"I know that I haven't kept in contact with you, but I have missed you. I just want you to stay with me for awhile, you can go back to school, and I’ll take care of you." Brian paused for a breath and took a sip of his cold coffee. Patrice opened her mouth to speak but Brian started to talk again. "I know that you might hate me, but give me a chance, I won't disappoint you twice." He said hoping that he might have reached her. Patrice turned her back to him again and cried quietly while Brian looked on. He needed a break. He got up and explored the rest of the house while Patrice slowly cried herself to sleep. He looked around her bedroom and smiled a little when he saw his calendar hung on her wall. He looked around a little longer and noticed a shoebox in a corner of the room. He looked out of her bedroom and caught a glimpse of Patrice sleeping soundly. He decided to do a little snooping.
He picked the box up off the floor and lay across Patrice's bed. When he opened the box he found pictures of him and Patrice. He looked at some of them and smiled at the memories. He picked up a picture of him and Patrice after they had given themselves to each other. His mother took it after they came back from Patrice's house. He remembered being so scared that her mother would catch them that he could barely perform. He remembered her willingness as he took her innocence. That was the last picture taken of them before he left three months later for Orlando. He began to scoop all the pictures off the bed when he saw a flat brown paper bag at the bottom of the shoebox. He pulled it out and felt that there was one picture inside of it; obviously Patrice didn't want it seen. Brian got up once again and checked to see if Patrice was still asleep. He saw that she was breathing steadily, so he made his way back to the bed. After he was comfortable he dumped the picture out of the bag. His breath caught in his throat when he saw the photograph. It was a picture of Patrice's mother Rhoda, with her grim gray eye's and Patrice. Patrice looked very miserable and unhappy in the picture, but what shocked Brian the most is that she looked very pregnant. He felt like he couldn't breath as he studied the delicate swell of her belly and the dullness of her eyes. He flipped her picture over and read the caption that was written in his mother's handwriting. His mother knew about this. He felt like he swallowed a pack of razor blades. The caption read: "Patrice, 6 months" and was dated three months after Brian left. That couldn't be possible. That would mean that she was pregnant when he left. It would also mean that he could be the father. Brian closed his eyes and tried to regain a normal breathing pattern. If Patrice was pregnant, 'Was he the father' floated through Brian's brain, but the one question that ate away at him the most was, "Where was the baby?".
