Chapter 15

Carmen bounced into the house Wednesday afternoon. The drama club has just posted the cast list for Chicago. She barged into Shane's office, and was shocked to see Tristain sitting across the desk from Shane.

“Tristain... What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Just talking to your dad.”

“We're almost done in here, Carmen. Was there something you needed?”

“I just wanted to tell you something real quickly. It can wait.”

“No, what was it honey?” Shane asked, closing the manila folder on the desk in front of him.

“Guess who got the lead in the spring musical?” Carmen asked smiling.

“You did? Congratulations!” Shane was ecstatic for his daughter. “Who do you play?”

“Velma Kelly. A lot of dancing and singing, so I'm going to be at rehearsal a lot more than the others but it's all good... I'll let you two get back to whatever it was you were doing. We'll talk later, okay Dad?”

“You bet.”

“See you, Tristain.”

“Bye. And congratulations, about the musical.”

“Thanks.”

Carmen closed the double doors behind her as she left Shane's office. What the hell was Tristain doing in Shane's office and why hadn't he said that he had a meeting with Shane?

Carmen's thoughts immediately flashed back to the night so many weeks ago, in the police station. Was Tristain in trouble? Was he going to jail? Thoughts raced through Carmen's head as she climbed the elegant staircase to her bedroom. Thoughts of fear and worry of the future. Of Tristain and his future. Of their future together.

Shane didn't know about the relationship between his daughter and Tristain, although Carmen was sure he suspected it. He was, after all, a cop. Sitting on her bed, Carmen stared blankly out of her window. To her right, she could see the playground where Tristain had asked her to Formal and to her left, was the direction to Tristain's house. Opposite sides of the tracks, so to speak.

Carmen lay down on the bed, thoughts merging with other thoughts; new ideas and problems forming in her brain. Carmen though of just how different her and Tristain's lives were. Carmen was almost sure that Tristain's father was abusing him, but she didn't want to say anything. She was afraid. Afraid of what Tristain might say if she brought it up and was wrong.

She was afraid of the truth.

She closed her eyes and stretched out on the bed. Carmen enjoyed the quiet, with only her thoughts as companions. In the quiet, alone, Carmen was most able to figure out her little problems, work on solving the bigger problems.

At the knock on the door, Carmen opened her eyes and was greeted at the open door by Tristain. She smiled, and then closed her eyes again. “Hi,” she greeted.

Tristain walked across the empty floor to her bed. “Hi yourself.” He sat on the edge of the bed, next to Carmen and placed his hand over hers. “Congratulations on the play.”

“Musical,” she corrected.

“Oh, my bad. Musical.” There was silence between the pair. “So I bet you want to know why I was here.”

“Gee, you think?”

“I can't tell you, Carmen. It has to do with the case. I'm not going to jail; at least your dad says I'm not as long as I cooperate with them. I don't want to go to jail, so I'm going to cooperate with them as much as I can.”

“Good. I don't want you going to jail.”

--

The next day as they sun shone happily though the windows and glinted off the freshly fallen snow, Shane was having a bad day. His current case had hit a road block and he was pretty sure Carmen was dating a drug addict.

“Hey, Dad,” Carmen’s younger sister, Amy, said as she opened the door to his office.

“What’s up honey?” he asked, distracted.

“I was cleaning up the bathroom, like you asked, and I found something.”

“What’d you find?” he asked as he looked up from the open case file sitting on the desk in front of him.

“An empty pregnancy test box.”

“What?”

“A preg –”

“No, Amy, I heard you,” Shane said, reeling from the shock.

“I just thought you should know about it. I was going to tell Mom, but she left a little while ago to go show another house.”

“Thanks honey. Leave the box, would you?”

“Sure thing.”

“Oh, Amy, you didn’t see the actual test thing, did you?”

“No, I looked though. I figured you’d ask about one.”

“You’ll make a good cop one day,” he said, praising his daughter. All she wanted to be was a cop.

“Thanks. Carmen should be home from rehearsal soon.”

“Alright. Do you know where Emma is?” he asked referring to the constantly absent eldest daughter.

“No, but I think she said something about staying after with her boyfriend for his basketball game.”

“Tell me when they get home, will you?”

“Sure Dad.”

Amy walked out of the room, leaving Shane alone to his thoughts. His daughters – his babies – were having sex and thought they were pregnant? He was going to be a grandfather? Why the hell weren’t the using protection? Why the hell were they having sex?

Hadn’t he raised them to be good, Christian girls? Hadn’t he stressed the importance of waiting until marriage?

Yes, he had been a teenager once. No, he hadn’t waited until marriage, but God, he wished at least a little longer than had.

Memories of the summer he turned seventeen flooded back to him. He was still living at home in a small, sleepy coastal town in North Carolina. His parents had surprised him with a crappy second-hand Ford for his birthday. It ran okay and the engine could use some work, but it was his.

He and his girlfriend, Rebecca Montgomery, had been dating for six months and as an anniversary present, he drove down to the beach, a picnic basket packed in the backseat.

They ate on an old blanket, basked in the glow of the harvest moon. And on that beach, after drinking half a bottle of champagne Shane had taken from his house, they lost their virginities to each other.

Sure, it was romantic and charming and they were caught up in the heat of the summer. A week before their senior years were to start, Rebecca had come over to his house, bawling. She was pregnant. His parents were ashamed of him and Rebecca’s parents were embarrassed. Both sets of parents tried forcing them into getting an abortion, but neither of them would have it.

Five months into the pregnancy, Rebecca woke up in the middle of the night, bleeding. She had lost the baby. The little child that Shane and Rebecca wanted as theirs was gone. Shortly after the miscarriage, Rebecca and her family moved away and they never spoke again. Shane never forgot Rebecca or the baby that he had created, but he still wished he had waited until he was older, more mature.

Shane was going to strangle whoever got one of his babies pregnant while they were still in high school.

“Amy said you wanted to see me Dad,” Carmen said from the doorway, breaking Shane out of his reverie.

“Yeah, I do. Come, sit down.”

Carmen felt like she was taking a seat in the principal’s office. “What’s up?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” he asked, placing the empty pregnancy test box in front of her.

Carmen blinked quickly and then looked out of the window. “So it is yours,” Shane declared.

“No, it’s not.”

“I know that move you just did, where you look away from me. You only do that when you don’t want to admit something you did.”

“It’s not mine,” she said again, more forceful, “it’s Kelly’s.”

“Don’t blame this on her, Carmen Abigail Williams.”

“It is. She and her boyfriend, Jared, had sex I have no idea how many times and then when she was late, she freaked out and we went out yesterday and she got a couple of tests – it was negative.” There was no need to tell him they had to go to a free clinic to make sure of that. “I haven’t had sex, Dad. Trust me on this. Why would I lie to you about it?”

“So I wouldn’t kill Tristain.”

“You know?” Oh shit, she thought, I just gave us away.

“I do now. Carmen, I told you that you couldn’t date him.”

Carmen raked her fingers through her longhair. “Dad, you can’t tell me who to care about, who to date.”

“Yes, I can. You’re my daughter. I overrule everything.”

“You can’t tell me who to care for,” she said again, standing up to face him.

“No, I can’t, but I was hoping you would make the right choices.”

“You don’t know the first thing about who Tristain really is. You only see him as a drug addict. You just see him as another hopeless case that has no future. You don’t know Tristain, Dad. You don’t know him like I know him.”

“Obviously not, but I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Dad, other guys have hurt me before and you never cared as much. I’m going to get hurt eventually, Dad. Someone or something is going to hurt me. That’s just how high school is. Trying to find love is all about taking risks and getting hurt, you should know that.”

“When I was your age, I thought I knew everything too, but I was wrong.”

“I never said I knew everything, Dad. All I said was that I knew more about Tristain than you do.”

“But I see this more often than you do, Carmen.”

“You can’t just throw Tristain into one of your statistics. He’s smarter than most are and he’s trying to quit – which is more than most in your damn statistics. He’s already better than he was.”

“It’s not good enough. He’s trying to beat an addicting drug on his own, it would be easy enough for him to regress and take it up again.”

“Dad, according to you, no boy is good enough for me. You just have to believe in him and have some faith that he’ll beat it and treat me well.” She walked over to where he stood, looking out the window and wrapped his arms around him. “Dad, I love you; I do. But I am going to date Tristain. I know you don’t want me to, but I’m going to. I really do care about him.

“I have to go get ready for dance and start some homework,” she said, walking toward the door.

“We’re not done talking about this, Carmen Abigail.”

“I am, though.” Carmen shut the door behind her, leaving a shocked Shane standing in the same spot.

--

For the first time since Carmen had started taking dance lessons, she skipped them, without a good reason. She left at the same time she would have if she had left for lessons and she brought her bag with all of her dance stuff, but she didn’t go. She went to Tristain’s.

“Can you believe he actually told me I couldn’t date you?” she fumed in Tristain’s bedroom. She was pacing his floor while he just sat back on his bed, watching her.

“Yes, I can actually.”

“Oh, be quiet. The fact that he actually had the nerve to tell me who I can and can’t date just pisses me off.”

“Well he I is your father. Normally, they tend to do those types of things.” His didn’t, but he supposed his mother would try, if she hadn’t left them.

“I know, and he has told Emma who she couldn’t date, but he’s never told me and that’s why I’m so mad. I’m supposed to be the good daughter he doesn’t have to yell at, yet all we’ve been doing lately is yelling and getting into arguments.”

“That all revolve around me,” Tristain said quietly.

“No, not all. Like today, before we started fighting about that, we were – kind of – yelling at each other about a pregnancy test he found in the garbage.”

“Your sister’s?”

“No, Kelly’s. Oops. Wasn’t supposed to tell you. Don’t tell anyone or Kelly will kill me.”

“Wait, she’s pregnant?”

“Nope. False alarm.” Carmen sat on the bed next to Tristain.

“Tristain, I don’t care how many fights I get into with my dad about you. I’m going to stay with you. He can’t tell me who to care about.”

Tristain grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back so she was lying against him, her head resting on his shoulder, rubbing her arm casually. Rock music played softly in the background as they enjoyed the comfort they gave each other. Carmen would never understand just how much she meant to him, Tristain knew.

She saved him, and he could never repay her for that.

--FINALLY!! A new chapter. So incredibly sorry it took me forever to get this chapter out. I was playing around with different ways to get the confrontation between Carmen and her dad and I liked this better. Plus, the other ways I did it were mainly crap. I hope you guys like this. Hopefully, I can have another chapter out soon, but I’m not going to promise anything immediate. Please review!--