I'm having your baby. [Lucaya Pregnancy]

Time for truth

Present

Maya woke up early today, a plan set in her mind that she, hopeFully, wouldn't back out of. She'd been thinking for weeks on end how schools hardly do anything anymore about teaching the importance of safe sex, or even what to do if you, God forbid, are to get pregnant.

She had talked to Riley, who was hesitant about the idea. She was worried aboUt Maya feeling like the school hated her, because she knew how cruel people could get within the school-- Hell, they all do.

"I can handle it." She remembered telling Riley, and the thought rang into her head. She prayed, in the most non-religious way, that she could make it through today without getting murdered by the school.

Shoving her foot into a sneaker, she sighed, lacing up the shoe.

She could handle it.

Maya knocked her knuckles gently against the door frame of her daughter's nursery, watching her mother talk to Taylor as she had just dressed her.

Taylor was steadily learning how to get around on her own, but her steps were still wobbly and needed assistance most of the way. Maya found herself smiling and spoke.

"Hey, mom."

"Maya!" Katy looked up, then picked her granddaughter off the ground, holding onto her closely. "You-- are you ready? It's not going to be easy."

She made a serious face, and held out her arms as she was handed Taylor. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready. I want... other kids to... know about what happens. To be prepared and to know about the real world. If I can help," Maya took a deep breath. "then I'm going to."

Katy nodded. "You'll do great then, babygirl."

"I hope so. Did dad pack the diaper bag?" She asked, propping Taylor on her hip.

"Yeah. Oh--" Katy turned around, grabbing the bag from behind her. "Here. And.. be careful, honey. People are--"

"Cruel. I know. I can handle it." Maya replied, smiling slightly. "Drive me to school?" She asked, pushing herself out the door, to which Katy followed behind her, grabbing her keys from the living room table.

The drive to the school, surprisingly, was quiet. Taylor was buckled into her car seat, Maya sat next to her, and Katy's eyes focused on the road. They didn't talk, but Katy knew her daughter, and her daughter was nervous. She pressed her lips together and nodded, paying attention to the road once again.

"We're here." Katy said, pulling up into the parking lot of the school.

Maya took a deep breath, steadying her nervous stomach as she nodded. "Yeah."

"Ready?"

"Yeah." She repeated, and after gathering out of the car, her daughter held close, Maya followed her mother inside the school, to the gymnasium, where the three prepared in the back. They'd been planning this, an essembly to try and tell the school what the teachers won't.

"It'll be okay." Katy said, rubbing her daughter's shoulder, who nodded.

"Yeah-- yeah, I know." She fixed Taylor's small hairs out of her face and nodded. "Everyone's waiting for this to start so.."

"You can do it."

Maya nodded hesitantly, knowing that just on the other side of the door stood all, or most, of her classmates and people who originally thought Taylor was her sister.

But as she stepped out, she made it clear that that wasn't the case.

"Hi." She said, approaching the microphone with her daughter that had been set up on a pedastool. "This is Taylor," She looked down at her with a smile. "and she's my daughter."

The entire gymnasium, minus those who already knew( i.e Riley, Farkle, Lucas, or the teachers, or the school staff. ) audiblu, loudly, gasped. And immediately after muttering had started.

"I got pregnant with her at 15. I was a kid. And.. I thought that... sex was for fun. It had no consiquences." She looked back up at the school. "Because no one ever told me differently. When I found out.. I thought that was the unraveling of my life, ny childhood, my dreams of college. And...it's hard."

The muttering continued, Maya carried on.

"It's hard being a mother at my age. I am her mother and more often than I, my parents take care of her. Because I can't. I'm just a kid and... and I wasn't ready for this. Please, I beg of you, to.. remember what's truly at stake when you have sex. At any age, with any protection,it doesn't matter. Think about everything you're going into. Before you end up pregnant, thinkinf your life is over."

Now Maya continued her speech and explained how and why it's important to listen to her, to see what happened, to see the ugly truth because it happens all the time. How her mother was nearly her age when she was pregnant, how kids are abused because of young motherhood and unpreparedness, how she wanted better for any of the children they may have.

"I see you all. I know what some of you-- a lot of you do. It's NOT without consiquences. Don't throw away your life because you want to see what it's like, because it's fun. I love Taylor, I do. She's everything to me. But it's still hard-- impossibly hard. And all I ask," She took a deep breath. "is that you all don't wind up like me."