Over the Fence Box Set

by Aarons, Carrie

  “Baby—” It’s the only thing I get out before she silences me with a finger. I know better than to speak again.

  Jackson and I stand there, two idiots caught with our proverbial pants down as she glares at us. It’s more than a glare. Those hazel eyes are onyx, all the rage has been sucked from the world and transplanted into this gorgeous pixie. Red tendrils stand up this way and that, her face shines with a fresh coat of glossy tears. She must be tearing holes in her palms by how hard she’s clenching her tiny fists.

  “You can start by getting the fuck out of my life.” Kelsey’s words are venom, meant to cause bodily harm to Jackson.

  “Kelsey, I can explain … I never, I never wanted you to find out this way. Please, can we just talk?”

  A biting laugh bubbles up from her throat, sarcastic and cruel. “You had twenty years to talk to me. Twenty years! You lied to my goddamn face my entire life. When I was crying to you about my parents, about Madeline. You knew how alone I felt, how misguided I was.”

  Jackson makes a strangled noise in his throat, but Kelsey presses on.

  “And you!” She rounds on me, her nostrils flaring and voice breaking on a sob. “You promised me. You told me to trust you. How long have you been keeping this from me? I guess that honesty only applied to situations you decided were important.”

  I move for her out of instinct, trying to wrap her in my arms. “Roo …”

  “No! Do not touch me. I never want to see either of you again. You are not my father,” she shouts at Jackson, who whimpers. “And we are over.”

  I feel like I’ve been smacked in the face. Gutted. My chest has been flayed open and fried.

  Kelsey’s halfway down the path to Jackson’s trailer when I shake the body-numbing grief I’m currently under the spell of. Sprinting from the office, I shout her name, trying to catch the sand that’s quickly slipping through my fingertips.

  Before I can reach her, she’s throwing her Jetta into reverse, the tires kicking up lung-filling dust into my face. And then she’s gone, speeding out onto the main road through the gates.

  I bend at the waist, feeling like I’ve been socked in the gut, the balls, the throat. I can’t breathe properly. What the fuck did I just do?

  But I know what I did. I committed the one sin I promised her I’d never commit. I broke her trust. And now the gypsy is in the wind again, running from anything that might hurt.

  22

  Kelsey

  I don’t even stop at home to collect any of my belongings. I just steer my car in the direction of the airport and put my mind on autopilot.

  I don’t want to think. To feel. Feelings are raw and they hurt like an elephant’s tusk being shoved through your sternum. Which is why I always fucking avoided them.

  Why couldn’t I have just stuck to the plan? Live like a free bird, never fall in love, fucking protect myself.

  I can’t even process what I just heard. It’s like my internal hard drive is crashing bit by bit.

  Jackson is my father.

  It’s a sick, cruel joke and the universe is laughing at me. He’s been planted two feet in front of my face this entire time.

  My heart has been cleaved in two and then shoved into a blender. I’m not even sure I can feel it anymore, except every time I picture Clint’s face it does this dramatic twist that makes me feel as if I’m going to vomit.

  I park the car in overnight parking, not even bothering to realize that it will probably be towed when I don’t return for it. People pass by in a rush, bags and spouses and toddlers in tow. Cabs screech to a halt in front of each gate, and a cop’s whistle blares over the entire ecosystem of the airport.

  I realize I don’t have my passport on me, which means escaping the country is out of the question. I don’t know where to go. Minka is back at the house with Clint. So that’s a no. Mitchum is definitely a no, too obvious and my parents could always unexpectedly stop in. Right now, I have no desire to be on one of their preserves; Jackson will surely get word of it.

  The lightbulb in my head finally shines bright. New York. I’ll go to Chloe.

  The flight to the Big Apple is a blur. I have one too many gin and tonics. The stewardess looks worried when I ask for a fifth, but she still brings it. I don’t know if the haggard expression on my face wins her sympathy, or if she’s regarding me strangely because I’m in zookeeper khakis with dirt from the grounds still smeared on my face.

  As soon as I hit the terminal, I feel swarmed. I forgot how crowded New York is. My senses go into overdrive, taking in pixels of the noise and motion around me. I feel like at any moment I’ll have a full-on breakdown.

  Hitting the pavement, I hail a cab. Only to realize I have no idea where Chloe and Miles live in the city. A sob breaks from my lips, and I can feel the dam I’ve so carefully laid into place start to give under the weight of my emotions.

  Chloe picks up on the second ring. “Hey, Kels!”

  At the tinkling, cheerful note of her voice the tears start to rush out. I relay half of my story in hurried sobs and hiccups, with Chloe confusedly shouting into the phone. Finally, she gives me the address, promising to meet me out in front of their building.

  I practically cry on the shoulder of the cab driver when I hop in, but he somehow discerns the garbled address I give him.

  Chloe is waiting, her long black hair swaying in the wind. Those pink ballet pointe shoes are slung around her shoulders, almost like another organ.

  I run out of the yellow taxi and into her arms. Thankfully, my best friend doesn’t question me. Just puts her arm around my shoulder and ushers me inside.

  * * *

  For the first few days, I crash in Miles and Chloe’s second bedroom, I simply sleep. The pain of finding out the truth coupled with Clint’s lie is too great. I can’t let it prick the surface of my skin, so I invest in some great sleeping pills and give myself over to the bliss. By the fourth day, the grieving-binge stage hits. Good thing New York is the city that never sleeps. Which means I can order pizza, Chinese food, and milkshakes to my heart’s desire, and they’ll be dropped off on my doorstep at even the latest of hours.

  I hear Chloe and Miles whisper-arguing late at night when they think I’m not listening.

  “We have to tell him where she is!” Miles hisses at her, clearly concerned about his best friend. His best friend who also happens to be a lying sack of shit.

  I haven’t turned on my phone since I got here, refusing to tell anyone where I am. From what I can tell, Miles and Chloe haven’t tipped Clint off.

  “She trusts us. I’m not betraying that. And we haven’t even gotten the full story. You have no idea what he did to send her running. What if he cheated on her?”

  “Clint? Yeah right! I’m pretty sure he was a virgin before he met Kelsey.”

  Right on one count, Farris.

  I wish he cheated on me. That would have been easier to swallow than what Clint had actually done.

  It’s not until the fifth, sixth, and seventh days do I realize that I’m still tired to the bone. So doused in drowsiness that it is physically hard to walk at times. And after I vomit every morning on those days, I attribute it to the crap I’ve been putting in my stomach. That is until I’m sitting on Chloe’s couch, watching an episode of Law and Order SVU while the happy couple is at work, when the teenager on the screen finds out she’s pregnant.

  And then it hits me.

  Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. No, it can’t be. I sit in stunned silence for what feels like hours.

  I have to know. Besides my real parentage, I have never been the kind of person who would rather not be privy to information. I’m direct, straightforward. What you see is what you get. And so if I’m preg … I’m having trouble even thinking the word. If I am, I need to know.

  Good thing New York has a Duane Reed on every goddamn corner. Who knew this store was even still in business?

  I act like a ninja in the store, as if the entire population of Mitchum, NC, my hometown, m
ight pop out from behind the aisle at any moment. I pull my hood down farther on the walk home, feeling the eyes of strangers judging me. In reality, they can’t even see inside the bag, much less care what I’m doing.

  Finally, I’m back in Chloe’s walk-up, trembling in the bathroom. Slowly, I unwrap the test from its packaging. This is the most surreal moment of my life. Even more surreal than finding out Jackson is my biological father. I can’t actually believe I’m here in this moment, doing this. It feels like I’m out of my own body, watching from somewhere in the corner. I’m the girl I would make fun of for being alone, taking a pregnancy test in her best friend’s bathroom.

  The noise from outside the window which usually keeps me annoyed during the day and awake at night, is dull and muted. I feel like my heart is about to fall out of my throat and flop onto the floor like a fish, caught and fighting for its life on the deck of a dry boat.

  I make quick business of peeing on the stick, of course, getting some on my hand and cursing myself for ever being stupid enough to land in this predicament in the first place.

  Whoever invented these things is the devil. Wait three minutes? Sure, I’ll just go knit while I await the results of a stick I just pissed on that may or may not change my entire life.

  I spend the full three minutes alternating between pacing the small bathroom and trying not to pull my hair out. When it’s finally up, I throw my hands over my face, peeking out from behind my fingers like I’m watching The Exorcist alone on Halloween.

  Just rip the Band-Aid off, Kelsey.

  I move to the sink where the piece of plastic that holds my future sits. My stomach is in my toes, all the light in the room focusing like a spotlight on the test. It’s like I have tunnel vision. Looking down, I see the two faded blue lines running perpendicular to each other. A plus sign. I’m pregnant.

  Fuck.

  Thoughts don’t even register in my brain. I slide down the wall into a sitting position, not realizing the fat, salty tears rolling down my face until the collar of my shirt is practically soaked.

  I must sit there for hours like a zombie because the next thing I know Chloe is talking at me, words that don’t register, and darkness has set in.

  She flicks on the light. “What are you doing?” Her voice is incredulous.

  I glance up, not really making out her whole face from behind my veil of tears. It’s then that I find her staring at the pregnancy test still sitting on the counter

  “Oh, Kels …” The shock and sheer worry on her face make me find my voice.

  “I guess you were really right when you said I was going to have Clint’s babies …”

  And then I burst into tears.

  23

  Clint

  Packing up the house goes about as well as playing nine innings with two broken hands. Everything smells like her, feels like her. I can see her pale curves laid out on my comforter as I fold it and stuff it in the trunk. There are tiny red strands scattered on my sheets and pillows. Little love notes she doodled and stuck into the pockets of my jeans litter my desk.

  I can’t even step foot in her room. Minka has to pack it up and has it all shipped back to the O’Brien’s mansion in Mitchum.

  No one knows where Kelsey escaped to. Minka and I have called her phone fifty times a day each. Chloe hasn’t heard a peep from her. If I was worried the first day she left, I’m in a downright perpetual state of panic now.

  All I do is sleep, pace the house, go for runs and spend hours on my computer. Hours spent trying to track her down. Obsessively checking her social media to see if she updates one single thing. I have calls in to Jackson, which wasn’t pleasant or easy, since I still want to sucker punch the guy in the gut, to alert me if anyone at any preserve around the globe sees her.

  But she’s gone. Her phone has been off for a week, no way to trace it. We’ve filled her voicemail until we can no longer leave pleading, threatening, crying messages. I feel like a helpless, scared child.

  Kelsey’s always been impulsive, but I have never seen her more emotionally raw in my life than when she was standing in that trailer doorway, scorching earth beneath her feet. She had a wild, untamed look in her eye. She might be doing something stupid, dangerous. And I can’t do anything but wait by the phone.

  To make matters worse, I have nothing to distract me from it. After leaving the college house and coming back to Alabama, I don’t know what to do with myself. None of the nonprofits I reached out to have called, no new job offers put on the table. I mostly spend my days now sitting on my parents’ old-ass couch in their tiny-ass ranch.

  Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents. I made peace with their faults long ago and vowed to never to settle into the same path. But I can’t help but feel depressed. The one thing that made my life bright and sunny was Kelsey, and now she’s disappeared. Vanished.

  And it’s all my fault.

  I know I never should have kept my suspicions from her. I should have spilled to her in the car on the way home from the preserve the first time I ever met Jackson. But instead, I internalized it. Made it my mission not to hurt her. And by doing so, I sliced her heart right open.

  I still can’t get that horrified look on her beautiful face out of my brain. It’s ingrained on it, branded into my skull. It haunts me when I do manage to fall asleep.

  Mom and Dad don’t know what to make of me and my new attitude. They’ve called my brothers, all three of them stopping by at some point or another to lend a wise word, a shoulder to lean on. None of it helps. I can’t shake the slump I’m in, and part of me doesn’t want to. Pain is the only thing I can feel right now, and I welcome it. Crave it.

  I’m lying on my back in the grass behind my parent’s house, melodramatically contemplating my life that has gone to shit when my phone rings. Startled, I immediately jack up to a sitting position, adrenaline and hope surging through my veins. It’s what I do every time the phone rings these days. It could be Kelsey.

  But it’s not. Only Miles, the obnoxious picture of him crossing his eyes flashing across the screen.

  “What’s up?” I answer.

  “Nice to hear from you too, buddy. Miss you, hope you’re doing well.”

  His voice is dripping with sarcasm and goofiness, typical Farris, but I’m not in the mood.

  “Yeah, yeah. Was there something you needed?”

  “Fine, man. I wanted to uh … to let you know something.”

  My stomach does the weird twist it has always done right before I leave the locker room for a game. Maybe he has news about Kelsey. But his voice sounds off. Suddenly, I don’t know if I want to hear it. He doesn’t give me the chance to stop him.

  “Kels has been staying with us the past three weeks.”

  It feels as though I’ve just been beaned in the skull by a wild pitch. What did he just say?

  “Huh?” I shake my head, trying to clear the fuzzy shock clouding my thought process.

  “She flew straight here from Virginia, she didn’t even have a bag. Chloe met her outside, she was like a zombie, Clint. Still is. Thing is—”

  “You fucking knew where she was this whole time and you both fucking lied to me?” I am practically screaming through the phone. The violence in my blood is visceral, I want to reach through the phone and grab Miles by the throat.

  “Dude, I know. I’m fucking sorry—”

  “You’re sorry! I have been going out of my goddamn mind trying to track her down. Worried sick about her. And she’s been sleeping in your cushy penthouse for three fucking weeks? Fuck you, Farriston.”

  I think I hear him wince on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry, man. I just … we didn’t know what happened. And let me clarify that we live in a third-floor walk-up …”

  “Farris.” My voice is deadly quiet. He seems to get the message.

  “We didn’t know what happened. She won’t talk about it, just keeps knocking herself out with sleeping pills and junk food. She’s left our spare bedroom all of four time
s. Chloe told me we needed to give her her space, let her process. But … something’s changed, man. I think you need to get up here.”

  The knots forming in my stomach twist. “What’s changed? What do you mean?”

  “Dude, just … you need to get up here.”

  I only stay on the phone long enough to get his address. Then I’m running inside to throw clothes into a backpack and book a flight.

  24

  Kelsey

  Chloe has called in the cavalry.

  I know she has as soon as the spare bedroom door hits the wall, causing me to roll over on the bed where I’ve been facing away from it. There stands Minka, pissed-off mama bear written all over her face.

  “Minks, what are you doing here?”

  Her gaze doesn’t even flit to my face as she stomps over to the bed and grabs my wrist. She squeezes, and I realize she’s timing my heartbeats.

  “Chloe says you refuse to see a doctor.”

  It’s not a question, but a ticked off accusation.

  “Look I know you’re mad I didn’t tell you where I was.” I struggle to sit up I’m so tired.

  “We’ll discuss that fucking issue later. Right now we’re going to the doctor. I won’t sit by as you avoid getting the medicines and checkups you need.”

  So Chloe’s told her about the baby. Fuck. The baby. I can’t even fathom that those words are running through my thoughts.

  I pale, tears clogging my throat. “I don’t even know if I’m keeping it, Minks.”

  I see a flicker of sympathy and sadness wash over her eyes. And then she goes steely. “Even so, you may want to give it up for adoption. And for that, you need to keep yourself healthy. We’re done with this moping routine. Get your ass up, meet me in the living room in five. Chloe will order up an Uber.”

  And with that, my bossy best friend leaves me alone. I push up, adjusting myself as the room spins once around me. She’s right. I haven’t been taking care of myself, or this baby. I’ve barely eaten at all, the only thing I do is lie in bed. I haven’t researched into my options, haven’t started taking the right vitamins.