Loving Laurie
"Laurie, are you okay?"
"Just go away!"
Keith knocked on the bathroom door, worried because Laurie had been in there for nearly an hour. He'd noticed that something was wrong when she'd gone in there and locked the door, which she never did unless she was taking a shower, avoiding any accidental walk-ins. But the shower wasn't running.
And she was crying.
Normally, this dramatic scene, (if there was anything normal about this situation in the first place), would be interrupted by a worried mother and three confused siblings, but they had all gone to some amusement park with Reuben in a city a few hundred miles away, where they would stay in a hotel for a couple of days, so Keith was the only one there to fret.
"Laurie, are you decent?"
"I said go away!"
He'd never heard his sister act like this. She usually at least attempted to keep her cool when she was upset, which prompted Keith to wonder how serious this situation was.
"Laurie, please unlock the door," Keith half-yelled, wanting more than anything just to talk to his sister face to face.
"No!"
Her scream was followed by a loud sob and sniffling from tears. Keith pressed his ear to the door.
"No! No no no!" he heard her sob.
Keith didn't see any reason to yell anymore. It would only intensify the situation and most likely exacerbate the pain of whatever kind of condition Laurie was in.
"Laurie, I just want to talk to you," her brother pleaded, trying to sound as calm as he possibly could, when everything in his body was telling him to knock the door down.
There was a long pause, and Keith thought he heard Laurie sniffle and wipe her nose. Then he heard her socks slide across the floor to the door. Keith waited a moment for her to unlock the door, but was disappointed.
"Laurie, please," he almost whispered, too frightened to yell anymore even if he wanted to.
He heard a small "click", then her feat shuffle across the floor again.
He opened the door and found his sister, curled up next to the bathtub, her eyes swollen, wet, and red from crying. Her arms were wrapped around her and there was something in her left hand, which she quickly put in her jean pocket when she saw Keith.
He was so overwhelmed at seeing Laurie in this manner that he felt as if he could have fallen over with the slightest push.
Little by little, so as not to startle her, he inched down toward the opposite wall of the bathroom, sitting on the cool tiles.
"Laurie, what's wrong?"
His beautiful brown eyes widened as he spoke slowly and deliberately, as if he were talking to a small child. Laurie looked away and wiped a tear falling down her face.
Keith reached up behind him and grabbed a small dishtowel. He inched over to her, as cautiously as he possibly could, and wiped her eyes.
"Thank you," she whispered when he was done.
Keith's attention was caught by the very top of something sticking out of Laurie's pocket.
"Laurie, what do you have in your-"
"Nothing," Laurie cut him off.
The siblings stared at each other in an awkward silence they'd never experienced before.
What is she hiding? Keith thought to himself.
"Laurie, if you're taking something-"
"I'm not talking anything." Laurie snapped at him again.
He was completely flabbergasted by how she was speaking to him.
Maybe it was his fault.
"Did I do something?"
"No."
"Well then why are you acting so-"
"Because I can."
His sister's face was hard, a veneer of robustness that Keith had seen her wear many times when she was trying to be defiant, but nothing like this. This was a side of his sister that he didn't like.
And it hurt him.
Laurie inched away to the wall behind her, and leaned against it, trying to act as if Keith wasn't even in the room. As she shifted the item in question poked a little more out of her pocket, and Keith could now see a white, rounded top.
His heart pounded in his chest, and his mouth suddenly went dry as he realized what Laurie was hiding. This could not be happening to his baby sister, who he'd done everything to protect, who he'd loved his whole life. This had to be some practical joke performed in extremely poor taste.
But her tears were real.
And so was the pregnancy test in her pocket.
Laurie noticed the direction that her brother was staring in, and read the emotion in his eyes,.She looked at her pocket and started to shove it back in, but it was no use.
He knew, and she knew that he knew.
Keith couldn't even look at his sister anymore, the rage he had for what she had done and the love he had for her were bottling up inside him all at one time, and he didn't know what to do about it.
The tears forming in his eyes were those of extreme disappointment.
Laurie had made her brother cry, and it made her sick to her stomach.
"Keith, before you say anything, I haven't even checked it yet."
His eyes involuntarily darted toward her as a cloud of worry momentarily lifted off his shoulders, but quickly came back because he knew that there could still be a disastrous outcome.
His eyes glared at his sister.
"Who was it, Laurie?" he asked through gritted teeth.
For the first time in her life, Laurie was scared of her brother. Not that she thought that he would hurt her, but she thought about lying to protect the boy whom he was anxious for her to reveal.
But it was no use. Keith would find out the truth anyway.
A lump formed in her throat.
"Paul. Paul Garrison."
Keith's hands curled up into fists on his lap as he rolled his eyes….
His mind floated back to when Paul had picked Laurie up for her date on Friday. Shirley, being herself, was very polite. Keith put a fake smile on his face, just keeping himself from giving Paul an interrogation that would most likely have sent him running out the door.
"Have a good time," their mother had said, smiling.
"Don't worry mom," Laurie had remarked, "Paul's a perfect gentleman."
"Some perfect gentleman, huh Laurie?"
Keith knew how cruel he was acting, and for that moment, he didn't care, because he didn't think about how Laurie felt until he saw her start to cry again.
He looked at her, trying to remain hard, but his sister crying was something Keith could never, no matter what she what she did, just sit by and watch.
He went to her and put her head on his shoulder. She hugged him tighter than she ever had, and Keith held her gently in his arms. His anger had melted and all he could think about was making sure that Laurie was okay.
They remained this way for a long time until the tight hip of Laurie's jeans forced the pregnancy test out of her pocket and on the floor, face down.
The siblings stared at it for a while, still holding on to each other.
Laurie looked at her brother.
"I can't do it," she cried. "I'm too much of a coward. I don't want to know!" she sobbed, laying her head back down on Keith's shoulder.
He kissed the top of her head.
"I know," he whispered.
A disturbing atmosphere formed around Keith Partridge as the reality of what was happening sunk in, and it hit him like a rock in his chest.
"Laurie," Keith scarcely managed to say though the tears, trying to sound strong, "how do you know?"
Laurie gulped.
"Blue for negative, pink for positive," she whispered, clutching to her brother.
Keith could feel her heart pounding in her chest as he began to speak
Then slowly, with trembling fingers, he reached out to the little white stick, and turned it over, Laurie's eyes still shrouded by his shoulder.
"It's blue."
Niether of the siblings ever told the rest of the family what happened that day, and the evidence was dumped in a garbage disposal two blocks away to make sure they never found out. Laurie broke it off with Paul, but he started dating a cheerleader the day after, anyway. It was a good Keith was never in any of his classes because he probably wouldn't have been able to control himself.
But the brother and sister never forgot that day, and Keith would always remember staying in Laurie's room that night, singing her a lullaby until she fell asleep.