Chapter 2.42 Big Girls Don't Cry

Belle didn't tend to use her phone at school.

This was a different occasion though. She was panicking and she needed someone to talk to that wasn't directly related to her but someone who she could trust. She texted her cousin Elvie a couple of minutes ago to come to the toilets, and she was just waiting now until her cousin got there. Belle had her eyes closed, and was resting her head against the cubicle wall. She could hear when her cousin came in though.

"Why are you sat on the floor? The toilets are disgusting." Grumbling, Elvie looking around the toilets and then finally looking at Belle. Raising an eyebrow, she asked "Are you alright? You honestly look terrible." She frowned, dusting off the floor slightly before sitting down opposite. She made a face, but sat down anyway. 'Luckily', Elvie had inherited Rosie's 'speak what she's thinking' characteristic. 

"I'm on the floor because if I stand up, I'll probably faint." Belle murmured, barely opening her eyes. She felt awful. Feeling as if she hadn't slept; she was that tired. Also, she had just finished throwing up for what felt like the billionth time that morning. "And gee, thanks. You always know what to say to make me feel better." She grumbled sarcastically at the looking terrible comment,

Frowning, Elvie sighed. "Seriously, what's going on? And why aren't you wearing that ring that Axel got you?" She asked, starting to get worried.

She recalled that Belle had thrown a fit in gym class previously when they asked her to take it off, claiming that the whole school was just simply a dictatorship. Also, insulting the gym staff that they were stupid if they really thought that simple ring would really get in the way or be a safety hazard. She almost got suspended for being rude to the staff, but she was told that if she apologized and stayed after school one day in detention, she could wear it if she really had to and if it would save further disagreement.
But now she wasn't wearing it, which worried Elvie. Had the two of them broken up? Surely that couldn't be it. Perhaps Belle just misplaced the ring or something. "Did you guys break up?" She asked, quietly.

"It's kind of a long story." Explaining and yawning at the same time, Belle knew she really wanted to go back home, crawl into bed and just try to sleep away everything that's happened recently. She frowned deeply before mumbling. "Can you keep a secret? You can't tell anyone, at least not now." Worry and nervousness were evident on her features

Looking her cousin up and down, Elvie noticed that Belle's hands were shaking, and she looked as if she was going to start crying at any given moment. "I promise, I won't tell anyone. What's going on? You're kinda starting to freak me out."

Belle frowned, taking a moment before saying. "There's a chance that I might be..." Trailing off, she was trying to avoid saying the final word. It would all seem so much more real if she said the word aloud. Secretly, she just hoped that all of this was some horrific and vivid nightmare and she would just wake up being perfectly fine with no sickness nor tired feeling nor her dress feeling suspiciously tight around her chest.

"A chance you might be what?" Elvie asked, looking at Belle. She was getting really worried about her cousin. If something was wrong, Belle would usually just say so, but she was acting really secretive and nervous.

Belle stayed quiet for a long time before mumbling. "Pregnant. There's a chance I might be pregnant." She sniffled, trying to keep any tears back and wiping away those that have escaped. She didn't want this, at all. It was the worst timing in the world and she was still a teenager. She should have just waited instead of rushing into having sex. Nothing bad would have happened if she just decided to wait. She could have just waited until she was an adult and was more responsible, but she didn't and now she was regretting it.

Elvie's eyes widened, and she whispered. "Are you serious? What do you mean there's a chance?" She asked, very quietly. She knew that Belle probably didn't want anyone to hear, and freaking out loudly (despite wanting to) wasn't the best thing.

"I found a test in the cupboard under the sink in the upstairs bathroom, but I think I peed on it wrong. Nothing came up. Nothing at all. no plus or minus sign, it was just blank." She frowned, confused. "I think I'm going to try and get another one soon, I don't know when though." She explained, wiping her eyes. She didn't want to go back into lesson and be crying. That would just cause even more rumors about her following the ones that are going to be arising soon.
"Have you told Axel?" Elvie asked, still rather in shock. She knew that Belle could be a bit of a prude and was without a doubt the last person she would think would be in this type of situation.

"We broke up." She mumbled, starting to cry more. She tried to blink her tears back, but no use, Using her hand to wipe away the tears she realized she was sick of crying.

Elvie glared, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. "Are you kidding me? He dumped you because you're kno-" She cut herself off, noticing Belle's look. "Never mind." She huffed. "I won't go hunting him down now, but if I see him, I swear to God, I'm going to murder him." She growled.

"I broke up with him." She clarified. "I didn't tell him because I knew he would then drop out of his scholarship because of me. I just said it  was because of the distance and I didn't want to go through any of that."
Confused, Elvie asked "Why would that be a problem if he dropped out?" She asked.
Belle frowned, and started to explain"Because if he doesn't go now, he never will go, and then he'll never get to even try with his music career and add that on top of the stress of having a you know what on top of that..." She sighed, and shook her head.

"I don't want him to give up on any possible chance of what he wants to do because of me because then he'll resent me for what I've done and then we'll end up arguing because of this resentment and then I'll start resenting him for... I don't know, something. And then the next thing you know, we'll end up breaking up over dirty dishes or something and then there's a baby stuck in the middle of all of it and we'd end up fighting over custody and then the baby would end up hating both of us and it'll end up smoking and drinking and taking drugs and something equally as bad. Then I'd be classed as a bad mother and I'd have it taken off me by social services and it would go into care and love it's adopted parents more because it's adopted parents were together and didn't argue all the time and the next thing you know I'm just that crazy lady who treats her cats like her own children because she wasn't a fit enough mother because she got herself knocked up as a teenager and lost her only chance of finding love so she sets up romantic dinners with her cats." Sobbing, she explained her rather long-winded prediction. She knew it was rather far fetched, but she didn't want anything like that to ever happen, ever.

"Right..." Moving over to comfort Belle, Elvie frowned. That got really heavy really quickly. "But, what if it's just a false alarm? Like you said yourself, you don't know for sure, so there's no need to get upset and you can go and tell Axel that you didn't mean what you said and that you were just worried for no reason." She half smiled, trying to be supportive.
Managing to stop crying, Belle looked at the floor, frowning and sniffling. "I don't think it is a false alarm." Mumbling, she continued with "I have a feeling that it's not." And she wiped her eyes. She then started to recall something Juniper asked when she was little.

"Where did I hide who?" Belle recalled asking, her sister was acting weird and she could tell that she had seen something. Juniper was still young then and probably didn't know the difference between what she sees and what's real.
"The baby, silly. I saw you cuddling a baby, where did you put it?" Juniper was adamant about it, which just confused Belle. Perhaps the vision was of her being a lot older? She knew Juniper knew that babies didn't just come out of no where, but she knew she shouldn't be the one telling her toddler sister about how babies were made.
"Junie, you're the only baby in this house. There's no other baby." Belle remembered she tried to tell Juniper that she wasn't hiding a baby in her room. She recalled not exactly wanting to mention the 'b' word because her boyfriend was over and she knew it would be very difficult to explain why her sister was talking about babies.
"But I saw you cuddling him!" And Juniper got into a huff.

Belle felt cold thinking about it now. If she had only just thought about it before having sex, let alone having it without protection. She hated herself for making such a stupid, stupid mistake and possibly ruining the rest of her life. She didn't quite hear what her cousin said, so she asked. "What?"

"I asked, what are you going to do?" Elvie frowned. Despite it being a selfish thought, she was relieved the roles weren't reversed. She knew her mom would go nuts if she ever came home pregnant. Then again, her aunt Alyssa was a little nicer than her mom.

"Right now, I think I'm just going to try and go home." She mumbled, standing up against the wall of the cubicle. She honestly had no clue what else to do. Actually, she did know what she wanted to do. She wanted to slap her past self for being so stupid but without a time machine, she couldn't exactly do that.

"Do you want me to go down to reception with you?" Elvie frowned, standing up too. She really wanted to be there for her best friend. She didn't have first hand knowledge of what she was going through, but that didn't mean that she couldn't be supportive still.

Belle shook her head. "I just want a little alone time." She mumbled quietly, looking at the floor. She was about to start crying again and she really didn't want to cry yet again.

"Look, whatever happens, I'll always be here. If your mom goes nuts over it, you can stay with me." It was Elvie's adult birthday that day, she had a house picked out just outside of Dragon Valley and she had seemingly everything planned out, unlike Belle. Belle had a few ideas of what she wanted to do, but now all of her ideas and plans were spiraling out of control just because of one little mistake that could have easily been prevented.
Telling her family hadn't yet crossed her mind and she just felt another worry pile on top of her ever-growing list. "Thanks." She gave her cousin a hug before walking out of the toilets.

Belle had decided to call Tyler and ask him to pick her up from school. She called him instead of her mom because she knew her mom was busy at work (that and the colour of her mom's car was bright pink. Bright freaking pink)
The car ride home was mostly silent and Tyler couldn't help but get a little worried. Usually, Belle would be talking about whatever book she was reading or any she had read, but she wasn't talking. She was just looking out of the window, frowning.

"Nothing bad happened at school, right?" He asked, glancing over at her. "You're still friends with your cousin aren't you?" 

"Nothing bad, and yeah." She answered bleakly. "I just feel a little under the weather." With that brief explanation, she went quiet again and looked out the window. Everything looked so much darker in winter, she couldn't help but think it may have been pathetic fallacy in comparison to how she was feeling.

When she got home, Belle went straight up to her room. She took off her dress and put her pajamas on. Her dress was a bit more snug than what it used to be, which obviously had her worried that the worst outcome did occur. Laying down on her bed, she started to think about what on earth she would do. How angry would her mom be with her? She didn't even want to think about it, she knew she had to, but she really just wanted to put it off as long as possible.

However, Alyssa had her own suspicions about Belle. She knew something was wrong with her daughter and there were enough tell tale signs. Like, the way Belle reacted to her breakfast this morning. Alyssa had a little extra time this morning and had enough time to make pancakes for the family, which was Belle's favourite, but almost as soon as she came downstairs, she tried to hide the fact she was gagging and went straight back upstairs and the shower was turned on, obviously to hide the fact that she was throwing up. Add that to the fact that Alyssa noticed that the spare pregnancy test in the bathroom cupboard was gone... She had been through the symptoms enough first handed to notice them on someone else.

Almost as soon as she came home from work, she went straight upstairs and she knocked on Belle's bedroom door before walking in. "Sorry, I didn't realize you were sleeping. Tyler told me that you came home early from school today?" She started, frowning.

"It's alright." Mumbling, Belle sat up in bed. "Yeah, I wasn't feeling all too well so I came home." She shrugged.

"Were you feeling sick again?" She asked. "I heard you were sick this morning." Alyssa raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I was kinda sick at school. It might be something I ate there or something." Feeling uncomfortable at the amount of questions her mom was asking, Belle couldn't help but wonder: did she know?

"Something you ate?" Alyssa raised her eyebrows and then shook her head. "You know, I noticed the spare pregnancy test in the bathroom isn't there anymore and that the box was in the bin. I know it wasn't me, and I'm pretty sure Juniper doesn't need it, and you've been feeling sick lately and have been sleeping a lot." Arms folded, she pointed out what she had noticed. Sighing, she sat down next to Belle on her bed. "So, when were you going to tell me?"

"When I knew for sure. I think I broke the test." Belle's attention was held by the floor, and the little, odd stain on her carpet. "Nothing came up on the thing." She tried not to start crying again. "It was totally blank."

"Blank?" Sighing, Alyssa realised it was probably out of date after recalling she had bought that test as a 'just in case' test a really long time ago. "Look, I'll go out and get you another one, and when you know for sure, then we'll have a talk."

Melody was realising that having two teenage brothers, and a little sister who doesn't really watch TV wasn't working out for her. She wanted to watch her soap operas, but the boys and Juniper decided that playing video games was better.

"How the hell are you so good at this?" Nate grumbled. Currently, he was losing, Not just to Ash, he wouldn't be as in a mood if it was just to Ash, but he was losing to his little sister as well. How humiliating; losing to his little sister who hardly knew what she was doing. 

"Nate said a bad word!" Juniper announced, trying to get her big brother into trouble.

"Don't be a sore loser, just because Juniper's beating you." Teasing meanly, Ashton smirked over at Nathaniel

"You're all idiots." Grumbling, Melody rolled her eyes. "What fun can you get from a stupid game with no purpose or meaning?" She continued grumbling about the game and it's stupidity.

"Whatever, just because you suck at it." Nate grinned over at Melody, who just rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, even Belle's better than you." A small scoff and smirk from Ashton were directed at Melody.
"You know what, the two of you are just assholes and you're dragging Juniper into your kingdom of ass-ery." Huffing, she folded her arms. What on earth was the appeal of stupid little games that had no real life meaning?
"Melody said two bad words." Juniper called. Her siblings were usually all nice to each other, apart from when it came to video games. When video games were on, it was like war.
"Snitch." Melody narrowed her eyes at Juniper accusingly.
Tyler sighed, "If you guys don't start being nicer to each other, the TV's getting unplugged." He warned, and just like that, all of them were being nicer. They remembered the last time when the TV got turned off, it was the worst hour imaginable. They had resorted to reading and going outside. It was awful.

Luckily for Melody though, it seemed as if things were about to get a little bit more dramatic around here when she noticed her mom walking in...

When Alyssa left, everyone was upstairs and Tyler was busy working, not quite the same now. Everyone but Belle was downstairs which made it a lot more difficult to sneak upstairs unnoticed. She hid the pregnancy test she bought for Belle behind her back, but she wasn't all too discreet about it after entering the house and quickly hiding it behind her back while looking panicked.
Tyler narrowed his eyes at Alyssa. First Belle was acting odd, now Alyssa. Something was going on. "What are you hiding?" He asked.
Her voice rose an octave. "Hiding? I'm not hiding anything." She laughed, obviously nervous. It didn't take a genius to know she was lying as she was fidgeting and shifting her weight.

"Then what have you got behind your back?" He asked, genuinely confused. He could tell she was lying, it was obvious.

"Nothing, why do you keep asking me all these questions?" Getting a little overly defensive, she frowned. She took a few steps back, but the heel of her shoe got caught in one of the uneven floorboards. They haven't been right ever since Adrian used one of them as a makeshift crowbar when they got trapped in the lift that one time, so it wasn't much of a surprise when she lost her balance and dropped the pregnancy test.

It took Alyssa a moment before she stood up again, and she noticed that everyone was looking at her with rather wide eyes. 

Silence lingered for a while, until a grinning Melody commented with "Oh wow. Who needs TV when you have a family like ours?"

"Upstairs, now. All four of you. Go to your rooms." Alyssa frowned, and watched as Ashton, Juniper, Nathaniel and Melody went upstairs, Melody still finding the whole event rather funny.

Tyler didn't even know what to say. Alyssa was pregnant again? They couldn't have another baby in the house: there was no room, it would be much younger than it's siblings (Belle would be an adult by the time it was born.), they'd have to start all over again and never be able to have any time without there being any kids in the house and the two of them would be elders before it was a teenager. "Y-You're-" He started, blinking.
"I'm not. It's not mine, and you know that if it was mine, I would have already told you." Sighing softly, she frowned up at him. "Sorry if I scared you." and she then gave him a small smile.

He sighed with relief. "Thank God." He mumbled. "We shouldn't be contemplating more kids at our age,"

"I don't want any more kids." She half smiled at him. "There's already five living here, we don't need another running around here. We'll be grey by the time another one would be a child."

Confused, he furrowed his eyebrows. "If it's not for you, who is it for then?" He asked.

Sighing, she answered. "It's for Belle." She quickly added before he could speak. "I've got the situation all under control, I can handle it for the mean time. She seems really scared and I think it's best if I just talk to her on my own right now." She looked up at him.

"It's Belle's?" He asked, realizing that's why she was acting so secretive earlier. He sighed, and nodded. "Alright, you can handle it. Do you want me to tell the other's that it wasn't yours?" He suggested.

She nodded, "Tell them it's a spare one for just in case or something. I'll tell you what happened after I've spoken to Belle."

Back up in Belle's room, Alyssa handed Belle the pregnancy test. "It's caused a lot of trouble already." She murmured, and sighed. "So what happened?" She asked, frowning.
"Well... Axel and I went up on to the school roof for prom instead of staying in the crowded gym. We talked, danced and he gave me a promise ring." She smiled sadly, and sighed. "So, then we came back here, and things were getting really hot and heavy but I remembered that we shouldn't do anything without protection but-" She started but was soon interrupted.
"But what?" Alyssa narrowed her eyes. She took her daughter's silence as an obvious answer. "You didn't use any protection, did you?" She sighed heavily, sitting down next to her on the bed.

Belle stayed quiet for a long time, before asking quietly. "You're not going to kick me out, are you? I've heard that a lot of other girls in the same situation got kicked out and sent to live with their aunts, but I don't think Rosie nor Sabrina would really appreciate it," She mumbled.
Alyssa's eyes widened, "I'm not going to kick you out. I think Rosie or Sabrina would probably send you back to me anyway." She half smiled, joking lightly. She put on a stern demeanor again. "I'm not very happy about it but I'm not one of those moms that gives up on her family when things get rough, and I thought you would know that."

"I know, I just feel as if everything's going downhill." Sniffling once again, Belle really did try not to cry for probably the millionth time today.

"Hey. No crying." Alyssa frowned. "Crying isn't going to do a single thing. Have you ever seen me cry over something that hasn't gone my way?" Tough love, but Alyssa couldn't help but feel as if she was being harsh on poor Belle.

Belle shook her head, "No." She admitted, and realized her mom really hasn't gotten upset over anything. Throughout everything, she's never really seen her mom cry. She's seen her mom tear up or get angry, but never cry as such.

"Okay, so no crying." She clarified. "Big girls don't cry anyway." She half smiled, then sighed. "So what you're going to do, is you're going to take this into the bathroom and find out for sure if you're pregnant or not, and remember no matter what the results, you'll always have your family behind you."

Belle nodded and stood up. "I'm really sorry Mom." She felt like she had to say something like that. She could tell that her mom wasn't all too happy with her.

"We all make mistakes and there's no point me holding any grudge against you or kicking you out when all I'd be doing is hurting myself and your feelings when you probably need me the most. Now go take that test and if you need to talk to me while you're waiting, I'll still be in here."

The talk lasted for quite a while, but when Alyssa finally did get downstairs, she went straight to where the wine was kept.
Tyler figured it probably wasn't a good sign. "So, I'm taking the talk with Belle didn't go all too well?"
She sighed. "I guess you could say that." She found a bottle and got them each a glass. "Or, perhaps I'm celebrating the fact that I'm going to be a grandparent soon." Smiling bitterly before frowning, she sat down next to him on the couch.

He sighed slightly. "Right. So does she know what she's going to do?" He asked.
Alyssa nodded. "I got her to calm down and I asked her what she was going to do. I also told her that whatever she doe, she'll always have us here to support her. She said that she wanted to keep it, and then I made it clear that even though we'll be there for her, it isn't our main responsibility and I said that she's got a lot of growing up to do. I told her that she can stay here as much as she needs, but there isn't all too much space or I suggested putting down a deposit on a house for her and she agreed to the deposit thing and asked if she could have her college fund used on baby things and the house. Almost everything is worked out in theory, apart from what she's going to do for a living, job wise. I told her that I'd be willing to babysit for her whenever I could and then she thanked me and then I came down here because she looked like she needed a little time alone.." She explained, partly looking at him and partly looking down at the floor.

"It sounds like she was pretty mature about the whole thing." He noted, and noticed that something else was bothering her. "Is everything alright?"

She pursed her lips for a moment, considering what he asked, and she then asked in return. "Do you think I'm a bad mom?" She frowned.

His eyes widened at her question. "Of course not. You're an amazing and caring mom. Why would you ask that?" He frowned

"I just feel that way because of-" and she then mumbled inaudible words as she trailed off.
He narrowed his eyes at her slightly, trying to figure out what she was thinking about. He sighed when he realized what it was, moving slightly closer to her. "You know what happened concerning the fairy wasn't your fault, and you shouldn't blame yourself."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "What happened to our agreement of you staying away from my thoughts?"
"Can't we just say that I knew what you were thinking because I love you and care about you?" He suggested, grinning.
She put on a sigh, grinning in return. "Fine. Only because I love you too." and she gave him a kiss.

Chapter 2.41 Prom

Chapter 2.43

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AN: I couldn't find a suitable time for Alyssa to change back into everyday clothes with it making sense still and I kinda miss her in glasses. They do suit her and I've missed that outfit.

I do feel bad for Belle for doing that. I can't even imagine what it must be like to go through something like that. But, if you can cast your mind back, I half dropped hints in this particular chapter (with Juniper's vision, even though the parents of it wasn't quite known then (known now).)

I'm unsure of what else to say, other than this is kind of my goodbye story to Belle (like you know, I like to make sure my spares have a proper goodbye and a little story for them to be on their way I'm really going to miss her, she's got exactly 2 more days until she's an adult which is rather upsetting. She'll still be around, of course, just not as much. *sigh*. She was kind of my 'just in case' spare (just in case something happened to Juniper or if I didn't connect to Juniper's character) but I know what I'm going to do with Junie when she's older so yeah. 

Ah yes! Last comment which I almost forgot! I was told by my English teacher to work on my sentence starters, I tend to open with pronouns (the, he, she, it etc...) and I need to mix it up a little bit. I was focusing on that in the start, but kinda forgot closer to the end. 

Very very last thing, I got this:

You'd think that after living with a werewolf older brother and sister the joy would wear(wolf)(hehe) off.

Apparently not for Juniper. She get's this every time she talks to Ashton or Melody.

I'm taking it has something to do with her Supernatural Fan trait however, but still. It seems a little silly how she would constantly be amazed by her supernatural siblings...

Ah well. Whatever floats her boat.