A/N: It really should not be August yet. This means I have less than a month before I'm back to college. It shall be my goal to get as much of TT:S3 up before that happens! Happy reading, everyone!
Turning Tables
New Stork, New Stork
"The stork's out of the bag! Formerly missing sixteen-year-old, Grace Bowman, who returned home unharmed last week after apparently running away of her own volition, is allegedly expecting! Although we were unable to reach Miss Bowman for comment, we have been able to speak with her ex-boyfriend, Grant Volberg, who believes that taking the next step in their relationship was what caused Grace to flee in the first place. Ed?"
The picture on the television cut to a shot of a reporter in an aquamarine dress shirt and black tie with a microphone held beneath his mouth and his finger pressed to the unseen earpiece in his ear. "Yes, Greg, I'm here with Mr. Volberg who has agreed to speak exclusively with KZAB this morning." The camera moved out to reveal both Ed and Grant Volberg in the shot. Ed pushed the microphone towards Grant. "Now Mr. Volberg, serious charges have been made against you, correct?"
"Yes, Sir. But I'm not guilty of anything other than loving Grace. There are plenty of good Christian people in the world who have premarital sex and I don't think God is going to punish us for that."
"So you did not sexually assault Ms. Bowman then?"
"Absolutely not. She'd just agreed to get back together with me and that's all I wanted and still want: to be with her."
"And what do you think about the possibility that she may be pregnant?"
"Well today was the first that I'd heard of it, but if Grace is pregnant, then of course I want to be there for her and our baby. I'm not going to skip out on my responsibilities. I love Grace and if she is pregnant, I know I already love this baby."
The screen went black with a small static pop and the remote control went hurdling across the room, hitting the wall so hard that the cover fell off and the batteries popped out. Grace's scream tore through the house and once her throat was too raw to scream anymore she sank to the floor just as her mother rushed in.
"Grace, what's wrong?!"
The teenager rocked back and forth with her legs pulled to her chest. Her eyes burned as though salt had just been thrown into them and she could already feel torrents drenching her cheeks. "They know! They know!"
"Who? Who knows what?" Kathleen draped her arms around her daughter and held her still. "What baby?" She brushed her daughter's short hair behind her ear. "What's happened?"
"The news," Grace whimpered. "They know about the baby…and they interviewed him."
"What!" Kathleen's whole body went rigid. "But that wasn't supposed to-"
"Well obviously it did!"
"No." Kathleen gripped Grace's arms protectively. "No, I am going down there right now! This is inexcusable!"
Grace fervently shook her head. "No! Please, no, don't leave me!"
Kathleen hesitated. There were so many emotions permeating the atmosphere, anger being the most prominent. But as her baby girl clung helplessly to her, she was stuck like a quarter jammed into a game machine. Kathleen relented and rested her chin on the top of Grace's head. "I'm here," she said quietly. "And don't worry, I'm not going anywhere."
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"Do you think she'll show up today?" Henry asked. He stood beside Alice who stood beside Ben at the latter's locker.
"After the truancy, she's legally not supposed to miss anymore school without a doctor's note."
Alice scoffed. "Who could blame her for missing one more day after having her name slandered all over the morning news?"
Ben slammed his locker in frustration. "Adrian's been trying to call her all morning. In fact, I think she's still out in her car right now trying to get a hold of her."
"You didn't go over to her house?"
"As soon as my dad told me about the news this morning I called Adrian and we went over there, but nobody was home."
"This is insane!" Amy seethed, walking towards the trio. "I can't take a step without hearing gossip about the things they were saying on the news this morning! How can the news station get away with this? How can that Grant guy get away with this?!"
"I don't know," Ben sighed. "Adrian has been asking me the same things and I just don't know." He threw up his arms. "She even took my phone once we got to school: she's been calling Grace on her phone and trying to look up slander laws on the Internet on mine. But I'm afraid that the news is going to be able to claim 'free press' or 'free speech' or 'free we-can-screw-you-however-we-like' and get away with it."
"She's here!"
Ben turned his head in the direction of the female voice who had uttered the words. They were from a girl in a Grant High cheerleading uniform although Ben didn't recognize her personally. He followed her outstretched finger and found that Grace had, indeed, just walked in with his girlfriend at her side.
At the end of the hallway, Grace stood ramrod straight in front of the double doors, leaning close to Adrian for moral – and possibly even physical – support. She was holding her breath as she looked up and down the sea of faces. Blood pounded in her ears and she couldn't make out what the anyone's voices were saying, but she could certainly tell that their lips were moving, their eyes staring, and their fingers pointing.
Grace wondered if this was how Adrian had felt the day she'd worn her MOTHER SLUT t-shirt to school. The way Adrian had handled herself had left such a deep impression; so courageous and so poised. Her silver eyes carefully scanned the hallway, landing on the spot where that same morning Adrian had made her speech to the school body about her pregnancy.
"Call it what it is, Grace: pregnant! And yes. Yes!" Adrian took a step into the middle of the hallway and placed her fingers to her mouth, giving off a loud whistle that caught the whole crowd's attention. "I. Am. Pregnant. Everyone hear that? I'm pregnant! And I'm having the baby! Gossip and whisper about me all you want, because I know you will. But also know this: I'm not ashamed! Everyone wants to make everyone feel like lowlife pieces of shit, especially teenage mothers, but I refuse. My mother spent her teenage years as a mother, humiliated and ashamed, and I refuse to repeat history. I'm damn proud to be her daughter, because she went through hell and back to make my life possible. I may have hated her some times and maybe she hated me some days too, but that doesn't change how I ultimately feel. I'm a mother fucking teenager and I'm proud of it! Do with that what you will. I'm out."
The blonde marched down the center of the hallway and stopped in the same spot her best friend had stood just about a year-and-a-half before and shouted: "I have something to say!" When the hall quieted, she looked at Adrian who nodded. "I've just been at the police station for an hour because of the news report you all have undoubtedly been talking about this morning, only to find out that 'the source of the leak is being looked into.' But that doesn't help me, does it? 'The stork's out of the bag,'" she said, mimicking the KZAB reporter's voice. "So before this goes any further, here it is from my mouth to your ears: I am pregnant and it wasn't my choice! If he can go on the news and lie about this, then I feel I can certainly tell the truth right here and now: I did not have sex with Grant Volberg. There is a word for what happened and it's not sex, it's rape!"
Grace pulled the zipper down on her sweat jacket and peeled it back to reveal a red shirt with the words I WAS RAPED AND I WON'T STAY SILENT in white nail polish. She tore off the rest of her jacket and threw it on the ground, revealing the back of her t-shirt to read: SHAME & BLAME BELONG ONLY TO THE RAPIST. She realized at that moment that she was shaking. Not because she was afraid of telling the truth or embarrassed about what people might say, but because she was so full of unadulterated rage. There were so many other things that she wanted to say, but she knew that there was time for that to come. Right now, the truth needed to sink in, so she turned quickly and quietly and went directly to class.
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"Hey, have you seen this?"
Ricky was trying to pay attention to and take notes from the movie that was playing at the front of the class, but the girl and boy off to the side of him kept whispering to each other and distracting him as they passed a cell phone back and forth under the table. Every so often the glow from the LCD screen would catch his eye, if the whispers didn't get his ears first. They were a notorious pair of classroom disrupters and the girl had had her cell phone confiscated in the same class just a few days before, otherwise they would have been on their normal routine of texting each other and giggling inanely until they finally got caught.
"What?"
"That Christian girl that's been on the news."
"What about her?"
"Someone uploaded the scene she made in the hallway this morning to YouTube. Look how many hits its got!"
Ricky felt his pencil snap between his fingers. He turned to look behind him and both of the whispering troublemakers had their heads dropped down and each one had a single ear bud in one ear. Although he couldn't see it, he knew they had to be watching the screen on the boy's phone from underneath the table. He quickly picked up the two broken pieces of his pencil, glanced towards the teacher who was grading papers at her desk, and then chucked them over his shoulders. There were synchronized cries and he knew he'd hit his targets.
The teacher looked up in time with a handful of students. "What is going on back there?"
Ricky looked over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows, daring the two to rat on him. If they did, they'd have to explain what they had been doing as well.
"M-my pencil snapped!" the girl improvised, grabbing the pieces of Ricky's broken pencil as the boy, Ricky assumed, went about trying to conceal the cell phone underneath the desk. "I'm sorry! It won't happen again!"
Ricky turned back in his seat and reached into his binder for a backup pencil. He resisted the urge to get his own cell phone out and sneak off to the bathroom to find out just what, exactly, had been uploaded to the Internet. As a small town, Valley Glen was a breeding ground for viral rumors and gossip and his stomach sank to his feet just thinking about the comments that people might be posting about Grace. He hadn't actually been there at the start of Grace's speech in the hallway, but he had heard the last of it as he'd been walking down from the band room and the courage Grace had in revealing the truth to everyone like that was something he both admired and envied. Having been a victim himself, he now feared for her what he had feared for himself for so many years. Perhaps for Grace even more so.
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Grace wiped the corners of her mouth as she stepped out of the bathroom stall and stopped short, seeing that all of the sinks were occupied. She noticed several pairs of eyes stealing glances at her from the reflections in the mirrors and she held her head strong, staring back into the reflections of each one until the girls looked back into the sinks as their sudsy and sopping fingers and palms. She waited until at least two girls had left, leaving only a mousy haired brunette with a ponytail and Amy.
The blonde pushed against the soap dispenser until her hand was full of gooey liquid pink, then she rubbed her hands together into a foamy white lather, and took turns holding them under the water as she used one hand to keep the handle of the sink turned on. She was done with one hand and nearly half done rinsing the other when the mousy haired girl left. She could feel Amy looking at her as she finished rinsing and moved to the paper towel dispenser.
"I could never have done what you did this morning."
Grace slowly patted her hands dry. "I pray that you're never in a position where you even have to think about doing so."
"So you're really going to do this?" she whispered. "Have his baby?"
"It's not 'his' baby. As far as I'm concerned, he has no claim to it."
Amy moved to the paper towel dispenser to stand beside the blonde. She cautiously pulled out a couple of the folded papers and began to crinkle them around her hands. "I wish I knew what to say, but I don't know if there is anything to say in this situation." She dropped the wad of paper towels into the trash and pushed her bangs back with her fingers. "I know we haven't really been the best of friends – not like you and Adrian or you and Ben or even you and Ricky – but I just want you to know if there's anything that I can do for you…"
Grace nodded. "I appreciate that, Amy."
Amy unconsciously fingered the strap of her backpack on her left shoulder. "And just so you know: I'm not mad or jealous or anything. About my dad, I mean…being there for your family. I still have mixed feelings about them dating, but after you went missing and everything hit the fan I began to realize that maybe he was needed more there than with Ashley and I."
"Me too," she admitted, her voice hairline cracking. "I did a really stupid thing by leaving, but it seemed like the only way at the time. Looking at my mom and Tom now, I can see that I should've at least let them know I was okay. I'm thankful you're dad was there to help get them through. My mom said she didn't know what she would've done without me or my dad if George hadn't been there."
The bell echoed through the empty bathroom and Amy winced. She felt like she'd barely scratched the surface of all the things she wanted to say. "Looks like passing period's over."
"You'd better get to class," Grace grimly smiled. "You don't want to end up being 'truant.'"
Amy nodded. "Maybe we could get together sometime soon?" she offered as she opened the door for the blonde. "You know, just grab a bite and talk or something?"
Grace gave her an earnest nod. "I'd like that."
"Me too."
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After school Adrian stood in the parking lot between her best friend and her convertible. "Are you sure you don't want a ride?"
"Positive."
Adrian strummed her nails against the red paint on her driver's door. "I don't feel comfortable leaving you here alone without a ride."
Grace wound her arms around Adrian's neck and hugged her intensely. "Thank you for caring so much, Adrian, but I need to do this. I need to talk to Jason, okay? I spilled the beans about everything to the whole school this morning and I still haven't had a real face-to-face with my boyfriend…if he even is anymore. I think I owe him that much, don't you?"
"I could wait with you until football practice is over."
"I think that would be a little awkward, don't you? Besides, you have homework. Plus, weren't you supposed to sit down with Ben and Mr. Boykewich this weekend and talk about arrangements for your trip this summer?"
"This weekend," the Latina emphasized. "Today's only Friday."
"Okay, so it's the bookend to the weekend. Most people still count it." Grace patted Adrian's arm. "You're just still avoiding it. You should embrace it. It's an amazing opportunity!"
Adrian let her head roll back on her shoulders and she sighed overly dramatically. "All right," she groaned. "But at least let me walk you over to the football field."
"Done." Grace was quiet for half the walk towards the field, slowing down to kick a few pebbles here and there along the way. "Adrian?"
"Hm?"
Grace touched her stomach. "You don't still have any of those prenatal vitamins leftover from when you were pregnant with Mercy, do you?"
Adrian curled her toes in her boots. Each time the topic of Grace's pregnancy came up, it made her feel terribly uncomfortable, even if it was Grace herself who had broached it. "No, sorry…I did, but I gave them all to Heather."
Grace nodded understandingly. "Of course you did." The words weren't said sarcastically or with malice, just in a simple tone that echoed duh. She thumped her palm against her forehead. "Well, anyway, it never hurts to ask, right? I just thought…I was looking at some in the grocery store yesterday and they're pretty expensive. Like fifteen to twenty dollars a bottle. I even saw one that was almost fifty dollars!" She shrugged. "So I just thought, you know, maybe."
"I'm sorry. If I'd-" She stopped. If she'd known, she would've saved them? The little voice in Adrian's head gave a dark laugh. If she'd known, she would've taken care of Grant a long time ago and Grace wouldn't even be pregnant!
Knowing exactly what her friend had been about to say, Grace smiled to try and get her mind off of it. "It's fine," she brushed off. "Heather was in a worse place than me; she needed them more. I'm glad you gave them to her."
They'd finally reached the football field and Adrian began to climb the bleachers behind Grace. She wanted to argue with that last statement: financially, maybe Heather had been worse off, but at least Heather had never been forced to have sex with someone against her will. Immediately, Adrian felt bad for thinking the things she was thinking. If she was saying them out loud, she could almost hear Grace throwing back that unlike Heather, she'd never had her parents abandon her. She sighed as Grace sat down and Adrian plopped down beside her.
Grace folded her arms. "You said you were just going to walk me here."
"I know." Adrian glanced at the football field where the Lancers' football team were throwing themselves into dummies. "But now I'm tired. I carry a one-year-old around all day, what do you expect?"
"All right," Grace gave in. "Five minutes."
Adrian leaned back, leaning her elbows against the bleacher behind her, and propping the heels of her shoes up on the bleacher in front of her. "Five minutes," she agreed victoriously.
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"Have you spoken with Heather?" Margaret asked as soon as Ricky came through the front door.
Ricky froze in the entry way and stared. He was hoping he'd be able to make a beeline for his bedroom and avoid this conversation entirely.
"I didn't think so," Margaret sighed. She motioned for Ricky to set down his backpack and follow her into the kitchen.
Ricky felt his stomach swirling as he did as instructed and walked in to find his dad already sitting at the kitchen table. "What is this?" he asked. "An intervention?"
Margaret pulled out a chair for her son and once he'd sat down, she pulled out a chair next to her husband for herself. "I told you on Monday that we can't just look the other way if your friend is endangering herself. Normally, I would go to her parents about this, but since that isn't an option, you asked me to give you until Friday to talk to her yourself and try to get her help."
"And judging by the look on your mother's face, that hasn't happened yet, has it Ricky?"
"She hasn't been at school all week," Ricky sighed. "I've tried to go out to her house every day after school, but she refuses to answer the door."
"And did you try her work?" Shakur asked.
"She called in sick a couple times this week and then traded a couple shifts with a co-worker too. They wouldn't tell me her hours though."
"You say she hasn't been at school all week?" Margaret asked.
Ricky nodded.
"Without her parents' cooperation, how does she avoid truancies?"
"She usually isn't absent very often," Ricky explained. "Except for after she had the baby and then she had a doctor's note excusing her for the time off. But…when she is absent, I think she calls the school and pretends to be her mother to 'excuse' her."
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that she also forges her parents' signatures for official documents, too?"
"I don't know. She didn't get kicked out until after the school year had started, so I don't know if that's ever even come up."
Margaret touched her fingertips to her right temple and let out a heavy breath. "Don't get me wrong, Ricky: I do feel bad for Heather and I want to help her in every way possible. I know that with everything that's happened with her parents, she wants to be prove that she can survive on her own and I wanted to believe that as well…but this isn't the way. Clearly, she's not coping and she needs an authority figure in her life."
Ricky shook his head. "Mom, no! Please, you can't! Heather doesn't belong in the system, that will only make things worse for her!"
"I'm a Social Worker, Ricky. I can't just turn a blind eye to this any longer. I'm going to have to report this."
"Mom!"
"Your mother's right, son." Shakur reached across the table to lay his hand on Ricky's.
"I am going to do everything in my power for her. I promise."
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"Hey."
"Hey," Grace greeted in return.
"I wasn't expecting to see you here." Jason plied his football helmet off his head. "Where's Adrian?"
"Oh, she was just dropping me off."
"Do you have a ride?" he asked, concerned.
"I can call my mom."
Jason shook his head. "No, I'll take you home…I mean, if that's okay with you."
Grace nodded. "I know it's a little presumptuous, but I was hoping you would say that." The next few minutes were filled with small talk as they walked into the school and up to the locker room where Grace waited for Jason to change and come back out.
"So where do you want to go?" he asked. Lines creased his face. "I assume you want to talk?"
Grace nodded. "Yeah. I've put it off long enough, don't you think?" She looked at his duffle bag. "Why don't we go drop that off at your car and then take a walk?"
"A walk? Where?"
Grace shrugged. "The football field?"
Jason snorted. "Well what did we even leave for?" he asked jokingly.
"Because who wants to stay in sweaty, smelly, grass stained football attire any longer than they have to?"
"Oh and here I thought you liked all that."
Grace felt the back of her throat constrict, like a metal pipe icing over in the dead of winter. If she just closed her eyes, it could almost be the beginning of March again, when she could just laugh and flirt without Jason and there was no Grant or rape or pregnancy that had come between them. She quickly shut her smile off and was silent as Jason tossed his duffle into his trunk and they made their way back to the football field.
They walked an eighth of the way around the perimeter of the football field before Jason asked, "So everything they've been saying on the news…"
"Is only true to an extent." Grace wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, feeling her emotions taking a turn for the worst again. She was beginning to feel as wishy washy as a politician. "This morning –"
"I know." Jason bowed his head. "I didn't actually see it at first, but someone recorded it with a camera phone. It's online. One of my teammates showed me."
Grace gulped. "And it just keeps getting better," she said sarcastically.
"I think you were really brave to do that."
"Yeah, well I got my inspiration from Adrian and what she did last year."
"Don't give Adrian all the credit. You're in a completely different situation. Most people wouldn't have been able to do what you did."
"Yeah, maybe most of them would've run away and stayed gone."
"But you didn't. You came back and you're facing your fears. That's really strong, Grace."
Grace stopped walking. "I guess I have to be, since everything else is shattering down around me."
Jason reached for Grace's hand, but she tugged it away. A pained expression flashed against his brown eyes, but he tried to hide it. "Does that include us?"
Grace nodded, closing her eyes so she wouldn't have to look at him.
"I don't blame you and I don't think any less of you. You have to know that."
"I do. I absolutely, one-hundred percent believe that. But you have to know that I'm in no position to be in a relationship with someone right now, no matter how much I care about you." She held up the hand he'd tried to hold. "I can't even have a boy touch me on the hand without wanting to shrink away! That's not fair."
"Physicality is only part of a relationship, it's not everything. In fact, it's probably the least important thing."
"Be that as it may, it's also not fair to ask you to be the Ricky to my Adrian. The simple fact is: I'm having a baby and it's not yours and you don't deserve to have this kind of responsibility dumped on you. If you're in my life, then by default, you're going to be in this baby's life, and that's not fair either."
"So…you're keeping it?"
Grace covered her hands to her face. "I don't know what I'm doing," she said, the words muffled by her hands. She drug her hands down her face and stared defeatedly at Jason. "I never imagined myself as the type of person who could give my own child away. On the other hand, I never imagined myself in this position either. Still, it's not like I – or my mom – can really afford a baby right now. I mean, we've been getting by well enough on the money that my dad left us. He made really good money and was always good with saving and earning interest which was why my mom could afford to be a stay-at-home mom with two kids…one with special needs. But throw a baby into the mix and there has to be lifestyle changes, there's no way around that. And speaking of my dad…I already lost him last year. A year ago next month. And now with this baby…it'll be a part of him too. How can I lose him and then give up the only living part of him that I have left?"
"You said yourself that you've already lost so much in your life. So I don't understand how it makes sense to push anything else out of it that you don't have to. What if I want you in my life despite the baby?"
"I will gladly still have you in my life, just not as my boyfriend. I can't do that. I just can't. Look how crazy Adrian's life got when she was pregnant and trying to juggle her feelings for someone who wasn't her baby's father!"
"But it's not like the baby's father is going to be an issue between us. Not in the same way that Ben was for Adrian and Ricky."
"You're right. Grant just might be worse. Besides, you have your future to think about too. You're graduating next year and you have such a bright future ahead of you! Football and your dreams of being a doctor! You'll probably get some wonderful scholarship at a school a long way away from silly little Valley Glen and then you won't have time for a long distance high school crush anyway. Believe me, Jason: I'm thinking of all of us right now. I don't want to hurt you, but I know this is the best way."
"I don't agree with you, but I'm not going to fight you if only because you've been through so much already."
"I appreciate that." Grace fingered the strap of her purse. "Do you want me to call my mom?"
"I said I'd take you home, didn't I?"
"That was before I broke up with you on the football field."
"I guess you don't always get home turf advantage, do you?" He reached to put his arm around her shoulders but stopped and pulled back, respecting Grace's wish not to be touched. "It doesn't mean we can't still be friends. And I don't just mean superficial friends. I want to be a close friend; someone you can count on. Is that something you would consider?"
"I'd consider that a wonderful gift," Grace answered tearfully.
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"Where are you?"
"Where are you?" Ben asked, adjusting his cell phone against his ear.
"In your room, actually. I thought you got off an hour ago, did you stay late?"
"No." Ben squirmed against the wall he was leaning against. "I had to run an errand. It might be a bit longer. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, we're fine. I'm just working on some school work. Uh, what kind of an errand?"
"Something for Mercy."
"What?"
"Diapers," Ben blurted out. "I was getting low on diapers. And then I got distracted in the baby aisle."
"I just bought a package of diapers the other day. You should've let me know, we could've split them."
Ben leaned back, relieved. "No, that's okay. It's probably better for each of us to have our own boxes since we're in two different houses anyway. Anyway, I gotta go. I'll see you later! Give Mercy a kiss for me! Bye!" He hung up before Adrian could answer and quickly turned off his phone and shoved it into his back pocket. When he looked up, he was staring into a quaint bedroom with a daintily made bed and a floral comforter.
"Is there anything else I can do for you, Ben?" came an unseen female voice from behind the teenager.
"No. I think I'm good for today," Ben said confidently, shutting the door behind him.
