Chapter 10
Soon after receiving their news, Freddie and Carly were on their way out of the clinic, a huge handful of brochures on pregnancy and eating properly while pregnant, a couple of prescriptions and a printout with the time and location for her next appointment which the receptionist had been kind enough to book with the OB doctor's office for them.
Their ride back home was silent until they pulled into the parking lot at Bushwell. This day had certainly turned upside-down fast.
"I thought we were going for something to eat?" Carly questioned as he shut the car off and engaged the parking brake. "I'm so hungry I could eat road kill."
"Oh, uh, yeah. Right. Sorry, I guess I, um, kind of forgot." He apologized and re-started the car. "Where did you want to go? The diner?"
"Anywhere but here. I don't think I can face Spencer right now and I damn sure don't want to face your mom." She cracked. "I keep praying that I wake up and find out that this is all a dream or they call and say the test was a mistake."
"I know, me too." He replied. "But we've got to tell my mom. Those people down at the clinic all know her and she can access the records next time she works. If she stumbles across it and we haven't told her, she'll go off the deep end for sure."
"She's gonna wig out one way or the other." She sighed. "Guess this kind of kills her liking me, huh? Damn, we were actually getting along so goo, too."
"Carls, baby. She might not like the timing, but she's going to have to accept that in less than nine months, she'll be a grandma. It might not be as bad as you think, like you said, you two have been getting along really well." He took her hand. "Now, you mentioned steak before?"
"Oh, God, no. I couldn't handle red meat. But I am craving some Chinese." She suggested. "And then afterwards we can come back and head up to my bedroom. Maybe we'll get lucky and have the place all to ourselves. I need to get my Freddie on." She giggled, flirty and ready for some action. "I've been super worked up ever since I was sitting on your lap. I swear if I wasn't so hungry, we'd be in the elevator and I've have that shirt off you by now."
"Getting a finger stab turned you on? What else aren't you telling me? Please tell me it doesn't involve hot wax." He tried to make a joke but neither felt like laughing.
They had their dinner and returned to Bushwell. Carly insisted on going straight to her room for some alone time, but Freddie was too distracted by the prospect of having to tell his mother that they were going to be having a baby to keep his head in the game.
"Aw, what's the matter, baby?" She cooed, when he was having trouble keeping up with her. "I know, you're worried about telling your mom. How about we sit down with her and Spencer tomorrow and tell them together. But for tonight, let's just focus on us."
The next day, Freddie and Carly had set up a family dinner with her brother and his mom. She spent the afternoon getting things ready and despite her nerves about what they needed to reveal, she was able to concentrate more on dinner than her situation.
Freddie, however, was totally off his game all day. He was inattentive in class and made silly, uncharacteristic mistakes at work. At six thirty on the dot, he walked through the door of apartment 8-C. Carly was in the kitchen and he walked over to offer her a hand.
"What can I do to help. You shouldn't be on your feet so much, Carls."
"Freddie! I'm only a few weeks along. I'm sure it won't hurt me." She argued. "But if you really want to help, could you chop up this lettuce for the salad?"
The foursome sat down a short while later and began their dinner and spoke only about mundane, trivial things until Carly got up to retrieve their dessert from the refrigerator. She sat the cheesecake down on the table and passed out paper plates to everyone.
As Spencer cut into the dessert, Carly spoke. "So, um, you guys know how I've been feeling a little off lately?"
"Aren't you better?" Her brother asked. "I just figured you were over it since you made a big dinner. And you went to your class this morning and stuff."
"Actually, she's feeling a lot better. Physically." Freddie pasted on a fake smile. "We went down to the clinic yesterday and made sure everything was going to be alright."
"Oh, you shouldn't have done that. I could have looked you over." Marissa replied. "They get so busy down there, I doubt they even gave you a thorough examination."
"Uh, actually the nurse was pretty thorough and she actually got to the bottom of things rather quickly." Carly informed her. "And we sort of found something out, too. Right Freddie?"
He just nodded.
"Yeah, see thing is, well, this is a really long story. Back when I lived with dad he took me to the doctor's office on base for my, well, let's just say feminine check ups. And, well, I guess this is kinda their default thing to do, because when my, um, you know, my uh, cycle, wasn't normal they put me on birth control."
"Jeez, Carls. We don't need to hear about this kind of stuff at the dinner table." Spencer sneered. "Gross!"
Marissa ignored the artist and rolled her eyes toward him. "Well, it is a proven medical fact that women who are on birth control hormone, tend to be very regular. It's actually a common treatment, especially in younger women who are not trying to conceive." She was very relieved to hear Carly was on birth control too, thinking she and Freddie were more than likely sexually active.
"Right. Well, anyway. Long story short, the docs on base just hand them out like candy. I guess it's so women that are in the military don't end up having babies or something, I don't know. But, uh, well, since I moved back home, I haven't been to the doctor and apparently you need a prescription to get them here in the states and I haven't been taking any."
Freddie's lack of eye contact and what Carly was talking about gave his mother a very sudden and uneasy feeling. "So, is that why you were feeling bad, female issues?" She asked, hoping this wasn't leading where it could be. "There are some good over the counter medications."
"Well, actually, uh, it turns out that, well, that stuff doesn't stay in your system very long, and, um, the nurse sort of insisted that I take a pregnancy test before she'd write me a prescription for pills. Even though I said it was silly."
Spencer remained clueless, Freddie was getting pale and Marissa began to breathe funny. "Carly, please tell me you and Freddiekins haven't done something you'll be sorry for."
"Well, um, you see, it's sorta . . . Uh, Freddie?" She looked at him pleadingly, getting scared of the look Marissa was giving her.
"I know this isn't something we were trying to do, but, well, Carly, uh, that is, Carly and I, we um, are going to, um, we're going to have a baby." Freddie stammered.
"Hey! Congrats, you two!" Spencer seemed overjoyed. "I'm gonna be an uncle!"
"Congrats?" Mrs. Benson shouted at him. "Are you completely insane? They're not even out of college. How the hell are they to be congratulated? Oh my God, I just knew something like this was going to happen!" She was giving Carly the worst look ever. "Why did I ever let you two spend the night in the same bed? I should have sprayed cold water on you both! Oh, this is just terrible."
"Now, Mom, please calm down." Freddie tried to step in to make his mother a little less likely to end up in a padded room.
"I am not going to calm down! This little harlot is ruining your life. Four months ago, you were a happy, healthy virgin looking forward to grad school. Then she came along and messed everything up. Your life was much better without this tramp in it."
"Mom!" Freddie hissed. "Stop!"
"The only positive thing about you even dating her, is you weren't spending the night with that blonde demon and giving yourself to her. I knew I should have put my foot down and stopped you two from doing, ugh, that. Relations are supposed to be between a husband and his wife." Marissa quoted the philosophy of her priest. "I tried to turn a blind eye and be an understanding, cool parent and look where that got all of us."
"We're twenty-one years old, we've been dating practically all summer, you really think we weren't going to be intimate?" Freddie questioned. "Sex is not something to be ashamed of, it's normal."
"What about your future? How is that going to work now? You'll barely graduate before she'll be in the maternity ward. Heck, if you're lucky she won't drop the kid before you get your degree. Are you going to just leave her sit at home with the kid while you go off to earn your Masters in the fall? You were talking about Cal-Tech. It's not like you can commute. And I'm pretty sure they don't allow you to bring you baby mama to live with you in the dorms."
"I can still go to grad school. I'll just, um I'll put it off a year. Plenty of people who are parents go to grad school. This isn't the end of the world. There are schools closer home."
"And what the hell are you going to do for money? Ever think of that? You have a part time job fixing computers, she's a barista. You've racked up thousands and thousands of dollars in student debt already. You'll barely be able to afford rent and some groceries, not to mention the insurance on that monstrous sports car your father gave you. I guess you'll have to get rid of that thing and get a mini-van now. Lord, Fredward, do you even know how expensive babies are?"
Carly began to cry, everyone else remained silent, and Marissa continued her tirade. "And you're sure as hell not shacking up in my apartment with this girl. It's bad enough she spends the night, you're certainly not raising her kid for her under my roof. Is it even yours?" She shouted at Freddie.
Carly ran from the room in tears before she heard the accusation leveled at her.
"Hey, now." Spencer raised his voice. "Don't talk about my sister like she's some kind of skank. It took me a while to accept that they're sleeping together, too. But like Freddie said, they're 21 year old college students. You think they're not going to have sex? We should both be happy they're doing it in a committed relationship. When I was their age . . . "
"Oh, you still sleep around like you're a frat boy." She huffed at her neighbor. "Well, they might have gotten themselves into this situation, but I'm not going to enable it. As of this moment, you are cut off, young man. You need to make a choice, either that slut and the baby go or you can all go!" She glared at her son, hoping to scare him into either dumping Carly or forcing her to do something terrible. "Either way you are not having a baby with that girl."
"What are you saying, Mom?" He glared back, preparing to call her bluff.
Now we all knew Marissa would lose her crap about this, didn't we?