Sweet Valley University #19: Broken Promises, Shattered Dreams

So Billie is all sad because she’s pregnant and her life is over. She can’t go to Spain for her fancy scholarship. She sees Chas and confesses why she’s so sad. He tells her to talk to his sister Tracy, who works at a health clinic. Steven runs to his professor, with all his plans for the future. The prof kind of makes Steven fell like he’s making the wrong choice, but we know that abortion really isn’t an option in this world. Jess wants Steve to loan her some money…er, invest in her new fashion company. He confesses that he can’t waste any money because Billie is pregnant and he doesn’t want her telling Liz.

Billie goes to the clinic and is treated pretty good. She meets several women, who tell her of her options. The doctor herself had a baby and gave it up for an adoption. One of the counselors had an abortion. They remind Billie that it’s her body, her choice and no one can force her to do anything. She acts like this is the first time anyone ever told her and can’t figure out what to do.

She goes home and finds Steve cooking her favorite dinner. For some reason her parents are in town and Steve makes plans to see them and his parents the following night, so they can tell everyone about their plan. Look, I don’t want to be a hardass, but you’re supposed to wait three months before you tell anyone. It’s just plain luck and in case anything happens. I had a friend who told everyone she was pregnant when she was one week late and hadn’t yet been to the doctor. Turns out her pregnancy test was a false positive. Another girl I knew, told everyone she was pregnant at week six and got married to her boyfriend of three whole months. It’s kind of crazy how fast people move!

Anyway, Billie wants to talk about the situation. She’s tired of Steven doing everything and not giving her a say. She brings up abortion and he does the “no child of mine” bull shit. She says it’s her body and they fight for way too long. Steve gets sad and tells her that he loves her and basically plays the guilt card. She agrees to have the baby and get married.

I’m sorry, but these two are not being realistic in the slightest. He assumes that they can just get married, have a baby, keep going to school and nothing is going to change. Let’s see how well he does in law school, when he has a crying baby every night. Steve plans on working at night and going to school during the day, while Billie raises a baby, goes to school and tutors students at home. Their parents aren’t happy, but agree to help as much as they can.

Steve goes to Lila’s doughnut shop and announces the news to everyone. He then invites all of the twins’ friends to their wedding, does he really not have any friends of his own? Alice turns into the wedding planner from hell and refuses to listen to any of Billie’s wishes. Billie hides in the bathroom and fantasizes about having a hellion kid with tattoos (her idea of Jessica) or a know it all like Liz. Steve starts freaking out himself. He and Billie talk things through and decide to go through with the wedding.

They go back to campus and I actually feel bad for Billie. She finds her scholarship letter and starts crying because she can’t do anything she wanted. Steve decides to fix it by making her a Spanish dinner and promising to go there with her someday. Yeah, I’m sure that will make it better. He also has a series of interviews at Ned’s law firm because he applied for a paid internship. He learns that things aren’t as great as he thinks and he won’t be able to work in any area of law that interests him.

Billie completely loses it over the wedding. Every time she turns around, Alice is making plans for their wedding. She loves him and wanted to marry him, but not like this. They have a huge fight, where he basically tells her that he doesn’t care and to do whatever she wants. He runs off after screaming at her and she collapses. He rushes her to the hospital and they learn that she lost the baby. Steve feels guilty and it’s clear that nothing will ever be the same again…

The B-plot involves Jessica throwing a fashion show at Lila’s shop, using clothes from her and Val’s new line. Jess gets all jealous when she learns that Val and Mike have some kind of relationship, but she blows it off. She also claims that she and Mike didn’t have real love, not like she and Louis did. Um, then why the fuck did you marry him? And if you really loved Louis, then why hook up with Mike in the next book?

Then they have problems with the fabric and Val disappears. Jess has to deal with everyone wanting to do their fittings and see the clothes, but nothing exists. Turns out that Mike took Val south, to get more fabric after their order was trapped in customs. Mike was friends with Val’s husband, who died in a car accident, which is how they know each other. The fashion show is a hit and I want to scream.

We’re also treated to a Liz story. She’s neglecting Tom because Jess needs her after what happened to Louis. They finally spend some time together and somehow start talking about marriage. Tom proposes and both think it was a joke, but that the other person is serious. He buys her this huge engagement ring and she starts wearing it around. Eventually they realize they aren’t ready for marriage, but she can keep the ring until they’re ready. What happened to it after they broke up??