Gone Without Goodbye

Chapter 24

"The day my mother told me she was sending me away because I was pregnant, I hoped and prayed that I was dreaming. That I'd wake up, it would all be over and I wouldn't be sent away, but of course I hardly ever got what I wanted." 

"I know the feeling. When your mom told me to disappear, that shocked me, she had told me to disappear or pay the consequences and I did not want to find out what they were. I went and told my mom that I wanted to go visit my grandparents in Washington D.C for a little while. She didn't ask why and so I didn't tell her why. I was there a couple of weeks than came back and found out that you ran away. Kept thinking that until you told me different." 

"Yeah, I found out that rumor was what was going around, but I didn't run away."

"When I was told that you had run away, I was devastated. I hurt myself quite a few times and the only thing that kept me from killing myself was thinking you would come back. I almost wanted to give up. But here you are, sitting beside me, even if we aren't together like we were in school but this is close enough." He smiled a little.

"Awe." She had a smile on her face and pulled him into a hug, "I'm really sorry. I wanted to call you every day but I was only allowed to talk to family. My mom had all my calls monitored so that I wouldn't call someone I wasn't supposed to be calling." She broke the hug, "I stuck to only calling family because I was scared of what my mother and what the school would do."

"I understand that, and you have nothing to be sorry for. I feel like it's all your mom's fault that we got separated like we were."

"Why only my mom?" She raised her eyebrows while looking at him.

"Well one day me and your dad had a long talk when he came into the deli. He told me that he could tell we were happy together. He also told me that he had tried stopping your mother from sending you away but she wouldn't listen to him no matter what. He had also said that if he had it only his way then you wouldn't have been sent away." 

She smiled and kissed his cheek, "My mother was very stubborn woman. And sadly, my sister is the same way." 

"Yeah, man after I came home from my grandparents, your sister kept saying that it was my fault that you were gone. She wouldn't leave me alone, torturing me, calling me names, I ignored her, of course, but it was still hard. Our mothers got into a small argument a little while after my mom quit working for your family."

"Why?"

"When Abigail kept coming in and harassing me, even when she wasn't picking up orders, my mom banned her from the deli. Of course, she ran and told your parents, so your mom came in throwing a fit. It led to an argument and the only way we could get her out was to have the police escort her out." 

"Oh my, are you serious?" she laughed at the thought of her mom being escorted out of the deli.

"Yup." He chuckled with a nod of his head.

"I wish I was there to see the look on her face." She continued to laugh.

"Oh, she was so shocked. She wasn't arrested but still."

"You know, I never forgot about you. I thought about you every day, especially when Jasmine was born. It broke my heart that was sent away because I was pregnant."

"Trust me, I thought about you too, every day and it broke my heart." 

"At the school for pregnant teens, they treated us really good. When I was around 6 months pregnant, the teachers, well a few of them, took some of the girls with good behavior, me included, on a little shopping spree. I bought a few baby books. One of the teachers seen I was going to buy the books and said I was wasting my money because the books wouldn't stay with the baby. Of course, she went on staying that us girls were at this campus was so we could go to school then after we gave birth and then physically recovered, we would be sent home with no baby in our arms. But, of course, I had told her nicely that I didn't care, that I was only buying the books so I could read them to the baby while I was pregnant. She understood and let me buy them."