- Who's The Daddy –

Chapter Three

There was a loud knock on the door the next morning. Well at least, I assumed it was morning when I first opened my eyes, but at the bright sunlight shinning through my curtains, I doubted that fact. I slowly crawled out of bed and padded down the stairs in my pyjamas to open the front door. But when I did, I got the shock of my life.

There, stood in front of me in the bright sunlight, were six boys ... the six boys that I had been thinking about telling about my pregnancy all last night.

"We need to talk to you." Harry, who was stood at the front, said to me calmly. He nodded into my house, and I gulped and stepped back, allowing all the boys to walk past me and into the lounge. I slowly followed after them closing the door behind me.

It was silent for a moment. I didn't know what to say to them, so I settled for looking at my slippers. I felt my hands shake and I curled them into fists.

"I'm ... I'm sorry...." I said quietly, after five minutes had passed.

"You're sorry? That's all you have to say? Sorry!?" Sam jumped to his feet and yelled at me.

"Sam..." Harry tried reasoning with the angry boy, putting his hand on his shoulder. Sam shrugged it off and glared at me, before looking around at the other boys.

"You can't honestly be thinking of just letting her off? She had sex with us all, and now thinks we can all forgive her because she's sorry?" he roared again.

"But we can't just yell, we need an explanation!" Frances said, looking between Sam, Harry and I. The other boys remained looking away, all embarrassed by Sam's reaction.

"We agreed when we came here to get an explanation, not scream at her." Harry chided the boy in front of him, before turning to me. His eyes showed disapproval, but thankfully, he didn't look terribly angry. He didn't look at her in pure hate, like Sam had moments ago.

"Tara?" Derek spoke up finally. I looked up shyly at him. "Tell us why."

"How did you all find out?" I asked, ignoring his question.

"We... we all got a text through from Tanya" Johnny said, passing his phone over to me. The text was almost identical to the one sent to Carter's phone, plus a few more derogatory terms.

Sam, Harry, Frances, Derek, Johnny and Danny.

Just thought I'd let you know.

You're all part of a sick dare Tara took place in.

The bitch slept with you all!

How's that feel?

Tanya x

"Doesn't that explain it enough?" I said, shoving the phone back to Johnny.

"It doesn't tell us why you did it," Harry said, sitting on the arm of my chair. The others followed his lead and all settled themselves in the chairs around me.

"I ... I had to." I whispered, bringing my knees up to my chest.

"Why?" Harry pressed on.

"Because everyone else had done their dares; and trust me, my dare wasn't the worst, by far..." I said, thinking back to some of the dares that had been said back at the party.

"So you decided to go for it and become a slut?" Sam said angrily, and I snapped.

I shot up to my feet and went to slap his face. My hand was suddenly caught mid swing and I was pulled back into a body.

"Violence isn't the answer here, Tar." A familiar voice said to me, and my head snapped around to see Carter looking down on me. My legs felt weak with relief. At least he hadn't walked out on me forever. I didn't think I'd see him again after last night.

"What's it got to do with you, Ferrell?" Sam sneered.

I felt Carter's grip on me tighten and decided to intervene. "He was one of the boys too..." I said quietly, but they all heard me.

"So there were seven of us?" Danny asked, looking from person to person. "You had to sleep with seven guys in what ... seven days?" I nodded slowly. Carter led me back to my seat and forced me back down into it.

"Tara," he said as a warning. He raised an eyebrow and inclined his head to the others. I knew what he as telling me. I closed my eyes and looked away from him, biting my lip. This was it...

"Umm ... but that isn't the bad part..." I said slowly, and I suddenly felt six pairs of eyes boring into me. Carter's hand rubbed my shoulder, urging me on. Butterflies flew around in my stomach as I weighed each word in my head. "I'm ... pregnant."

There was a deafening silence that filled the room.

"You really are a slut," I heard Sam say.

"No she isn't!" Carter growled at the offending boy. "You obviously didn't think any of the whole' protection' thing through either! And you could've said no, so it's as much our fault as hers!"

The room went silent again.

"How sure are you?" Johnny said shakily.

"All the tests I took were positive ... and my doctor said he would ring today to give me the official results," I spoke mechanically. I couldn't look at any of them. I knew they were all shook up, and didn't want to see their faces.

I heard a shuffling and then my front door banging shut. I looked up to see that Sam had left.

"I'm sorry," I said again, looking around at all the boys.

"It isn't your fault ... we're the guys, we're supposed to remember that stuff!" Frances said, shuffling his seat closer, and the other boys followed in suit.

"I shouldn't have done the dare," I argued.

"We shouldn't have all agreed to sleep with you!" Danny retorted.

"You aren't supposed to be understanding!" I yelled jumping to my feet. "Why don't you all hate me like Sam? One of you is going to become a father at 16, and none of you care?! It's not normal!" I continued to yell as they all looked up at me, sympathy in their eyes.

"Maybe we don't want to hate you Tara. Ever thought of that?" Johnny asked, tugging on his jumper.

"But you should!" I argued. They had to hate me; I wasn't going to make it through this if they were all going to be so understanding all the time.

Carter sat in my seat, pulling me down next to him. "Like I said, it isn't just your fault. We all wanted to, so we can't just hate you." The others all nodded, and I suddenly felt overwhelmed. Not in the sense of crying, but I flung my arms around Carter's neck and buried my head in his shoulder. I felt the others hands on my back and shoulders, telling me it was okay.

The phone ringing brought me back to reality. My eyes widened and I detached myself from Carter to look at the phone beside me.

"Go on," Harry encouraged me, picking it up and passing it to me. I took the phone off him in my shaking hand, and pressed it to my ear.

"Hello?"

It took a mere matter of a minute for her to confirm what I already knew. I said a quick thank you before hanging up the phone and looked around at the silent room.

"Well?" Danny urged me on.

I nodded. Danny and Derek both took in a deep breath. Harry put his head back on the back of the sofa, staring up at the ceiling.

"What happens now then?" Frances asked as Carters hand rubbed against my leg.

"Yeah. Are you keeping it?" Johnny chimed in. I looked at him in horror.

"Of course! I can't kill it!" I said; my eyes wide. When I'd calmed I shook my head. "I understand if any of you don't want to be a part of it. Hell, I don't even want to be a part of it..." I spoke slowly, leaning my head back against Carter's shoulder.

"I didn't mean it that way Tara. I just meant ... do you even want any of us around?" Johnny asked and I raised an eyebrow at him. "I mean, you don't know which of us is the dad to that baby. Do you want us around whilst you're finding that out?"

I raised my eyes to look at him, and he smiled across from me sweetly. I then looked around at the others. They were all looking at me, waiting for my answer. "You can all stick around if you want..." I said shrugging my shoulders.

*

We ended up hanging around together, all talking about what was going to happen from here on. We decided that the boys would talk to Sam and tell him the news. We would make an appointment for a check up for the baby, and then get on with finding out who the father was.

I couldn't believe how understanding they all were. They let me fret out all my worries, and I let them do that too, and afterwards, I felt a lot calmer. Not about the whole "having a baby" situation, but about who the father was. They all agreed that whoever it was would help out; they wouldn't leave me to fend on my own.

After lunch, the boys said they had to go. I walked them to the door and hugged them all goodbye, and I told them I'd ring them with the details of the first appointment. After closing the door, I turned round to see Carter leaning against the banister, staring at me.

"What is it?" I asked nervously, and he just shook his head dismissively.

I nodded cautiously and slid past him and up to my room, him following silently. He faced the wall as I peeled off my pyjamas and started getting dressed for the rest of the day.

"Did it mean anything to you?" he suddenly asked as I pulled off my pyjama top and searched in my closet for a t-shirt. I looked around the cupboard door to stare at his back.

"What do you mean?" I asked, frowning. I found a tie-die t-shirt and pulled it on before walking up behind him.

"The night we spent together ... Did it mean anything to you, or was it just because you were running out of time and you needed a last person?" he asked, turning around, his eyes blazing.

Hey guys. Not happy with this chapter, but it's the best I could do it. The next chapter will be better, I promise! Thank you Sadie, for looking over this and for your constructive criticism =) Thank you for reviewing you guys (especially notyourbiz, your review really cheered me up!) and hope you'll all review again!