She's a slut!" Mrs. Robbins said reacting quickly to what her son just said. The men in the room jumped at her vicious outburst. Mrs. Robbins stood up abruptly. "SHE' S A BLOOD SUCKING BITCH ZANDER! SHE TRICKED YOU BECAUSE YOU DUMPED HER ON HER ASS AND FELL FOR THAT MOLLY GIRL! THAT PROBABLY ISN'T EVEN YOUR KID!"
"Ma, she really is pregnant, she's been pregnant for 14 weeks now."
Mrs. Robbins's face turned a maroon color, but before she could say anything Zander's Uncle/ Stepdad spoke up.
"I don't get it, Z; I thought I told you always to use protection."
"I did Uncle Dave, the condom broke." Zander explained
"Well was she on birth control?" Mrs. Robbins asked. Zander shook his head.
"THEN IT'S HER FAULT, VIC, SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE PILL!" the raven haired woman shrieked. Her husband said nothing and neither did her sons. The room was silent for a good five minutes. A look of thought was planted on Mrs. Robbins face. Zander was about to put a hand on her shoulder, but then Mrs. Robbins spoke up again.
"Did you two make any plans yet?" she asked looking at Zander.
"Yes, she decided to stay here and have the baby." The raven haired boy answered.
"And not go to college?" Mrs. Robbins asked
"She's an idiot," Simon stated.
Mrs. Robbins ignored Simon's comment and looked at Zander disbelievingly "Why won't she just put the baby up for adoption?"
"C'mon Carmella, teenage girls don't know how hard is it raising a child, so they agree to go through hard times so they can keep their baby, you know that."
Mrs. Robbins did know that, she did know how it felt to be a pregnant teenage girl, and she did know how it felts to not want to lose a baby. As she thought about all of this she felt kind of bad for saying all of these things about Stevie, but yet she didn't because Zander was her baby and soon Stevie would occupy him with the baby and stuff. Suddenly a loud aggressive knock on the door caused everyone to jump. Simon frowned and walked over to the door ready to yell at whoever knocked so rudely. Simon was a little short for a 21 year old, he was 5'4, but he was still a bit of a hot head. The petite man swung the door open and before he could give the 6 huge gentlemen a 'WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!?' they walked in almost knocking him to the floor. When they waked to the living room and spotted Zander their faces turned beet red and a couple of them were already pounding their fists in their palms. Zander remembered those mean faces anywhere. Stevie's brothers. Goodbye world.
"YOU SON OF A BITCH YOU GOT OUR SISTER PREGNANT!" Walter, Stevie's third older brother said.
"Excuse me!" Carmella said appearing at Zander's side
"Yeah call him that with his mother standing right there." Walter's twin, Wesley said tartly.
"The both of you shut-up!" Eric, Stevie's first older brother commanded "C'mon Robbins since your man enough to bang our sister then you must be man enough to take this fight outside."
Before Zander could even answer he heard a female voice say "Stop it!" he knew it wasn't Stevie, her voice wasn't that high pitched. He suddenly saw a shot and plump woman push through the guys. It was Stevie's mom and boy did she look pissed.
"I swear you boys always have to result to fighting for everything, go back home now; I can handle this." Mrs. Baskara said
"But Mom-" Eric said only to be cut off by Mrs. Baskara's death glare. The six giants reluctantly exited the small living room. Mrs. Baskara turned her attention towards Zander and Mrs. Robbins. Stevie suddenly entered and stood beside her mother holding her stomach. Mrs. Robbins felt anger flare up in her once again.
"Did you know that your son got Stevie pregnant?" Mrs. Baskara asked in a stern voice.
"Yeah, he just told me about it." Mrs. Robbins said crossing her arms around her chest "Follow me"
The six of them walked into the kitchen and sat down. An awkward silence filled the room until Mrs. Baskara spoke up.
"What do you two plan to do about this?" she asked
"I'm keeping it, Mom, It's my baby and I decide what is going to happen to it." Stevie said sternly.
"Why would you keep it if Zander is going 83 miles away for college? He isn't going to be there all the time and why would you even think about throwing away college.
Zander didn't want to say this, but he agreed with Mrs. Baskara. It's not like he was trying to take the easy way out, but he was going to college and he wouldn't be there for the baby. He wouldn't be able to help Stevie and over his dead body will he have Stevie yell at him and call him a terrible father.
"I can always go back to college." Stevie said
"When on earth do you plan on doing that, when the kid is in college?" Mrs. Stevie asked "Because that is the only time you're ever gonna have for yourself."
Mrs. Robbins was on the brink of saying 'She's right you know' then suddenly she had a flashback.
In the middle of the night an18 year old Carmella Robbins woke up to the sound of her son's cries. She looked over at the alarm clock on her nightstand it was 4:12, 20 minutes after she put the screaming kid to sleep. Now he was at it again. Hoping that her oh so wonderful husband would take this shift her, Carmella looked to her right and there he was still sleeping like a baby. She rolled her eyes and hauled herself out of bed. She felt as if she'd never sleep again with this kid around. When she entered the baby's nursery she was relieved to find that the baby had only spit out his binky. Carmella wiped of the binky and put it back in the child's mouth, but only to have him spit it out again. She frowned and put the binky back in his mouth again. He spit it out.
"Really you gotta make this difficult?" she whispered to the baby who only grinned at her in return. Carmella sighed knowing that she was going to be up for another whole hour. She picked up the kid and began to rock him.
The next morning Carmella stared blankly at her bowl of cereal in front of her. The baby was already asleep, but she was still exhausted. She heard the sound of the front door open and suddenly her brother- in- law stepped into the kitchen. He smiled warmly at her.
"Mornin' Mel." He said taking a seat at the table.
"Mornin' Davy, you're here early." She said looking from her cereal bowl to the handsome young man in front of her. Dave looked nothing like his brother; they were both handsome, but in their own different ways. Carmella remembered when she and Dave used have their little fling in high school, but that was all before she had chosen his brother, Dick. Now here she is married at 18 and on the verge of going through postpartum depression because her hyper baby WON'T LET HER SLEEP. Carmella wanted to think things would get better after this, but it wasn't looking so good for her. Nobody was ever willing to help her. Her friends abandoned her (except Dave), her own husband is always working, and her mother disowned her. Well maybe the last part was a blessing disguise. Carmella was snapped out of her thoughts when her husband walked in.
"Hey bro, ready for another day of delivering packages around Queens?" Dave asked
"As long as it gets me away from Carmella here." Dick said. His voice was joking, but Carmella knew the words were true. Dick had grown tired of her after she had Simon, but he never had the balls to confront her about it. That was him, punk ass Dick.
"Ah c'mon, man, Carmella's still cool." Dave said trying to get through his brother.
"Whatever, let's go." Dick said grabbing a beer and walking out of the door with his brother.
"See ya, Mel." Dave said before leaving
Carmella smiled in return, but she didn't think he saw it. Dave. What a good guy; she kind of felt guilty for just blowing him off in school. She thought about the time when she and Dick would get into their arguments and she would scream "Well maybe I should've kept things going with your brother then, huh?" and he'd yell "Yeah maybe you should've." Carmella wondered why her husband was such a…well…dick.
"CARMELLA!" She heard someone scream. Carmella instantly knew it was her little sister, Angela.
"IN HERE ANGIE!" Carmella screamed. Angela's head popped through the kitchen door way. She smiled when she saw Carmella sitting chewing on some Captain Crunch.
"Hey there, sissy." She said in her usually bubbly tone.
"Aren't you supposed to be in school?" Carmella asked as greeting. Angela rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips.
"I'm skippin' for today." She said flatly.
The curly pink haired girl sat down and poured herself a bowl of cereal. Carmella just looked at her and rolled her eyes. Her sister didn't really live up to the name Angela; they should call her Lucifina instead.
"You know, Carmella, it's kinda boring with you out of the house." Angela said putting a spoonful of cereal in her mouth.
"But Ma still talks about me behind my back, doesn't she?" It was amore of a statement than a question and it sounded kind of bitter, but Carmella didn't care.
"Oh you already know that, but I still miss watching you two at it every single day."
Carmella held up her hand signaling Angela to shut-up. She didn't want to be reminded of that hag. Carmella really disliked that woman even if she was her mother.
"Look you're not even supposed to be here, you're supposed to be at school." Carmella said sternly.
"Oh c'mon, Carmella…"Angela whined
"Save it, do you wanna end up a drop-out like me?" Carmella asked. Angela just stared at her before crossing her arms stubbornly.
"Fine throw away your life, but don't have Ma say you got it from me cause I'm going back to school." Carmella said getting up from her seat and placing her cereal bowl in the sink. Angela looked at her sister strangely before letting out a chuckle.
"Oh Carmella you're hilarious." She said in between chuckles "Thinking you can go back to school."
Carmella whipped around and glared at the dense teenage girl "What are you laughin' at?
Angela stopped laughing when she saw the glare plastered on her sister's face. She was serious "Carmella," she said "There is no way you'll be able to go back to school."
Carmella took this to offense and her glare hardened "Why not, Ms. Smarty-Pants?" she asked coldly.
"You have a child you have to take care of and he's gonna need you all his life."
"Dick would help me…" she said meekly
"If Dick isn't helping you out with the kid now what makes you think he'll help you out in the future?" Angela said truthfully "You can't handle being a wife and a mother while going to school, you don't even like school to begin with."
Carmella said nothing. She didn't want to believe her sister's words were true, but little did she know they were.
While Mrs. Robbins was having her flashback everyone in the room took it upon themselves to begin yelling at each other. Mrs. Baskara was yelling at Stevie, Stevie was yelling at Zander, Zander was yelling at Simon, Simon was yelling at both Stevie and Mrs. Baskara while Mr. Robbins tried to calm everyone down. No matter how hard Mr. Robbins tried, everyone continued to yell at each other.
"Let me keep it." Mrs. Robbins said calmly while still surprising everyone.
"What?" Zander and Stevie asked in unison.
"I said that I'll keep the baby until Zander and Stevie both finish college."
Everyone was silent thinking about if this was a good idea or not, it sounded like a good idea. Mrs. Robbins could take care of the baby so Zander and Stevie could go to college and once the graduate and get jobs, they can take over. They would get to keep their baby and still go to school. It was a good idea.
"No," Stevie said coolly "I can take care of my baby and go to school later."
Mrs. Baskara glared at her stubborn daughter "Stevie Baskara you will accept this offer."
"No I won't; Zander and I can take care of this baby." Stevie said defiantly "Right Zander?"
Zander opened his mouth to answer, but Simon interrupted him. "Wait a minute, Z, this is her weird way of getting you back." He said accusingly "She wants to keep this baby so you'll feel obligated to marry her and dump Maria; I saw this in a movie."
"I DO NOT!" Stevie said heatedly
"Whatever the reason is, it doesn't matter because you are leaving this baby in Mrs. Robbins's hands and going to college." Mrs. Baskara said
Stevie looked at the plump woman disdainfully "Seriously Mom? It's my baby and my decision."
"Look, Stevie," Mrs., Robbins said gently, but something in her eyes showed that she was more than serious about this "I'm giving you an option that I wish someone had given me."
Stevie looked at Mrs. Robbins intently. She was determined to keep her ground and not let anyone change her mind. When she said nothing, Mrs. Robbins spoke again.
"If you keep the baby or not, my son is going to college, I'll make sure of that." Mrs. Robbins's voice was stern now "So if you think Zander is going to come rushing back here every time there is a problem then you are sadly mistaken, go to college Stevie and make something of yourself, your baby will always be here when you come back."
"No," Stevie said defiantly before storming out of the house so quick she didn't her Simon murmur 'stupid chick' after her.
Zander walked down the street in hopes to find Stevie. She couldn't have gotten far because he ran after her right after the little fopaw. Zander thought that it would be better if he let his mother take the wheel. He wasn't trying to take the easy way out, but he was going to college and he didn't want Stevie to label him as the bad guy who left her with kid to take care of all by herself. Zander walked further down the street until he saw her sitting on the bus stop bench. He sat next to her and took her hand in his.
"Stevie, I think my mom is right." He said gently.
The brunette looked up at him glaring daggers. Zander braced himself for the screaming.
"OF COURSE YOU DO BECAUSE YOU WANT TO TAKE THE EASY WAY OUT INSTEAD OF-"
"C'mon Stevie you know this would be better for the baby you're just being stubborn to be stubborn right now. Even your mom wants you to do this, it's 3 against 1 right now, do you think you're gonna win?"
Feeling defeated, Stevie threw herself into Zander's arm and cried. Zander knew he had gotten through to her and he knew he was right for doing this.
Hey guys it's me again and that was the prologue to the sequel of Perf Down, 'The Beauty of Family, Friendship, and Love'. I really hoped you all enjoyed it and stay tuned for more family, hurt/comfort, and ZOLLY. Ever since watching How To Rock a High School Sensation I became more Zolly than I was before. So I hope you all liked it and let me know what you think. Tootles
~DreamOutLoud16 :D
