Chapter title: Woke Up Today to Everything Gray
Chapter summary: Just when Casey starts to heal after her break-up with Chad, her life is torn apart again when she finds out she's pregnant.
Publish date: April 24, 2006
Disclaimer: I don't own anybody except Chad. The only things I own related to Guster are their CDs.
Note: The chapter title is from another of my favorite Guster songs, "What You Wish For."

I didn't want to get out of bed the next morning. I felt so humiliated. How could I have not seen through Chad? It had all been too good to be true, finding a guy who liked me for me. And it had all been a ruse, fake. All the feelings I had for him weren't reciprocated. All I was to him was a name on a checklist, someone he could cross off when he was finished with them. And I had believed him the whole fucking time. He was my first boyfriend, and I had been so excited that someone was finally paying attention to me, I guess I overlooked a lot of things. Sometimes when he was angry with me he'd slap me or grab my arms so tight he'd leave finger mark bruises. It all made sense now, but then it didn't. He'd always apologize immediately afterwards and we'd make out, and the next time he'd see me he'd have chocolate or flowers. And he knew I was a stickler for flowers.

I dragged myself out of bed and somehow made it through the day. I was so glad it was the weekend, and I was planning on wallowing the entire time, alone in my room. I didn't want to go to school. I just knew that everyone would be talking about me. And sure enough, I overheard a conversation in the bathroom.

"I heard she lost her virginity to him, and it was so bad he broke up with her. I heard he never really liked her much anyway," Natalie, a snobby popular girl was saying to one of her friends as they did their makeup before school started. I walked out of the stall then, and Natalie faked a surprised look. "Oh, Casey, I didn't know you were there. So sorry to hear you broke up with Chad." But there wasn't any sympathy in her voice, and I realized she had planned for me to overhear her conversation. I wasn't about to bite, so I silently washed my hands and left, and I could hear their laughter as the door closed behind me. How can people be so cruel?

I went to the basketball court, and thankfully, it was empty, with the exception of a girl doing homework in the corner. I sat on one of the bleachers and put my face in my hands and spent the next several minutes taking deep breaths. I didn't realize Jessica was sitting next to me until I looked up, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"Jesus, Jess, you scared me!" I said, putting my hand over my heart, as if I could manually slow it down.

She didn't say anything at first, just gave me a sad smile. She put her hand on my back and whispered, "I'm so sorry, Casey." Tears sprang to my eyes and I tried to blink them back, but it was no use. I was hurting too much. She put her arms around me and I cried. The bell rang, but neither of us moved and she sat with me until I had calmed down. By then I was emotionally exhausted, but at least it didn't look like I'd been crying, so I felt okay about going to class. The bell rang as we made our way down to next class.

"Casey, you know you can tell me anything, right?" she asked before going into her classroom. I nodded and whispered a thank you as I moved on to my own class. It was good to know I had friends that would stick by me. I had never doubted their friendship, but I thought they might not care because I had been so distant the past few months – Chad was the only person I ever hung out with. That was my own mistake, but I'm glad my friends didn't fault me for it.

It wasn't until two weeks later that I realized I had missed my period and was a week late. I had never been late. The most irregular I had ever been was two days. This was a week, and this time, I had sex. I was terrified. What if I was pregnant? What was I going to do? Who could I tell? Chad, of course. He had to know. Maybe this had all been in my head, maybe he really did care about me but we just needed some time apart. Maybe Chad would know what to do – I sure didn't. I shook my head. A week late, that's not too bad, is it? I might not really be pregnant. "You can't get pregnant the first time," I whispered to myself. But I knew deep down it was a lie. You could.

The day after I had the realization, I took a different route home from school and bought a pregnancy test. But where to take it? I didn't want my friends to know. I love them very much but I know they wouldn't be able to keep it to themselves. And no point in tell Chad if it was just a false alarm, right? Finally, I decided to take it at home and hide everything in my backpack, then dispose of it on my way to school the next day.

When I got home Evan was the only one there. Seth had some sort of after school practice then dinner with his teammates, Matt had night class, and my dad was working the night shift. Evan would be home all night, but he never really bothered us. He lives in our garage apartment and only comes down for food or football games (he claims its more fun to watch sports with people rather than alone). At 24, he already has his doctorate. The program he went through gave him his masters and his doctorate in two and a half years, plus he graduated a year early from high school and a semester early from college. Evan works for a drug company, but he's living at home, saving his money, so he can move overseas. So dad thought because his middle son got his doctorate before his oldest got his masters, the middle son gets the garage apartment. Anyway, that was probably too much information. At any rate, I more or less had the house to myself until about eight.

I locked the door to the bathroom and took the pregnancy test. I set my stopwatch for two minutes and sat on the counter, my hands trembling. When the timer went off, my heart started racing. I didn't think I could look at the result. I wanted to know, but at the same time, I didn't. I took a deep breath and turned over the test.

"Shit," I whispered. I took another test, and it came back with the same result. There was no denying it, I was pregnant. I stuffed the test and its box at the bottom of my bag and sank to the floor. Suddenly I felt cold and nauseous and I got sick in the toilet. What was I going to do?

For me, this was a moral dilemma. I had always been against abortions. But now that I was faced with an unwanted pregnancy, I realized I really hadn't known what I was talking about. Before, I viewed it as killing an innocent baby and the people who had abortions were terrible people. That a girl found out she was pregnant one day and the very next she was having an abortion. It isn't like that. I see now that it isn't an easy decision to make. It's funny how your views change when you are actually experiencing it.

I spent the entire night thinking about it. I don't think I slept at all. I hadn't made any decisions by morning, except I needed to tell Chad. How to get him alone and actually listen to me wouldn't be easy. Ever since our little spat in the hallway, he's avoided me like the plague. I haven't exactly wanted to hang around him myself. So I excused myself from my last class a few minutes early so I could grab him as he left his last class. When he saw me, he rolled his eyes and pushed past me, but I followed him to his locker.

"Casey, leave me alone. I'm not coming back to you, so don't ask," he said, stuffing his books into his locker.

"I don't want you to come back to me. I need to talk to you. It's important," I said softly, hugging my books to my chest. My heart was pounding already.

"Fine. Make it quick. It's Friday and I want to get home."

"I don't want anyone to hear. Can we wait till the hallway has cleared? Or go somewhere?"

"I'm not going anywhere with you." He closed his locker and leaned against it, looking at me expectantly, with a look of disgust on his face. How had this happened? Why was I suddenly filth in his eyes? I shook my head to clear those thoughts. I had to be strong when delivering this bit of news. Finally the halls were clear.

"I'm late. I took a test last night. I'm pregnant." I let it all out at once. I held my breath, waiting for his response. I expected him to take it badly, but not like this. He grabbed my arms, causing me to drop my books, and forcibly threw me against the lockers.

"What?" he exclaimed, his face close to mine.

"I'm pregnant. And you're the only guy I've ever been with."

His fingers curled around my shirt and he leaned in even closer, practically spitting on me with each hateful word he said. "I'm not going to be a fucking father, and you aren't getting any fucking child support from me." For emphasis he threw me against the lockers again, so hard it knocked the wind out of me and made me fall to the floor in a heap. "Stupid bitch, why did you let yourself get pregnant?" He kicked one of my textbooks away from me and down the hall and then left. I sat there for a few minutes, trying to wrap my brain around what happened. Then I picked up my things and walked home as fast as I could.

I had never been so hurt before in my life. I felt like everything was falling apart. I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know who to turn to for help. I put up my "leave me alone" sign from middle school on my door and locked myself in my room. I hid under the covers and cried, probably for hours. When my tears had subsided, it was dark out. My head had cleared and I was able to think though the possibilities.

God, I couldn't even take care of a goldfish! How could I be expected to raise a child? I was just a kid myself. All the money I had was for college. College. I had to go to college. I had to make something of myself. I saw what it did to my parents. They had my brother too young and ended up not going to college. They had to work long hours at their jobs to make ends meet, and my dad had to take two jobs when my mom left, up until Matt turned 16 and could get a job of his own. It hasn't been easy for my family. Every time one of us turned 16 we were expected to look for a job. We had to help support the family. That isn't exactly the case now, with Evan bringing in decent money through the pharmaceutical company, but I can't live off his income. I have to go to college. I'm going to be a lawyer. I haven't decided if I want to be a prosecutor or a defense lawyer, but either way I'll make enough to live on my own. It's the only way to get out of the house, this neighborhood. If I had a child, I wouldn't go to college. I know I'd plan to after the baby was born, but then I'd have to find affordable and reliable day care, which I couldn't afford. And I knew I wouldn't be able to find the effort to go back to school once the baby was old enough. I'd heard stories from people around town, family friends, who said they wished they had gone on to college right out of high school. They had lost their momentum too much to return after taking time off. I didn't want that to happen to me. If I had a baby and didn't continue my education, I'd fall into the same loop as my parents, only this time, I'd be all alone. At least my parents had each other. And I didn't want to bring a child into the world only to give it away.

Having to make such a difficult decision was made even more difficult without anyone to support me. Sure, I could go to my friends, but I couldn't face the shame of letting someone I knew and loved know that I had gotten pregnant out of carelessness. I didn't want them to look at me differently. And I certainly couldn't tell my father, it would devastate him. I was his angel, his only daughter. I looked up to my brothers too much to tell them. I couldn't handle my family's disappointment if they knew.

I could kick myself – I never should have had unprotected sex. I was so afraid if I didn't, I'd lose Chad. As it turned out, I lost him anyway.