There is a new drama unfolding within my circle of friends, and I have been sworn to secrecy. Naturally, I need to get it all out somewhere, or all the sordid details will escape my lips at some unguarded (and most likely inopportune) moment.

Emma, one of my dearest friends in the world, has a younger brother, James, whom used to also be one of my dearest friends in the world. Unfortunately, we have drifted apart over the years, though we are very fond of each other still, and enjoy ourselves thoroughly when we occasionally find the chance to spend time together. James is the only male child of four in his family, and he is their golden boy. He is a musician, and is free-spirited and fun loving; really, he refuses to grow up. He is never not involved in a band, usually as the lead singer, and is actually making quite a name for himself with his latest group. The are heavily involved in the local music scene, and have even managed to tour Canada a few times in the last few years.

As most lead singers are (and I know- I dated one for many years), James is a ladies man. He is tall, dark, and handsome, and his unique voice and considerable skill on the guitar draw the girls to him non stop. He is never without a girlfriend, and the last few months have been no exception.

I met Vickie for the first time about six months ago. She is a tiny waif of a girl who couldn't be older than 20, short with a slight build, pixie-cut hair, and an adorable face. She was friendly, but seemed a bit reluctant to speak; when she finally did open up and talk, I was surprised to hear her boast at length about her athletic accomplishments and her history as a professional wakeboarder.

Yes, you read right. A professional wakeboarder. I found it hard to believe, too, and wanted to ask some probing questions, but James was holding her hand and nodding and smiling energetically. Well, I thought, obviously James knows her and knows it's true, so I'll just leave it.

I forgot about Vickie within the week. I later heard from close friend Emma that James had broken up with her and that Vickie has gone, in his words, "psycho". She apparently was calling him and texting him at all hours, drunk as a skunk, and threatening to do bodily harm to herself if he did not take her back. She stopped showing up for her job as a barista at the local bux, and just generally went over the top in her post-breakup grief. I remember thinking it all seemed a little strange, hoping she would be okay, and then forgetting about it all again.

Then, a few months ago, I was out for coffee with Emma when who should walk through the door but James and Vickie! I looked wide-eyed at Emma, and she quickly explained that they were back together, and Vickie was, apparently, back to normal. I nodded and turned with a big smile to greet my friend and his, er, friend. They seemed happy and energetic and she was back to smiling sweetly and being tinily cute. Or cutely tiny. Maybe both.

Fast forward to a week before Christmas. I am hanging out with Emma and her husband and her in-laws (it's a whole other story), eating dinner and preparing to watch some boy-oriented action movie, when the phone rings. Dave (the husband) answers it in the other room, and after a few minutes of murmuring, he calls Emma in to talk. After more murmurs, Emma comes back out and gives me the look.

Now, all females know The Look. It signifies that there is something major going on, but we can't talk about it, so we will try our damndest to communicate the entire story with our eyes alone. Sometimes it works. This time, I got the gist of it, but when Em whispered, "There's a problem with James", I knew the rest. Since she didn't want to divulge all in front of the in-laws, we ran outside to talk.

Vickie had just told James that she was pregnant. Shell-shocked, and without a clue what to do, James called his older sister and asked her to be there when he told his parents. You see, Emma and James' parents come from a long line of reverends and church-goers, and they believe very firmly in the Bible and all that it teaches . . . including saving sex for the bonds of marriage. The tough part is, it is not as though James had always disagreed and decided to live differently than his parents wished. He, too, had proclaimed the virtues of abstinence and was a strong and unashamed example of his beliefs to everyone around him. Vicki, too, goes to a religious university where upon admission, each student signs a contract stating they will not be sexually active unless they are married. If this contract is broken, so is their clause of admission, and the student may be kicked out of the university. So when the news came out in the family, it was tough on all of them.

But of course, everyone makes mistakes and accidents happen. So James' family tried to be welcoming to Vickie and did their best to encourage and educate them as a couple. I can't tell you how many phone calls Emma got from James, asking her questions about how to prepare a nutritionally sound meal for his pregnant girlfriend, or begging advice on pre-natal supplements. The young couple were just that- young and clueless about even the simplest things. It turned out that Vickie couldn't keep the supplements down due to malnutrition; the poor girl didn't even know how to feed herself properly, never mind a child.

The situation started to deteriorate, and fast. Emma tried to set up multiple coffee dates with Vickie, but after each one, James would come to Emma with reports that she had tried to shame Vickie, or force unwanted advice on her. Emma didn't understand how the conversations could have become so manipulated in Vickie's mind, and tried to text message her or call her to sort things out. But it was no use. Vickie became more and more convinced that James' family hated her, and would cry and scream outside his home, refusing to come in and talk to them all. it got to the point where Vickie would refuse to see James unless they were alone, and then she would spend their entire time together yelling at him and threatening to run off.

James was beside himself. He simply did not know what to do. He tried to only meet her in public places so that she couldn't make a scene, but then she would refuse to see him at all. She told him that he had better find an engagement ring for her, and fast, because she would not be disgraced this way. He tried to borrow the money for a ring from his parents (remember what I told you, he is young and irresponsible- he has no savings whatsoever), but they refused outright when they found out what he needed the cash for. The whole situation was still a family secret, with me being the only one outside the clan who knew the sordid details.

As Emma relayed all this information to me, I started to wonder. We compared some of the information that Vickie had been passing along about the pregnancy with some of the dates she had also provided, and then we started wondering about this baby. Many of the dates just didn't seem to add up properly- she claimed to be six weeks along by the time she told James, and then told him that the doctor said you could hear the heartbeat at two months. Four weeks later, she told everyone that she was going to the doctor, but no, they wouldn't be able to hear the heartbeat for another two or three weeks. These kinds of little details kept getting turned around until nothing seemed to make sense, and Emma and I speculated privately whether there really was a baby at all.

After he refused to propose, the situation went from bad to worse. It was now impossible for James to see her without a huge scene, and more often than not, when he tried to contact her, she would answer her phone and say she was driving around and didn't want to live anymore. Then she'd hang up and no one could contact her. I spent many nights sitting with Emma and Dave by their phone, periodically calling Vickie and getting no answer, waiting for news from the rest of the family, praying that the baby and its stressed out mother would be okay.

Finally, on Christmas Eve, James asked Vickie if he could see her. He tried to invite her to spend Christmas with the family (she only has her mother, who, according to Vickie, takes frequent drugs and has no use for her child), but when he arrived with his siblings waiting for him in the car, Vickie flipped out and refused to talk. He finally told her that he wanted to be a part of their baby's life, and would support and help her while she was pregnant and in all ways related to their child, but he did not want to be a part of Vickie's life romantically or in any other way. She stormed off and he did not see her over Christmas.

The latest news arrived yesterday. Vickie had a miscarriage. Over a week later, she got a D & C to help her heal and recover. This is where more sketchiness kicks in. James' other sister tells me that generally, a woman gets a D & C right away after a miscarriage, otherwise the after effects can be dangerous or even fatal. The fact that Vickie waited so long implies that there is something wrong with her story. James is questioning whether there ever was a pregnancy, as Vickie refused to let him come to the doctor until he could hear the heartbeat of the child. Everyone else is wondering the same thing, or if Vickie possibly got an abortion. Along with, I suspect, nearly everyone else involved, I personally subscribe to the theory that Vickie was never pregnant at all, but rather a confused girl attempting to get what she wanted in life (James for a husband) in a rather misguided way.

As far as I know, the family is attempting again to encourage and help Vickie, but she wants none of it. James doesn't know what to do, and there is really no way to ever tell what, if anything, went on in his girlfriend's body. I don't know what is going to happen next, but I truly hope for everyone's sake that this saga is over. None of the people involved deserve the pain and stress that they have experienced this holiday season.