Chapter 2: Love Fulfilled

Even though she was home, the doctors insisted that Hanna remain on oxygen. She didn't mind that, though she insisted she didn't need it. She hated it when the therapists put her on pressure breathing, though. They said it was necessary to get her damaged left lung functional.

Three weeks after Dick Pritchard opened fire in the high school cafeteria, two students were dead and six others injured. A couple had been critical but were now out of danger. The most serious was Hanna. Her damaged lung kept filling with fluid and just wasn't learning to breathe properly.

She was in pain-more from the emergency operation that saved her life than from the wound itself-and a lot of discomfort from the therapy sessions she had to undergo three times a day.

I wanted to hold her in my arms and comfort her until the pain disappeared. That wasn't possible. Her ribs couldn't stand any pressure, where they were healing from being opened up during her operation... The lack of that physical contact was even more of a frustration to her than to me.

Once, when we were alone, she'd pulled her gown up to show me her 'zipper'. It was an ugly purple line running from below her left breast to her naval and up between her breasts, with knotted black thread holding it together.

"Can you stand making love to me, with that ugly thing on me?" she asked.

"Golly, Hanna! I can stand making love to you as long as they don't put a gorilla's head on you-I don't think I could kiss a mouth with fangs."

That got her giggling. Which made her hit me. Giggles hurt.

"Bastard! I love you for it, though... Come here and kiss me!"

I did, but couldn't hold her. It was a real frustration. I did pet the breasts that were bared when she showed me her incision, though. That made Hanna as frustrated as I was.

After another week, she was allowed to return to school. Her ribs were heavily taped and she couldn't breathe very well. Those bones had to heal and it wouldn't happen overnight. Our classmates welcomed her back and showed real concern for her, the first few days. That improved her morale greatly. My constant care and attention helped too, she said.

Every evening, I went right to her house from football practice, usually staying for supper and helping her with homework. We couldn't sleep together-she was still too fragile and her sleep was erratic. Hanna said she needed to sleep when she could and not worry about a 230-pound, horny lover.

Saturday, after the football game-we won and I had a good game, though my head wasn't in it-I stopped to see Hanna on the way home.

With a big smile, she said, "Come with me. I have something to show you."

Curious, I followed to her room, where she latched the door, then dropped her robe, revealing that glorious body-now without the bindings about the ribs and no stitches on the incision.

"That's really spectacular, baby," I said. "But aren't your ribs still only half-healed?"

"Yeah. So you can't hug me..." She grinned. "But I can get on TOP! That thing wasn't hurt at all."

It took a couple of seconds for what she said to register. Then it took another couple of seconds for me to get naked. I'd have done it faster, but she was trying to push me down on the bed while I was trying to untie my shoes and kick them off, so I could shuck my trousers and shorts.

In no time, I was on my back on her bed, sucked up into her hot, wet core. I frantically scrambled to grab a couple of pillows to brace my head, so I could suck on her nipples, and fondle those incredible D-cup boobs.

I was just getting into the swing of it when Hanna arched and screamed, her pussy vibrating against me, before she collapsed atop me. Remembering at the last second, I didn't hug her, but rather stroked her gently, as she caught her breath.

Some time later, she raised her head and grinned at me. "Damn, I needed that!"

"Me, too, baby," I responded fervently.

She discovered that I was still hard, inside her. "My poor honey didn't get off? Well, I'm sure we can do something about that."

With a little clasping of internal muscles, a little undulation of her torso, and some gentle abrasion of my chest with her hard nipples, she soon had me gasping, then blowing my load into her greedy womb.

It was her sixteenth birthday.

The Pritchards had been whining on TV about how they didn't know what had come over their son. He was normally such a nice boy. He had been very depressed by being dumped by his girlfriend, Hanna. It must have been something she did to him...

Those who knew them, knew better. Mr. Pritchard had made a bundle as a contractor with a shady reputation. He was considered completely unscrupulous-and a skirt-chaser besides. Mrs. Pritchard was a very attractive woman, but shared her husband's reputation: Smart, sexy, amoral, and without class.

We buried our two classmates. I attended both funerals. At both, I noted that prayers were offered for the speedy recovery of those who were wounded in the shooting. When I told Hanna, she was grateful.

The Pritchards went to the first funeral, but left before the service started. They were very obviously not welcome. When they left the church, I'm told they discovered someone had scratched up their new Lexus with a nail or key.

I never learned who did it, but no one ever shed a tear over the Pritchards, either. At school, most everybody knew Hanna had only gone out with Dick three times, including the disastrous final date. She was NOT his 'girlfriend'. And the notion that Hanna was somehow 'responsible' for the shootings was repugnant to everybody, except those who went into uncontrollable laughter at the concept.

Pritchard was a selfish bully, who never picked a fight with anyone who might stand up to him. Hanna was a serious mistake on his part. Every kid in school knew that.

During the week after Hanna's birthday, the detective, Sergeant Jones, came to interview us both. He brought along a Deputy District Attorney, Paul Fleischer. Hanna and I went over our stories with them in detail. They also wanted all the detail they could get about Hanna's relationship with Dick-which she provided without holding anything back.

Fleischer said that he'd be the prosecutor at Dick's trial and that they would be trying him as an adult, for aggravated murder. At that point, they were leaning toward asking for the death penalty. He wanted to know all he could about Hanna's involvement, in order to avoid surprises.

"Frankly, from the way the shooting went down, I think, Hanna, that you and Gary were his primary targets. Had you been in the cafeteria when he first came in, I think you'd be dead now... I also suspect, from the statements the Pritchards are making, that they will try to shift the blame to you, to get Dick off."

"That's silly!" Hanna exploded.

"Yeah. It is. And I'll use your wounds as a primary argument against it. But who knows what a jury might do?"

"Is there anything we can do?"

"Well... Can we have your parents join us?"

Hanna opened the door and asked her folks, who were in the next room, to come in.

"This is just something you might want to consider. I'm not offering legal advice, or saying you should do this. OK?"

Everybody nodded.

"Do you have a lawyer of your own that you trust? A really good, aggressive man?"

Hanna's dad said, "Not who's done any work for me. But I have a good friend who fits. You know Roger Todd?"

"Yeah. He'd be perfect... My thought is that if Hanna, and perhaps some of the other injured students, were to sue Dick for assault and battery-and the parents of the two who were killed sue for wrongful death-it would kick the props out from under him."

"But don't criminal trials take priority? It would be years before those suits could be heard."

"True," Fleischer said. "But don't you think the press would report that they'd been filed? Any prospective juror would know that."

Starting to see his strategy, we all smiled. I had an idea of my own, too.

"Mr. O'Malley?" I said. "Couldn't you have Mr. Todd monitor what the Pritchards are saying? If they get out of line, we could sue them for slander, too."

Hanna's dad, Aiden, agreed, "I never liked Pritchard. Arrogant and slimy. Good idea, Gary. We'll do it. Would you like to go with me to see Todd?"

My eyes widened. "Sure. If I'd be a help."

"Oh, yeah. I'm sure you would."

Football season ended. We hadn't made the playoffs, but I was confident about next year-most of our starters would be back, a year older and bigger.

I went with Hanna's dad to meet his lawyer friend. I didn't have anything to sue Dick over, personally, but might soon if Dick's parents stepped over the line in what they said about me.

Hanna and I were sleeping together again and our lives were settling down to the routine of school, homework, family...

Thanksgiving was two days off when Hanna surprised me.

No. She shocked me.

After we'd made love-on my bed, since we were spending the night at my house; (I needed my own computer for my homework.) "Gary? We really love each other, right?"

"Yeah." I grinned at her. "At least, I don't know what I'd do without you."

"I'm afraid we're going to test that."

"Huh?" was my brilliant reply.

"Gary... We're going to have a baby."

"Sure. I'm looking forward to it."

"No, dummy. We're going to have a baby in a few months!"

"What? How? I mean, you've been on the pill, and everything... ?"

"How? Remember when I seduced you on my birthday?"

I grinned. "How could I forget? I think balls ached for three days, you sucked so much out of me!"

"Yeah." She grinned, too. It was a good memory for both of us. "I ached delightfully, too. The only problem was, I wasn't protected. They didn't give me my daily pill in the hospital, for the two weeks. Apparently I was fertile as a turtle for about a month as a result. Whatever... Anyway, my love, I'm pregnant. So, what do you want to do?"

My mind was in shock. It wasn't racing-it was darting into corners and colliding with walls.

I heard myself say, "What do YOU want to do?"

She smiled. "I hadn't wanted this so soon. I know the problems I've caused. But I really don't want to abort this baby."

I gathered her in my arms. "I don't want you to abort our child either, Hanna. And I think we've both caused any problems we face. My preference would be to get married right now. But you have to be a year older in this state-pregnant or not."

She kissed me, hard, at that. "Thank you... Gary, I love you so much!"

"Hanna, we have to talk to our parents-right now. Maybe they'll have some ideas. Anyway, we owe it to them to talk to them about it."

"I was going to talk to Mom tomorrow. I needed to talk to you, first, dummy!"

Ignoring the fist in my ribs, I just kissed her.

"How about, we get Mom to invite your folks to dinner?" I suggested. "Then we can talk to all four of them at once and nobody will feel left out."

That's what we did.

When dessert was served, I said, "Well, everybody, I have good news and I have bad news. Which do you want first?"

There was a small babble, but no consensus.

"The good news is, we're going to have a baby. The bad news is, Hanna's pregnant. We're not thrilled, but we're not torn up about it, either. You know we want children. We would rather have waited. To answer the 'how' before you ask; it seems the hospital didn't keep her on the pill while they had her. That created a fertile period no one told us about... Anyhow, we'd like your thoughts about what we should do now."

My brothers had sense enough to keep their nasty little mouths shut. So did Hanna's sister.

Mom asked, just for the record, "Have you considered abortion?"

"Yeah. We don't believe in it and would only do it if we were convinced the baby would be severely deformed or retarded-or Hanna's health was endangered."

"OK. I wanted that out of the way," Mom said. "What would you kids prefer?"

"Mom," I said, as Hanna grasped my hand on the table, where no one could miss it, "what we want more than anything is to get married and give our child as solid a family as you've given us."

"You understand," Aiden said, "that this makes everything a lot harder for you. Gary, you still have a year of high school, then college. Hanna has a year more than that."

"Yes, sir. We understand that only too well. We'd have preferred to wait. The choice has been taken from us. Yes, technically, we violated the rules we agreed to. But it was done innocently. We just didn't realize... Well. It's done. We'll just have this little guy a few years early. We won't love him any less."

My dad said, "You can get married, you know. The age of consent in a state nearby is 16. You could marry there."

I looked at Hanna. The expression of joy on her face was all the answer I needed.

"Will you all come with us? We'd really like you there."

Both sets of parents grinned and nodded.

In the end, we drove to the neighboring state and were married in a civil ceremony at the courthouse.

A week later, we were married in our church, with white gown and the whole bit. That marriage certificate was from the church, not the state.

Mr. Todd, when asked, said that we could register both the marriage certificate from the other state and the one from our church with the County Clerk. That would make our marriage binding in our own state, even though Hanna 'wasn't old enough' to be legally married here.

We didn't care. We were together and our baby would be legitimate.

Another great result was that Hanna treated me to TWO spectacular wedding nights!

The Pritchards stepped over the line. On national TV, they said that I was a brutish lout, who had savagely tortured their poor baby when he was clearly unable to harm anyone.

Mr. Todd immediately sued them for libel and slander.

I had developed a good rapport with the University of Oregon's football coach. He said that, barring something really strange that he couldn't imagine, he'd offer me a 'full ride' to play football for him. Since that's where I really wanted to go and I respected him and liked the way he treated his players (90% graduate!), I told him that, barring something really strange that I couldn't imagine, I'd play for him.

So it wasn't hard for Mr. Todd to get a statement from the coach saying how much the Pritchards' remarks about me could hurt me in the college scholarship sweepstakes. A 'full ride' at an elite university could easily amount to over a quarter million dollars. Add punitive damages...

Then, during 'discovery' in Hanna's suit, Mr. Todd learned that the Pritchards, as a tax dodge, had put the majority of their assets in Dick's name. He immediately obtained an injunction, preventing those assets from being transferred. And he managed to get the court to order that the assets could not be used for lawyers' fees for Dick's defense in the criminal trial until the civil suits against him were finished and the judgments, if any, satisfied. (That decree was appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court, which refused to hear the appeal, as did the federal appeals courts.)

Suddenly, the Pritchards were very quiet. They refused interview requests and did not appear at any of their usual social hangouts. They stopped going to the country club, or eating out at the couple of good restaurants in town. Basically, they stayed home and stayed quiet.

There was a brief flurry of publicity when Dick's defense lawyer tried to resign from the case. He stated that his client refused to accept his advice and demanded a long list of expensive legal and investigative services that he had no ability to pay for. (The lawyer knew that Dick's assets were beyond his reach and wanted him to just plead 'guilty' and throw himself on the mercy of the court. Dick had watched the O.J. Simpson trial and knew that one could get out of most anything. The difference was, O.J. had money... Dick didn't.) The court refused to let the lawyer withdraw, but ruled that he was not required to 'front' expenses for his client.

'Insanity' defenses were quickly ruled out. Psychiatrists who interviewed Dick stated that he was completely sane, within the legal definition, and had coldly planned what he did. He was governed by rage, as a result of humiliation of an ego never tempered by shame or morality. They further stated that Hanna and I were his primary targets-everybody else at the school who had witnessed his humiliation was just fodder for his rage.

The DA pressed for a speedy trial and announced that the state would seek the death penalty.