Author's Notes: Awww. I didn't mean to make you cry (or almost cry), but I'm glad I made it emotional enough. I suck at writing sad stuff so I'm glad you thought it was.
Warning: This chapter contains some discussion that might not be appropriate for younger readers. Nothing worse than last chapter, though. It's not really that bad, but I still felt like I should put a warning, so again, if this offends you, don't read!
Again, a song inspired me to write this chapter, and it would be "Quicksand" by Natalie Walker. Have you ever heard it? If not, I recommend you listen to it; it's a great song!
Like I promised, this chapter is pretty long. 'N-joy!
Scipio had been wrong about many things in his life, but this time, he was right, or partly right, anyway: Elaine was angry.
She didn't want to hate Scipio. She loved him, she really did. But as the days turned into weeks and she saw no sign of him, sadness turned into anger...
Eventually turning into a boiling, bubbling hate.
Everyone else - that is, Prosper, Hornet, Mosca, Bo, and Riccio - were simply confused by his absence and hoped that nothing bad had happened to him. Deep down, Elaine hoped he was okay, too, but the anger she felt at Scipio buried it somewhere in her heart and it rarely came back up.
Why had he left? Two weeks ago, Elaine had been asking herself the same question, but for a different reason. Then, she'd thought it was something wrong with her. And even though she still thought somewhere along the same lines, it was different now: What was wrong with Scipio?
He had saved her life, then become her best friend, then slept with her, and then left. And he hadn't even come back to apologize, or explain, or anything. And that, in Elaine's opinion, made him a "back-stabbing bastard."
Deep down, she knew she still loved him. She was just starting to learn about how confusing that word could be. Love. How was it possible to love and hate someone at the same time? She didn't know. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know, but she kept finding herself thinking insulting thoughts about him and yet daydreaming about each and every one of his wonderful characteristics at the same time...
In the meanwhile, however, something had arisen to distract herself from Scipio, or at least temporarily: she had come down with some sort of...fever. She wasn't really sure what to call it. Elaine constantly felt sick to her stomach, sweaty, and, worst of all, she seemed to vomit all the time. In the mornings, afternoons, evenings, and sometimes, even in the middle of the night. None of the others seemed to be sick, but then again, she had always been a somewhat sickly kind of person.
Another thing was that she always had to go to the bathroom. It came to a point where, even in public, she couldn't be ten feet away from a bathroom to feel comfortable.
In between dashes to the bathroom, Elaine felt ravenous. The odd thing was that, even when she was absolutely starving, just looking at any kind of food made her feel sick to her stomach. And then, when she managed to get it down, it was straight back to the bathroom sink when it came back up.
Hornet thought it was a fever also, but the thermometer said that Elaine's body temperature was fine. Hornet looked through every medical book she had, but nothing could explain what was happening to Elaine.
They just couldn't figure it out.
At one point, Hornet even said that if she got any worse, they might have to take her to the doctor. Elaine knew they couldn't afford it, so she felt rather guilty when Hornet said this, but she knew that, if she really did get worse, it would be their only choice. Even so, she would only turn to it as a very last resort.
One thing was for sure, though: Elaine had gotten a lot more emotional. One day, when Prosper and Riccio were having a rather pointless argument about how the weather was getting warmer and they'd have to figure out a way to make the Stella cooler ("We'd have to install some kind of air conditioning system, Prop, and you know we can't afford that!" "I never said that, Riccio!") she promptly burst into tears. And then everyone and everything seemed to get on her nerves: Riccio chewing his fingernails, Mosca loudly twiddling with the radio, Bo singing some gibberish song, and on and on and on...After a while, she simply was in a bad mood all the time and snapped at everyone who dared to annoy her in any way whatsoever.
Maybe it was Scipio. Elaine wasn't sure. But he seemed to just be everywhere, even when she didn't want to think about him: when her mind wasn't full of garbage that didn't even matter, she thought of him. When she and the others went shopping, she thought of him. When she was alone and the Stella was quiet, she thought of him. And even when she was tossing and turning in her bed at night, she dreamt of him.
He just wouldn't get out of her head.
One afternoon, Elaine was sipping on a cup of water and staring at the wall, thinking back to Scipio and that night. God. She'd been so stupid. They both had been. And now he was gone, just because of her stupid decisions, and she was a sick, moody bitch all the damn time. What was she, ----?
The cup of water fell to the floor with a crash. Bits of glass flew everywhere, and the floor was bathed in water. Elaine's eyes were wide, her heart beating a mile a minute.
No fucking way...
"Hornet?" she called upstairs a moment later. Her voice sounded odd, high-pitched, to her. "I'm going to the store. I need to get something. I'll be back soon."
She didn't wait for the muffled "Okay." Instead, she was already grabbing some money off of the table at the foot of the stairs and running out the door, stuffing it in her pocket as she went.
"Scipio, we need to talk." The harsh, gruff voice of his father reached Scipio's ears at a low pitch, and he could tell he meant business. Scipio looked up from his spaghetti, which he had been twirling absentmindedly on the end of his fork for the past few minutes.
"Yes, Father?" he asked. The word sounded strange and tasted bitter on his tongue, but he knew it was the only way to avoid getting yelled at for disrespecting him later during the night.
"You've been acting rather strange lately," his father responded, his voice slow and dangerous, "and I was wondering if anything was...wrong."
"No, I'm fine," Scipio answered, a little too quickly. His father suspiciously looked across the table at him, and he felt like he was being X-Rayed.
"I was hoping," he continued, as though Scipio had not just responded, "that whatever is...upsetting you would not interfere with your studies, but your teachers tell me it has." He leaned over slightly, and Scipio thought he could smell whiskey on his breath. Oh, God.
"Are you turning into one of those looneys, eh, boy? Do we need to take you to the doctor?"
"N-no..."
"You will treat me with RESPECT when I'm talking to you!" his father roared, and Scipio recoiled as though he had slapped him.
"Yes, sir."
"Now, if I hear of another act of stupidity that you have done from your teachers, Scipio, you'll wish you'd have never been born. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. The Massimo family name will not be frowned upon because of you."
Scipio stared back down at his plate, his appetite now completely gone. He suddenly wished Elaine was there to hug him like she always did, to cheer him up, but he'd ended that all because of that dumb mistake he'd made two weeks ago. No, Elaine and himself were definitely not friends or...well...much of anything any more.
It was torture, waiting in that awfully long line. Elaine craned her neck to see how many people were ahead of her only to discover, to her dismay, that she was tenth in line.
Great. Now she'd have to wait even longer than she thought.
Once she had finally gotten out of that long line, Elaine ran down street after street in a rush to get to the Stella. She threw open the door to the bathroom and opened her purchase. The next few moments passed agonizingly slow. She didn't think that she had ever been so nervous in her life. Finally, after a few moments, she opened her eyes...
And nearly fainted.
Elaine had heard of these things being wrong before, but there it was, as clear as glass. In that moment, because of that little pink plus sign, she knew that she, Elaine Vieri, was pregnant.
Author's Notes: DUN DUN DUN!!!!!! Hehe, now I'm going to be hated because of that cliffhanger, but it was probably predictable anyway. Next chapter should be up very soon, though, so you won't have to wait that long to see what happens.
I struggled a bit with this chapter, because I wasn't sure if I wanted it to turn out like this or not, but in the end, I decided to go for it. I hope you're not too disappointed with it, but that is just how the story will go.
Review, please!