1
Dawn sat alone at the kitchen table and sipped a Diet Pepsi. Nothing else would stay down during her first couple of hours after rising.
Were you supposed to get morning sick this early in a pregnancy? Did it mean something might be wrong with the baby?
She didn't know. But then, she didn't know a thing about being pregnant. All she knew was that she hated feeling this way. How long would it last? Not the whole nine months—please!
And school. She'd missed yesterday and could so not bring herself to go today. Not that graduating would make much difference once they finished their video game idea and got it sold, but she'd worked hard for four years and totally wanted that diploma to show for it.
She bit back a sob. She felt so alonel God, she wished she had someone to talk to about this. Couldn't mention it to any of her friends—it'd be totally all over school in like two seconds. Under normal circumstances Mom would have been the obvious choice, but these circumstances were nothing like normal.
She shook her head. Still couldn't believe it. Coming on to Jerry. Her mother had gone crazy. That was the only possible explanation.
Well, crazy or not, she was so never speaking to that woman again.
Which left her with no one to talk to about being pregnant—at least no one who'd been there. Oh, she could talk to Jerry about it all day, but he didn't seem to care about what she was going through. All he wanted to talk about was the baby and how he was going to rule the world.
Sometimes she thought Jerry was as crazy as Mom.
And where was he, anyway? He'd said he had an important meeting in the city with some people from Electronic Arts—or "EA" as he called it—but left her home because the time wasn't right yet to bring her into the picture, what-ever that meant. Was that really where he was? Normally she'd take him totally at his word, but she'd noticed that somehow every Tuesday he'd disappear for about four hours or so. He always had a plausible reason, but it occurred to her that his meetings always seemed to be timed for late morning to early afternoon.
Coincidence or…?
Or what?
Did he go to AA meetings? No, he wasn't an alcoholic. He drank only beer and never got sloshed. NA? Nah, he didn't even do weed.
A real uncomfortable thought snuck up on her: What if he was visiting a parole officer or something like that? Yeah, that was what Mom would say. Totally. But no way…
Come to think of it, what made her so sure he wasn't an ex-con? What did she really know about him? She'd asked him about his family but he'd totally killed the subject by saying no brothers, no sisters, folks dead, 'nuff said. Like he'd come out of nowhere.
She realized the same could be said of her. She'd never seen even a photo of her father, and now, in a way, she no longer had a mother.
All she had was herself.
And a baby.
Oh, God, a baby. I don't want to have a baby.
She couldn't go through with it. She had to do something about it… something to stop it.
But she couldn't let Jerry know. God, he'd have a fit. She'd have to do it on the sly and tell Jerry she'd miscarried.
Without giving herself time to think, she rose to her feet. A wave of nausea rolled through her stomach as she headed for Jerry's computer. Yeah, she had to do something about this. She'd look up the nearest abortion place. Had to be a zillion of them around.