Officially

I stared out my window for weeks.  Guilt moved me inside, a recluse from reality.  My mother cried all the time, my dad barely spoke.  We all just moped around, lifeless, dull, waiting for a spark of energy to zap the house.  Mostly we examined my abdomen.   Sometimes Mom would come and sit with me, place her hand on the barely there bump, and just sigh.  I wondered if she were ever going to love me again, talk to me the way we used to, ever move past the way we were acting. 
     After Tyler had left to go back to football camp that weekend, I cut off all contact with him.  He deserved more than a future like this.  Watching the movies and reading the books could never have prepared me for what the truth experience was really like, but here it was in my lap, just wasting time like the rest of us. 
     My grandmother was the last person i wanted to include in the joyous occasion, but she surprisingly turned out to be the best thing that could have ever happened to me.  Level headed and cool, she chauffeured me to all the best baby depots and maternity stores, making sure I knew that if I were going to have the baby, I better have a way to bring it into the world.  I listened half-heartedly.  Honestly, it barely felt like consciousness anymore.  The gaping hole inside my chest grew larger everyday.  Finally, i blocked Tyler's calls.  Having five or six missed messages a day was more than i could handle.  Space was all I wanted.  That dark place where the empty caverns are your best friends that understand exactly what you're going through.
     When Gram suggested we go to her Winter house for a few months, i jumped at the chance.  A new place with a new town was all that I wanted.  Scandalous events were not too common for my families name, so keeping this baby underwraps would be the best thing, you know, concerning the circumstances. 
    
     "Pick any of the rooms you want.  I'll tell Charlise what to pick up from the store, so if there's anything you need, just tell her.  If you need me, I'm going to be in the North side. Just follow the hall."
     Ash plunked her luggage ontop the bare mattress, wondering what this house must have looked like in its prime.  The winter house for the Brooke's family was just south of Atlanta, buried in the leftover Smoky Mountains, surrounded by forest and ancestoral plantation fields.  The marble pillars and ceramic floors created a grand contrast against the gently countryside.  Ash chose the room with the best South view, the one she and her mother used to share when they would come visit Gram just weeks before Christmas.  All the family visits had stopped once Harold P. Brooke passed, leaving Gram his business to run and property to attend.  She had sold off most of his investements, but had always kept this house.  "It's too full of mystery and history to let some stranger move in.  Harry would have wanted it to stay. So that's what i'm going to do."
     Fluffing out sheets and pulling crinkly covers from their plastic casings, Ash breathed the cooling air.  The windows were open to tug in some cedar scents, as well as chase away any cobwebs left in the cracks.  "No need to have the crew clean it on such a short notice.  We'll just show up and take care of what we need. The rest will fall into place," Gram had assured her repeatedly that their stay wouldn't be a bother to the groundskeepers.  "What else do we pay them for? To sit around and look darling?"
     When the folding and hanging had been done, Ash pulled out her secret box.  Inside remained the two most precious items left to her on earth.  The collection of sticky notes that Ty had left her, and their picture taken together at his last game.  She mourned the two innocent faces, lost in romance and passion with no thought for tomorrow.  Heart breaking, she slid it under her bed, counting the moments until the sun would come up again.