Story in Progress continued

She checked her watch again and then looked at the clock, 7:08. What was he doing? They agreed on 6:30, and even if he was running late how could he be this late? He knew how anxious she was and how important it was to get this over with so they could start making a plan. She wanted to tell her parents before she started getting morning sickness. She had already felt the pangs of nausea late at night, but soon she knew it would be more constant and her mom would insist she see a doctor. She was eighteen. She wanted to take care of herself from now on. After all, she’d have to take care of herself and her baby in a few months. And she was actually looking forward to the little family she and Tyler would be creating. It wasn’t exactly what she had pictured, and certainly sooner than she had originally intended but that was ok. As long as she and Tyler were together then everything would be ok. They’d get married before the baby came so it would be official and they could start their life together. She’d planned it all out in her head. Now if Tyler would just get there she wanted to fill him in so they could tell his parents and they’d understand that everything was going to work out.
         At 7:18 she picked up the phone and called his house. She had assumed that he was on his way to pick her up when she paged him and that’s why he didn’t call her back. She had gotten a cell phone for graduation from her parents, but Tyler was still stuck with his old pager. She made a mental note that they’d need a cell phone for him so she could get a hold of him when she needed him. The phone rang twice and she knew no one would answer until after the third ring. They always waited for caller id to pick up, ever since the creditors started calling. She knew both Val and Robin, Tyler’s parents, were home. They always had movie night on Friday nights. On the third ring Val picked up.
         “Hi, dear.” He always called her dear.
         “Hi Val,” she was on a first name basis with everyone in his family. She felt like she had known them all for years. And they treated her like she’d been born into the family. They loved her as their own and told her often how she was the best thing that ever happened to Tyler. “Is Tyler there?”
         “No dear, he left awhile ago saying he was going to pick you up and bring you back here for movie night. I’ve got the popcorn all ready and your favorite spot on the couch is reserved. You usually drive over here, is something wrong with your car?”
         “No, nothing’s wrong with the car. Tyler had just offered to pick me up, being chivalrous or something I guess. I don’t know.” She was trying to hide the anxiousness in her voice. She knew movie night would never be the same after this. She couldn’t believe this was really happening. What would they think of her now?
         “Are you all right dear? You sound funny.”
         “I’m fine, just a little annoyed with Tyler for running so late. He said he’d be here almost an hour ago.”
         “Well maybe he stopped off to get drinks for you guys or something. He had mentioned something about you wanting a milkshake the other night.”
         The cravings had started early for her. She typically wasn’t an ice cream fanatic but lately she couldn’t get enough of chocolate milk shakes. It made more sense when she found out she was expecting.
         “Maybe.”
         “You’re more than welcome to come over on your own, you know that.”
         “Yeah, I wouldn’t want him to come here though and me not be here. I’ll just wait for him to show up.”
         “All right dear. Tell him to hurry when he gets there, we’re ready to start the first movie. We got some good ones tonight I think. But be sure he doesn’t speed and make sure to wear your seatbelts, both of you. I know Tyler thinks he’s too cool for seatbelts but you know better and he listens to you.”
         “I’ll tell him”. Her heart tugged a little as she hung up the phone. She knew she was going to break the poor man’s heart.
         She heard a knock at the door. She knew it must be her dad. Her mom never knocked. She was the nosiest woman Liz had ever met.
         “Yeah Dad, come in.”
         “Hi sweetheart, I thought you were going over to Tyler’s tonight.”
         “I am Dad, he’s just running late.”
         “He’s going to come in and say hello first right?” Her dad, the old-fashioned romantic.
         “Well Dad we’re kind of in a hurry because it’s movie night and he’s running late. I don’t want to keep his parents waiting.” She also didn’t want to her parents to see how stressed and disheveled she knew Tyler would look. His eyes had had bags under then almost from the moment she told him and no doubt he would have been smoking so he would reek of cigarettes. She didn’t want to deal with all that with her parents. There would be enough disapproval in the coming months to deal with, she didn’t need any in the next few minutes.
         At 7:30 she put her shoes on and grabbed her purse. This was ridiculous. He was an hour late. She didn’t know how she was going to sit at his house with his parents and pretend like everything was normal, but she could no longer sit at her own house and ward off offers of dinner every five minutes from her parents. They loved Tyler, but they felt that their daughter could do better than an uneducated boy from a family that struggled with money. Liz’s parents thought anyone who didn’t have a college degree was not properly educated, which seemed such a contradiction to Liz since her mother dropped out of college and her father didn’t receive his degree until he was in his forties.
She lied and told her parents that she spoke with Tyler and there was a mix up and she was supposed to meet him at his house. Without question, her parents said goodbye and she was out the door, practically running to her white Honda Civic parked in the driveway. She could just imagine her dad coming out before she made it to the car with one last dinner offer. How could she eat? She was supposed to be facing one of the most important and difficult situations in her life and it was supposed to be out and on the table by now but her stupid boyfriend was late and hadn’t even called. Whatever. She didn’t have time to figure that out. She just wanted to get there and get it all over with.
         She decided that she didn’t want to be alone with Tyler’s parents, because she knew they’d read her and know something was going on. She’d just sit at the end of the cul-de-sac if Tyler’s car wasn’t in the driveway and wait for him to come home and then they’d go inside together. What could possibly have kept him this long? She was certain now that it wasn’t for milkshakes. How irresponsible to not even call. She was definitely going to have to have a talk with him about responsibility, especially since he was going to have a lot more of it in a few months.
         She turned the corner and saw the flashing lights.
         “Well no wonder,” she said out loud.
         There was a back up of traffic a mile long on the other side of the intersection. There were three cop cars and a fire truck and in the distance she could hear the wail of an ambulance siren. The entire intersection was coned off and they weren’t letting anyone through. She could barely see what was going on but she did see the flares on the road indicating a fatality or very serious injury.
         “That’s so sad,” she said. “I hope they were wearing their seatbelt”.
         She sped up a little and slipped through the short cut she often took to Tyler’s house. It was a narrow residential street that only few people knew went through. Typically Liz drove like a bat out of hell and she just knew one of these days it would catch up with her and she’d get caught. But no one ever went down this street and it almost seemed deserted as she rarely saw people on the street and allowed her the freedom to get to Tyler’s house in a few short minutes without the risk of getting caught for speeding. Tyler rarely took the short cut. He liked to be out and about and seen in his prize jeep. Liz just laughed. She knew his heart belonged to her, even if she did catch his wandering eyes behind those sunglasses. He couldn’t fool her with those tactics.
         She pulled up to Tyler’s cul-de-sac and peeked down to the end of the street to see if she could spot Tyler’s jeep. She only saw lights in the windows and no cars in the driveway. Val and Robin parked the one car they still owned in the garage.
         “Tyler must be stuck in all that traffic,” she thought. “Well what a dope, why didn’t he just turn around and come home and call me?”
         She waited a half hour before she started the car again and drove back towards the scene of the accident. The cops were still there but the fire engine was gone and the traffic was moving again, being directed and detoured as to not disturb the accident scene. Liz figured Tyler must have finally gotten through and should be on his way back to his own house by now. She frowned a little at the thought of him showing up at her house and his parents telling him she had left to meet him. That would be difficult to explain, but oh well. The next thing she’d have to explain to them would be a lot harder. She turned around and headed back to Tyler’s house. She decided to just go in and wait for him since he couldn’t be more than a couple minutes. Hopefully he was already there.
         She knocked on the door and was surprised to see Terry, Tyler’s younger half-brother, answer the door. Tyler and Terry were close. Terry looked up to Tyler. He thought he was the coolest guy around. They were about three years apart, so Tyler had graduated high school before Terry entered. It would have been quite a scene to have both Denny brothers there at the same time.
         Terry was tall, like Tyler, but skinny. He was rail thin and had dark hair and dark features. They looked like night and day, but they were closer than identical twins.
         “Hey Lizzie, what’s goin’ on? Come in.” Terry was the only one that ever called her Lizzie.
         “I’m surprised to see you here. I figured you’d be out with Casey.”
         “No, I’m grounded again for sneaking out to see her”.
         “Didn’t you learn anything from Tyler?” she teased. She stepped into the kitchen and felt Terry tug at her arm.
         “Are you ok?” Terry knew how to read Liz like the rest of the family. This was going to be harder than she thought. Where was Tyler so she could just get it out in the open? Before she had to answer the phone rang.
         “I’ll get it!” Terry shouted. Val walked into the room and grabbed the phone.
         “You’re grounded remember? I’ll get it”. Terry slumped his shoulders and headed into the computer room that was off of the kitchen.
         “Good to see you dear,” Val said. “Robin’s in the living room. We started without you. Hello, Denny residents?” he said into the phone.
         Liz walked into the living room. She was glad it was dark. The Denny’s always watched movies in the dark. And they always watched all the previews. They said it made them feel more like they were in the movie theater.
         “Hi, we started without you. Sorry,” Robin said, barely looking up from the tv. Movie night was very serious in this house.
         “That’s ok. Sorry I’m late.”
         “Where’s Tyler, in the bathroom?”
         “No I didn’t see the jeep outside. He was supposed to pick me up hours ago and he never showed. On my way over here there was a big accident so I figured he got held up in traffic”.
         Robin frowned a little and then reached for the remote. Well Val’s yackin’ on the phone so we might as well wait for Tyler. I’ll put the movie on pause.” She fumbled around on the couch looking for the remote and finally ended up turning on the light. Liz tried to keep her face down, pretending to look for the remote so Robin wouldn’t be able to read her face. The silence from the tv made her look up and see a paused Brad Pitt staring back at her from the tv and a stunned Val standing in the doorway. He just looked at them and didn’t speak.
         “What’s going on, you look like you just saw a ghost. Who was on the phone?” Robin asked.
         “There’s been an accident.” He said.
         “Yeah Liz mentioned that, said she figured Tyler was stuck in traffic because of it and that’s why he isn’t home yet.”
         “We need to go to the hospital”
         “What? Why? What’s going on Val?”
         Liz got to her feet. She knew exactly what was going on. It all started to make sense. Why would Tyler be late for the most important conversation that they would ever have? Because Tyler was in the accident.
         Robin was yelling, she couldn’t understand, didn’t want to understand. Val hadn’t moved from the doorway. He was motionless as Robin ran to him, crying, pounding her fists into his chest. Her yelling made Terry run in.
         “What’s going on?”
         Val put his arms around his wife and simply said, “Tyler’s been in an accident.”