Dear Emmett

Chapter One - [Spilled Breakfast & Spilled Secrets.]

Would that be me in a few years?

I hurried to my car, dumping my things in the passenger seat and starting it quickly. My mother wouldn't be home until five o' clock or so, so they wouldn't know that I had missed school.

Not like her and my step father, Chris, paid much attention to me anyway. They were too busy with work and each other. Plus, Chris didn't like me.

He was never obvious about it, but I knew. There would always be quiet, but biting comments or a harsh glare whenever my mother wasn't paying attention. It didn't happen often, but when it did, I caught it.

I think that he meant for me to.

I never said anything to my mother about it. I didn't think she would believe me. I didn't have any proof, and whenever she was around he acted totally normal in front of me. Like a step father should.

He'd just love me if he found out about this.

As I unlocked the front door of my house, I shook my head. I couldn't imagine what they were going to do if they found out about this. But I knew that I had to tell Katie before I told them. I needed her to be able to be there for me when the backlash for this came out.

And, oh, would there be backlash.

My mother was well known in this community. She was a lawyer for the juvenile section of the county courthouse. A defense lawyer. She saw stuff like this all the time. Her name was always in the paper for this case or that one.

There would be a scandal, I could see it now. Or at least, my mother would think there would be one. We weren't the closest, especially after Dad left. In some ways, I figured she blamed me.

But I was twelve years old, and him finding a student of his at the college he was a professor at was not my fault. He'd fallen for a busty blonde, and that was his own problem.

I looked like him, and I think that's what my mother was really upset about. I reminded her of him. She had straight blonde hair, while mine was curly and black. Her eyes were brown, mine a vibrant shade of blue.

“Charlotte?”

My heart jumped into my throat at the sound of my own name. I quickly wiped the tears that had had been falling down my face. I prayed that my eyes weren't red as I pulled open the door.

“How was school?” She asked.

“Oh, it was fine,” I answered, giving her a small smile. She had to believe me. I needed her to believe me. “Had a pop quiz, but I did alright. A b plus.”

“Well, good honey. We ordered Chinese.”

My stomach was queezy at the thought. I normally loved Chinese, but right now it seemed disgusting.

“I'm not hungry. Katie and I got some food after school,” I lied, holding onto the door handle with a little bit more force than I needed to.

She shrugged off my answer, telling me that leftovers would be in the fridge if I got hungry. I closed my door after she walked away, trying not to gag at the thought of the food they'd brought home.

I felt guilty. I wasn't much of a liar, but I'd been doing that a lot today. But what was I supposed to do? My head was swimming. Nothing would ever be the same. If I got an abortion, I knew I'd be mentally scarred forever. If I gave the baby up for adoption, there would be someone out there raising my child and I would have to live with that. If I kept it, I'd be a mother.

I was responsible for another human life.

Choking back a sob, I turned off my lights. It was only eight o clock at night, but I didn't want to be awake anymore. I got into bed and cried myself to sleep for the second night in a row.

I woke up somewhere around five o' clock in the morning in a cold sweat to a dream about the night I'd gotten pregnant. I remembered everything, down to the very last detail.

It seemed to be haunting me. He was nothing that I was used to and everything that I wanted. He was from somewhere in the south. He'd never told me, but I could tell by the deep drawl in his voice.

Throwing back my covers, I swung my legs over the side of my bed.

I had been having a hard time forgetting him before I found out, and it was even worse now. I wasn't sure what happened that night, or why I was so drawn to him but it had gotten me here and now I had to deal with it alone.

We didn't exchange numbers. I didn't know where he lived, or even had his last name.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I muttered to myself as I turned on the water to start a bath.

I always had pride in myself about being smarter than other girls. Being more wary of guys than they were, and now I was here. What did I think would happen? We'd fall in love or something? This wasn't some stupid movie on TV. This was my life.

And now I had created another one.

As I sunk into the hot water, I looked at my belly for the first time since this all happened. I really looked at it. What was going on in there right now? Was it still a group of cells? Did it have a body parts and stuff already?

When I got out of the bath a while later, I got dressed quickly and opened my laptop. The first thing I researched was a due date calculator. I typed in the day of conception, April 15th.

It said the doctor starts counting from the first day of your last period, which had been the first of April. So at conception, you're considered two weeks pregnant already.

Today, it was Monday, June 1st. I was eight weeks, and five days pregnant. I was due on January 6th, roughly.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, clicking on the eighth week link.

Your baby is growing at an amazing rate — about a millimeter every day — and now is the size of a large raspberry. Your little berry is looking a lot less reptilian (even though she has webbed fingers and toes, her tail is just about gone) and a lot more baby-like these days, as her lips, nose, eyelids, legs, and back continue to take shape.

Oh, God. My baby had lips and eyelids. My child had legs! Legs!

My head was swimming, but I kept reading.

While your raspberry-sized babe isn't exactly causing you to show yet, chances are your clothes are feeling a little tight around the tummy and you might need a bigger bra. You may also be feeling perpetually queasy. But take heart — your baby feels just fine even while you're hugging the bowl with morning sickness.

“Shit,” I said to the computer screen, slamming it shut. I couldn't read anymore of this. This was making it too real. Too fucking real.

When my mother and Chris came down to leave for work, I was shoveling food into my mouth. I cried for a while after reading that website, but I managed to pull together. And I was starving.

“Have a good day at school,” My mother said as she walked out of the kitchen.

“You too,” I said, my words muffled by the bagel in my mouth.

When I got to school, Katie asked me how the dentist appointment was. I told her it was just a regular cleaning, no big deal.

Just after the bell rang to go to class, my stomach jolted. Eating so much wasn't a good idea. I told Katie I'd see her after homeroom, and darted off to the bathroom.

I was grateful it was empty, dumping my bag on the floor and spilling the contents of my breakfast into the toilet. I stayed like that for a good few minutes, and when I was done I stood up and wiped my mouth off with some toilet paper.

But I wasn't alone.

When I turned around, Katie was standing there, staring at me. She knew. I could see it in her eyes. I knew she knew.

“No dentist appointment takes all day,” She whispered.

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“Legs,” I said through a sob. “Katie, my baby has legs.”

And there, as the late bell rang, I cried in the arms of my best friend.