I’d like to say that Thanksgiving went on without a hitch, but that would be a lie to say the least. The house was full of people. Fleur’s parents and her youngest sister were staying at the house over the weekend. Normally I didn’t mind Fleur’s family, but her mom kept giving me disapproving looks, and then I caught her complaining to Fleur about my hair. Part of it was in French, so I wasn’t exactly sure what she was saying, but I got the gist of it.

Dad told me to keep Chantel, Fleur’s sister, entertained Wednesday night. Apparently it had slipped his mind that she was six years older than me and a pre-med student that I had absolutely nothing in common with. Not to mention I felt ugly just standing in the same room as her. Chantel looked a lot like Fleur, and she had also done some modeling in the past, but after finishing high school, she decided to go to a university to study to become a doctor. She was nice enough, but she seemed a little too uptight in my opinion. Spending Wednesday evening keeping her entertained was far from an easy task.

Thursday everyone arrived at our house around noon. Emmy, Harris, and the girls were first to arrive, and my dad’s brother, Ben, and his sister, Beth, followed with their families in tow. My dad also had another brother and sister, but they went elsewhere to celebrate the holiday. My grandma Ryland came with Beth, as she lived with them. She cornered me and questioned me about college before reprimanding me for not visiting as much as she thought I should as soon as she spotted me.

Eventually Mia showed up with Drea. I hugged Drea the second I saw her and told her how much I had missed her, but she just smiled weakly. I could tell that something was wrong, but they arrived just as we were getting ready to eat, so I planned to get her alone to talk after we were finished eating.

Things didn’t work out that easily though. First aunt Beth started talking to me about the class curriculum. She was a college professor before she became a principal at a private school. She wanted to know all of my professors’ names and about my classes before Jackie, Fleur’s mom, came by and they started talking.

Then my uncle Ben and uncle Jeff, Beth’s husband, cornered me. First Ben went on and on about how much I had grown since he last saw me, and then he started teasing me about some song I made up when I was little.

“What did you call it, Judy?” Ben asked, looking up toward the ceiling while he tried to recall the name of it.

“I really don’t remember,” I replied. My uncle Ben always seemed to remember me as a four-year-old, and apparently he had yet to realize that I was nearly eighteen-years-old despite the fact that he had noticed that I had grown since our last meeting. And I really had no recollection of the song I apparently used to sing when I was little, and it was quite embarrassing to be reminded of the silly things I had done - especially in front of Jeff, who I barely knew, as he and Beth had only been married for about five years, and I’d only seen him about once a year since.

“Nothin' In Muh Noggin, wasn’t it?” Ben said after a moment.

“Huh?” I replied.

“The name of the song,” he said.

“Oh, it might have been,” I shrugged, looking around for some way to escape.

“I would have liked to have heard that one,” Jeff chuckled.

“Judy always was a creative one,” Ben laughed. I wanted to roll my eyes, but I held back. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my uncle Ben. He was a nice guy and a big joker. I just hated how he always thought of me as still being a child. I had enough of that problem with my dad.

After another moment of my uncles’ reminiscing, I quickly excused myself and fled from the room. I was just about to be stopped by Ben’s wife, Alexandra, but it was Drea who saved me. She grabbed me by the elbow and ushered me to the stairway in the kitchen.

“I need to talk to you,” she said quietly.

I nodded and we started up the stairs. We went up to my room, and I shut the door before I turned to her. “What’s up?” I asked as she put her hands in the pockets of her hoodie and rocked on the balls of her feet.

Drea sighed and stared down at the floor for a minute. I frowned and stared at her and waited for an answer, but she didn’t answer right away, so I walked over to her and put my hands on her shoulders and shook her slightly. “Drea, what is going on with you?” I asked.

She lifted her head and I could see tears in her eyes. “I’m pregnant,” she whispered.

I blinked and stared at her blankly for a moment, waiting for her to crack a smile and tell me she was joking, but when she didn’t, I knew it must be true. “What?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief. “How far along are you?” I asked after pausing for a moment.

“Five months,” she replied.

“What?” I asked, stepping back and looking her over. I was sure that she was kidding. She couldn’t possibly be that far along, but as my eyes settled on her midsection, I noticed that there was a visible bulge there, and I had noticed her putting on some weight over the summer, but I just attributed it to her sitting around the house eating junk food and doing next to nothing over the summer. “Why are you just now telling me?” I asked.

Drea looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “I didn’t find out until after you left for college …”

“Drea, you would have been like three months along by then,” I pointed out. “You’re telling me that you didn’t know until then?”

“I wasn’t sure,” she replied. “I just … I thought … I dunno … you know how my period is always irregular,” she said.

“I thought you were on birth control to regulate it,” I commented.

“I ran out before graduation,” she sighed.

“Does your mom know?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Drea replied.

“What the hell?” I asked. “Drea, if you’re five months along that only gives you four months to figure things out. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to keep it,” she replied.

“Well then you better tell your mom,” I said.

“I know … I just … I wanted to tell you first,” she said.

“God, Dre, I can’t believe this,” I sighed. I knew I was supposed to be the supportive best friend, and I wasn’t doing a very good job of it, but I was too shocked and still trying to process the news.

I sat down on the edge of my bed and shook my head before I looked up at her. “Who’s the father?” I asked.

Drea didn’t answer right away and I frowned. “You do know who the father is, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” she exclaimed, looking offended.

“Well, I just wanted to make sure,” I replied. “Who is he? Do I know him?” I asked.

Drea sat down on the chair in the corner and stared down at her feet.

“Drea?” I prompted.

“Yeah, you know him,” she replied. “Or knew him, I guess I should say,” she muttered quietly.

I stared at Drea for a minute, trying to process her words, praying that she wasn’t saying what I thought she was. “It’s Paul’s?” I finally asked, swallowing hard.

“Jude, I swear it’s not what you think,” she said, looking up to meet my eyes, but I glared back at her.

“Not what I think? You’re pregnant with Paul’s baby. What am I supposed to think?” I demanded, standing up quickly. “How long were you fucking him behind my back?” I asked.

“Jude, it didn’t happen that way,” she cried. “It was just once … after graduation … it was an accident …”

I shook my head as angry tears burned my eyes. “What? I was out of the picture, and you two just fell on top of each other? What? How’d that work, Drea?”

“It was at Marcy’s graduation party,” Drea explained. “Paul was drinking. We both were. And he was upset about you and him. He thought you didn’t love him anymore. I was trying to comfort him and things just happened … it was a mistake. I’d never do anything like that to you on purpose, I swear.”

I shook my head and ran my fingers through my hair in disbelief. “Wow, I can tell he was really heartbroken over me,” I commented sarcastically. “I mean, jumping into the sack with the resident whore really proves his love for me.”

Drea looked both astonished and hurt by my words, but I really didn’t care that much about her feelings at the moment. She was the one person I had always trusted. I told her everything, and I always counted on her. When I wouldn’t let anyone else in, she was the on person who I had let in, and for her to do something like this to me just proved to me that I couldn’t really trust anyone anymore.

“Did Paul know he knocked you up?” I asked after a moment.

Drea nodded. “I told him that first weekend you came home to visit,” she replied quietly. “I called him after I left your house.”

“Well, that explains why he never called me back,” I muttered, rolling my eyes. “So, if you hadn’t got pregnant were you ever going to tell me about this?” I asked as I paced the length of my room.

“Jude, you have to understand – we never meant to hurt you. Especially after what happened to you … you’d already been through so much. We just wanted to forget it ever happened,” she explained.

“Well, that sure as hell didn’t work, did it?” I glared. “Four months from now you’ll have Paul’s kid running around as a permanent reminder. How perfect is that? The stupid bastard kills himself and leaves you here with his kid to raise,” I said, shaking my head. But as soon as the words left my mouth, the meaning behind Paul’s letter became clear to me. This was what he had been apologizing to me for.

“Jude, I know it’s not enough, but I’m sorry,” Drea cried. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

I rolled my eyes and stopped pacing and turned to look at her. “Well, you did. I hope you’re happy,” I spat. “I never want to see you again. Ever. Get out,” I said calmly as I pointed to the door.

Drea started to say something else, but she looked at me and quickly stopped. She stood up and walked over to the door. She stopped as she reached for the handle and looked back at me once more, but I continued to glare at her, so she turned the knob and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her.

As soon as she was gone, I fell down on my bed and cried into my pillow until I fell into a fitful sleep. I woke up a while later, but I just laid in bed. I never went back downstairs after my talk with Drea, and Emmy came up to check on me once, but I faked sleep so that she would leave me alone. My dad checked in on me before he went to bed as well, but I pretended to be asleep then too.

Early the next morning I climbed out of bed and started to pack my things up. I decided that I couldn’t handle staying home for three more days with Fleur’s family there. I didn’t need Jackie complaining in French about the state of my hair, and I wasn’t about to try to entertain Chantel again, so after packing up my things, I carefully snuck downstairs and into the garage.

I put my bags in the back seat of my blue Ford Focus, and I even remembered to get my portable sewing machine before I grabbed my car keys from the key rack in the kitchen. I wrote my dad a note saying I was going to Emmy’s and I climbed into the car. I hit the automatic garage door opener in my car and waited for the door to open before I started my car and backed out. I made sure to close the garage door before I pulled out into the main road and headed out.

I stopped by the gas station to fill up my car before I headed for Emmy’s. I knew my dad was going to be mad that I just left without telling him, and I knew he would be especially mad that I took the car, but it was mine, and I didn’t see the point in leaving it home all the time. Besides, I just had to leave. I couldn’t stay there another minute. So many things in my room reminded me of Drea, and I was so angry and hurt by her that I couldn’t stand to stay in there for another minute.

I couldn’t believe that she and Paul had slept together. And I especially couldn’t believe that she was now pregnant with his child. The idea of Drea having a baby scared me. She was one of the least responsible people I knew. I had no idea how she was ever going to raise a child, but I pushed those thoughts from my mind. I didn’t want to think about her, so instead I just drove and listened to the radio.

It was still early when I got to Emmy’s house, but luckily, she was up and fixing Lula some breakfast when I arrived. She looked up with surprise when I entered the house, but she didn’t ask any questions until after Harris got up and sat in the kitchen with Lula and they ate their breakfast.

“What are you doing here, Jude?” Emmy asked as we sat down on her couch.

“I just couldn’t stay there, Em,” I sighed as I shook my head. “Fleur’s mom was on my nerves, and I didn’t want to entertain Chantel. I just can’t deal with them right now.”

“What’s going on?” she asked. “What the hell happened with you and Drea? She came back downstairs a little while after the two of you went up, and she made Mia take her home. She was crying and everything …”

“Drea’s pregnant …” I answered.

“What?!” Emmy gasped as her eyes grew wide.

“… and it’s Paul’s,” I finished.

Emmy’s eyes grew even wider and her jaw dropped. “What?!” she repeated in disbelief.

I told her everything that Drea had told me, and Emmy sat there patiently and listened as I went into a full on rant about how betrayed I felt. She didn’t butt in or try to calm me down. Instead she let me get everything off of my chest. Then she let me cry on her shoulder for a while as she patted me on the back.

It was odd going to Emmy like that though. I had always done that type of thing with my mom when I was younger, but something about Emmy just reminded me of our mom. So many times I had complained about her trying to parent me, but for once I didn’t mind. It felt nice to be held and comforted like a child.

Then afterward we went into the kitchen and ate some breakfast. Tibby woke up as we were finishing, and Harris went to get her as the phone rang. It was dad. He demanded to talk to me, and as soon as I took the phone I knew he was mad.

“What were you thinking just leaving like that, Jude?” he exclaimed.

“Dad, I just needed to get away,” I said calmly. “I knew that you wouldn’t want me to go, and I didn’t want to argue.”

“Jude, I was scared to death when I went to check on you this morning and you were gone,” he commented.

“I left you note a on the table,” I sighed.

“Yeah, I found that after I searched the house for you,” he replied grumpily. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Dad, I’m sorry,” I sighed. “I just figured you’d come downstairs before you checked my room. I really am sorry.”

“Jude, why’d you leave?” he asked. “You were supposed to stay until Sunday.”

“Dad, I just can’t deal with a bunch of people right now,” I replied.

“Well, what are we going to do about your car?” he asked.

“I’m driving it back to campus,” I replied.

“You’re what?” he exclaimed.

“Dad’s it’s ridiculous for me to have a brand new car sitting the garage at home when I could have it with me to drive home on the weekends. That would save everyone a lot of trouble of coming to get me,” I pointed out.

“Jude, I just don’t like the idea of you driving around Tulsa,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Dad, I’m an adult. I’m fully capable of driving my own car around town,” I replied.

“You’re not an adult yet,” he said. “You have a couple of months until you turn eighteen.”

“Don’t use that as excuse with me, dad,” I replied, growing angry with him for treating me like a child. “I may not be eighteen yet, but I’ve been through more crap than most adults, so don’t treat me like I’m a child. I’m not.”

“Jude, I know you want to be treated like an adult, but you’re still my child,” he replied.

“I know that. But I’m asking you to just let me be. Let me make my own decisions. Let me grow up,” I said, my voice trembling with emotion. “I know I will always be your ‘baby,’ I’m used to that, but I just want you to trust me enough to let me grow up. Please.”

Dad was quiet for a moment before sighed into the phone. “Fine,” he replied. “Just drive safely. And please, just be careful.”

“I always am,” I answered.