Cassie P.O.V
I hate hospitals. Especially this one, St. Joseph’s. This is the place where my life took a drastic turn, for both me and Cole, and now it’s the place where we get to stare at my unborn niece or nephew. This is the conversation topic of the day, by the way.
“I think it’s a girl.” Cole said for the fourth time.
“I’m almost positive it’s a boy.” Sophie looked nervous, but didn’t stop arguing her point.
“How do you know?” Cole asked, fiddling with the radio station.
“I’ve got a hunch,” Sophie said.
I swatted Cole’s hand away from the radio and rolled my eyes at them “Will you two shut up? There’s a lot of traffic and I don’t want to be late.” With the pregnancy still a secret, we had to drive to the city to see a doctor, so no one would find out.
“Thank you for doing this, Cassie, but we really could’ve taken the bus.” Cole said this gently, but I still felt hurt. I was here to support them. I was the only one supporting them.
“I wouldn’t do that to you, and besides,” I flashed them a smile “I want to meet my niece or nephew.” This brought the previous argument back to light. Pulling into the parking lot, Cole helped Sophie out of the car (not that she needed help, as she so clearly pointed out) and we trekked across the pavement, my heart beating faster with every step.
Luckily, we weren’t anywhere near emergency or the morgue, but on the third floor. The fertility floor. I hadn’t been planning on coming to this floor for at least three years, and it would’ve been for me, with Jake. Not my seventeen year old brother with his pregnant girl friend.
Our names were finally called, and we all went into a sterile white room, where they had Sophie lie on one of those chair things. She was holding Cole’s hand so tight he had to remind her he kind of needed it, but really, he was holding hers just as tightly.
Sophie flinched as they put the cold cream on her stomach and moved the monitor around her, trying to find the baby. When they did, Sophie started to cry, and I’m pretty sure Cole was, too. I put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently, just so he knew I was there.
“Would you like to know the gender?” the nurse asked.
Cole shook his head “We want it to be a surprise; there’s a bet in it.”
“The name?” the nurse guessed.
Sophie nodded “Yes; if it’s a boy, I get to name it. If it’s a girl, Cole does.”
“Well, I’ll write it on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope-just in case you change your mind.”
She gave me the envelope, and I suddenly couldn’t take it any more. The image on he screen was so precious, and it made me think of my own future as a mother. I had practically raised my kid brother, and if Sophie and Cole decided to keep the baby, I would be helping raise it, too.
I left, pushing past strangers in white coats until I’d reached the car. I leaned against the hood, breathing deeply. This was not the time to think about what I didn’t have. Cole needed me.
“Hey, you okay?” a woman of around forty was standing in front of me when I opened my eyes. She was short, and kinda pudgy, but her smile was kind.
I smiled weakly “Yeah, I’m okay. Don’t like hospitals.”
The woman shrugged “Who does?”
I shrugged back “Its just…this is the hospital I came to when my parents died. And now-now my brother…”
She frowned “I’m sorry, your brother, he’s not dead, to, is he?”
I shook my head “No, he’s very alive. Going to be a father in five months.”
“Lucky lad, kids are wonderful.”
“Yeah, when you’re an adult. He’s just a kid; seventeen.”
The woman grimaced “Ouch, that’s got to be hard.”
I nodded, feeling my throat tighten and tears sting my eyes “I just thought it would be me lying on that table, with cream on my stomach, looking at my baby with my boy friend at my side. Cole would be the one going to be an uncle, not a father.”
“Well, chin up, dearie. Things will get better. I’m guessing you’ve been raising your brother on your own, and that takes a lot of courage. Good luck,” my eyes were closed, and when I opened them again, she was gone, leaving me in the cold November wind.
Cole P.O.V
I didn’t want to go to school, and neither did Sophie. But Cassie was taking time off work to talk to the principal, and was driving us. Sophie was starting to show, like really show, and practically everyone knew she was pregnant.
“Okay kids, good luck. I’m going to go see Principal Gordon.” Cassie walked away, leaving us alone.
I sighed “I’ve got maths, and you’ve got history, so I’ll see you in biology and then we’ll have lunch with Eric and Jen.” Eric and Jen were our only friends who hadn’t left us in the dirt. I was still on the soccer team, but Sophie had quit the paper at Cassie’s request. It was to much stress, and stress was bad for pregnant woman, as I’d learned in one of the many books my sister had dropped in my room last week.
“Okay, see you later then.” I left her sitting with Jen, who was smart-mouthing anyone who tried to hassle Sophie.
I sat with Eric in Maths, and we passed notes about soccer strategies, our teacher and the baby.
So if it’s a girl, you get to name it, huh? Eric wrote quickly.
Yup, and if it’s a boy (which its not) Sophie gets to name it.
Huh. Any thoughts?
Dude, Sophie and I haven’t even talked about it. I’m not going to talk about it with you.
Alright, alright. But still, any famous soccer players you think you might name the kid after?
I rolled my eyes Sophie will never allow it, and Cassie will prob try and make me name it after some poet or writer or something…
Let her name her own kids, this one’s yours!
The last note made my heart ache. Cassie and Jake were probably thinking about getting married, even having kids together. I knew Cassie wanted to be a mother, she had practically been mine. Still was. But she should have the chance to have her own kids, not raise mine.
Yeah, she can name her own.
If she ever has any after this.
Cassie P.O.V
“Cassandra St. Clair, what a surprise! What is this about then?” Principal Gordon had been my principal in high school, and obviously knew what I was here about.
“Well Mr. Gordon, I think you know. Along with most of the student body, as well.”
“Really? Please, continue.” The old bastard was going to make me say it!
I sighed “It’s about Cole, Mr. Gordon, and his girl friend, Sophie Phillips?” he nodded and waved at me to continue. “Well, Sophie is…expecting a child, you see, so she may be missing quit a bit of school and such things. Especially in around…four months?” This couldn’t be any more awkward.
Mr. Gordon shifted in his chair “And how, Cassandra, did this come about?”
I take it back. It just got a whole lot more awkward “Well, you know…sex?” Could someone just kill me now and get it over with?
Mr. Gordon blushed, his face turning the colour of a unripe plum “Yes, Cassandra, I know how it happened. I’m asking how you could let this happen.”
“Mr. Gordon, you can’t be blaming me for this, can you?” No way is he putting all the blame on me,
He frowned “Well Cassandra, with you raising Cole, it may have provoked this…unsafe behaviour. Maybe we should call services-”
I stood up, my hands balling into fists “Don’t you dare bring my parenting skills into this, Gordon!”
“Cassandra, please. I was just saying-”
“Don’t, just don’t. I have raised my brother for seven years and made many mistakes; but this is not one of them.” I gave Principal Gordon my best glare, opened the door and left. There was one more thing I had to do today, and I really didn’t want to.
***
“Are you sure you want to, Cassie?” Cole was making scrambled eggs with ham for him and Sophie (who was always hungry these days, but strangely didn’t have any cravings yet-thank goodness) and trying to convince me not to go and see the Phillips.
“Yeah, stay home with us! We’re going to play Monopoly, or crazy eights.” Sophie really didn’t want me to go, but she still needed more of her stuff and I didn’t want her or Cole going over there, not after the way they’d been treated.
I smiled “I’m sure, and besides, Jake will be here soon to keep you company.” Jake had been amazing, especially when I told him. He had let me cry on his shoulder for a while, and was going to help me make the back room liveable enough so I didn’t freeze in the winter. When I told him Sophie and Cole were keeping the baby (which I was so happy about; when the kids told me, they thought I wouldn’t let them) he offered to help turn my old room into a nursery, and find us a deal on a double bed for Cole and Sophie.
“Okay, good luck.” They watched me leave from the second floor as I drove away, nearly shaking with nerves. As the Phillips house came into view, I had to convince myself not to turn around, go home and play cards with the kids.
I walked up the steps and knocked on the door, pulling my jacket closer to protect me from the cold mid November winds.
Ryan Phillips handsome face turned stony when he opened the door to see me, and I swore he knew I was shaking in my boots “Ah, Cassandra St. Clair, what a surprise. Jean, Cassandra has paid us a visit!” Jean Phillips walked up behind her husband, her blue eyes wide.
“Hello Cassandra, we thought you might come soon.”
“Though were hoping you wouldn’t,” Ryan said, sitting on the white couch, Jean perched beside him.
I sat across from them, my hands in my lap. This was going to be weird “Well, Jean, Ryan, I’m sure you know why I’m here. It’s about Sophie’s pregnancy-”
“Which we would like to pretend doesn’t exist, thank you.” Ryan said.
I clear my throat “Well, that’s a hard thing to do. Sophie’s due in April, five months away, and she really needs her parents support-”
“We refuse to support this,” Ryan said, his voice cold as the wind raging outside. “Sophia does not deserve our support; she made a mistake, and will pay for it.”
This is not the way it was supposed to go “But-but she’s your daughter!”
Ryan’s face was emotionless “We do not consider her our daughter any longer.”
No way “What?”
Jean looked like she was about to cry, but Ryan was pretending to –or really didn’t- notice “We have opened a bank account that you Sophia will gave access to when she is nineteen, and if she ever decides to go to collage, her savings are still welcome to her. But she is no longer our daughter.”
“Sophie-she needs her things.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“We have packed all her clothes, books and personal items into a few boxes; you may take them when you leave.”
I stood up “I have never met two more horrible people in all my life, I really haven’t. I would be ashamed if I were you, but not because of your daughter, but because of you.” I walked out, noticing the few boxes piled in the hall. They watched me load them into my car, and as I put the last one in, I felt nauseas.
“They’re keeping the baby, by the way. I thought you might like to know.” I drove away, wondering how to tell Sophie her parents didn’t think of her as their daughter.