Becoming Rory

chapter seven

At ten weeks pregnant, Rory knew that there were things that she couldn't avoid anymore. A discussion with her parents was one of them.

She had sent her father a text when she left the motel, just to reassure him that she was safe and doing fine but had ignored all his messages since. She knew that she owed her father an explanation, as well as Noah, but she couldn't deal with him just yet.

She was unsure of what to say to them. Should she tell them right away that she was gay and ran away with a woman that she now lives with? Should she tell them that she's pregnant? She had some things to think through, but no time, since she was meeting them in a half hour.

Sadie had advised her to be honest, for then she wouldn't have anything hanging over her head, but not to tell them about the baby. She thought that Noah should know about that first. Rory agreed.

She didn't know how she would tell them. Would she just go in and tell them that she had run off with a woman? How would they take that? She was pretty sure that they weren't homophobic, but many people 'weren't homophobic' until their child identifies as gay. They might be fine with it at a distance, but not their own daughter. She wasn't sure. She was angry at herself for not having this discussion with them before she had to come out to them.

She didn't expect them to be happy. She knew her parents, she knew they would already be angry at her for leaving Noah at the altar. The fact that she had run off with someone else would be a huge problem, whether they cared about the gender of said person.

So, she made her way to the café they had chosen to meet, which Rory had suggested since it was in public and her parents couldn't get too angry in public. Her nerves were bubbling inside her stomach. She had never had her parents get angry at her, they were mostly angry at her sister, Ashlyn, who was more rebellious and uncaring than Rory.

"Aurora Beatrice Bradford!" Her mother exclaimed angrily as she entered the café, making Rory cringe. She debated on turning on her heel and fleeing, but she braved it and made it towards them.

"Hey, Mom." She greeted her mother, who was seething already, "Hey, Dad," She turned to greet the man who had raised her, who looked significantly calmer than her mother.

"Hello, Aurora," Her father said, smiling grimly.

Rory cringed at the mention of her full name but decided not to correct him. It wouldn't change much since it hadn't done anything when she had corrected them during her entire life.

She had always hated her first name. This was why she had it changed to Rory, a nickname she had developed as a child and took a liking to. Whenever anyone heard Aurora, their minds wandered towards the Disney princess, which quickly got annoying. She had also found that it made her sound like a grandmother, partially because she was named after her grandmother.

So, Rory had decided to choose her own name. She was lucky because it stuck. To date, she still loved her new name, contrary to the old one.

"What the hell made you think that it would be alright to flee from your wedding?" Her mother demanded, pounding a hand onto the table in front of them, "I want an explanation, young lady, and I want it now,"

"Cindy," Her father sighed, attempting to calm her down. This was what would happen every time things got heated. Her father would try but never succeed. He was a very kind man, but when it came to her mother, he held no power. She always made all the decisions.

Rory sometimes wondered how they had ended up together. They were opposites, so different that the phrase 'opposites attract' couldn't apply. Her father was a kind man, her mother was a reincarnation of the devil. Rory hadn't been able to see that until she had moved out until she was seeing it from the outside. She wondered if her father had simply never gotten to see it from the outside. He was trapped in the situation but didn't even know it.