The second Saige arrived home she raced to her bedroom and slammed the door. Jessica was confused as to her behaviour, but thankfully she let it slide. She quickly read the instructions on the back of the box and decided to move into the bathroom.
Praying that she would go unnoticed, she opened her door and crept down the hall to the bathroom. She could hear her mother talking to Eric as soon as she opened her door.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Jessica complained, “She’s been acting so strangely since she got back.”
“She’s selfish,” Eric concluded, “What’s to understand?”
Saige grit her teeth as she closed and locked the bathroom door. Selfish my ass, she thought angrily. One of these days she was going to strangle that man.
“Oh be quiet, Eric.” Jessica groaned.
Once she was safely locked away in the bathroom, Saige read over the instructions again and opened the package.
Aidan groaned and rubbed his eyes as the bright sunlight broke through the trees and in through his window. The light made his head pound and his eyes burn, so he turned over and tried to hide his face in his pillow.
“WAKE UP AIDAN!”
“Ah!” Aidan jumped and rolled out of bed in shock. He opened his eyes slowly and saw Zeke standing over him with a big grin on his face.
“What are you smiling about?” Aidan grumbled.
“How ya feeling, buddy?” Zeke chuckled.
Aidan glared at him, “Hung over, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to sleep.” He started to crawl back into his bed.
“Oh no you don’t, Aidan!” Zeke grabbed his arm, “We are going to find your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Aidan muttered into his pillow.
“What was that?”
“I said…”
“Oh never mind,” Zeke sighed. He pulled Aidan out of the bed and onto the floor and started flashing the lights on and off. “It’s time to get up! The administrator will go nuts if he figures out where we were last night.”
“Oh well,”
“And then you’ll be under house arrest. And you’ll never see daylight again.”
“Right now that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing…”
“Or Saige either.”
Aidan growled but finally got up off the floor. “I hate you,” He said to Zeke as he stumbled down the hall to the bathroom.
“That’s the spirit!”
“Saige…?” Jessica tapped anxiously on the door to her daughter’s room. She’d heard Saige come running out of the bathroom minutes ago and now she could hear sobbing from inside. “Saige what’s wrong?”
Saige wailed from inside and covered her head wither pillow.
“Saige, I want to help you but you’ll have to tell me what’s wrong!” Jessica begged, “Please,” Finally, the door opened, but Saige did not come out. Instead she threw something outside and slammed the door shut again.
Jessica looked down at the peculiar device and picked it up. It took her less than a second to realize what it was and what it meant.
A pregnancy test; and the tiny window was coloured bright blue.
“Oh god…” She didn’t hesitate to enter the room.
Saige sat on the bed with her legs crossed, hugging her pillow tightly against her chest. He head was bent over the pillow, her face buried in it, and her blonde hair hung around her face like a veil.
Jessica sat down next to her on the bed and wrapped her arms around her. Saige was shaking with bitter tears.
“Was it that boy?” Jessica asked, “You can tell me.”
“God I hope so…” Saige sobbed.
“What?”
“Mom…if its not then that means…that means its his.”
“Whose?”
“The man who kidnapped us…” She choked when she tried to say his name, so she gave up and dropped her face into the pillow again.
Jessica hugged her daughter tightly, and Saige gladly fell against her. She didn’t care anymore about showing weakness to her mother. She needed her, no matter how much her mother didn’t understand her.
“I don’t understand Saige… why do you like that boy so much?”
“His name is Aidan, mom!” Saige snapped. “And I like him because he got me out of that place! He was my friend. The only person who’s ever been kind to me since dad left!”
“Saige…”
“He…he saved my life…” She blinked back a few more tears and tried not to think about what was going on. She tried not to think of the new life growing inside her. Because every time she thought about it, she could feel it. And she started to relive what Edgar had done to her. And she thought, What if it really is Edgar’s…?
“Oh mom…” She shuddered, “What am I going to do?”
Jessica gnawed on her lip for a moment before she answered. “First, we’re going to a doctor to confirm this. Then, if you really are…you know…you’ll have to decide what to do with it.”
“Mom? You want me to decide…?”
“Of course! Saige, this is your child.” She winced at the words. “I don’t agree with abortion, but if that’s what you do, I’ll pay for it.”
“You…you will…?”
“I will. I’ll help you in any way that I can.”
“I don’t…I don’t want it if it’s Edgar’s…I can’t stand the thought of having a piece of him inside of me…” She broke down again.
“I know you don’t baby…” Jessica smiled weakly and hugged Saige tightly. She stroked back her hair and rocked her gently as Saige broke down into another fit of tears. “I need Aidan,” She whimpered.
Jessica frowned. “I don’t know if I’m ready for you to…”
“Mom!” Saige cut her off. “This isn’t about you! This is about me, and don’t you dare accuse me of being selfish! It’s the truth! For once in your life please, just sit and listen to me.” Saige pleaded with her mother. “I need you to take me to see him. We can…we can go to get tests to see if it’s his, right?”
“Saige, he’s a sick boy. He raped you, and he wasn’t raised properly…”
“Neither was I!” Saige shrieked.
“Saige!”
“Face it mom, you were a rotten mother! And dad was a horrible father! Whenever I wanted something to fulfill my needs you told me I was selfish! And if that’s what it is, then I’m going to be selfish now! You don’t even know the whole story! No one does…”
“Then tell me Saige, for Christ’s sake! Just tell me what I did wrong!” Jessica screamed back. “Why do you hate me?”
“Because you’re the only one I can blame! Everybody else would have left me by now! And if it weren’t for you, Aidan would still be with me! Mom, I know you can’t understand this, but please try. My entire life I’ve never known anything but people walking away from me. Aidan was the only person who never has. He…there was a time when he could have walked right out of there, and gotten out of that hell on his own. But he came back for me; he wouldn’t leave me. He was the only thing that kept me going. It was so nice to have someone constant; someone to rely on. And now you’ve taken him away from me. That’s why I hate you.”
Saige finally looked up and her mother and saw with some shock that she had tears in her eyes. “Saige…I had no idea you felt that way…about everything. God, I’ve been so preoccupied with my own life that I’ve forgotten about you.”
“What about Aidan…?”
Jessica paused for a long time… “Maybe he’s not so bad…” She said finally, “I’ll tell you what.” She offered, “I’ll take you to see him on one condition…”
“What?” Saige gasped, “Anything!”
“You are going to have to help support this baby. I can only do so much Saige. You get a job, an interview at least, and we’ll go see Aidan.”
Saige’s eyes widened and she leapt on her mother and engulfed her in a suffocating hug. “Oh mom I love you!” she squealed.
Saige worked until 1 AM that night preparing a resume and looking for potential employment, and by the next day she had an entire list of places to go.
She talked to her mother, and she agreed to drive her around, after they went to the doctor’s to confirm her pregnancy. The idea of going there and having everyone know that she was sixteen and pregnant was unnerving, but the thought of seeing Aidan again was enough to see her through.
They waited only ten minutes before the doctor called them in. “This will only take a few minutes, miss, and we can have the results in an hour.” He smiled warmly at Saige. “Now if you’ll just lie back and put your feet in the stirrups…would you like your mother to leave the room?”
“Its no problem if you’re embarrassed, sweetie…” Jessica told her.
“No! You have to stay with me mom.” Saige begged. Jessica nodded and sat down, keeping a firm grip on Saige’s hand through the entire test. When it was finished the doctor smiled again and told them to go sit in the waiting room, or return in an hour for the results.
Saige chose to wait, since she could barely get her legs to carry her any farther than the waiting room anyway.
She sat there for an eternity, until her butt went numb. She watched the hands of the clock move slowly across its face. It was an hour and twenty minutes before they were called back in.
Jessica gripped Saige’s hand as they re-entered the room. Saige’s palms were sweating, and her fingers shook with anxiety so much that she couldn’t grip back.
The doctor appeared reading through his notes. “Well, Miss Mathers,” He looked at her very seriously, “All the tests came back positive. You are going to have a baby.”
