CHAPTER 14

A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys! I guess I shocked the hell out of most of you?

Enjoy, and don't forget to review!

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Jen ignored the spill on the floor completely as she concentrated on Maureen. "What?" she repeated.

Maureen wrapped her arms around herself. "I don't know what to do. This can't be happening. You don't even know—Mark probably—oh my god," she blurted out.

Jen placed her arm around Maureen's shoulders and led her to the couch. "Sweetie calm down. Here, sit down and we'll talk, okay?"

She nodded and sat down. Jen pulled a few tissues out of the box and handed them to her. "You know it was only that one night. Just one night. Completely unplanned and only happened because we were so unbelievably drunk. And now, I can't even pay my rent! What if I really am pregnant, Jen? What am I supposed to do? I can't afford a baby. Do you know how expensive they are?" she sobbed.

"Yeah, actually I do," Jen added.

Maureen wiped at her eyes with the tissue that was crumbled up in her hand. "I'm so scared. Mark, oh god, he's going to hate me forever! Because I just ruined the rest of his life! I don't even know if I want this baby. What am I supposed to do?" she sobbed. Her chest hitched as she tried to catch her breath.

"Did you take a pregnancy test?"

She shook her head. "No. Only because I didn't even think anything of it at first! I was so busy with work and the holidays that I didn't even bother to check my calendar or anything until this morning. I was supposed to get my period around the 7th. Mark and I accidentally slept together on the 12th. And today's the 22nd. So I'm fifteen days late, and it's never been this late before!" She buried her face in her hands. "So it's been eleven days of me possibly being pregnant with Mark's child and not knowing it!"

"Okay." Jen exhaled a deep breath. "Well all things considered, you could just be really stressed out. With Joanne moving, and your job, plus the holidays, it could be just your body's way of coping with it. So until you start showing any signs, you really shouldn't jump to conclusions, because you'll only freak yourself out more. But if you really want to be sure we could run down to the drugstore right now and get a test and you could take it if that makes you feel better?" she suggested. "Or you could make an appointment with your doctor just to be on the safe side."

"I already did. But she can't see me until after Christmas—the 27th."

"Well then we might as well go and get a test if you really think you are. Waiting's not going to make you feel any better."

"Okay," Maureen sighed. She picked up the used tissues and stuffed them in her coat pocket. "Yeah. Okay. We should, because I know we probably didn't use anything."

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"I can't look at it," Maureen sighed. She was sitting on the counter and staring at the wall.

Jen checked the timer. "Another minute. Want me to look at it for you?"

She nodded, slowly at first. "Could you?"

"Okay." The timer went off, and Jen hopped off the chair to look at the stick on the bathroom counter. She glanced at it and carried it back out into the kitchen before handing it to Maureen.

Maureen's glance dropped down on it. "Shit. I knew it. It's a plus."

"I know. But you might as well go to your doctor's anyway."

"Yeah. What did you do when you find out you were having Abby?" She moved over to the freezer and pulled out the carton of ice cream.

"I cried. A lot."

"I don't think I can cry anymore," Maureen sighed. "I don't even feel pregnant. Minus the whole exhaustion thing. What am I supposed to tell Mark?"

Jen helped her scoop out the ice cream and handed a bowl to her. "Don't worry about that—yet. Just wait and see what your doctor says. The test could be off. Sometimes they can screw up."

"I know."

They were silent for a few minutes, just sitting on the couch slowly eating the ice cream.

 "So what's the whole story with you and Roger? Like how did you meet him?"

Jen smiled a little bit at this. "When I was in seventh grade I moved to Scarsdale from Boston. My parents are both doctors—actually my dad's a surgeon, but basically he was offered a job in Manhattan. He took it, and we moved the summer of 1983 to the suburbs. My mom was taking some time off because she had just had my sister Erica about two years before, so she didn't exactly have a job then, but eventually the following year she was signed on as an attending in the ER. Anyway, that summer I didn't really know anybody, but by the time eighth grade ended I knew a few people here and there. So freshman year comes along and I was taking this photography to fill up some of my credits—"

Maureen laughed and rolled her eyes. "And let me guess, Mark was in it?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Our little Mark Cohen was in it. Except he wasn't as dorky as you think. He was actually pretty funny, and he was a great listener. I used to complain a lot to him about how my parents were never home, and how I hated Scarsdale, and how I missed a few of my friends from Boston. We had a lot of fun that year, and he used to talk about this kid Roger a lot, and about how much of a pain in the ass he was. Every day he'd have another story about what Roger did or how Roger got in trouble. But I never met him, not until tenth grade. So that summer I pretty much spent in Boston, hanging out with some of my old friends and my cousins. September rolls around, and Mark and that kid Roger were in my English class. Let me tell you how interesting that year was."

"I can imagine," she smiled.

"Roger thought it was hilarious to be the class clown or whatever, and I have to admit he was pretty good at it. He'd push all the teacher's buttons and really piss them off. I guess he got off I doing it, or something. So by the spring, he graduated from the pranks to making fun of me. I hated him so much. You really have no idea, Mo. I wanted to strangle him so many times."

"I bet it was because he liked you." Maureen set her finished ice cream bowl on the table and curled up against the back of her couch. "Guys are pricks like that."

"Basically. The next year he was in both my English and Chemistry class. I walked in the first day and he waved at me and I wanted to kill myself. But he sort of calmed down over the summer I guess, because he wasn't as obnoxious as he was the previous year. The third day of chemistry, my teacher assigned us lab partners, and Roger ended up as mine."

Maureen stifled a laugh. "You poor thing."

"By winter break we really got to know each other and everything. Like he'd constantly write me these stupid notes back and forth on sheets of paper when we were taking tests. I did his labs for him pretty much the whole year, but he took care of the whole aspect of lighting things on fire. Guys like that sort of thing. Anyway I was starting to get the drift that he liked me or whatever, especially since Mark would point it out to me when Roger wasn't paying attention. He asked me out I guess around April, and we spent the majority of the summer together. It was sort of a rough summer for me, because my parents ended up getting separated, so let's just say I spent a lot of time with Roger and Mark."

"Senior year Roger was in my same English class, but he barely passed. Not because he was stupid, but because he didn't do the work. He had a bad case of Senioritis. After school I'd drive over there or he'd pick me up and I'd help him with his homework or whatever—just enough to make sure he didn't flunk out or anything."

"Were you guys pretty serious? Was he like…your first?" Maureen laughed. "Sorry, I'm just really nosy."

"Maureen and her one track mind," Jen teased back. "But yeah, he was my first, and I'm pretty sure I was his. Unless he had some girlfriend on the side," she added, laughing. "But anyway, we were all set to go to prom, and like two weeks before I seriously thought I was pregnant."

"Oh wow," Maureen said quietly.

"Yeah. I forced him to go out to get me a test and he was so scared to do it. He thought the whole time that his mom or sister would walk in and figure out what he was up to. He brings it back and I'm sitting on his bed like crying hysterically about it and he had to half carry me to the bathroom to make me take it. I go in, and he sits outside of the bathroom door guarding it. But anyway, I wasn't. We went to prom with Mark and his then girlfriend—her name was Maria or Marcy or something."

"We all graduated in June, and I was set to go to NYU and Mark was set to go to Brown. Roger didn't want to go to college, but he didn't want to stay in Scarsdale or leave me. He worked his ass off that summer to make some sort of money to hopefully find a place in the city for both of us to stay in—hence the loft upstairs. Back then it was owned by this sweet old man Mr. Henderson and he gave it to us for pretty cheap. We moved in, and needless to say the place really sucked. No heating, no air conditioning, and basically not much furniture besides what we brought with us. We both had to get jobs, and I was going to school too so it was kind of tough. Mark dropped out of Brown after his freshman year and moved in with us, so it wasn't that bad. We were all making enough money to get by."

"When did Roger start using—you know, drugs?"

"Um. He met a few guys and they started forming a band—the future Well Hungarians. It was mostly just pot at first, but he started getting really bad. He hung out with a major party crowd. He started drinking some, and then it was more of him moving on to the party drugs then. He was into having a really great time and didn't care who he brought down in the process. Benny moved in with us three years later, after he graduated from Brown, and by that time, Roger was really bad. He never came home, lost his job, and ignored most of us. We were never really officially broken up, but I knew he was cheating on me long before he ever admitted it. He didn't have to. He started doing heroin then too."

"Oh sweetie."

"Yeah. Then I found out I was pregnant with Abby—for real this time. I didn't say anything to anyone—not even Mark. But I didn't want to leave. I mean, these were my friends and my "boyfriend".  I didn't have much of anything left. I had quit college the fall semester of my junior year, so what was I supposed to do? Money was tight. I knew I couldn't raise her in the environment we were living in. Her fucking father was a druggie. I couldn't depend on Roger then."

"Why did you leave then?"

Jen swallowed and mixed the melting ice cream around in the bowl. "I came home one night from my friend's apartment. A group of our friends were celebrating her birthday. We went out to dinner and then back to her place for a while. It was getting late, and I was almost three months pregnant, so I was exhausted anyway. I came back, fully expecting Roger not to be home. He was in our room—with some redhead—" She paused and grabbed a tissue from the box. "I'm sorry. Like you have something so much bigger to worry about and here I am crying over something that happened years ago."

Maureen smiled sadly at her. "Forgiven, but not completely forgotten about, right?"

"Yeah. Pretty much sums it up. I left about a week after I found them together. I broke up with Roger, although he was probably too stoned to remember, and went back to Scarsdale. He never came after me, but I never really expected him to."

"But it would have been great if he did, right?"

"It would have. But I didn't want to build myself up and be let down," she replied. "Anyway, that's the Roger and Jen story."

"It was a good one. I'll save the Maureen Johnson story for another day," she smiled. "But I really appreciate you coming down here and helping me out—you know with everything."

"No problem. And it's going to be okay."

"I hope so," she shrugged. "A baby's not that bad, right?"

"No," Jen laughed. "At first you might think it is, but once it really hits you—you can't really imagine your life without them. And you know how understanding Mark is."

"But I really hurt him."

"Roger really hurt me, and look where we are now," Jen pointed out. "This was the last place I ever expected myself to come back to. "But I forgave him. I never forgot though. Mark will forgive you. I know him. Even if I have to drag him kicking and screaming into your apartment."

"Yeah."

"I better get back upstairs, but try to get some sleep for me, okay?"

"I will."

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Jen walked back into the loft later that afternoon.

"Hey," Roger greeted. He was sitting on the couch, a white photo album open on his lap. In his other hand was the TV remote. "Where were you?"

"Downstairs with Maureen." She took off her coat and tucked her gloves into the pockets. "She needed my help with something."

"Oh. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, sure," she added. "Abby's taking her nap?"

He nodded. "She ate lunch and fell asleep. So I was bored and I figured to start looking at the pictures of her when she was little."

Jen sat down next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. "How far did you get?"

"A little bit past her first birthday party."

Jen looked at the pictures in the album, especially at one picture, where cake was smeared all over Abby's face and shirt. "Yeah that was definitely a great party. Unfortunately she bathed in most of her cake instead of trying to eat it."

"I can tell," he laughed. "I wish I could have been there. I'm sorry I wasn't."

"Nothing you can do about it now, really." Jen wished she hadn't of said that, because it came out much harsher than she wanted it to. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah." Roger closed the album and placed the book on the table. He stood up and walked towards the bedroom. "I'm gonna go lay down before work."

"Roger I didn't mean it like that—"

"Yeah you did."

"Roger," she sighed.

"Can I just go to sleep, or what?"

"I'm sorry."

"It's my fault, not yours. I'm the one who fucked up, not you."

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