Chapter Five:
My mood kind of lifted though when Taylor said he would stay behind with me.
“Baby, what’s up?” he said wrapping his arms around me.
“Nothing Taylor,” I replied shortly pulling away from his grasp.
“Emma, tell me what’s bothering you. You know you can tell me anything,” he said acting like he was telling me something I didn’t already know.
“I know Tay, but this is so important I don’t want to be wrong and I don’t want to be right,” I said letting the tear I had been holding back all morning fall onto Taylor’s knee.
“Em, I’ve already told you, if you’re pregnant we’ll take care of it,” he said once again reading my mind.
“Taylor if I am, do you know how much that messes up?”
”That doesn’t mess up much; we can go on the road with a baby and stuff we’ve done it before.”
”No Taylor, it messes up my dreams.” I hadn’t told him about being accepted to the academy or about making my portfolio or any of that.
“Why?” he asked simply not getting it.
“Look at my body! If I have a baby, this body is ruined I would never look like this again,” I said standing up making a point to draw attention to my body.
“You could definitely get your body back, if you had a baby it would in no way hurt what you look like,” Taylor said trying to comfort me, but for some reason for the first time it wasn’t working.
“Look at this,” I said putting the portfolio in his lap.
“What is it?” he asked me opening it up to the first page.
“A portfolio I’m making for the academy.”
He silently flipped through the pages lingering at each picture studying it. When he got the pictures of me in the different bathing suits his eyes got extremely big.
“Never seen these,” he simply said.
“Never showed you,” I replied back.
He came to the last picture of me in a wedding dress holding a single red rose. He stared at it for at least five minutes.
“You’re so beautiful. I can’t wait until I can see you in a wedding dress,” he said looking up at me.
“That might have to be soon,” I replied back putting a confused look on Tay’s face. “If I’m pregnant we have to get married, I won’t be a single unwed mother.”
”You wouldn’t be single and you won’t be unwed. Trust me, how long is it before you can take a pregnancy test?” he asked me, I guess he wanted to know as bad as I did.
“I have no idea. I want to talk to your mom about all of this, I want her to know. I can’t stand keeping secrets from her.”
“I know, but I can’t stand to think about the face she’s gonna make when we say ‘hey mom, we think Emma’s pregnant and we don’t know anything about anything except how to make the baby, can you come over here and teach us about some things’,” Taylor said making a very good impression of what the expression on his mother’s face would be after he said that.
“I know, but that’s better than waiting until you just can’t wait any longer. I want to talk to her Taylor. I don’t want to lose my body. I don’t want to disappoint you; I don’t want to rush into things. I just don’t want to make any decisions too hastily. I just don’t know if I know anything right now,” I said earning a warm embrace from my angel.
Just then the door to the bus was thrown open and the whole family basically herded in. Taylor brushed the tears away from my face, but not fast enough so that Diana didn’t see them.
“What’s wrong baby?” she asked coming over to me and rubbing my back.
“Mom, we need to talk to you,” Taylor said his voice kind of cracking like he was going to cry too. I just looked at him and he half smiled, but not enough to let me know he wanted to do this. He was just going to talk to her for me.
“Okay, let’s walk over to the venue and sit in the auditorium,” she said purposing a place I never would have thought of to go and talk.
We walked over somehow missing the crowd that was waiting outside for that night’s show.
We told her about our worries about me being pregnant and the whole time the expression on her face stayed patient and calm.
“You’re adults and I think you both can handle this, and you’re right. You do need to get married. If you are pregnant, Emma, this child should not be raised with unwed parents. You will have to get your own apartment you can’t live in my basement. And hey, let’s go and buy a pregnancy test right now and see,” Diana said, saying a statement that would bring a smile to most people’s faces, but it didn’t bring one to hers.
We went back to the bus and told everyone we were going out for a couple minutes. After turning everyone down to come with us and being reminded by Walker that Taylor had to be back for sound check at 5 o’clock we got in the van that the Warner Theater had leant us for the day and headed for the drug store.
We quickly bought what we needed and headed back to the bus.
When we got there we were greeted with some quick “Wow, that didn’t take long,” and, “you didn’t buy me any candy?” I ignored the comments and headed straight for the bathroom and took the test. It took three minutes for the result and for the time I was waiting I locked myself in the bathroom ignoring Taylor as he was banging on the door for me to let him in and Diana telling me it was okay to let them both in.
The three minutes passed slowly, but they passed and the results finally came up on the little plastic piece.
It was positive. I was pregnant.
“Oh God why?” I heard myself sob out.
“Emma, honey let me in,” I heard Taylor say softly through the door. I reached up from the sitting position I had slid into on the floor and unlocked the door.
“I’m sorry baby I didn’t mean to ruin your life,” he said taking the test from me looking at it and then pulling me up into his lap and basically rocking me.
“I don’t want a baby, I’m not going to be a good mom, I have dreams of my own, and I’m too selfish to have a baby. I don’t want it Taylor. Take it away,” I sobbed into his shoulder.
“I’m sorry Em, I can’t take it away,” he cried with me.
“But you gave it to me, why can’t you take it back and exchange it for something else like a necklace or something?” I was being hysterical and irrational; I just didn’t know what was going on.
“I wish I could sweetie, but I just can’t. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he was being sincere, but he wanted a kid, he had no idea how I felt.
“I still love you though,” I said through sobs hoping he hadn’t forgotten.
“I still love you too, but please don’t get rid or our baby. Please,” Taylor asked and when he said “get rid,” he kind of cringed like he was afraid that was something I was going to do. Just to save my body.
I wouldn’t sacrifice mine and his child just for my body. He was right I could get my body back; I never had to work very hard for my figure so maybe it wouldn’t be that hard to get it back. Maybe having Taylor’s baby wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.
“I promise I won’t,” I said raising up my head and smiling at Taylor. I could just imagine us getting married and then having a baby.
He smiled back, a real smile, we were happy. Just then his dad knocked on the door.
“Taylor we need to go down to sound check. Now,” he said sounding kind of agitated.
“Coming dad,” Taylor said while I stood up and he got up with me.
I kissed him and he kissed me back.
“This won’t be a bad thing; this was just our kick into reality. We needed something to do that for us. We had to stop being kids sometime,” he said opening up the door.
I tossed the test into the trash can and grabbed his hand and we walked out together. We met Diana first thing and she must have seen our blood shot eyes from crying because she lost it.
“You can’t be, oh no. Please tell me no. Oh why is my baby growing up? Oh Lord why?” We just both put a hand on her arm.
“Diana, yes,” I said looking joyfully into her eyes.
“We had to grow up sometime mom, we can handle it. I’ve got to go. Bye,” Taylor said kissing me and then his mom.
“Talk to you later,” I said much happier than I had been an hour earlier.
Email: hshanson09@yahoo.com
Kick into reality...