A/N: I would just like to say as a disclaimer that I do not support the decision made in this chapter, so please do not hate me too badly for taking the story in this direction. Please enjoy and review! :)

- 21 Weeks –

“Jamie?” her mother’s voice called as she knocked softly of Jamie’s door.

“Mhmmm?” Karen took that as an invitation inside Jamie’s room. Jamie lay on her bed, completely emerged in her covers.

“Going to bed already?” Karen asked.

“Mmmmhmmm,” Jamie replied.

“It’s seven o’clock in the evening, dear. You can’t be tired.”

“I’m sure you remember how tiring being pregnant can be.” Karen pursed her lips.

“You have to stop avoiding us all. It just took a couple of weeks for the shock to wear off. I mean, when you sat us down to talk, none of us even expected you to be pregnant. But I really think everyone has gotten used to the idea,” Karen said.

“Gotten used to it? Everyone looks at me like I’m some kind of freak,” Jamie said angrily.

“Well, you know what? You’re just going to have to suck it up and get over it, won’t you? You got yourself into this mess, so you had better deal with it,” Karen shot back.

“Ughhh, just go away,” Jamie groaned.

“Don’t speak to me like that. Just because you’re pregnant doesn’t mean I can’t ground you.”

“Ground me from what? I don’t care about anything anymore.”

“From your friends. You aren’t allowed to see Lilly or Ashlynn anymore. They aren’t a good influence on you and I don’t want you hanging around them.”

“You can’t do that!” Jamie cried, outraged, as she shot up from her bed, untangling herself from the covers.

“Oh yes I can. Maybe when you stop talking back, moping around, and making bad decisions you can see them again.”

Jamie screamed in frustration as she threw herself back down onto her bed, covering herself once more. Karen got up and left the room as Jamie began to sob hysterically. She felt as though nothing was going right in her life. First Brian, then Lilly and Ashlynn. Who did she have now? she thought.

Just then her door opened again. She peeked to see her sister, Lexy, enter her room.

“Oh, Jamie.” Lexy slithered under the covers with her big sister and wrapped her arms around her.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Jamie confessed. “I’m too young to handle all of this. I just want everything to be back to normal and for Brian to not turn his face into disgust every time he sees me.”

“Maybe,” Lexy began. “when he sees the baby, he will fall in love with it and you and you will be happy.”

“I don’t think so, Lex. There isn’t much that would make him forgive me.”

“There must be something.”

Jamie’s mind began to race. She could think of only one thing that would make Brian happy.

- - -

The door opened and Jamie saw Brian standing in his doorway. His neutral face immediately turned into an anxious look. He turned to close the door behind him.

“What do you want, Jamie?”

She was shocked to hear him say her name. It had been so long.

“Hi,” she said quietly. He waited. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“I’m sick of talking, Jamie. Nothing has changed and nothing is going to change.”

“But wait. Maybe something can change. I have a proposal. I think you might like this idea.”

“Don’t you get it, Jamie? You betrayed me. You went behind my back and did something stupid. Now you’re having this baby and I just can’t live with it. I don’t want to be a father and you are forcing this on me. Don’t you understand how much you have ruined my life? Can’t you just let me be mad for nine months? Because soon, I’m going to have to deal with a kid and put up with you for the next eighteen years. I don’t want to, but I have to and you are making me. This is your entire fault. You have made me resent you and I will until that kid grows up.”

“But I don’t want you to hate me,” Jamie said, her eyes filling with tears. “Just listen.” She added as Brian began to speak. “What if I don’t have this baby?” Brian stood still for a moment.

“What do you mean?” He sounded hopeful, which Jamie took as a good thing.

“I could get rid of it. Then we can be together happily and we won’t have anything driving us away.” Brian looked stunned.

“You would do that?” he asked, amazed.

“If that’s what you really want, then that’s what I want.”

“Isn’t it a little late?” he asked.

“I can find someone who will do it. I just have to talk to Ashlynn first.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, completely. I just have to tell her. I feel like she deserves to know, you know? Maybe she should abort it too. This was a stupid idea.”

“Very stupid,” Brian agreed.

“So it’s a deal? I abort it and you stop hating me?” Jamie couldn’t believe what she was doing. She never considered the idea that her life could go back to normal. She was strangely elated at the thought of lifting all of her burdens off of her shoulders, or rather stomach.

“Deal.”