The Teacher's Pet | Slowburn MJ FanFic

• | Chapter Fifty-Six | •

| A Few Days Later. . .

Craig sat at the end of the hospital bed as he waited to be finally discharged after being stuck there for some days. Other than a few bruised ribs, a black eye, busted lip, and tremendous pain numbed by morphine, he wasn't as battered as he thought he was.

"I'm glad you're okay. I can't take any more shit going on this week." Jay said, trying to smooth out his unruly hair with her fingers.

Craig winced as he moved a little. "What the hell happened?"

"A lot." Jay mumbled, then picked up his bag of clothes she packed from his house to place at the end of the bed. She started rummaging through it to distract herself. "Is there anything in particular that you want to wear?"

He shook his head. "No, Jay. What happened to Riley? Why hasn't anyone told me anything since that night?"

She deeply sighed as she stared at a pair of jogging pants in her hand. Craig slowly moved his arm to minimize some of the pain and laid his hand over hers.

"...Riley's pregnant, for one. Well, she was."

"Huh?" Craig stared at his girlfriend in bewilderment.

From the other side of the room where Michelle had sat quietly, she shook her head and finally spoke in somewhat of a hoarse voice, "We don't know that she miscarried for sure, Jay. Don't wish death on that innocent baby."

Craig looked between them confused as all hell as Jay turned and said, "I'm not wishing death on him or her. Riley was bleeding a lot when she got here and... I don't know, the whole situation was traumatizing."

She finally looked at Craig and explained. "Javen got Riley pregnant and she kept it hidden from all of us except Michelle, who she swore to secrecy. The other day, Riley came to school and she had a seizure."

"What the fuck?" Craig seethed as he dropped his face into his hands. "All of this because of that one stupid party. I shouldn't have invited you."

Michelle stared at him with a furrow of her eyebrows. "None of you knew. The last thing Riley would want is for you all to blame yourselves. Javen is a manipulator."

"And Satan's spawn. He turned her life upside down." Craig said as he lifted his head back up and stared at the wall. "When he was asking me all these questions about her, I should've picked up on it."

Jay gently placed her hand on his nape and pressed her forehead against his. "Stop putting the blame on yourself. Please."

Craig exhaled softly, then nodded. "So, do her parents know?"

Michelle pinched the bridge of her nose and slouched further in her chair. "Yes, and they went ballistic when they were informed of her pregnancy. They were in denial for a while."

Jay rolled her eyes. "They couldn't believe that all of this was happening underneath their noses. Her odd behavior, the disappearances, dropping grades, et cetera. I do love her parents, but I'm so angry at them. As her friends, we saw the signs and they didn't."

"I'm sorry for not believing you." Craig suddenly blurted and Jay directed her gaze at him. "You kept trying to tell me and I wouldn't listen. Maybe if I did, I could've stopped this sooner." He pulled her close to lay his head against her chest and caressed her sides while she rested her chin on top of his head. She rubbed her eyes and sighed, feeling both exhausted and emotional. None of them were able to sleep well with the amount of worry weighing heavily upon them.

"What's going on with Michael?" Craig asked after a long while of silence.

"We haven't seen him around as much." Jay replied with a downhearted sigh. "After Riley's seizure, he does what he has to do at school and then he leaves. And I can tell he's hardly getting any sleep from the bags under his eyes."