"Rilla!" I hear my name being called as I have my head in my locker so I turn closing the door I lock my lock.

"Oh! Hey," I say brightly as I see Olivia. "What's up?" I ask her with a smile.

"Well, I was wondering the new Thor is playing, since Chris Hemsworth is a total babe? Do you want to head into the city and see it tonight since it's a cheap night?" She asked me wringing her hands as if she was nervous.

"Uhh, I'll see what my parents say," I tell her and watching her instantly regret asking me to hang out. "I'm not sure if I have money for the movies, but I might be able to come to your place. Or you can come to mine to watch a movie if you want?"

"Oh okay," Olivia said her face brighten up that I wasn't rejecting her. "Let me know what your parents say," she says. "I finally got a new phone, what's your number?"

"Oh, that's good!" I said and rattled off the number, and heard it ping in my backpack. "I'll ask my mom before the next period. You do realize that I am the principal's daughter?"

"I guessed somewhat, same last name, hair?" Olivia grinned. "It's fine, as long you are fine my mom who will most likely want to paint you being an artist that she is"

"My dad is a doctor," I tell her. "He's a general practitioner and surgeon at the hospital in Charlottetown."

"Sounds fancy," Olivia said in awe. I merely shrug.

"They are still normal parents," I shrug, "If anything I can't hide anything from them."

"Oh good point there," Olivia nodded her head. "Hey! Do you have a spare tampon?"

"Let me see?" I say turning back to my still open locker and dug around my backpack. I was pretty sure I put some in when school started, of course, I ended not needing them. I find the small bag and let her take what she wants from it.

"Thanks," she said pocketing it. "Isn't it the worst when it comes out of nowhere?"

"Try getting it in the middle of dance class in a white leotard?" I tell her. "Though I do hear the only thing worse than getting it is not getting it at all," I add one trying to gauge what her reaction might be one day when my secret is out in the open.

"I suppose that can be true," Olivia said as we finally headed to class. "Not that I have much to worry about that. Completely single, though my ex and I got to third base once." She said quietly giggling. I laugh with her but don't offer any of my own experience as we rush to get to our classes.

I stop by the office before I head home, I point to my mother's office and the secretary nods to me and I knock politely on the door waiting to be called in.

"Rilla," Mom looked up. "I'm working late today."

"I know," I say. "Olivia wants to hang out, is it all right if she comes over after dinner for a few hours?" I'm quietly pleading with her request. "She's new and all, it would be nice to make her feel welcome?"

"Rilla," my mother starts, unsure of what to say to my request.

"Please, we'll just hang out in the basement and watch a movie? Don't you always tell us to be nice to the new kids?" I tell her.

"Fine, as long as long as her parents say it is all right." My mom gives in. "Does she know?"

I find myself shaking my head.

"You might want to tell her before, well before she finds out from someone else?" She told me as if she knew from the experience of what it was like. Then again she most likely did, she didn't talk about her senior year of high school much. The only person who gave us any sight was Aunt Diana whenever she came to visit often teased my mother about the good old high school days. She was my mother's oldest friend and had three children who were between the ages of Joy and Jem.

I only nod my head. "I need to stop by the library for a book for my English project that due in a few weeks," I explain and she waves me off.

"I'll see you at five then," she tells me as her phone rings.

When I reached home I found a note taped to the fridge.

'Got called in for an emergency. Dad/Gil'

He always signed his name as such, just encase Mom read the not first. I opened the fridge and grabbed the container of carrots.

"How little sister today?" I heard Shirley speak before I saw him. His curly brown hair pushed back what I can only assume is his girlfriend's glittery cat-eared headband. He was shirtless and wearing a pair of grey sweatpants. I almost half expected his girlfriend to pop up randomly.

"Still pregnant," I tell him sarcastically. "Can't you latest put on a shirt, I'm not Arwyn," I tell him.

"She prefers Wynnie," Shirley said gruffly as he grabbed the peanut butter and loaf of sourdough. "You know you don't have to leave the room whenever she's around. She thinks you don't like her?"

"I'm nice to her!" I exclaim. "It's not my fault that I don't like whatever the book series you both seem to like when she's around?" I object.

"Game of Thrones Rilla," My brother tells me as if he's chastising me. "It's not that hard to remember. Unless that pregnancy of yours already is affecting your brain."

"You know I would expect a joke like that from Jem," I tell him. "Maybe even Di, but it's not like I went out expecting this to happen," I tell him crossing my arms.

"Well, when you come clean about who the father is. Maybe them I'll give you a break," Shirley said smirking as he bit into his sandwich he had been making. "Want a bite?" He asked offering me his sandwich.

"No, Thank you," I tell him as I bite on my baby carrot.

"You sure because carrots aren't going to be your friend forever," Shirley told me with an eye roll.

"I just don't see the point of eating empty calories when dinner is soon enough," I tell him justifying my snack to him. "Plus I have my soy milk." I hold up my juice box-sized beverage.

"Because I'm hungry, and I thought Dad wanted you drinking more dairy?" Shirley told me with a look. I make a face at Shirley, him calling me out of my avoidance of actual milk. "I see you scribble what you eat in that journal. I'm not blind like mom or dad."

"There is nothing wrong with keeping a food journal," I stress to him.

"If you say so," Shirley said sarcastically to me. His phone went off and he looked at it and smiled as he shoved his sandwich into his mouth. "I have a date tonight," he said grinning.

I made a face, wondering how any girl could date him.

I make time pass by tidying the basement and my room for Olivia to come over before dinner. My phone pings every once in a while and I sink on my bed in my room just as Walter pops up to say hello, and not a moment FaceTime goes off. Walter doesn't know yet I didn't want to ruin his trip and mom and dad hadn't mentioned it to him. At the same time, the chances of seeing Ken around him was too much a possibility and if Ken asks questions or comes clean to Walter. It isn't a good thought.

I answer trying to school my face when it been long enough.

"Walter!" I exclaim plastering a smile on my face as his face graces my screen. It tan and his grey eyes are vivid. His hair is longer than I have ever seen it. He looks happy.

"Rilla-my-Rilla!" he says back to me. "Your face is a sight to behold," he said.

"I can't wait to see you," I say quietly.

"I am looking forward to being home as well for the holidays, and then back to Kingsport of course," he says. "The nutcracker must be in rehearsals by now," he says. "I can't wait to see you in it."

"Actually, I'm not in it this year," I tell him quietly.

"What do you mean did you get hurt?" He frowned before I hear someone call him and it sounds an awful lot like Ken. "Sorry but apparently supposed to go out for a drink, can I call you tomorrow?" He asked.

I sigh, my face falling, I shake my head. "I'm at work tomorrow," I tell him. "Go have fun, love you," I tell him.

"Love you to Sis," he says and I toss my phone aside. I sigh as I rub my hand over my stomach.

"I really don't know what I'm doing," I say quietly out loud. "But I promise to at least try my best little one, no matter what happens after you're born." I grab my phone once more, and I see that Walter's call hadn't closed properly. I have a moment of panic wondering if Walter had heard me but it didn't seem like it as if he had. If he had, he would be calling back for clarification. I don't have time to think of it as Mom is calling me for dinner.

Olivia rings the doorbell at 6:30 as we were just finishing loading the dishwasher. "I got it," I tell them. Olivia is standing there with a bag that appears to be movie candy.

"Welcome to my home," I say let her in, watching her kick off her shoes and place them nicely next to all the others.

"It's big," She says which I don't really agree with, but with seven kids space always seemed limited. There were larger houses on our street though.

"Well, at one point there were seven of us kids at home," I explain simply pointing to the last family photo that contained all of us kids. "That Joy she's the oldest, then there is Jem. Walter is the one with dark hair. Di and Nan are twins, Di is the redhead of the two. Shirley is next and then me, the youngest." I tell her as I lead her into the Kitchen where mom and dad were going on about their schedule for that week.

"Uhh, this is Olivia," I introduce my friend. "We'll be down in the basement watching a movie if that's okay?"

"Of course, It's nice to see you Olivia," Mom steps closers to us.

"You as well Principal Blythe," Olivia said quietly as she looks around the kitchen. The fridge full of magnetics and photos, in those, was one solo ultrasound photo that Joy had stuck to the fridge. Her way of trying to not let us ignore the situation.

"Oh just call me Anne, everyone does at home," She told Olivia with a wave of her hand and looked at the bag of snacks. "Do you need any bowls, drinks?" My mom asks,

"I think we'll be okay," Olivia told her. "It's mostly some chocolate chip cookies, and meringue clouds and a few things of chocolate." She explained. "I know Rilla doesn't eat much candy."

I watched my father take in Olivia or the fact that I actually had a friend over. Or maybe it was the fact that she thinks I will eat anything other than vegetables. "Well, don't make yourselves sick," he said. "Nice to meet you, Olivia." He said.

"You as well Dr. Blythe. Thank you for allowing me to come over.," Olivia says politely. I nudge her towards the basement staircase wanting to escape my parents.

We settle down on the old sectional and ended up choosing one of the old barbie princess movies from my old collection. Nostalgia at its finest, as we both laughed at our old fascination with Barbie.

I watched it as I nibbled on a meringue, it was soft and pillowy in the middle, swirled with some raspberry sauce. Olivia was eating the chocolate chip cookies with a look of bliss on her face. I watched her rather jealous of how she seemed to never regret eating something if it gave her some sort of joy.

"How long have you been dancing?" She asked me curiously when the movie finished.

"I think I started when I was about three?" I answer thinking about it. "I had so much energy that it just gave me an outlet. I started taking it seriously when I turned about ten. All I wanted was to be on pointe to be like all the dancers I saw on stage." I explained and motioned for her to follow me to another portion of the rec room. "My own little studio," I explain to her.

"Do you go through a lot of point shoes?" She asked looking at my pile of dead shoes in the corner.

"About two or three a month depending on how much I dance, I don't think this year will be many," I tell her honestly.

"Are you injured?" A look of horror as the thought of an injured dancer crossed her mind.

"No," I shake my head and motion to sit down on the floor with me.

"It's a bit more complicated than that," I tell her to with a sigh. "This may change your mind about being my friend."

"I doubt that," Olivia brow furrows trying to understand why I was worried. I shrug off my oversized sweater so I am just wearing my t-shirt.

"The school uniform hides it fairly well," I said as I turned in and looked in the mirror.

"You had too many tacos for dinner?" She asked making a joke still not understanding.

"I got drunk at a party this summer," I start, watching her expression change. "I met this guy and ended up," I tell her, motioning the word sex to her in the air.

"You think I will stop being your friend if you're pregnant?" She asked me with a strange look on her face.

"I'm preparing for it to happen. Who wants to be friends with the laughing stock of the school?" I tell her quietly.

"The photo on the fridge?" Olivia asked piecing it together.

"My sister Joy put that there," I tell her. "I am not my parent's favourite child at the moment. It's her way of trying to make them remember and well, not ignore the situation. It's not everyone's favourite topic here. The fact that you're allowed to be here right now is well an achievement."

"Your parents must have been young when they started having children?" Olivia asked thinking back to Joy's picture.

"Mom had Joy at eighteen," I reply. "They gave us one rule growing up."

"To not get pregnant in high school?" Olivia said with a small knowing smile. It felt nice to talk about it. "I think most homes have that rule actually, maybe not to an extreme that your parents may have enforced it."

"Apparently it didn't do much, or they just got so used to compliant kids that they just thought it wouldn't happen. I was the good kid who only wanted to dance, rarely dated." I tell her as I laid down on the floor.

"What do you plan on doing?" Olivia asked me quietly.

"Well, much to my parent's dismay, keep it," I respond. "Which is insane since I don't know anything about babies, but I just couldn't, I couldn't fathom doing anything else?" I say even more quietly.

"What about the father?"

"It's complicated, he's not from around here. I know who he is, of course, I tried reaching out and well, got nothing back so I'm not entirely sure what to do. I'm obviously someone he regrets but he deserves to know." I explain to the best of my ability without mention Ken at all. Suddenly my all my resolved crack as I feel a sob bubble up in my chest as tears burned my eyes.

I barely noticed Olivia scooting closer and pulled me into a hug, as I cried. I spent so much time pretending to be fine, to be okay with everything happening that I even forgot how much it wasn't.

It was my dad who came down the stairs when I cried for more than five minutes. "Everything all right down here?" He asked.

Olivia looked up at him as I hiccuped and only nodded to him. We sat quietly as he headed back up the stairs. I can hear him say something to mom quietly.

"Would you teach me some dance?" Olivia asked trying to make me feel better. As I wiped my face with my nearby sweater.

"What size are your feet?" I ask her.

"Size 8," She said and I look through a pile of flat shoes.

"These should fit you," I tell her. "They are new," I add on as I grab a pair of beat-up split soles and pull them on.

I go through a simple child-friendly warm-up not to overwork her. I correct her when needed.

"You still do this every day?" Olivia asked wiping sweat from her forehead.

"I need to," I nod my head. "Dance class isn't as it was. Some of the girls are catching on since I'm regulated mostly to the barre and I'm not in the Christmas showcase. But they are nice about it I suppose. I think they know something is going on since I've been wearing baggy sweaters over my leotard."

Olivia nods her head at me. "Are you worried about them or school?"

"School more than ballet," I say honestly. "Though I should be able to hide it for a while yet from school."

"What's it like to be on pointe?" She asked curiously.

"Painful at first, but you get used to it," I tell her honestly.

I sit back down and grab a pair that seemed to have a bit of life still left in them. I fit myself with spacers and my toe pads before I slip my feet into the shoes and tie them quickly.

I stand up and grasping the barre, I roll up onto pointe. I pose for her, before some poses before going to bourrees( tiny steps taken on pointe with feet close together) travelling back and forth on the floor. My arms moving to imaginary music, I finish with a pirouette before bowing to her.

"It's magical," Olivia said in amazement.

"It's just practice," I flush brushing her off, I sit back down and tug off my point shoes. "Want to head upstairs to my room?"

"Sure," Olivia says as she slips on her socks once more. We gather up the sweets that I had only nibbled on. She walked up the stairs, and I showed her more of the house as we went up to the second floor.

"When are you due?" She asks as she brings out her phone.

"May 6th, " I tell her as we sit on my bed. "I'm sixteen weeks, in my second trimester." She spends another minute on google.

"Well, the baby is as big as an avocado, which I know you love," She said. "It can also suck its thumb now," she told me. "Though I'm sure you know that."

I shake my head. "I didn't, I haven't allowed myself to really think much about it. Let alone try and be excited about anything," I tell her honestly.

Her face sobers slightly as she nods her head understanding. "Which is understandable, you never set out for this after all?"

"Sometimes I wonder if I had been allowed to go to ballet school, or if I hadn't been some intent of trying to be cool if this still would have happened? If I hadn't dated Fred Arnold last spring, yeah I dated him." I admit to her. "The complete idiot who only talks about sports the year above us. But he was popular and he decided he liked me and I thought I liked him, loved him even. In the end, it was just a ploy to get me into his bed and it worked."

"What happened?" Olivia frowned.

"He got jealous when I spent more time dancing than with him. Then when I told him I was going to summer intensive for dance he got angry. Clearly, dance was subpar to his summer party schedule," I shrug. "We fought, we broke up and I went to summer intensive. Besides this one's father, he's the only other one and it's not like he tried to make it worth my while." I tell her. "The first time he was sweaty from hockey practice," I make a grossed-out face which Olivia copies. "I was going to ask my mom to go on the pill after the third time, but we broke up before I did."

"Doesn't seem like you look back fondly on the experience?" My friend asked carefully. I shrug in response thinking quietly for a moment.

"I suppose I could have told him to shove it when he kept asking, bugging me about it. I guess he just wore me down? I don't think anything bad happened, it's not like he raped me anything. I said yes and we were safe, though apparently, that didn't matter with this one." I sigh poking my stomach. "I mean I can wonder at all the scenarios, what if I never did it, would I still have allowed myself to follow him to the tent?" I say with a sigh.

"Sometimes things just happen," Olivia says in a way that I can hear Aunt Marilla saying the same thing but adding God into the mix.

"Girls, it's nine o'clock," Mom says from the bottom of the stairs.

"Do you need a ride?" I look to Olivia who shook her head, checking her phone.

"My brother is on his way," She told me. "This was fun, and Rilla your secret is safe with me but if you ever need to talk. Just text me." She tells me and I nod my head and she hugs me.

I walk her to the door, watching her get into her brother's car, waving before pulling away. I wave back before deciding to go take a shower. I hum to myself as I wash my hair, detangling the curls with a wide-tooth comb as the conditioner soaks in. Stepping out I wrap a towel around my body before I get to work on styling my hair. Which was a process of creams and scrunching out the moisture with one of Jem's old tee-shirts. I pull on my pyjamas before heading back to my room.

I grab my phone from the charger, frowning as I see an unknown number as a missed call. There was no voicemail either so I shrugged deciding it was most likely a wrong number.

"Olivia seems nice," Mom says as she comes up to check on me as I am writing in my journal.

"She is," I say looking up.

"Well, don't stay up too late." She says part of her looks like she wants to tuck me in like old times or curl up on my bed to read together as we used to. Instead, she lingers in the doorway, unsure how to approach me since I admitted I was pregnant to them.

"I won't," I tell her.

She nods her head before closing my door halfway and going back downstairs. I sigh and look down at my journal. Pencilling in my evening snacks, deciding I would need a good workout and a healthy eating day. I could do some stretches at the dance shop tomorrow I decided before closing it.

I shut off my lamp as I hug my large body pillow before I grab my phone once more. Out of lack of self-control as I type Ken's name into Facebook.

'In a relationship with Maggie McCallum'

I toss the phone aside, wishing I had never seen what he had been tagged in.

I hope everyone is enjoying the story, please let me know if you are!

Tina.