[Harlequin] - Debbi Bedford - Just Between Us (txt), Ksiazki, txt
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JUST BETWEEN USBy Debbi BedfordCHAPTER ONEFebruary 17Dear Diary, I know you are wondering why I ripped out all the Jan uary pages and all the rest of February and just started on today. I did it because Ifilled January up with dumb stuff. Little girl stuff. And now I'm not a� little girl any more.I ripped everything out so I can just open this book and start all over on this day.This is going to be a very important book. I am go ing to write my thoughts and feelings in here so when I get old and! have a daughter who is fourteen, I canre member about some of the things I was thinking and feeling. I really think I'll remember everything. But I decided to write it down in case I don't. Because! won der if my mind might change when Iget old. Like when Iget to be thirty.The first thing I have to write about is being a teen ager. When I grow up I am always going to love my daughter. I won't care if she talks back or if she says the wrong thing or if she isn't very pretty or if she wears tOo much purple eyes hadow or even if she screams at me I don't mean to scream at Dad. But sometimes it seer like everything aches inside me all at once and I don't know why. I need him to be my friend and he's too busy worrying about the trains and I just want to die.That's when I scream. I want him to grab me and shake me and make me stop. And then I want him tohug me and tell me he's going to make 'me fee! better inside. But Dad never will. He just stands there look ingatmelikel'm a real goof. And his arms just dangle there like the crepe paper arms on the skeleton Mom used to hang on the door every Halloween. He just stands there and looks at me like everything is wrong with me. And maybe it is.I'm not going to do that when I have a kid. A baby.. Diary, may be you are thinking, why is she writing all this stuff and talking about her own kid? I'll tell you why. This is kind of hard to write. I'll probably look at this page ne.it week and laugh. (I hope I can laugh.) Anyway, here it comes.lam going to have a baby. Me. Ann.I think.1 skipped school today and walked over to that Planned Parenthood place. And i'm supposed to call them back later and they 'ii tell me. But I'm already pretty sure. And I'm scared, I think.I thought to have a baby you had to do it all the time like you do when you're married or when you re in the movies. I asked Pam, a girl at school I hang around with, what she knew about it and she said that it's common knowledge to everybody that it could happen any ,time. But nobody told me that.My dad is going to die, I mean not funny die or evenmad die. I think this is going to hurt him so much hewill die. But no matter what lie does, lam going to geta little baby that belongs to inc. And that will be okay,I think. I hope the baby will love me.I'd better go,Love,Ann Leidy Small(Age 14)THE PREITY DARK-HAIRED teenager lay down her pen and stared out the window of the tiny town house she shared with her father. It was snowing outside again, great, huge flakes that covered everything like sugar frosting. I've got to call that place and really find out, she prodded herself. But she didn't want to call yet, didn't want to know for sure that everything was changing. She wanted to sit on her bed and pretend everything was going to stay the same. But, she re minded herself,! don't really want anything to stay the same, either.Ann stuffed her diary beneath a pillow and then flopped across the unmade bed to reach for her purse. She rummaged around in it until she found the busi ness card. A nurse bad written the number she needed on it. She carried it into the kitchen, where the phone was, and dialed. And the nurse at the other end gave her the answer she was half hoping, half dreading to hear."Your test came back positive, Ann. You are preg nant. If you need anything, counseling or advice, please come.. ." But Ann didn't hear the rest of it. The words hummed in her ears, but never made it to her brain.She had to tell her father.He's not gonna understand. He never understands anything anymore.She was scared, but she had no other choice-she had to tell him. She went into the den and curled her legs under her on the ancient olive-green sofa. It would be a long wait; he was never home from work before nine anymore. But if she made herself sit here, made herself iot move until her legs ached, she knew she could make erself brave enough.Sure enough, it was hours before he came home, looking tired and angry. She could tell when he came in the door that he had had a horrible day."What are you doing up? Isn't your homework done yet?"She shook her head at him. She had never even thought to finish it."What's going on then?""I need to talk to you, Daddy."The little-girl word she so seldom used with him any more tugged on his heart. And it made him realize more than ever how grown up she had become. He couldn't believe it was little Annie sitting there. Where bad the kid he had known so well gone? She had turned into a woman who was a stranger to him.It had seemed like only months before but, really, it had been years since he bad yanked her dark curls to tease her when he came home from his brakeman's job on the train. He had worked for Union Pacific then, and every time be walked in the door, he'd teased her and told her she was ornery before he squeezed her to him."I'm not ornery. I'm Ann." She'd danced around him as if he hadn't even looked at her yet, flailing her arms against his knees as he tried to bug her momma. "Did the train go fast? Did you get the coal to Califor nia? Did you bring me anything?"He always whipped a pack of gum out of his pocket and stuck it behind her ear. "I love you, Pip,-squeak. Here's your present. Go away for a minute so your mother and I can smooch."Now she stood before him and he didn't even know who she was. He and his daughter had stopped telling each other "I love you" a long time ago. He couremember when or why-it had been a slow process, eroding over days, months, even years. He looked at her now and saw a girl he didn't know, a dainty, emotional beauty whose developing, compact body shouted a be ware signal to him every time he thought about hug ging her or teasing her or telling her he still cared."I need to tell you something." She was clutching a sofa pillow with both hands, holding it in front as if it was a shield. "It isn't an easy thing to say. And you aren't going to like it."There was something about her expression that made Richard feel as if he had deserted her and, really, there were times he knew that he had. He didn't even know what to say to Ann anymore. It made him ache just to look at her. He diverted his eyes from her and searched for the day's Rocky Mountain News. He couldn't re member where he had dropped it."You have to look at me. This is important."He found the newspaper beside the TV set. And then he made himself meet her eyes again. It was the first time he realized how scared she was. "Maybe you'd better go ahead, Ann.""I had this test today."He had no idea where she was coming from. "Did you do good on it or did you flunk it or what?""No." She reddened. "Not that kind of test. Not the kind you flunk. The nurse gave it to me. At a clinic.""Out with it then. Stop fooling. What sort of test?" Ann couldn't look at him when she said the words. She didn't want to see the anger or the pain or even worse, the indifference in his eyes. She focused on the gray, scuffed toes of her sneakers. "It was a pregnancy test." A little louder. "It came back positive." She ouldn't make herself sound quite as penitent as shethought she should sound for him. She had been so lonely for so long. Maybe this would make it better. She touched her stomach. "A baby, Dad."He stared at the top of her head. The head with the curls he used to tousle.She wouldn't raise it.He felt as if the stranger standing before him had dealt the daughter he loved one final, fatal blow. De spite their differences, he bad wanted her to have ev erything. "Ann. .No. You can't be.""But I am.""But you're too young-" His voice sounded unL familiar even in his own ears, staccato, grinding in his throat like gravel. "-toO young and too smart for this.""No." Her voice was louder now. "No on both counts."He wanted to shake her but he didn't; he hadn't touched her in years. "My God, Ann, didn't you know? Couldn'tyousee...?"But she was shaking her head. And now she was cry ing. "No, Daddy. I really didn't know."She had called him daddy again. The word itself and the knowledge of what she had done twisted inside of him and then, like a fist, hauled off and flattened his guts. He wanted to rip into something. A boy had touched her. Seen her. Used her. "Who did this to you?" He would kill the kid."Don't you know?"Her question threw him off guard. He had been home so seldom with her that he really didn't know. But then he remembered one boy from the high school. Ann had talked about him some, and since she had met him.she'd seemed happier. Richard couldn't remember his name. "I don't...""Danny Lovell." It was the first time he had seen her smile since he walked in the front door."How could you let him do this to you?" The pain in his guts was turning to fury."I love him. That's the only reason. . .1.. ."For one horrible moment, Richard wanted to thrash out at her, to wound her the way she was wounding him. "You don't love that boy. You're only fourteen years old! You don't know anything about love!""I do so!" She was shrieking at him. "Danny's taught me everything about it.""He's a kid. He can't know anything about it.""He cares about me. And he's sixteen. And he wants to be with me. He makes me feel special.""He's using you," he shouted at her."Well, at least he's around," she shouted back, and, when she did, he realized everything she was accusing him of. "At least he's here. lik...
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