Think Pink (Grease 2) ✔

Chapter 24

Paulette sighed and composed herself. 'I think I could be pregnant.'

Sharon gasped, in-perceptively moving back as if it were contagious. 'But how?' she asked and Paulette glared at her. 'Sorry I know how but you and Johnny haven't really been going steady that long....' Johnny had only recently stopped mooning over Steph, Sharon couldn't believe even Paulette would jump in that quickly, she thought she'd been all talk.

'I know but I wanted Johnny to like me,' Paulette said her lip trembling.

'But why weren't you careful?' Sharon asked, and then shivered at the thought. She knew she hadn't been careful, and she couldn't believe she'd been so stupid. Panicking she tried to convince herself that it wasn't possible to get pregnant the first time.

'Sharon are you even listening,' Paulette demanded seeing she was deep in thought.

'Yes sorry, I'm just shocked.'

'Yeah me too,' Paulette said ruefully. 'I thought I was being safe, you know counting the days of the month. I've always been regular so it seemed pretty straightforward.'

Sharon remembered Mr Stewart's biology lesson and tried to add up the days of the month herself. She breathed a sigh of relief thinking she was safe but she'd have to check her old biology work to be certain. She turned her attention back to Paulette.

'So what went wrong?'

'I don't know, I must have miscalculated or maybe all the stress of graduation mucked up my cycle.' She chewed her bottom lip. 'Johnny's gonna kill me.'

'You haven't told him?'

'I don't know how to, I mean just when we're getting on so well I have to go and blow it.' She was hit with a fresh wave of tears.

'Well it's down to Johnny as well,' Sharon said mentally apportioning most of the blame on him.

'I know but it wasn't like he even put me under pressure to do it, it was more my idea,' she admitted. 'I thought it would help cement our relationship.'

'Really?'

'Well, I didn't want him to think I was a tease.' Paulette gave Sharon a pointed look and she raised her eyebrows in return. Better to be a tease than to be pregnant she thought, whilst praying that she wouldn't be.

'So what will you do?' 

'You never know I might miscarry,' Paulette said.

Sharon rolled her eyes. 'I think it's better to work on the assumption that you won't miscarry.' 

Paulette sighed deeply. 'I'll have to tell Johnny, and god knows what he's gonna do. I mean it's taken him nearly a year to go steady with me, I'm not sure he'll be happy to get married just yet.' 

Sharon bit her tongue, there was an understatement if ever she'd heard one!

'Just suppose he wants nothing to do with the baby, then what?'

Paulette looked uneasy. 'Then I'll have to beg my mom to let me back home. I'm sure she'll relent once the shock has worn off.'

'But would she help you to keep a baby by yourself?' Sharon guessed Paulette's mother could possibly pass the baby off as her own.

'I don't know,' Paulette said. 'Me and mom don't really get along.' Sharon nodded, she'd seen for herself how hard Mrs Rebchuck could be on Paulette at times, much like her own mother.

'Would you want to keep it?'

'If Johnny was happy about it, and we were gonna get married then I'd love to keep it,' Paulette said brightening up but Sharon couldn't help thinking she was romanticising that outcome. 'All I want is happy ever after with Johnny. I know this is too soon but I'd like to think it's where we were heading. What would you do in my shoes?' 

'I really don't know,' Sharon said struggling to come up with any advice for once. 'I guess I'd tell my mom and hope she'd support me.' However, she knew her mom would be furious since she had such high expectations for her.

'Yeah your mom's nicer than mine,' Paulette said sounding a little resentful about her mom's reaction.

'No she's not,' Sharon said laughing. 'My mom's the worse mom of them all! I bet yours is just shocked, she'll come round once she's calmed down.'

'I hope so. In the meantime can I stay here?'

'Sure my mom's away till a week next Friday,' Sharon said. She wasn't sure that her mom would want to appear to be taking sides against Mrs Rebchuck but hopefully, Paulette would have sorted something out by the time she was back home.

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Thank you for reading, votes/comments much appreciated. The prequel to this story 'Girl Code' is on my profile page.