FicWad

Before the woman could physically kick us out of the house, James rolled off of me, yanked me to my feet, and ran out of the house as fast as he could. Gasping for breath as we ran, I couldn't help but wonder who that woman was. I supposed that it was Johnny Zazula's wife, but I didn't have any proof of that. Regardless of who she was, she had obviously been very pissed. I wondered what had pissed her off so much. Johnny had invited us to stay in his house, so it wasn't like we were intruders or anything. However, the guys had drank all the bottles of wine and champagne without asking, so maybe that was what had upset her.

James and I finally made it out the door, slammed it behind us, and leaned against the house to catch our breath. I was panting hard and wasn't thinking about anything. Footsteps to our left caught our attention. Turning around, we saw Lars and Cliff walking towards us. Lars looked me over and smirked. Wondering what was wrong, I asked between pants, "What are you looking at?"

"You," Lars said, still with that annoying little smirk on his face. "Maybe you want to...um...readjust your shirt?" Looking down, I remembered that I hadn't exactly gotten my shirt on all the way while we were escaping from the evil woman who had kicked us out of the house. Blushing furiously, I yanked the shirt down over my bra and looked away from Lars.

"Where are we gonna sleep now?" James yawned, suddenly very tired. Lars and Cliff exchanged nervous looks and peered around the area. A building to the right of the house caught our attention. Motioning for us to follow him, Lars started leading the way across the grass and towards the building. Too tired to care what the building was, James, Cliff, and I trudged behind him. Looking over at James, I could tell he had dropped from his high into a low. He was squinting into the dark and every movement he made seemed to take up a lot of strength. I held his hand tightly, not wanting us to get separated in the dark.

Finally, we reached the building and stood looking up at it. Lars narrowed his eyes, looked it over, and then explained to us, "It says that this place is called 'The Music Building'. I think this is where we're suppose to do our recording. Let's check to see if it's unlocked, hm?" Having no better ideas, we all nodded and walked up to the door of the building. Lars knocked, but no one answered it. After a moment's silence, Lars went ahead and tried the door. It swung open easily.

At this point, I was battling whether or not I felt okay about invading this building. True, it probably was our recording area, but I still didn't feel right just walking into it uninvited. But on the other hand, I certainly wasn't going to sleep outside tonight. James pulled on my hand sharply and jerked his head towards the building. Hoping we weren't going to get into trouble, I followed the guys into the building, hoping all the while that we weren't going to get caught.

After we entered the building, Lars looked around curiously. It was a large, two-story building with lots of space. Peering around the corner, Lars stated, "This must be the rehearsing area. Let's see what's down the hall." Looking up to Lars as the leader as usual, the rest of us followed him down the hallway to a small door. Without feeling one bit guilty, Lars popped the door open and peered inside. It was dark and looked like some sort of storage area.

"What do you think about sleeping in here tonight?" Lars suggesting, motioning towards the storage room. "I mean, it's not like anyone's gonna find us here probably. Besides, we'll be out of here bright and early tomorrow morning to see what Johnny wants us to do. So what do you say, guys? Do you think it'll work for tonight? I think it's our best option."

Cliff nodded in his nonchalant way and looked over to where James and I were standing. Lars raised his eyebrows at us, obviously waiting for James or I to give our approval. James, looking like he could fall asleep on his feet, yawned and said, "Yeah, this is fine for tonight. Let's go to bed guys. I feel like I'm gonna collapse."

The other guys nodded their agreement and looked around for a place to sleep. James led me over to a corner of the room and stripped his shirt off while I settled down in the corner. A few moments later, James collapsed on the ground next to me with an arm flopped over my neck and his head pressed into my chest.

~ ~ ~ ~

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't manage to fall asleep that night. It was cold in the storage area...very cold. It was so cold that my fingers were numb and my teeth were chattering. Plus, it didn't help that I kept hearing weird noises from around the room. I couldn't help but worry that we were sharing our little area with some other little creatures. Maybe rats or mice. That would just be gross. I didn't mind them in general, but sleeping with them? Ew, that thought was just disgusting.

After what seemed like an eternity, the room started to light up ever so slightly and I figured it was morning. Still dressed from last night, I figured I would just get out of here and take a bus to the drug store to pick up the pregnancy testing kit. I didn't feel like hanging out in this dank, dark room any longer. However, before I left, I was gonna have to get James' attention.

James was still lying next to me on the floor with his blonde hair falling in his face and with his arm still thrown over my shoulder. Ducking out from under his shoulder, I whispered, "James? James, wake up!" James made absolutely no movement. I wondered if maybe all that champagne from last night had really knocked him out. Maybe he was going to be impossible to wake up! Annoyed, I stood up and tapped James lightly in the ribs with my toe.

He grunted slightly and rolled over onto his other side. Glad to see some progress, I tapped him a little harder this time and hissed into his ear, "Hey James? I'm going out for a while. I'll see you later, okay?" James finally seemed to wake up. He pushed the tangle of blonde curls out of his eyes and peered up at me blearily.

Still obviously half-asleep, he asked, "Huh? Where are you going? It's so early. Why don't you just stay and sleep a little longer?" I shook my head vigorously, not wanting to stay in this room any longer than necessary, "Nah, I don't want to stay in here. It's way too cold and I'm fucking freezing. Besides, I need to get to the drug store. Remember? We talked about it yesterday."

James leaned up on his elbow and thought about what I was saying through his sleepy haze. After a few minutes, he finally nodded and said, "Oh yeah, I remember now. That can wait though. I mean, we've got all day. Can't you come sleep with me? I could help warm you up if you're cold." James gave me one of those cheesy smiles that made him look even cuter than normal. His offer was tempting, but I was way too stressed about the whole pregnancy aspect to want to hang out with James.

Shaking my head, I replied, "Nah, not now. Stop smiling me like that! You look too cute for your own good!" Leaning down, I kissed James' mouth once and then stood up and walked across the room to the door of the storage area. As I reached the door, I could feel eyes watching me. Turning around, I saw that James was now sitting up and was watching me closely.

Rolling my eyes, I said, "Seriously, don't you have better things to do that look at my ass? If you're awake, why don't you come to the store with me?" The suggestion quickly wiped the smile off of James' face. He quickly shook his head and made a face. James obviously wanted to have as little to do with the pregnancy ordeal as he could.

I stepped out of the storage room and into the little hallway. Glad that no one was around, I went into the hallway and snuck carefully out of the building the way we had come in. Luckily, the building was completely empty and I didn't see anyone the whole time. That was lucky since I still wasn't sure whether or not I was suppose to be here.

Once I was outside, I crossed the street and waited by the bus stop sign. The day was rather cold out, and I found myself pulling my sweater closer against me in an attempt to keep warm. Just when I thought I was going to freeze to death, the bus finally pulled up at the bus stop. I was so happy to see the bus that I swear I had to resist giving the bus driver a big hug.

I climbed up the three stairs to the bus and dropped some change into the bus driver's hand as I said, "Can you bring me to the drug store that's nearest to here?" The bus driver, who was a dark-haired guy, nodded and motioned for me to go sit in the back of the bus. I picked a spot by the window and waited for the bus to start up again. After a short wait, the bus took off again. I hoped the drug store was close nearby. I didn't want to have to travel more than thirty minutes out of the area. I felt small and lost in a place like New York. My only comfort was James, and at the moment, he was far away.

Fortunately, we reached the drug store after about fifteen minutes. Glad that it was pretty close to Johnny's house, I skipped out of the bus and entered the drug store in a relatively good mood. However, when I got into the pregnancy kits section, I felt my stomach tighten and a rock form in my throat. All these pregnancy kits looked so scary. I didn't want to be pregnant or have anything to do with a pregnancy. To be honest, I didn't really like little kids very much, so for me, this was like a nightmare. Besides, deep inside, I knew James wasn't ready to be a father. James was a great boyfriend, but he was still a boy. He hadn't really grown into a man yet. He was very carefree and unpredictable and most certainly wasn't going to be a good role model for our kid.

Wanting to get out of the pregnancy section as quickly as possible, I randomly grabbed one of the pregnancy kits off the shelf and hurried towards the counter still feeling sick to my stomach. When I got to the checkout counter, I dropped the pregnancy kit unceremoniously onto it and looked up at the cashier. She was an older woman with brown hair with gray streaks in it. When she saw me, she smiled kindly and rang up my purchase.

As I dug around in my purse for some change, the woman spoke for the first time. Tapping the pregnancy kit with a long, manicured fingernail, she asked, "This isn't for you, is it, honey?" Completely caught off guard by the question, I jerked my head up to look at the woman and nearly dropped by purse. At the last moment, I saved it from falling and then answered her question in a flustered tone, "Um, yeah, it is for me actually. Why do you ask?"

The old woman looked shocked at my news and a look of horror spread across her face. Frowning, she stuttered, "But...but you're just a child! How old are you, sweetie? You're only about fifteen, right?" God, why did everyone always think I was younger than my real age? Trying not to show my irritation, I corrected, "I just turned seventeen actually."

My statement didn't seem to make the woman relax at all. She just shook her head worriedly and looked me up and down, "I had a friend who was sixteen when she got pregnant. She was really a small child back then. She looked a lot like you actually. Poor, poor Trisha..." The woman never finished her question. However, by this point, she had captured my attention. I wanted to know who Trisha was and what had happened to her.

"What happened to Trisha?" I asked curiously. The woman froze and finally said, "She died while having the baby. It was a real waste. She was such a young girl with so much talent left. Tell me, honey, how did you get pregnant? Were you raped or did you have a one-nighter with some random guy who took off the next morning?"

"Um, neither," I said, not feeling comfortable with all these questions. "I did it with my boyfriend. But really, I don't even know that I'm pregnant yet. I'm probably not." I said those words to reassure myself, but my shaky voice certainly didn't sound very reassuring at all. The woman bagged the pregnancy kit box for me and handed it to me with a regretful look on her face.

"I wish the best of luck to you, honey. Raising a child on your own will definitely be hard," she said with a nod of her head. Not sure exactly what she meant, I raised an eyebrow and asked, "Um, what do you mean by that? I'm not going to raise a kid on my own. James is going to be with me. He promised he wouldn't leave me." As I said this, I came to the realization that "um" was becoming a very prominent part of my vocabulary.

"Is James your boyfriend?" the woman asked. I nodded. Giving me a sympathetic gaze, the woman chastised, "You shouldn't count on James to stick with you through this. Boys always leave their girlfriends once they get them pregnant. Most guys your own age don't want to play daddy yet. All boy's minds work the same way. Don't rely too heavily on James, whatever you do."