Chapter Forty-Three

"Lauren Haley Jagielski!" screeched Jenny, running back into the room with me on her heels. Lauren stirred in her sleep and slowly sat up, clearly disoriented.

"What?" she asked.

"What the hell is this?" I demanded, holding the cardboard box an inch from her face.

"A pregnancy test," she said in bemusement.

"Yeah, a pregnancy test. And seeing as I'm on my period and Callie couldn't possibly know yet, seeing as she last did it about four days ago, whose else could it be?" asked Jenny.

"I don't know," she said, her eyelids fluttering.

"Come on! How could you not tell us?" I implored.

"Tell you what?" she asked suspiciously.

"That you're pregnant!" said the two of us together. Lauren's brown eyes grew wide.

"I'm not."

"You are too!"

"I'm not! Seriously I'm not," she said.

"Then who's is this?" I asked, still not believing her. No one else used our bathroom, it was very off limits to our parents.

"Gee, seeing as it's not mine, Jenny's, or yours, who's could it be? Daddy?" she said sarcastically.

"Mom?" said Jenny faintly, sinking onto the floor and putting her head on her knees.

"Mom's too old," I said quickly. Lauren looked in my direction and raised an eyebrow.

"She's not, not really. She had you when she was eighteen, me when she was twenty. She's only what now, thirty-five? It's a fairly typical age," said Lauren sensibly. I frowned.

"She can't be pregnant," I said again.

"Well who else could it be? If it's not one of us three, she's the only other possibility," said Jenny.

"But wouldn't they tell us, if they were thinking about it? It's such a huge deal!" I complained.

"They could have a boy," said Lauren, suddenly and ominously. The three of us, sitting in a circle on the floor, exchanged hurried glances. The fact that we were all girls had always been important to us, it being one of the main reasons we were friends as much as sisters. Sawyer and Tess weren't nearly as close as the three of us where. I took Lauren and Jenny's hand on either sides of me and they took each other's hands. We were all in need of comfort.

"She could be prettier than us, or more intelligent," I said.

"I thought we had decided it was a boy. But prettier? Than you?" asked Jenny sweetly. I smiled at her.

"Maybe we should talk to her…" Lauren suggested timidly.

"We can't do that. If we're wrong, we'd end up looking stupid, and if we were right, it would look like we had snooped," said Jenny.

"We did, a little bit," I admitted.

"We're going to have to do more if we want to find the truth," said Lauren. We all looked at each other again, and in an instant we began a team-fighting against Mom and Daddy and the secret they were keeping from us.

"How did our lives become so dramatic?" I asked.

"Mom says it was always dramatic for her," spoke up Lauren.

"Yeah, but people actually got married at sixteen then," I said, laughing.

"Come on, you and Sawyer totally will," said Jenny.

"We're seventeen already," I said, swatting her with a pillow. She grabbed it from me and slapped me back while Lauren grabbed another from my bed and threw it at Jenny.

There was time, always, to worry about the future. But thankfully, there was an equal amount of time to be sisters.

The next morning I left the house, managing not to see Mom in the process. Jenny was still asleep when I left, sleeping off sorrow and a slight hangover.

Sawyer greeted me on the front lawn when I arrived. He'd been playing basketball at their court with his father. Nathan waved as Sawyer jogged up to me and kissed me.

"You know, I'd tell you to get a room, but it's not really what I want for my son and his girlfriend," joked Nathan as we walked up to him, hand in hand.

Tess appeared then, walking slowly and awkwardly out of the house.

"Mom wants to see you two," she said, indicating Sawyer and me. We exchanged worried glances. "She's in her study."

The two of us walked into the silent, polished house and walked up the familiar staircase to the door of Aunt Haley's office. We knocked, and heard her telling us to enter from the inside.

She was looking down when we came, her face clenched.

"What's up Mom?" asked Sawyer, plopping down onto a chair in front of her desk.

"Why did you tell Peyton you didn't have sex when your bed sheets were bloody the morning we left?" asked Haley, looking up. Her hair was mused, and she looked deeply troubled.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Don't play games, Sawyer Brian Scott. The housekeeper called. She complained about bloody sheets on the third floor room, the one facing into the town. Your room, not Callie's," she said, looking at Sawyer and not me.

"Haley…" I said pleadingly. She look she shot me made me want to hide under the table, it was so full of pain.

"No! Why did you lie to us?" she demanded.

"We knew you wouldn't take the truth well," explained Sawyer. He reached for my hand and clasped it.

"We wouldn't but we'd kind of be forced to accept it! Seeing as the two of you were conceived when we were your ages, we were obviously doing at your ages. Speaking of which, doesn't your situation make you more cautious? You're living proof of effects of having sex! And you guys aren't even married yet!" she raged on.

"Yet?" I squeaked.

"Not the important matter right now. Are you safe?" she demanded.

"Mom!" cried Sawyer.

"This is important!"

"Rhythm wise," I mumbled.

"Rhythm? You're a fertile seventeen year old, losing her virginity and you use rhythm? You do know how ineffective that is?" she asked.

"Like you're one to talk," spat out Sawyer. She looked at him, and suddenly her large eyes filled with tears. In an instant he was on the other side of the desk, hugging her and apologizing.

"I'm glad you weren't careful," he said. She wiped her eye with one hand.

"Me too," she agreed.

"So…?" I asked anxiously.

"So if you don't tell your mother, I will. What else do you guys hide from us?" she asked, weakening. Sawyer and I met eyes.

"Can you keep a secret?" asked Sawyer, sitting back down and putting his arm along the back of my chair.

"Of course."

"Well, Lauren and Jason Winters did it last May. Jenny broke up with her boyfriend because they both slept with other people and he got the other girls supposedly pregnant. Tess shows signs of a reconciliation with Jason. Brooke Davis is officially Davis again, and has been becoming more chummy with both Lucas and Mouth. And Nikki never, ever notices if Jen is out all night," I informed her guiltily.

"Wow. And I thought our day was dramatic," she said, sighing. Dramatically.

Author's note: I recommend patience to those lacking in it. The pregnancy mystery will be solved in about… eleven chapters, but hints will be dropped continually. The mystery of who Jenny slept with will be solved in less chapters, perhaps seven.