Page 54 of Finding Fate

“What?!” Annie shouted. “She can’t be serious. How dare she?!” she thought as her anger soared. “No, Mother! Our decision to have sex had nothing to do with them! They weren’t even dating yet. We didn’t even find out Izzy and Tucker were having sex until last Saturday! And before you can ask,” she said to Stefano, sure that he wasn’t done with the questions. Oh, she could kill Jet for this… “Yes, we use protection. We are always safe about it.”

“You are?” Helen asked, clearly relieved.

“Of course.” Did they really think she and Jet were that irresponsible? There was no way in hell she was going to risk her youth to raise or even have a baby before she was damn well ready for it, and that was definitely a hell of a long way off. “Just because Izzy and Tucker were stupid about it once, doesn’t mean that we would be.”

“Once is all it takes,” Stefano commented.

“We know that, Dad,” Jet replied.

“Well, good, then maybe you two won’t throw away your futures like your friends,” Bridgette retorted. “Now, since I’m sure that we won’t be able to convince you to stop having sex, we’re going to make sure there are as many precautions as possible.”

Annie shared a glance with her boyfriend. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve made an appointment for you at the clinic today after your sister’s. You’re going on birth control.”

“What?”

“And we expect you to still use condoms,” Stefano added. “We also don’t want you two alone in each other’s rooms anymore.”

“We’ve never done anything when you’ve been home.”

“I appreciate that, son, but we still feel this way’s best.”

Annie slumped back in her chair, processing everything that was happening. So their friends make a mistake and their parents decide that she and Jet had to pay for it since it was too late for the others? The birth control part might not be so bad, but everything else just sucked.

Bridgette stood, signifying that the conversation was over. “We’re leaving for the doctor’s in twenty minutes, Annabel. I expect you home and ready to go by then.”

Jet squeezed her hand as her mother left. Things were changing, and neither could help but wonder if things would ever be anywhere near close to how they used to be again.

* * *

Tucker looked around the waiting room of the OB’s office and fidgeted in his chair nervously, his fingers tapping in a quick, repetitive rhythm against his leg. He was aware of Izzy and Annie talking next to him in low voices. Bridgette was reading a book she’d brought, and everyone around him seemed frustratingly calm.

There was stuff about babies everywhere: parenting magazines, pamphlets, pictures on the walls, and worst of all…pregnant women all over the place, some far along while others were just starting to show. His foot began tapping on the floor, adding to the beat of his fingers.

He watched a young woman in her early twenties walk over from the reception desk and take a seat near the door. She reminded him of Izzy, her movements graceful and controlled with the same shade and style of hair, but she had a definite baby bump filling out her shirt.

He wondered for a moment if that’s how Izzy would look when their baby started to show. He knew it was there, it would happen, but it was hard to imagine there was really a baby when Izzy’s stomach was just as flat as ever.

How long would it take before that baby bump appeared on her? How long before this all seemed real to him? Would this ever seem real to him? What were they going to do with a baby? How would they take care of it? The baby would be here before they even graduated high school…

“Tucker, I swear if you don’t calm down, I’m going to send you outside. You’re driving me up the wall. Tyler would have been easier to deal with,” Bridgette said impatiently, startling Tucker from his mounting inner panic.

“Sorry.”

He shifted in the navy blue, barely padded chair, trying to make himself sit still. Their parents were already furious at him and Izzy, and annoying the crap out of his pregnant girlfriend’s mother was not going to help the situation. He leaned back in the chair and rested his head against the wall, his thoughts traveling back to a conversation from nearly a week ago.

Tucker sat beside his girlfriend on the large U-shaped sofa in his family’s living room, all three of their parents sitting across from them at the other end, a matching ottoman separating them at the center. Izzy was twirling the ends of her hair with the fingers of one hand and was gripping Tucker’s forearm with the other, subtly shaking against him with nerves.

He could hear his sisters and Tyler playing in the backyard with Barkley and hoped that they wouldn’t decide to come back into the house anytime soon. But then again, it might be a good thing if they did come back in. Then there would be witnesses if their parents decided to kill them.

“So what’s going on?” his mom asked, studying the two teens with concern.

Bridgette was harder to read, but he knew his dad was waiting expectantly, his expression clear that this had better be important if they’d called him away from the game.

“Don’t worry, Dad, it is,” Tucker thought as he reached a shaky hand up to grasp the back of his neck, wondering how to even start to tell their parents the news. He hated how much this was going to disappoint them, but he knew it was inevitable.

“At least we’re closer to the door if we need to escape.”

---