Chapter 36, enjoy!

January 6th

(Julie is 24 weeks pregnant)

Julie sat in Coach Crowley's reading classroom and finished reading the last page of her book. Coach Crowley was a pretty relaxed teacher, like most coaches who taught classes, their only assignments were to read 5 books a semester and do a book report over one. Rule-abiding Julie always spent her class time reading and working on her book report, her classmates however goofed off. The group of girls who sat behind Julie never seemed to do any reading, just constant gossiping. Today their topic of choice was who the hottest boy on the basketball team was and who they were currently sleeping with. Julie got up from her seat and approached Coach Crowley's desk.

"Coach C, can I go to the library?" Julie asked.

"Yeah Taylor," Crowley permitted, not looking up from the college football rerun he had playing on his computer. Julie made her way down to the library, checked out a new book, and returned to Crowley's classroom. When she opened the door and entered the room, she heard the girls behind her had changed the subject.

"I can't believe Riggins even slept with her in the first place! He's had so many better girls, why Julie Taylor?" One of the girls said, just a little too loud.

"She's ruined her whole life, and his too," Another girl added. "Tim passed up a full ride to UT Austin so he could play house with her,"

"I bet she won't finish high school," One chimed in.

"She's got Daddy's coaching money, and Mommy's principal paycheck so she can just live off of them."

"Shhh, she's coming back," One of the girls informed, but Julie had already overheard their conversation. She sat back down in her seat and opened her new book, but she couldn't focus on it. Before long, the bell rang and they were dismissed to their next hour - last hour. Julie was so glad it was finally last hour, she kept replaying those girls' comments in her head. "She's ruined her whole life" "I can't believe Riggins even slept with her!" "Why Julie Taylor?" It was a good thing that Julie just had art last hour, because she was unable to think about anything besides what those girls had said.

The 45 minutes of art was pure torture, those girls' words eating at Julie with every second that passed. Relief washed over her when the bell rang signaling the end of the day. She hurriedly grabbed her stuff and left the building that had been so toxic to her today. She got to Tim's truck just as he was tossing his bag into the center seat. Julie and Tim had been riding to school together since Tim didn't have to stay for after-school practice anymore. The ride the Julie's house was silent, neither one of them had much to share about their day. This caused Julie to continue to stew over what they had said. "She's ruined her whole life" Have I really ruined my life? I couldn't bear the thought of getting rid of my baby, but would it have been for the better? Should I have decided to put it up for adoption, it's probably not too late? I made the decision to keep it so quickly, I didn't even really think about it, what if this isn't what I really want? What if they are right and I have ruined my life...

The pair made their way into the house. Tim proceeded to turn on ESPN as he got out his homework and Julie went to her room. She laid down on her bed, staring at the seiling. "She's ruined her whole life, and his too." She replayed in her mind over and over again. She finally forced herself to get up and change into some comfy clothes. She walked back into the living room and grabbed a snack from the cabinet.

"Jules can you help me with this," Tim asked from his spot at the bar where his math book was opened and notebook paper with Tim's sloppy attempt at notes were spread out before him.

"Yeah," She mumbled walking around to sit beside him. "You know what, I'm just gonna do it for you," She said pulling the book in front of her. Normally, she would explain to Tim how to solve the problem himself, but today she wasn't in the right frame of mind to explain. Tim noticed this, and her unusual quietness since they had left school. He just chalked it up to her being tired, with it being the first week back from Christmas break and all.

"Hun are you not going to eat your food?" Tami asked. "I thought you liked this?" Julie had just been picking at her food with her fork, having lost her appetite. She had forced herself to eat a few bites of her mom's homemade meal.

"Just not hungry," She mumbled. Tim eyed her, his suspicions from earlier growing. What is bothering her? He wondered, and Tami thought the same thing. She forced herself to eat a little more, as everyone's attention focused on her after her mom's questioning. "Can I go to my room, I've got some homework to finish up?"

"Yeah sure hun," Tami responded. Tim saw right through her lie, he knew she always made sure she finished her homework as soon as she got home from school.

"Do you want the rest of my food?" She asked, turning towards Tim and offering him the food she had barely touched. Tim nodded and took her plate while she went to her bedroom. Tim debated going to check on her, but he decided to give her some space to deal with whatever it was that was bothering her. Her pregnancy hormones had been raging lately and Tim had learned, from experience, that it was sometimes better to give her some space. He spent the rest of the night watching NFL reruns on ESPN with Eric. At some point that evening, Julie snuck out of her room to take her shower, but besides that no one heard from her until Tami went to tell her good night.

"Hey Jules, just wanted to tell you good night," Tami said as she stood in the doorway of Julie's room.

"Good night mom," Julie responded.

"Hun, is something bothering you?" She asked. Julie shook her head no. "Did you and Tim have a fight?" She asked, noticing how little they had interacted since she had been home.

"No mom," Julie answered.

"Then what's wrong?" Tami asked.

"Nothing, I'm just tired,"

"Ok then, good night," Tami said, finally deciding Julie would tell her what was bothering her when she was ready. Eric turned off the TV and headed to his room as Tim set up his sleeping quarters in the living room. When Tim finally got himself comfortable and was almost asleep, the quietness of house was interrupted by someone sniffling in the bathroom. Tim ignored it for a while, but the longer it went on, the more he wondered who it was and why. He ventured into the bathroom, where he found Julie sitting on the edge of the bathtub with tears streaming down her face. She had a handful of toilet paper she was attempting to dry her tears with.

"What are you doing?" Tim whispered, not wanting to wake anyone up. Julie only began to cry even harder. "You're going to wake everyone up," He added, gently taking ahold of her wrist and leading her out the patio doors, grabbing a blanket from the back of the couch on his way out. They say down on the hard metal bench in the back yard, and Tim wrapped the blanket around them to keep the chilly January air out.

"Did I ruin our lives?" Julie asked. "When I got pregnant, did I ruin our lives?" She asked again when Tim only gave her a confused look.

"What no, why?" He finally responded.

"Some girls seem to think I did," She stated, sniffling.

"Well don't listen to them," Tim advised, wiping away a tear that was rolling down her cheek.

"But really, are we making the right choice by keeping the baby?" She asked. "Are we really ready to raise a child?"

"I don't think your ever 100% ready, no matter if you're 17 or 37. Are you wanting to put her up for adoption now?" Tim asked.

"I don't know..." Julie cried. "We made the decision to keep it so quickly we didn't really think it out."

"I think we made the right decision Julie," Tim reassured her, wiping the tears from her eyes. "But if you want to go the adoption route we can talk to your mom about it. Let's not make any decisions tonight though, you're too emotional and tired. Why don't you go back to bed and try to get some sleep," Tim advised. They returned in the house where Julie headed off to her bedroom and Tim curled up on his air mattress.

Hope ya'll enjoyed! This one turned out way longer than I thought it would, but I think it turned out nicely. Please leave a review, let me know what ya'll are thinking!