Chapter 14

Wednesday rolled around, and with only two more days to make a decision about college, she knew it was time to talk to her Dad. After she got home from school, she took her college letters into the kitchen and sat at the table, waiting for her Dad.

He woke her up. She didn't even notice she had fallen asleep, her face lying on the pile of papers on the table, a large drool patch dampening them. She sat up with a jolt and wiped the slobber off her mouth.

"What's wrong with you lately?" he asked, sitting across the table. She yawned and stretched her arms above her head.

"Nothing, just tired, been busy," she said. The Sheriff's eyes flickered down to the papers in front of her.

"What are these?" he inquired. Stiles swallowed.

"College acceptance letters," she told him quietly. He picked them up and sorted through them. Stiles had decided to include the UCLA letter, she hated lying to him. She saw his eyes light up when he came across it.

"UCLA?" he beamed. "Stiles, that's fantastic!"

"Yeah."

"I'm so proud of you, your Mom would be too," he said.

"Dad, I – "

"Oh this is great," he continued.

"I'm not going," Stiles blurted. The smile dropped from her father's face.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I don't want to go to UCLA. I was thinking maybe the Community College or Sacramento," she told him.

"Community College?" her Dad growled. Stiles shrank back.

"I want to be cop, like you," she finally admitted. "You didn't even go to college."

"That's because I went straight into the army," he reminded her. There was silence for a while as they both cooled down. They didn't like arguing with each other.

"You know I just want the best for you, Stiles," her Dad said eventually. "You're Mom always talked about how much she loved being at UCLA."

"I know," Stiles said. "But I'm not Mom. I'm not smart like she was. I'm more like you."

The Sheriff sighed.

"So you really want to be a cop?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Okay," he nodded. "If that's what you want to do. But, you're going to get a decent college education first in case you change your mind. So… you were thinking Sacramento?"

They talked some more, and decided on the Sacramento college. After their discussion, she fired up her computer, went online, and accepted the admission. She was officially enrolled in university. She texted Scott and the others and told them. Lydia was going to Stanford, she'd been accepted into Harvard and Princeton and all the top Ivy League schools, but had decided on Stanford because it was closer to home. The pack had agreed to stay within the California area after graduation, they felt the need, or responsibility, to be near Beacon Hills. Malia was going to the Community College, and Scott and Kira were both going to San Francisco. Everything was coming together perfectly.

….

Now that Stiles had a huge load off her shoulders, she could relax a little. She tried to focus on one thing at a time, and next up was the lacrosse grand final on Saturday. They had a last minute on practice on Friday afternoon, and were instructed by Coach to have an early night and rest up. Stiles definitely did that. She was so beat after practice that she went to sleep at 7pm and didn't wake up until her alarm went off at 8am the next morning. Her Dad had taken the day off so he could watch the game. Luckily, it was a home game and they didn't have to travel.

They got to the school at 8:40am and the team began warm-ups on the field as the opposing side arrived from Smithsfield. Stiles was sure that after having 13 hours of sleep, she would be well rested and energetic, but she was the exact opposite. It's not that she felt sleepy, or even tired, she just needed to sit or lie down. Her head was spinning and she could barely keep her eyes open. She did her best to hide it, though everyone saw it. Before the game started, Coach pulled her aside to talk.

"Christ, Stilinski," he said. "You look about as energetic as a sloth."

"Sorry, Coach," she mumbled, her vision blurring as she tried to focus on her face.

"I'm sitting you out for now," he told her. She was too out of it to protest, so she sat on the bench. Scott, Kira and Liam came over to see her.

"Are you okay?" Scott asked, a concerned look at on his face.

"Yeah, fine," she said. "Just had a big few weeks."

Scott and Kira shared a worried look, but the whistle blew for the players to go on the field and they had to leave. Stiles was disappointed that she couldn't play and that her Dad had taken the day off for nothing. They team had worked so hard this season to get to the grand finals and now she was letting them down. Not far into the game, they were already in the lead, and Coach was relaxed enough to talk to her as he watched the game.

"So what's wrong, Stilinski? You sick or something?" he asked, his eyes still on the game.

"No."

He leaned in closer to her so he could whisper.

"Is it… you know… a girl thing?" he said. "If it is, I really don't want to hear about it, but I can understand if you want to go home to… I don't know… eat chocolate or something."

Stiles looked at him in horror. Gross.

"No, Coach, it's not that," she replied.

"Right, good, well, okay," Coach said, stepping away from her and returning his full attention back to the game. Stiles did not have her period, so it couldn't be that. She thought it might be PMS, she usually got pretty irritable when she was due. When was she due? She tried thinking back to the last time she had her period. When was that? She pulled out her phone and looked at her calendar, she kept the dates for everything on it. She scrolled back week by week. The last mark she had put as 'P', meaning period, was March 23rd. That was 5 weeks and 5 days ago, two days after her birthday party. She remembered having it the week that she and Derek had been staking out the gas station, because she thought it had added to her agitation during that time. She went through the calendar again. Surely she'd had a period since then? There wasn't anything marked down. If that was correct, that meant she was 12 days late. She'd probably just forgotten to mark it on the calendar. Even if that was true, she still couldn't remember having one. They had so much lacrosse practice over the last few weeks, she would have recalled it because it was so frustrating to have it at practice.

The whistle blew, snapping her to attention. One of their players had been injured and Stiles was called to the field to replace him. Shit. She grabbed her stick and trotted out to the field. Not only was she incredibly drained, but now she was also nervous as hell. She thought she was going to be sick. The whistle blew again and the game resumed, though Stiles wasn't paying any attention. Her head was swirling, her knees were weak, and her stomach was flipping. She was panicking. Okay, so her period was late. She had been super-stressed lately. Her period was normally so punctual though… and to be 12 days late, that was extreme. She didn't want the thought to enter her mind, yet it slipped in anyway.

Could she… possibly… be… pregnant?

No way, she thought. She'd had sex, one time. She remembered, they hadn't used a condom. WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T WE USE A CONDOM? She thought. The idea of her getting pregnant by Derek seemed impossible. She'd only recently started to like him, having his baby seemed like a stretch. Could werewolves and humans have babies? She was freaking out. Everything around her blurred and she nothing but the ground. Her mind and body couldn't withstand the inevitably anymore and her knees gave way.

The last thing she saw was the ground rushing up to meet her.