Disclaimer: I don not own the characters from the OC. Unless those people who do own them want to give them to me? No…fine then, see if I ever watch your show again…Nevermind I'll still watch it.

Kirsten finally got Shayla to sleep. After that she quietly left the room and ran to the house. She picked the phone and quickly dialed the number to her husband's office. She waited until she got the receptionist, a twenty-year-old ditz who made Kirsten mad just talking to her.

"What?" She said, as though angry someone called and interrupted her conversation with her friend.

"I need to speak to Sandy. This is Kirsten." Kirsten started to tap her fingers impatiently on the counter.

"Who?"

Kirsten held back her angry words and through gritted teeth she managed to get this out: "I would like to speak to your boss. This is his wife. I've only called everyday that he's been working there. That must be why you can't remember."

"Oh! Right Mrs. C. I'll get Mr. C. He's just taking a piss." She said, and then put Kirsten on hold. Kirsten was instantly blasted with this teenybopper music talking about having a one-night stand and then falling in love.

"Hello?" Sandy said after a while.

"I'm glad you're back from taking your piss." She said skeptically.

"I'm going to fire her. That is the fourth time that's happened this week. I hear her 'on hold music' is just as bad." Sandy said sitting down at his desk. "So, Ryan has a sister. I thought I knew everything about him. I guess nobody does."

"Well, I guess secrets run in the family." Kirsten said quietly. "I don't think I can leave her."

"Why do you think she'll steal something?" Sandy asked. "She's Ryan's sister. I don't think she would do that."

"I'm not worried about that. If she's needs whatever we have she can take it. Remind me to never go to New York." Kirsten said scratching her neck.

"Why? What's wrong?" Sandy said, his voicing dropping to a low voice so that his eavesdropping receptionist couldn't hear.

"She was raped in New York Sandy. But don't tell her I told you .She begged me not to tell Ryan, It took me an hour to get her to calm down after she told me. That's why she's here. She couldn't stay there." Kirsten reached into the refrigerator, pulled out a cold donut, and bit into it. "I had to play mother to her all morning. I didn't mind it though. You know I always wanted a girl. I just can't imagine what she's been through. It's almost as bad as having an abortion."

Sandy was silent. He never heard his wife talk about her abortion. It was something she tried to keep private. He wanted to hug his wife tenderly, but she was far away. "Do you want me to come over there?"

"No, I just needed someone to talk someone. It's been driving me crazy all morning." Kirsten said, looking at her cold donut and taking another bite.

"You're a wonderful mother. Too bad you're a terrible cook. Then you'd be perfect." Sandy laughed. "Goodbye dear."

"Sandy!" she shouted quickly into the phone before he could hang up.

"What?"

There was a small pause while Kirsten thought about everything that had happened to the poor girl in the pool house. "I love you."

"I love you too." Sandy said then hung up.

Kirsten finished off the donut and then walked over to the pool house. Shayla was lying there in a ball with her hand over her head. Kirsten closed the door quietly and then went to call work.

"Hello?" Said the eighty-year-old receptionist, which reminded Kirsten of her granny.

"Hi Martha. Can I speak to my dad?" Kirsten said with a smile on her face.

"Of course Mrs. Cohen. Just a moment." While on hold Kirsten heard classical music, which made her migraine slowly fade.

"What?" Said the gruff voice of her father.

"Dad, I won't be coming into work today. Something came up at home." Kirsten said quickly. She could tell her father was in a bad mood, but then again, when wasn't he in a bad mood?

"No can do Kiki. I need you today. Play hooky another day. Any day but today." Caleb said as he flipped through his papers.

"Dad, this isn't hooky. It's serious. You can try to make me, but I can't go." Kirsten said frustrated.

"Kiki, I can fire you." Caleb said setting his papers down.

"You wouldn't do that." Kirsten said stomping her foot slightly.

"Do want to find out?"

Kirsten was silent. "Dad, not this morning. How about I come in when Sandy gets off work and stay for eight hours after that?"

"Or, Sandy could come home now and you could get to work now, because I don't need you at five o'clock. I need you now." Caleb said flipping through his papers again.

"Fine, I'll come in. Do you mind if I bring someone?" She said angrily walking into her room to get dressed.

"I don't care if you come in naked with a gay man, I just want you here." Caleb said, almost truthfully. "And as long as that gay man isn't Jewish I might approve of a marriage between the two of you."

I'll see you in a minute dad." Kirsten slammed the phone down on her dresser and quickly got into what she had laid out for herself earlier. She then quickly ran downstairs and out the backdoor into the pool house. She opened the door quietly and snuck over to the die of the bed. "Shayla, I need you to wake up. I have to take you to work with me. If you don't mind sleeping on a couch or in a car, you can go back to sleep."

Shayla opened her eyes slowly and saw the thin blonde woman running her hands through her hair. She slowly sat up and followed Kirsten to her car.

"I'm very sorry I had to wake you. I work for my dad, and he threatened to fire me if I didn't show up today." Kirsten said pulling out of her driveway.

"No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to just break down in front of you like that. You must think I'm crazy or something." Shayla stared out the window, too embarrassed to actually look at Kirsten.

"I don't think you're crazy. In fact you're probably the sanest person in all of New Port. What girl wouldn't cry about what you have gone through?" Kirsten said turning onto the main road. "I'd like to tell you a story."

Shayla turned to Kirsten curiously.

"When I was eighteen, I was dating a guy named Jimmy Cooper. It started to get serious, soon prom night we did the cliché thing and had sex. A month later, I found out I was pregnant." Kirsten was quiet for a while. She had never told anyone that story, not even Sandy. The people who were there were the only ones that knew. "When I told Jimmy, he dumped me and started to date another girl, his now ex-wife Julie, who is now married to my father. I was devastated, and I was lost and young. I think if I were able to relive it, I would never go through the extremes that I did. I got an abortion"

Shayla sat there quietly as the woman slowly reminisced. "You've never even told Sandy?"

"He knows I had an abortion, but he doesn't know the details behind it. You're the only one, besides Jimmy. My dad never knew I had sex with him, much less everything else. I guess I'm just scared; I'm scared of Sandy thinking I was stupid. I'm scared of my father finding out that I'm not as perfect as he likes to pretend. I'm scared if I tell Seth, he'll never respect me again. But I'm just mostly just scared that what I did will just be something inside of me that I will never get rid of. Like that baby, even though it's dead, will follow me forever."

"I guess the only way to get everything off your chest, s to face your fears." Shayla said calmly. "I think you should tell everyone, it would make you feel better."

"What about you?" Kirsten said glancing quickly over to Shayla and then back to the road. "Don't you want to tell Ryan about what happened in New York?"

"I need to tell him when I can get my mind wrapped around it. It only happened last weak. So the wound is still fresh." Shayla said watching her hands. "But I do want to tell him, I just need time."