Beautiful Mistake

viii

The rest of the week went as slow as humanly possible. It was like the universe was purposely trying to drag me through the mud.

Collin hasn't shown up to school since Tuesday. I told Mr. Santiago that he was sick but I think he could tell I was lying.

Tessa and I decided that we both were going to schedule our first prenatal appointments on the same day. She's really into the best friends being pregnant at the same time thing.

"Care, are you listening to us?" Tessa's concerned tone made me look up from my food.

"Uh, no. What's going on?" I drop my fork and lay my arm on the table.

"Are you okay? You've been really distant lately." Warren asks before Tessa could tell me what they're actually talking about.

"I'm fine, it's just this baby is making me feel like shit all the time." I say, dismissing any thoughts they had about me missing Collin.

"Right," Warren nods and takes a bite of his steak.

"Well anyway, we were saying that Warren can pay for the meal." Tess opens up the bill and winces at the price. "Good luck," She sets the little book down and stands up.

"Thanks guys," Warren says sarcastically. "Can you at least pay the tip?"

I shrug my shoulders and take out my wallet. I throw my half of the tip onto the table and stand up too. "We'll see you later Ren."

Tessa and I leave Warren in the restaurant. The two of us have plans to have a girls' night after dinner.

"Where do you wanna go first?" Tessa asks once we get in her car.

"Do you wanna go to a nail salon? It's only 5:30."

"Yes! It's been so long since I've gotten my nails done." We pull out of the parking lot and find the nearest nail salon. When we do we park and each take out forty dollars.

"Hi! Welcome to the House of Nails." The receptionist lady, Gisele, smiles and I give a slight smile back.

"We both want a pedicure and manicure." Immediately the lady leads us over to two available seats and preps them.

"Your stylist should be with you shortly." Gisele smiles again and turns to go back to her desk.

"She's nice," Tessa says and I nod in response. "What's your problem Care? Is it Collin?"

"No, it isn't him! Stop asking me if it's about him! I just don't feel good."

"Well guess what, I don't feel good either but I'm not throwing a fit like a child!" She whisper-yells.

I sit back in my seat and ignore her. If she wants to call me a child, I'll act like one. Every time she tries to talk to me, I just cross my arms and stick my tongue out at her.

Once our nails were finished, we decided to go and study.

"You can't stress yourself so much," Tessa says once we reach my house. "When you get stressed, I get stressed. It's not good for either of the babies," I get out of the car and she follows me inside.

"I'm fine Tessa, don't worry about me." I reply. My mom was sitting at the kitchen table with her head in her hands. "Hey ma, what's up?"

She looks up at me with tears in her eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?" I furrow my brows and look at what she was holding. The second I realized she was grasping my pregnancy test in her hand, my lungs tightened.

"I was going to tell you! I just didn't know how to," I slowly walk over to her and sit down in the chair beside her, Tessa follows and sits in the chair opposite of me.

"You could've just told me Caroline! Who's the father?" She sniffles and I take her hand in mine.

"Collin."

"You mean the Bronze's son? Does he know about this?!" I nod and she sighs, "What did he say?"

"He's upset, I don't know if he'll stay or not yet." I look down at the table and then make eye contact with Tessa.

"Ms. Folsen, I have something to admit too," My moms eyes go from me to her and I shake my head but she keeps talking, "I'm pregnant too. My parents don't know but I'm gonna tell them soon!" The look on her face was now even worse. She looked between the two of us and the broke down crying.

"You two planned this? Getting pregnant at the same time?" We both were quick to set the record straight.

"No! I didn't even know Caroline was pregnant until after I found out I was. We would never purposely plan something that would change our future forever." After she explained everything from the party to Warren being the father, my mom was still caught up in her emotions.

"Okay, so to clarify," She says as she adjusts her cardigan, "Both of you are nine weeks?"

We nod at the same time and she nods too.

She wipes the tears from under her eyes and bites her lip, "Well, Caroline, you and Tessa need to go upstairs and do your schoolwork. I'll have some dessert made," I hear her take a deep breath as the both of us leave and I can't help but feel like the worst person on earth.

"I can't believe your mom found out!" Tessa exclaims as we enter my room.

"I know, I really wasn't gonna tell her until I had this situation controlled. But obviously that's ruined!" I curl up next to my text books and open the Biology one. "What're we gonna study?"

"I have biology third period so we can go over everything." She says and takes the already open book from my hands.

I sit up and grab my backpack from the floor. I take out my AP Biology notes and hand them to her.

"Why do you get all the smart classes?" Tessa groans and throws herself onto my bed. "I want smart kid classes!"

"I don't get smart kid classes! The only AP classes I have is that and World History," I say, taking my notes back and opening them to the lesson from today.

"They're still smart kid classes!"