A State of Grace by Traci DePree

Author:Traci DePree
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780824907501
Publisher: Guideposts
Published: 2007-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

“You’re what?” Matt said, his dark eyes flashing. He tugged his letter jacket tighter around himself against the cold late-November wind. They stood beneath the school’s bleachers on a gray Thursday afternoon.

“I said, I’m pregnant. I took one of those home tests, and it came back positive.” Patricia shrugged her shoulders. She tried to read his face, but all she saw there was surprise and then anger.

“How could you let this happen?” His voice rose to a near shout.

“How could I—?”

“I trusted you to take care of that. And now...” His face was red, the veins in his neck bulging. “This will ruin my life. You did this on purpose! You’re trying to trap me. Well, it’s not going to work. How do I even know this is my baby?” He turned toward her and pointed a finger.

How could he think such a thing? Patricia felt herself shriveling inside. She’d thought he was the one she would spend the rest of her life with. Wasn’t that what he’d told her when he’d been so persuasive? That they were meant to be together? He’d said he loved her, but he didn’t love anyone but himself. That was all too clear now. As if his was the only life affected by this unexpected pregnancy.

How was she going to tell her parents? That thought, more than any other, terrified her. If Matt wasn’t by her side, offering words of support, promises of marriage, how would she ever face her father? He was so strict as it was. This would probably kill him. Or he’d kill her.

She lifted her face to Matt’s as tears coursed down her cheeks, and mustering as much courage as her weak heart could gather, she said, “You don’t have to worry about it, Matt.” How she got those words out, she couldn’t even fathom. “My baby and I don’t need you.” She felt like crumbling with the words, lies that they were. “We’ll find a way without you.”

He softened then and touched her arm. “Patty,” he said. He knew it melted her whenever he called her by that name.

She looked into his eyes, hope nudging its way back into her heart. She wanted to believe he was reconsidering.

“There is another way, you know,” he said. “You don’t have to go through with it. We could go on as we’d planned. Stay together.”

“What are you talking about?” She prayed he didn’t mean what she thought he meant.

“There are places you can go to take care of these kinds of problems.”

Her hope deflated. “No. I can’t.”

He lifted his hands as if to say, “I wash my hands of you, then,” and the hard glint in his eyes returned. “You’re so stubborn.”

Then he walked away. He didn’t even turn to look back at her. He left her, shivering in the cold, to fend for herself and their baby.

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