Where the Streets Have No Name
Chapter 10
I'm pregnant.
It was Edward's turn to be in a paralytic stupor.
This is a nightmare. I'm still sleeping in my bed. I just had too much to drink last night that whacked my brain-chemistry totally off track.
I need to wake up. God, please let me wake up. I promise, I will never touch alcohol again.
God didn't seem to be in the vicinity. But Carmen was. Seeing Edward withdraw into a state of fugue drew her out of her own, and she began to unburden her soul to him.
She had come to learn of her condition five weeks ago. All four pregnancy tests she took and the doctor she saw confirmed it. This spelled disaster for her future. She wasn't ready to be a single parent. She had to terminate the pregnancy, and she had to do it quickly.
Her insurance covered the procedure, but she didn't want any paper trail to link her to this. As a journalism major, she knew all too well how past records could be dug up and how someday they might come back to haunt you. However, paying out of pocket would completely topple her carefully budgeted life. Turning to her parents was, of course, out of the question. She had rearranged her personal finances and cut corners wherever she could, but what she had managed to save wasn't nearly enough.
Thus, reluctantly, she was forced to turn to Edward. She had hoped she could borrow the money from him. Or, since he was a med student, if he happened to have friends in the profession who could be trusted to perform the procedure with discretion - preferably for a discount - and off the record, perhaps he could hook her up with them.
"So... will you help me, Edward?" she asked in the end, and looked at his face beseechingly. Her eyes were still puffy from her earlier outburst with mascara tracks running down her face. She looked pitiful and lost.
Looking at her face, it began to dawn on Edward that his masterfully planned life was about to go very awry. Though he couldn't possibly have guessed the full extent of it.
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