Read Online When the Music Ends (The Winter Rose Chronicles) by Simone Beaudelaire - Free Book Online

most painful, cruel thing she could have ever said to her daughter
flippantly, as though it didn’t matter in the slightest. Erin blanched.
                "She
does. I need her too. My life is here. My boyfriend is here. All my
opportunities are here. I don’t even know Bill. Why would I want to live
with him? Can’t you just wait to sell the house until I graduate,
please?"
                "Erin, settle down." At last Valerie set her toiletries aside and looked at her
daughter. "No, the sale can’t wait. We’re moving over
Thanksgiving break."
                "I
won’t go with you," Erin insisted stubbornly, "I’m
eighteen. I don’t need to live with my mother anymore."
                "How
will you support yourself, Erin? You don’t earn much playing in the
symphony." Her calm, reasonable tone annoyed her daughter further.
                "I’ll
figure something out. Don’t worry about me. You never have anyway.
I’ll take care of it myself."
                "Don’t
be like that, dear. Please just consider it." She rose and laid her hand
on Erin’s arm.
                "I
won’t. My God you’re selfish. I’m not going anywhere."
                Erin jerked away from her mother and left the house. She didn’t slam the door,
although the part of her that really was still a teenager wanted to.
                Getting
into her car, she drove over to Sheridan’s. She needed her friend
desperately. She couldn’t leave. But the biggest reason was the one she
hadn’t told her mother. She needed to stay because of Sean, and his baby that
she was carrying.
    It was time to face the facts. She was pregnant. She was also a
senior in high school. The embarrassment would be acute, but at least she would
be able to graduate before... before the baby was born. Baby. She pictured in
her mind a little boy with dark hair and Sean’s beautiful blue eyes. And
he would be hers to keep forever. She didn’t know what all the
ramifications would be, but she was suddenly certain that she would never
regret having Sean’s baby. She placed her hand on her flat belly and let
the slow joy spread over her. It couldn’t be changed. So there was
nothing left to do but celebrate it.
                Erin rang the doorbell on the Murphy’s home and waited anxiously on the step.  Today,
agitated as she was about the prospect of moving away, the perfectly
symmetrical windows of the second floor glared down at her menacingly and the
four fluted white columns on the porch seemed like bars on a jail cell, closing
her in. It was a long time before the door opened. Mr. Murphy, his expression
grumpy, looked down at her. He was so tall, much taller than Erin’s
father, with his salt and pepper hair and rugged, sun-browned face. His
forehead was heavy and his eyebrows dark, so that when he glowered, he looked
nothing short of dangerous.
                She
drew back a little. She had always gotten along well with the Murphy parents,
and she wondered what she had done wrong. Then he recognized her and his
expression lightened.
                "Erin. Come in. Sorry to keep you waiting. Someone has been playing with the doorbell,
ringing and running away. I didn’t know if anyone was here."
                "Oh,
okay. Sorry. Is Danny here?"
                "Yes,
she’s in her room. Come on in."
                Erin climbed the stairs, her legs unsteady. She really hoped Sheridan could help her think
through this mess so she could find a way to stay. Moving to stupid Motley just
wasn’t an option.
                Sheridan had a pile of homework spread all over the floor. She was struggling through a
page of balancing chemical equations, but her history book and a copy of  A
Midsummer Night’s Dream were stacked nearby. This was going to be a
long evening for her. Of course, she might just be reading the Shakespeare