Chapter 3-12: Today Was a Fairytale

                Xander quickly followed his twin sister’s plan of leaving Twinbrook. His years in boarding school had taught him that there was more to life than bayous and backwater bars and inbred residents. He wanted to be a big name, same as Thea, just a different industry. After making some calls, he secured an interview in Storybrook.

                He arrived in the city with little time to spare. Having spent most of his life in Twinbrook where the largest buildings were the old plantation homes, he felt small and insignificant among the skyscrapers and lights. “Pull yourself together” he chided himself. Moments before an interview was no time to suddenly go philosophical and start thinking about his small role in the big world.

 

                 “Dad, I got the job,” Xander exclaimed when his father finally answered the phone. He hadn’t expected much, maybe a second interview and a long waiting process but the company had hired him on the spot. 

                 “Yeah, it’s pretty much a miracle! I start next week so I don’t have long to find a place and move.” He immediately began searching for apartments in or near the city that were cheap enough for him to afford on a meager starting salary.

                Yalena threw up again that morning. It had been a week now that she had been sick. She was fully aware of what this might mean and had bought a pregnancy test at a small corner store on her way home from school a few days before. However, she was scared to actually take the test. Not that knowing would change anything realistically, but, somehow in her mind, knowing would change everything.

                 She put the test off for two more weeks. She began to expect the nausea and when she was late, she knew she could wait no longer for the small pink box to be used. When the little plus sign appeared in the display window, she sank to the wall, wondering how she was that girl that would get pregnant the first time.

                 She knew she couldn’t tell anyone. Not yet anyway. Glen had to be the first to know. They were in love, they would figure things out together. Yet, just like with the pregnancy test, she put her confession off. “He loves me, what am I so scared of,” she wondered, unsure of why she didn’t want to tell him. While she waited and pondered, her stomach began to swell, little by little. She would stare in the mirror at her belly, wondering when people would start to notice. Unbeknownst to her, Zarah was already suspecting that her sister wasn’t just getting fat. It’s hard to hide secrets when you share a room.

                 “You’re pregnant, aren’t you,” Zarah confronted her sister after making sure everyone had left the room.

                 “What, why would you say that,” Yalena lied, unsuccessfully.

                “Watcher, how could you be so stupid! Who’s the father, that older boy Dad told you not to see anymore?”

                 “No! Just some boy from school,” the lie came easier and with more conviction. She had to protect Glen. “And we can’t all be geniuses like you!”

                At that moment, she knew it was time to tell Glen.

                They agreed to meet at the Old Ebbitt Lounge during her lunch break. It wasn’t too far from the school so no one would notice she was missing but the lounge itself didn’t open until five that evening so it would be pretty deserted. He found her there, right when they were supposed to meet, sitting on a bench, just staring at him with those big green eyes.

                 She stood but didn’t rush to hug him or kiss him as she normally would. It was then that he knew that this wouldn’t be a good meeting.

                “Look, please don’t be mad,” she whispered,” but I’m pregnant.” Her words dropped so quietly that he couldn’t hear her.

                “Lena, what?”

                “I’m pregnant Glen.”

                 “Okay, we’ll figure out what to do. Just, let’s meet and talk about this when we have enough free time to actually talk. Don’t do anything about it yet, okay?”

                “Okay,” she smiled at him, trusting him completely. As she rubbed her stomach, excited for the first time since finding out, she never saw the fear in his eyes, hidden behind his fake smile.

                 After Yalena headed back off to school, Glen wandered straight to the nearest open bar. Not that there were many bars in town to begin with but he knew he couldn’t take this problem to the posh country club he worked at.

                ‘What’s got you down sugar,” the bartender drawled at him.

                “Nothing I want to discuss,” he growled.

                “Fine, have it your way. Sulk in silence like you men always do.”

                So he did. He sulked with a beer and then he sulked with a rum and coke. Eventually he decided neither could do the trick so he decided to sulk with some shots of tequila. Before long, sulking in silence seemed like the worst idea ever.

                “I just, Watcher, I don’t know what I’ve got myself into,” he bemoaned, looking around for his glass. The bartender had already cleared it away, prompting him to order another.

                 “Tell me all about it,” she soothed, smiling coyly at the money she would make tonight.

                “Well, I’ve been seeing this girl. And things have been going great but, she just told me she’s pregnant! I’m not ready to be a father. She’s definitely not ready to be a mother. She’s still in school! What am I supposed to do?”

                “Well, it seems there’s only one thing you can do,” she whispered conspiratorially. “You’ll have to convince her that this is an awful idea.”

                As he sat and cried into his drink and tried to find a solution, he never noticed that there had been an active, highly interested listener in the background.

                 Yalena was trying to enjoy, and keep down, her cereal the next morning before school when her father approached her. She refused to look at him, even once he started talking to her.

                “Look, I know you don’t like me. And that you’re mad at me for not allowing you to continue seeing that older man. But I did it for your best interest because I do love you. And it was a good thing too.”

                 She couldn’t stand his superior tone any longer. “Oh yeah, and how’s that,” she scoffed at him.

                “I overheard him yesterday and it seems he got his current girlfriend pregnant. I told you he was bad news.”

                So content knowing how right he had been, Verne failed to notice his daughter’s look of astonishment and dismay.

                 “My father knows! Oh my Watcher, my father knows!” she screamed to herself, trying to appear calm on the inside. Instead of heading to school, as she should, she quickly trekked over to Wren’s house. Though they had a big age difference and she had been gone for most of Yalena’s childhood, the two sisters had remained close.

                “Are these yours,” she asked, standing in front of a picture taken in Al Simhara.

                “Ha, do you think I’m that conceited,” Wren laughed. “Okay, maybe a little. How are you?”

                 As she turned to her sister, she saw the tears begin to well up and she quickly grabbed her into a hug.

                “What’s wrong?”

                 Yalena plopped on the couch, looking defeated. She launched into the story; how dad had made her quit seeing Glen, how they were in love, how they were going to be together always, and then she had found out she was pregnant. 

                 “And Zarah knows. And dad overhead Glen somewhere and knows that he got his girlfriend pregnant. I just don’t think he knows it’s me yet.”

                Wren sat in silence for a moment. She wasn’t sure what to say or where to start. Her little sister, a pregnant teenager. Pregnant, no less, by an older guy who should have known better than to get involved with a teenager. She knew she had to tread lightly because Yalena was obviously already emotional about the whole situation.

                “What are you planning on doing,” she asked cautiously.

                “Well, me and Glen already talked about it and we’re going to decide together. I’m sure once we explain, dad will be okay with it. He does want to ‘win’ me back afterall.”

                 “Are you so sure,” Wren asked.

                “Of course. He’s been trying to be all nice and get me to forgive him.”

                “But Yalena, the entire thing culminated in him forbidding you to see Glen again. He wants to protect you. Don’t you think that finding out that you’ve been seeing Glen behind his back will upset him even more? And finding out you’re the pregnant girlfriend?”

                Yalena stopped to think for a minute. Wren felt horrible for bursting her sister’s bubble but reality was the only way to go from here. She need not have worried though because, a few minutes later, Yalena beamed again.

                 “Glen loves me. True love conquers all, right,” she drifted off into the fairytale that Wren knew would only ever be in her head. “If only she knew that life never works like the stories. Maids don’t marry princes, mice don’t talk and true love is rarely as simple as we want to believe”.

                 “Yalena, listen to me. No matter how happy Glen makes you, dad is never going to be happy about this. And you know how he feels about doing the right thing. In his eyes, Glen already crossed the line by seeing you in the first place. Once he finds out that you’re pregnant, and he will find out, dad will probably call the cops. No matter how much you love him, he still broke the law.”

                “How can you sit there and say that? You’re supposed to be helping me!” Before Wren could say another word, Yalena was off, running out the door. Tears streaming down her face, she quickly called Glen and asked where they could meet.

                 “Oh Glen, I’m so glad you’re here! We have to pack and leave now. Let’s run away together and raise our baby and be a happy family,” she cried, running her sentences together. She reached in to hug him but, for the first time, he pulled away from her.

                “Lena, I’m so sorry. This baby, it’s a mistake.”

                “What, how can you say that? It’s our baby,” she replied, confusion written all over her face.

                “Lena, I love you, really I do. But I can’t go to jail. Your father will never let us be together. Maybe we have a chance, when you’re finally old enough, but not now. And not ever if he ever finds out. He’ll make sure I rot in prison for the rest of my life.”

                She stared at him blankly, not sure if she was comprehending him correctly.

                “If you need help or want me to go with you or, or anything, just tell me,” he stammered on, just rambling now. “After that though, we can’t see each other anymore. Not until you graduate. I’m sorry.”

                 She watched him as he turned his back and walked away from her and her baby. She knew he was right. Wren had known it, Glen knew it. Only Yalena had been silly enough to think that she and Glen and their baby would live happily ever after. There was only one thing left to do and she didn’t have much time left.

Chapter 3.11                                                                                                                                      Chapter 4.1

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Man, this chapter was difficult to write. I was out of inspiration for so long, even knowing that she was pregnant. Yalena is my first teen pregnancy (though not the first ever in game. MC seems to relish making half the town teen parents) so it was hard to write from her perspective while trying to still be realistic.

Because of where her story is going, Chapter 12 will be the last one in Generation 3. Next chapter will start Generation 4 though it does seem to have rather started from here. Officially though, she takes over soon. Thanks for sticking with me, yet again through a lull!