Page 6 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

“Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!”

The chant fell from my lips as I sat there stunned, staring at those two pink lines on the test. I didn’t even have to wait for the requisite amount of time. No, instead, I watched as the first line appeared and then the second one developed only seconds behind it. How could this be? It was my one-and-only time having sex and Damon never spoke to me again afterward. It was like I suddenly developed a fatal disease, and he was afraid of catching it.

Actually, that was stupid. I was certain that Damon not speaking to me was more about the fact that he was prospecting for the club that both of our fathers were members of. Damon knew my dad would give him shit, and maybe tank his chances of membership anytime soon, just because he was the one to pop my cherry. He might be the son of a member, but if Dad found out about our night, he could deny membership to Damon damn near permanently. Voting on prospects to members had to be unanimous. At least, that’s what Dad told me when I asked why they didn’t just make Damon a member.

Okay, yeah, thinking about the club was easier than dealing with the fact that I was sixteen and pregnant. That meant I would spend the majority of my sixteenth year with a giant belly and then become a mom before I even turned seventeen. My dad was so going to kill me. Maybe I wouldn’t have to worry about being a mom then. I’d be dead.

No matter what, I had a duty to do. I’d once seen a club girl ostracized, and her baby taken away, because Maker, an older member, was never told that he was going to be a daddy. He accidentally ran into her somewhere and the boy she had with him looked just like him. That boy was four years old now and his mother hadn’t been seen around in a long time.

There was no way I would let that happen to me. No freaking way.

I stood up, grabbed the test and plopped it into a plastic bag, because ew – I’d just peed on it – and then headed across the street to Damon’s house. I saw both his truck and bike out there in the driveway when the bus had dropped me off, and I hadn’t heard either of the engines start up since.

Knocking on the door didn’t work, but I could hear music somewhere inside the house so I tried the knob, thinking he just couldn’t hear me. It was unlocked. With my heart beating wildly in my throat – where it had lodged, as if trying to expel itself from my body – I took one dreaded step after another toward the room I knew to be Damon’s. His bedroom was on the first floor. The house he lived in didn’t even really have a full second story the way mine did. His dad had left it open as a loft area where he had his own bedroom and bathroom area while Damon took one of two downstairs rooms. You might ask how in the world I knew that. It’s because our dads were best friends and I’d been to the house before, more times than I could count.

While Damon had never really given me the time of day, I’d noticed everything about him, his house, and… Shoot. That just made me sound even more pathetic. In my defense, when I’d done most of my noticing things, I had been twelve years old.

As I crept down the hall toward his room, the music grew louder. When I finally got there, the door was cracked open, as if someone attempted to shut it, but it didn’t latch all the way.

The door creaked noisily when I pushed it open, and there was no holding back the loud gasp that left me at the sight. Brinley, the cheerleader from hell and bane of my existence at school, was in Damon’s bed with him. His hands were on her boobs, under her shirt. Her hand was inside his pants that were already unbuttoned and unzipped. It looked like they were well on their way toward having sex in an actual bed. Something I had yet to experience.

Their mouths came apart as they both swiveled their heads to see who had the nerve to interrupt them. I planned to back up and just bolt out of there and tell him some other time when my arch nemesis wasn’t around, but her words stopped me cold and kicked in my fight response rather than the flight I had been leaning toward.

“Oh, look honey, virgin Lily was probably hoping you’d pop her cherry for her since she’s so in love with you.” The snide remark stopped me in my tracks, and I turned narrowed eyes on the bitch while she laughed at her own joke. The joke was on her though.

“He already did, and now I’m pregnant with his baby, honey!” I lashed the words out in front of me like a weapon and they struck true. I watched momentarily as all the color drained from her face while she shifted her attention from me to Damon.

I hadn’t planned on sticking around after dropping that bomb, especially considering my feelings were about as fragile as blown glass. So, I turned and walked right into mine and Damon’s fathers. The pair stood there with jaws hanging open, shock clear in their expressions, and that fragility I just spoke of had me breaking right there in front of them. I wasn’t ready. Not for them to know.

My father immediately pulled me into his chest, and if I wasn’t mistaken, Boone – otherwise known as Mr. Donovan – was rubbing my back reassuringly before he stepped away.

“Boy, you better get rid of that pricey whore of yours and get your ass out here now!”

It was an order delivered from father to son as my own dad ushered me toward the kitchen. The two of them had apparently been drinking beer and shooting the shit quietly when I passed by them to get to Damon’s room. They were so shocked to see me there that they never said a word, and instead just followed behind me. I never noticed because my nerves had my heartbeat banging away inside my head so loud that it was all I could focus on until Brinley’s evil mouth opened and spewed her nasty brand of venom.

Brinley rushed by and carried her ass out the door in a huff, slamming the damn thing behind her. The sound carried in thick waves through the quiet of the house before Damon finally joined us in the kitchen. My father stood, holding me against him, as Damon took the seat across the bar counter where his dad was also standing.

“Now, darlin’, I know what we just heard,” Boone started. “But what I need to know is if you were just spouting off at that evil little cunt, or if what you said was true.”

My father pried my arms from around his waist so he could see me, and that’s when he noticed the little plastic bag gripped tightly in my hands. He took it from me, and a look of complete sorrow fell across his face. My heart plummeted from where it had been seated in my throat all the way down to my stomach at his reaction. At least, that’s how it felt to suffer knowing I disappointed my dad. He tossed the bag onto the counter where Boone and Damon could see.

It took a Herculean effort, but I managed to turn and face Boone and Damon. Father and son’s eyes were both glued to the test for a moment, before Boone shuddered and took a deep breath. He didn’t manage to get any words out though because his son beat him to the punch.

“How the fuck does that stick equate to it being my kid?”

I gasped, tears brimming behind my eyes at his accusation. “You know I was a virgin,” I offered quietly in my own defense.

Boone smacked one of his big hands up against the back of his son’s head. “That girl has been in love with you since she was just a wee thing. As if any of us had any doubts.”

My eyes widened at the knowledge that I had not kept my crush as big of a secret as I thought I had over the years. That was even more humiliating.

“We only fucked once,” Damon said and again his father smacked him in the back of the head.

“Boy, I’m telling you one time, that you will be respectful here.”

My father was already bristling behind me at the crass way Damon spoke of taking my virginity. If only Dad knew exactly how it happened, I had no doubt Damon would already be knocked out, if not dead.

“Jesus!” Damon hissed. “Sorry. We were only together that one time.”

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