The Color of Heaven - 09 - The Color of Time by Julianne MacLean Read Free Book Online

me forever.
    Then, at long last, it was time for me to leave. With tears pouring down my cheeks, feeling a despair beyond any feasible measure, I ran to my grandmother’s car and didn’t let myself look back as we drove away, heading to the airport.
    * * *

    Billings, Montana
    Autumn, 1998

    After I returned to Montana, nothing was the same. I missed the sea and I hated the mountains. I lost interest in school work. That’s when I started running. Three miles a day, seven days a week. When I lost weight, my mother worried that I was depressed. She and Dad suggested that I tell Ethan not to come and visit. Maybe it would be less painful for us both if we stopped seeing each other. At least until next summer.
    This made no sense to me. I refused to listen to such madness. I said no, and ran five miles that day.
    Then, when we were halfway through the month of October and I was looking forward to Ethan’s first visit the following month, I realized that something was wrong. It occurred to me one Saturday morning when I woke up that I hadn’t had a period since I’d arrived home.
    I sat bolt upright in bed, as fear sizzled through my veins at the thought of the worst possible scenario—that I might be pregnant.
    Pregnant?
    Oh God!
    This initial reaction of panic and fear was followed by a confusing burst of joy, for if I was carrying Ethan’s baby—an adorable, sweet baby girl or boy—surely everyone would accept that it was our destiny to be together. Forever.
    Maybe we could get married. I’d be seventeen soon. Surely I was old enough, and we loved each other desperately. Wasn’t that all that mattered?
    But oh, God, how would I ever tell my parents?
    Needing to know what my future held, I ran downstairs, hopped onto my bicycle, and peddled fast toward the pharmacy on the other side of town.
    Most of the way, I prayed it wasn’t true. Everything would be so much simpler if I was just late, or if I’d simply skipped a period. It could happen. Right?
    Wearing dark sunglasses and my yellow bike helmet, I entered the store, found what I was looking for—an over-the-counter pregnancy test; the cheapest one—and approached the cashier to purchase it.
    Later that morning, after I completed the test at home and finally managed to stop crying, I called Ethan to tell him the result.

Chapter Thirteen

    “You’re what ?” Ethan said on the other end of the line.
    I cupped my hand over my mouth so no one in the house could hear me whisper it. “I’m pregnant.”
    “ Jesus. Are you sure? How late are you?”
    “I don’t know, exactly, but I haven’t had a period since I got home. And the test I just took says that I am.”
    “Can’t they be wrong sometimes?”
    “I suppose,” I replied, “but I have a feeling, Ethan. I know I am.”
    He was quiet for a long moment while my heart pounded with terror. What if he thought I’d done this on purpose, to trap him? What if he hated me? What if he never wanted to see me again?
    Tears welled up in my eyes at the thought of what lay ahead for us.
    “What are we going to do?” I asked, covering my face with a hand. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
    “Me neither,” Ethan said at last, in a resigned voice. “I thought we were being careful. We always used protection.”
    “Except for that first time in the woods,” I reminded him.
    “Yeah, but even then…” He stopped himself, unwilling to go into the particulars, I suppose. But he did try to be careful.
    Ethan sighed heavily into the phone. “You can’t have it, Sylvie. You know that, right? You’re only sixteen and I just started school.”
    Somehow I’d known that was what he would say, and a part of me was relieved. I hadn’t planned any of this, and it was a tempting solution—to imagine that the problem could simply disappear, as if it were just a dream and had never happened. Maybe my parents would never even have to find out.
    Yet, another part of me couldn’t bear to imagine what Ethan was