Mary and Wilson sat alone outside at the picnic table. They were holding hands and Mary was sitting with her eyes closed. She had had longer to process the idea, and was now dealing with the fact that she wasn't the only one who knew her secret. Not only that, but most likely by the end of the day everyone would know.

Wilson, conversely, was still dealing with the shock of the news. He was staring at the grass thinking how much his life was going to change.

Mary put her other hand on top and pulled his hand into her lap. Wilson turned his head a quarter toward her, thinking she might speak. "I'm sorry," she said. "If I could go back, knowing this was going to happen, I would never have brought you upstairs."

"We should have used protection."

"Did you have any that morning?"

"No. I wasn't expecting to-"

"Exactly. I take responsibility."

He turned in his seat. "Listen to me. When we tell your parents or whoever, I will take responsibility for this. I want to and I feel responsible."

"Wilson, no."

"Yes," he insisted. "I'm going to get blamed anyway."

"I hate this," Mary said. She closed her eyes again.

"Do you..." Wilson backed into this slowly. "I am open to whatever you want."

"Whatever I want for what?"

Wilson was thankful her eyes were closed. He didn't think he'd be able to ask her this any other way. "Do you want to make this go away?"

Mary sat straight up, eyes now open wide. "You mean like an abortion?" He gave a faint nod. "Wilson, my father's a minister."

"Yeah, but..." He wanted to say if she decided that, they would never have to tell them. They would never have to know. It wouldn't matter who her father was.

"I could never kill something, someone. No."

She tried to yank her hand back, but he held it tightly. "I was just asking your opinion. I won't bring it up again."

"OK." Mary tried hard not to lose it.

Wilson could almost feel Mary's mind racing. He picked up her hand and kissed it, forgetting that they hadn't been intimate since he had gotten her pregnant. Mary gave him a small smile. He was making a real effort, and for that Mary was thankful.

"So are we telling them what our plan is? Or does it not matter, because they're going to tell us what they think we should do anyway?"

"How do you think they're going to react?"

"Angry. Really, really angry." Mary leaned against him. "We should probably enjoy this time together because I doubt they will ever let me see you again once they learn we slept together."

"They're going to have to if we're having a baby."

A heavy silence hung between them. Mary took her hand back and put her boundaries back up. Mary hated showing her emotions to anyone. The one concession she would make was when Mary felt the person she was confiding in understood what she was going through. At this point, Mary didn't know whether Wilson having a baby was the same thing as Mary having a baby. "Maybe you should go." She scooted away. "Maybe I should tell them on my own, or we should tell them later..."

Wilson stepped up. "We can tell them later if you have a good reason. Otherwise we should just tell them now."

"Maybe I should tell them alone. You stay here and I can go inside and tell them." Mary's chest was heaving with stress. Wilson put his hand on her shoulder to calm her, only to stress her out even more.

"I'd like to be with you when you tell them."

Mary was slightly in awe of his courage. "Why?"

"Because we're in this together."

She looked away, Wilson assumed because she was going to start crying. "I feel like such an idiot."

"This happens to a lot of people. It happened to me."

Mary turned back as if she had an idea. "That's how my parents are going to feel. That this is your fault and that they never should have agreed to let me date you."

"Is that how you feel?"

If Mary was honest with herself, she wasn't sure. "I don't think one has to do with the other."

He sat back against the table with a dull thud. The wood tabletop crashed against the muscles in his middle back. "They are going to hate me."

Mary mirrored his position. The table shook as she leaned against it. "I don't."

xxxxxxxxxxx

"I- we- I have something to tell you." Mary thought that if she couldn't even settle on a pronoun, how was she going to settle down and raise a baby? "You're not going to like it, you're going to be really mad... and before I even say anything I want you to know that I'm sorry." Mary's eyes flashed to Wilson's for a quick second, then went down to the floor. She tried soaking in the last moment before her parents hated her. "I'm pregnant."

Mary set them up well; they both assumed that was what she was going to say.

"No," Annie said. "No, you can't be. We told you not to have sex."

"You did this to her?" Eric screamed at Wilson. "You had sex with my daughter?"

"Y-"

Mary didn't want him talking. She could handle this. "Yes. It happened over a month ago and-"

Annie laughed. "I knew there was a reason he wasn't coming around anymore."

"Did you use protection?" Eric demanded. "Or did you think that it wouldn't happen to you?"

"We didn't. We weren't thinking."

Eric turned his attention on Wilson. "You should have been thinking! You've already been through this! I hope you're proud of yourself, having kids with two different women before you graduate high school."

Finally Wilson spoke. "I'm not. I'm ashamed and sorry."

"Why?" Annie asked Mary. "Why did you do this?"

"I don't know. It just happened."

"Has this been going on?"

Having the answer to this question made her feel better. "No. Just once."

"How are you going to support a baby?" Eric questioned. "You're fifteen. You don't even have your driver's license yet!"

"I've got a job," Wilson replied. "I'll get another one."

"There is no way you can support two children on minimum wage!" Eric started pacing around the room. "You need to go home."

Wilson held his ground. "I'd like to stay."

"Go home, Wilson," Eric said again.

xxx