"Adrienne!" Nate shouted gleefully as he finished his dessert, his brown crew-cut springing from his tanned skull. He patted his washboard stomach with his strong hands in appreaciation. "How I miss your cooking."

"I know you do," Adrienne replied gleaming as she placed the dirty dishes delicatley into the dishwasher.

"This pie is excellent, honey," John commented, a hearty, satisfied smile on his well-defined face and a smudge of chocolate resting on his cheek.

"Oh, Dear," Cindy sighed with a smirk as she wrenched her turtle-frame glasses from her face and placed them on the table. She licked her finger and reached over to the left to wipe the chocolate away.

"I can handle it," John informed his wife dully, dabbing at it with his napkin.

Three knocks at the door startled Cocoa from his sleep, barks escaping his mouth at full-speed. "That reminds me," Rina shouted over the barking. "Chris and Helena are coming over. We all have to talk."

"Thanks for the advanced notice," Cindy complained, fussing with her short hair. "I don't have a stitch of make-up on!"

"Mom, we've known them forever," Nate reminded her as he leaned back in his chair, a smile diffusing on his tan face, "They won't care."

Cindy shot her son a dirty look as Chris and Helena made their way from the door. "Helena, Chris," John greeted them, offering a seat on the couch. "Long time no see."

"I know," Helena replied with a gleaming smile, her short brown hair bounciing with every step. "I was just talking to Rina about that the other day."

"Pie anyone?" Cindy offered, scampering from the table and reaching for the extra plates.

"Oh, no thanks, Mrs. L," Chris declined politely, sitting on the couch next to his mother.

"So what calls for this reunion?" Nate asked, tossing hugs to Helena and Chris.

"We have to talk to you guys," Adrienne started, sitting on the couch next to Chris. Cindy joined her husband and son on the couch ajacent to Adrienne and Chris. Chris's hand glided to hers in a sneak attack. She smiled slightly and swallowed a hard knot into her stomach. "You all have to promise that you won't say anything until we are finished saying what we have to say, OK?"

"Of course," John replied, his eyes narrowed slightly and his arm around his meeker partner. Cindy's eyes were fixaded on the held hands of Adrienne and Chris, a curious twinkle arising in her eye, not knowing if it was welcomed or not.

"Well," Chris started, "We went to Erik's party...the party that I got in trouble because, Right Mom?...Anyway..."

As the story continued, the families eyes widened with utter shock and disbelief. Mouths were dropped and some were clenched in anger. John litterally bit his tounge as the details of their problem pelted his ears. Nate eyes looked like they were going to fall out of his head and splatter on the floor as he rested his head on the arm of the couch. Reality overcame shock Cindy as a tear leaked down her face. Helena just shook her head with distaste, not making eye contact with the two. The temperature rose in the room at least 5 degrees. Sighs and groans were released at will, but were pretty much caged inside like a rabid animal, fighting to get out. I think every one's spirit was shattered as they were doused heavily with this news. About 10 minuetes later, Hell was just relocated to Adrienne's apartment.

"...and this is where we are now," Adrienne sighed, whiping a single tear from her lashes with her index finger. Chris gazed at her, giving her a nodd to be proud of.

Silence...silence heavied the air like before a bomb is precipitated onto a city, destorying everything. "Well," Helena sighed exasperated, raising her eyes level with theirs, "I...really don't know what to say to you two."

"I do," John replied forcefully, absolute anger flairing in his pupils.

"John," Cindy begged, trying to control her husband, "Please..."

"No," John replied, tugging away from her. He stood up, trying to think of what to say thought his mind was a puddle of mush. His mammoth hands groped his face as his look spliced through Adrienne's spirit. Adrienne's hand was stuck to Chris's like a leech to an opened wound. "Responsibility..." John started as he paced in front of the coffee table. Nate let out a annoyed sigh, having heard this discussion a thousand times in his life and it solves nothing. Cindy hushed Nate boldly as John continued. "Some people take it for granted, like the youth of today. We give you so much freedom, so much resonsibility, the resonsibility that every teenager is entitled to and this happens...girls get pregnant, people get shot up, people get high, drunk, killed..." he let out a laugh, whiping the glistening sweat pouring from his brow with the back of his hairy hand, "It kills me...this stuff never used to happen in my day..."

"Dad," Nate interrupted rashly, his ears hearing enought of this bullshit, "This isn't 1970. Shit happens..."

"Excuse me?" John replied rashly, redirecting his attention and lethal eyes to Nate.

"Welcome to the real world," Nate continued heatedly, sitting up on the couch, hands clamed on both knees, "They made a mistake, like all people do. You're making them sound like they're ax-murderers."

"And you're brushing it off like it's nothing?? If we don't tell them what they did is wrong and unacceptable," John replied with a tone that could frighten the bravest warriors, slapping his hands together, "Who knows if it can happen again."

Adrienne couldn't take it anymore. She was clentching her teeth together so hard through this whole tiff that she thought they'd crack like brittle twigs. "Don't you think I know that it was wrong?!" Adrienne shrilled between her family's conversation, overpowering the mixed views. Her breathing has become breathing of a bull, hard and loud. She approached her father almost nose-to-nose with him. "Don't you think that every day for the past 6, 7 weeks I've regretted my poor judgement? My mistakes? The puke floating in the toilet and this unwelcomed mass in my stomach?! Dad, you're not the one with the child growing inside her and yes, I totally learned my lesson! A few times over, even! I don't need a fucking lecture on responsibility because I know I was unresponsible, we both were unresponsible. There's nothing we can do to change that...we can't turn back time..." Shock wandered on his face at his daughter's audacity, his head slightly cocked to the side and veins pertruding from his neck and temples.

"That's for sure," Helena replied annoyed, gazing over her shoulder and out into the deep endless sky.

Silence took over the room, trying to cool down its burners. John and Adrienne were in the middle of a staredown as if trying to melt each other's eyes with their glares of disdain. "So what are we going to do?" Cindy asked timidly.

"We can't kill it," Adrienne replied distastefully, throwing her eyes away from her father.

"Yeah," Chris replied with a tinge of fear, the first word out of him in a while, "That wouldn't be right."

"Keeping the baby would be right? You're actually thinking about KEEPING this baby?" John asked cooly, bringing some anger back into his body and peering at Adrienne. "Do you know how much responsibility..."

"I KNOW, DAD!" Adrienne shouted with all her might, steam almost pouring from her ears in rage. That word was like poison to her, wrenching her body helpless from her dad's rant. "RESPONSIBILITY...God, I slip up once and I'm scarred for life. I can't talk about this anymore. I can't listen to your emptyness." She turned away abruptly, her silent cries calling for Chris to follow her. Adrienne clutched her jacket off the kitchen counter, her family watching her closely and frightenly. She was like a wild animal, uncontrollable as she rampaged through the livingroom. Chris looked at her, open-mouthed as he tried to stay out of her deadly path as she thrusted the reamining plates on the table to the ground, clatters jumping through the apartment. Finally, Rina stormed out of the apartment with Chris at her side. She slammed the door boisterously, as a mirror hanging in the dinning room plummeted to the floor and...shattered.