"I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" she screamed.
Tears poured from her eyes.
"I hate me too." Martin replied softly and regrettably as he cradled her in his arms. Even in extreme distress, he was moved by unexplainable emotion as he held her petite body. He had this feeling only once before...it was the last time that he had held her...the night his Dad returned from Iraq. He had too much on his mind, at the moment, to pay much thought to all this confusion.
This was her fantasy...Martin opening his strong arms to her...taking her in and completely enveloping her. She had waited forever for this - but she never imagined it would have been under these circumstances. Sandy was pregnant - with HIS baby! She let herself linger in his arms for one final moment before abruptly pushing him away from her.
"Why?" she screamed. "How could you LET this happen?"
His watery eyes darted to the corner of the room and then directly back at her.
"I don't know." he replied truthfully. "It was one night...one stupid mistake...and now..."
Ruthie cut him off.
"And now Sandy is having your baby!" Ruthie tearfully snapped.
She wasn't done with him.
Frantically she spewed "You kept telling me that premarital sex was wrong. You said you were going to wait until you got MARRIED. You actually TOLD me that! I can't believe I EVER listened to you - you're nothing but a LIAR!"
Eric felt he had left Ruthie's tirade go on long enough.
Calmly, he said "Ruthie, I think..."
As soon as she heard her father's voice she turned in his direction. She had been so angry with Martin that she had forgotten that the rest of her family was in the room too. That's when the truth really slapped her in the face.
Interrupting her father's thought she suspiciously observed "No one seems very upset about this except me."
Eyes darted everywhere but onto her. It told her everything she needed to know.
"You all KNEW already, didn't you?" she cried. "Every one of you knew about this and no one said a word to me. How long have you known?" she screamed.
Martin quickly stepped in and nervously asserted "I wanted to tell you myself."
Ruthie shook her head in disgust and replied "Yeah right! The only reason you told me now was because you HAD to...between Meredith and all the rumors flying around and my ENTIRE family already knowing...you figured it was time to tell "stupid Ruthie" the truth!"
She couldn't control the endless flow of tears anymore. She put her hand on the kitchen counter to steady herself.
His heart sank and he swallowed hard. He could not believe how much he had devastated her. He knew there was no way to make this right with her. But, for some reason, with her, he had to try.
He took a step closer to her.
All she could see, as her blurry eyes fixated on the floor, was the fuzzy outline of his sneakers moving towards her.
He took his gentle hand and softly placed it under her chin. With little effort, he lifted her chin up until their eyes met.
She was surprised to see a tear roll down his cheek as he stoically confessed "You are one of the smartest people that I know. I didn't keep this from you just because I could. I kept this from you because I didn't want you to think less of me...and because I was ashamed and embarrassed...and mostly because I knew...it was going to be a deal breaker for our friendship."
She focused on only one word that Martin said. It was "friendship." It was all that she ever was to him. It was certain now that it was all she would EVER be to him. And that fact just destroyed her inside.
Imagining Sandy with his baby, she quietly choked out "Yeah, this is a deal breaker." before she ran to her room.