Danielle Steel - The Gift

“I don't think so. Not from one time like that. I mean you could …but you won't, Maribeth. And next time I'll be careful.” She wasn't quite sure what being careful entailed, but she knew that if she ever did it again, and she might, maybe if they went steady, if Debbie Flowers had and that was what he expected of her, then she knew she would want to be careful. The one thing she didn't want in her life now was a baby. Even the remotest possibility of it made her tremble. And she didn't want to be forced into marriage, like her two aunts. She suddenly remembered all of her father's stones.

“How will I know if I am?” she asked him honestly, as he started the engine, and he turned to look at her, surprised by how innocent she was. She had seemed so grown up to him earlier in the evening.

“Don't you know?” he asked, more than a little stunned, and she shook her head, as always honest. “You'll miss your period.” She was embarrassed to hear him say it, and she nodded her understanding. But she still really didn't know any more about it. She didn't want to question him any further now, or he might think she was incredibly stupid.

He said very little as he drove her home, and he seemed to look around as they stopped in front of her house, and then he turned to her and kissed her. “Thanks, Maribeth. I had a wonderful evening.” Somehow she expected losing her virginity to mean more than just a “wonderful evening,” and yet she had no right to expect more of him, and she knew it. She had been wrong to do it with him the first night she met him, and she knew she'd be lucky if it developed into something more. And yet he had told her he loved her.

“I had a wonderful evening too,” she said cautiously and politely. “See you at school,” she said, sounding hopeful. She handed his jacket back to him, and she hurried from the car to her front steps. The door was open and she let herself in. It was two minutes before midnight. And she was grateful that everyone had already gone to bed. She didn't have to explain anything, or answer any questions. She cleaned herself as best she could, grateful that no one else was there to notice, and she soaked the skirt of her dress in water and then hung it up, trying not to cry. She could always say that someone had spilled punch on her, or gotten sick.

She slipped into her nightgown, shaking from head to foot, and hurried into bed, feeling sick, and then lay there in the dark, in the same room as Noelle, thinking of everything that had happened. Maybe this was the beginning of an important relationship in her life, she tried to reassure herself. But she wasn't sure what it all meant, or how serious Paul Browne was about her. She was thoughtful enough to wonder if he had meant everything he'd said. She hoped he had, but she'd heard other stories of girls who had gone all the way, and then been dumped by the guys who made them do it. But Paul hadn't “made her” do anything. That was the scary part. She had wanted to do it with him. That was the most shocking thing about it. She had wanted to make love to him. Once he had started touching her, she wanted him. And she wasn't even sorry now. She was just scared about what would happen. She lay in bed, terrified, for hours, praying she wouldn't get pregnant.

Her mother asked her if she'd had a good time the next morning over breakfast, and she said she had. The funny thing was that no one seemed to suspect anything, and from the way she felt, Maribeth expected them all to see that she was suddenly a different person. She was grown up, a woman now, she had done it , and she was in love with the most wonderful senior in the whole school. It was absolutely incredible to her that no one noticed.

Ryan was in a bad mood, Noelle had a fight with her mother about something she'd done the night before. Her father had gone to the shop, even though it was Saturday, and her mother said she had a headache. They all had their own lives, and no one saw that Maribeth had been transformed from caterpillar to butterfly, and had been Cinderella to Prince Charming.

She seemed to float on air all weekend, but on Monday she came to ground with a sharp thump, when she saw Paul walking into school with an arm around Debbie Flowers. And by noon everyone knew the tale. He and Debbie had had a fight, and had made up, because someone said he had gone out with some other girl over the weekend, and Debbie couldn't take it. No one knew who she was, but they seemed to know that Debbie had been furious, and by Sunday they had patched things up and were once again going steady. Maribeth felt her heart crash to the floor, and didn't see him face-to-face until Wednesday. He was very kind to her, and stopped to say something to her, as she tried to avert her face from him while she put something in her locker. She hoped he would walk by, but he had been looking for her for days and was glad he'd found her.

“Can we go and talk somewhere?” he asked in a low voice that seemed filled with sex appeal and raw emotion.

“I can't … I'm sorry … I'm late for P.E. Maybe later.”

“Don't give me that.” He grabbed her arm gently. “Look, I'm sorry about what happened … I meant it … I really did … I wouldn't have done that unless I thought … I'm sorry …she's crazy, but we've been together for a long time. I didn't want you to get hurt.” She almost cried when she saw that he really meant it. Why did he have to be a nice guy? But it would have been even worse if he hadn't.

“Don't worry about it. I'm fine.”

“No, you're not,” he said unhappily, feeling guiltier than ever about her.

“Yes, I am,” she said, and then suddenly tears stung her eyes and she wished that everything could have been different. “Look, forget it.”

“Just remember, I'm around if you need me.” She wondered why he had said that, and she spent the next month trying to forget him. She ran into him everywhere, in the halls, outside the gym. Suddenly it seemed as though she couldn't avoid him. And in early May, six weeks after Maribeth and Paul made love, he and Debbie announced that they were engaged and getting married in July, after graduation. And on the same day, Maribeth discovered that she was pregnant.

She was only two weeks late, but she was throwing up constantly, and her whole body felt different. Her breasts seemed suddenly huge and were excruciatingly tender, her waist seemed to expand overnight, and at every moment of the day, she was overwhelmingly nauseous. She could hardly believe that her body could change so much so quickly. But every morning as she lay on the bathroom floor after throwing up, praying that no one had overheard her, she knew that she couldn't hide it forever.

She didn't know what to do, or who to tell, or where to turn, and she didn't want to tell Paul. But finally at the end of May, she went to her mother's doctor and begged him not to tell her parents. She cried so much that he agreed, reluctantly, and confirmed that she was pregnant. She was, predictably, exactly two months pregnant. And Paul had been wrong, she very emphatically could get pregnant from “just one time.” She wondered if he'd been intentionally lying to her, or simply stupid, when he told her he didn't think it could happen. Maybe both. It was certainly beginner's luck, in any case, and she sat on the examining table, clutching the drape, with tears rolling down her cheeks, as the doctor asked her what she was going to do about it.

“Do you know who the baby's father is?” he asked, and Maribeth looked shocked and even more mortified at the question.

Of course,” she said, looking humiliated and grief-stricken. There was no easy way out of this dilemma.

“Will he many you?” She shook her head, her red hair looking like flame, her eyes like green oceans. The full impact of it hadn't even hit her yet, though the prospect of forcing Paul to marry her, even if she could, was very tempting.