You Before Anyone Else

by Julie Cross

  “Hey.” I work hard to keep my tone neutral. I don’t know if I want him to see inside my head just yet.

  “Do you think—” He glances over my shoulder, probably taking in the company. “Maybe we can…talk?”

  Behind me, Eve is already packing up her laptop. She passes a silent question my way: Should we go? I nod. Not that I need her to leave, but just so she knows I’m okay with talking to him. I pull the door open all the way, and Eddie steps inside, giving an awkward wave to everyone. French Mama is the only one who doesn’t wave back. Instead, she narrows her eyes at Eddie and tosses me a look of concern.

  I lead him into my room right away, saving him from French Mama or attempting small talk while dripping wet. After handing him the towel from the back of my door, I’m perched at the edge of my bed, waiting for him to talk.

  He starts to remove his T-shirt and then seems to think twice about it. Instead, he rubs the towel over his hair and makes a poor attempt to dry his shirt. Then he glances around for a safe place to sit and settles on leaning against the wall across from me. He looks so anxious, I almost say something to make him feel better but decide it’s safer to wait for his answers.

  “So…” I prompt, staying neutral. “The girl this morning? She’s your…ex? Another one-night stand?” I’m hoping the last one isn’t true, because Eddie told me he hadn’t done that before, and if he lied about one thing, what else has he lied about?

  “Caroline is my…” He exhales and twists the towel into a ball. “She’s—I’ve known her my whole life. Our families are—were—friends.”

  That still doesn’t exactly answer the question, but I don’t want to sound jealous, so I wait for him to offer more.

  “Remember that party I told you about?” he asks. As if I could forget that revealing bit of information. “That was the same night that we—I mean, that she—”

  “I get it.”

  “Right.” He swallows. “We were both messed up. Really messed up. She just got dumped by an asshole, and I was fresh off one of my dad’s famous ‘don’t screw up your life or we’ll be ashamed of you forever’ dinners. I don’t know why we decided that would help things. Especially considering we never went there before.”

  It’s hard to have this conversation under such polite and ambiguous conditions. “So you never had sex with her before that night. And you aren’t together now, and you weren’t after either?”

  “No,” he says. “I mean yes. Yes, that’s correct. Neither of us remember a whole lot about any of it. Obviously, we weren’t—”

  “Safe?” I supply.

  “Yeah, and it was awful the next morning, not to mention the whole getting busted part.” He leans more weight on the wall, almost sagging against it. “And then my parents decided to buy my way out of the rumor mill by tossing Caroline’s name out there. Our dads have been good friends since college, and we vacationed together, but it was that easy for him to just write them off.”

  Jesus. These are the worst kind of people. But I need the rest of this story before we discuss Eddie’s family. “And then she got some news?” I prompt.

  He nods, his face haunted. “I told my parents right away, and they responded by suing the Davenports—Caroline’s family. For slander. Assuming they were planning to tell people what happened. It turned into this big, complicated business thing. Neither of us knew our families were even communicating at all. Our schools were forty minutes away from each other, so we were together all the time—” He must have caught my reaction, because he clarifies, “Not together. Just being together. Talking. Trying to figure out what the fuck to do. And then we went to that clinic. Three different times. She couldn’t go through with it, and then—”

  He slides down the wall until he’s seated on my floor, and when he looks up at me, I’m hit hard with the main reason he’s here. In my room. With me. And it’s not to offer me this explanation. Not to make sure I don’t call him a cheater. It’s because he literally has no one else.

  “Do you think—” Eddie starts and then pauses, forcing his voice to come out even. “Do you think it matters that I wanted her to go through with it? Does that make me unqualified? Am I going to have to explain that to him when he gets older?”

  He stares at me, waiting for my answer like it means something. And then my carefully placed wall crumbles, and I’m up, crossing the room and sitting in front of him.

  CHAPTER 35

  Eddie

  Finley slides in front of me, her hands resting on my knees. She’s dropped all the apprehensive walls she’d put up since I got here. “You were being supportive. It wasn’t about the kid at that point.”

  No, it wasn’t. Not for me. But for Caroline, it was about the baby. She was the better person. Maybe still is. Except I had my moments of doubt too, similar to her not being able to step foot inside that abortion clinic. It was last March when we were home for spring break.

  We sat in Caroline’s dining room, with our parents and a big-name lawyer for each of us, while they all pretended to get along, pretended they hadn’t been trying to sue each other and ruin each other’s businesses for months. She’d told them she couldn’t terminate her pregnancy, and now we were letting them figure out how she could have this baby and make sure no one ever knew about it. That last part was the one thing all our parents agreed on—no one should know about it. Because despite our families being of similar status, a welcome match for procreation, to quote my mother, “People like us do not have babies while in high school.” Or college, my father had added. I didn’t bother telling them their opinions on teen pregnancy weren’t exclusive to the top one percent of the economic food chain.

  Caroline bit her nails the whole time our lawyers rambled on about adoption laws and confidentiality, her gaze bouncing between both lawyers like she was hyperfocused. I, on the other hand, couldn’t hold onto a single sentence spoken, probably due to my father’s relentless glare, along with both Caroline’s parents shooting me the evil eye, all while my mother sat there emotionless, high on whatever painkiller she’d been able to get her hands on that month.

  Needless to say, I was jittery and anxious, understanding very little. Until my father’s lawyer said, “My client would like to sign a waiver of right to notice, should you choose to go through with the adoption—”

  “I am,” Caroline stated firmly, shooting a glance at her parents, who nodded their encouragement.

  “When you go through with the adoption,” our lawyer corrected. “This will ensure my client’s name will remain off the birth certificate—”

  “Wait,” I interrupted. “I’m not going to be on the birth certificate?”

  My father’s glare shifted to a “shut up now” plea, but I couldn’t not ask.

  “That’s correct,” the lawyer stated.

  “And what notice am I not getting?” God, I’d felt like an idiot asking these questions. And sure enough, both lawyers looked at me like seriously? This kid got into Andover? He’s going to Princeton? But since I’d first found out Caroline was pregnant, I’d been too scared to learn much, too concerned about her, too guilty for what happened and how it happened.

  “Notice of the adoption,” the Davenports’ lawyer answered.

  “Why wouldn’t I know about it?” I asked. “It’s not like I won’t be around to help or whatever…”

  I glanced around, waiting for someone to explain. My father cleared his throat and tossed a pointed look at his lawyer. Caroline’s dad did the same—something else they must have agreed on despite the current war happening between our families.

  “Your families have signed an agreement,” Dad’s lawyer said, lifting a sheet of paper from the table and reading aloud. “You will return to school tomorrow, as planned…” He looked at Caroline, showing the first sign of sympathy thus far. “And Ms. Davenport will remain here—due to serious illness—and complete her senior y
ear remotely. All communication between Edward Wellington and Caroline Davenport shall be severed at the conclusion of this meeting—”

  “What?” I asked at the same time as Caroline asked, “I’m not going back to school? I can’t graduate?”

  “Your school has agreed to issue you a diploma, assuming you complete required work from home,” the lawyer said.

  Caroline pushed away from the table and looked right at my dad. “What did you do? Did you bribe them?”

  “I’m not signing that agreement.” I pushed my chair back and stood beside Caroline. “You can’t keep us from talking or seeing each other.”

  Our lawyer lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you were seeing each other.” He glanced at my dad. “Would you like to revert to the marriage clause?”

  My mouth fell open. “What the fuck?”

  “No!” Caroline shouted. She turned to face both her parents. “You know I’m with RJ!”

  “Oh God,” her mother groaned. “Not the gold-digging Indian boy again.”

  Caroline’s face went pale. I recognized the signs, having been around the past few weeks. She fled the dining room, heading up the steps for her bedroom. I followed behind her but waited outside the bathroom door until I heard the sound of water running in the sink.

  She was slumped over, her cheek pressed against the tile floor of her giant bathroom, sobbing. I stepped over her and sat beside the bathtub. I used my fingers to slide the sweaty hair off her cheek. “I haven’t been in your bathroom for a long time. When did you get rid of the LEGO net above the tub?”

  Through her tears, she snorted out a laugh. “At least ten years ago.”

  “Got tired of me stripping down during every playdate, huh?” I said, earning another laugh from her. “If you had just gotten over your ‘no, Eddie, those are bath toys, and bath toys stay in the bathtub’ rule, I would have kept my pants on.”

  “God, I was a bossy little bitch,” she said, laughing some more. “How did you stand me back then?”

  “You had toys. I wasn’t allowed anything colorful.”

  “Or noisy or messy,” she recited. “Or too childish.”

  “See? These are the stories great marriages are made from,” I teased. “You should probably marry me.”

  This broke her out of her funk. She rolled on her back, looking up at me and laughing until fresh tears were falling down her face.

  “So no, then?”

  She sat up quickly, a big grin on her face. “Can we please go back down there and tell them we’re getting married and raising a kid together? Please, please, please…it will be the last joke we ever get to play on them.”

  “Yeah, because they’ll murder us,” I point out, shuddering at the thought of my father’s response to that.

  “Hey, they made a clause for it,” she reminded me. Then she looked at me for several seconds, her expression turning wary. “You’re not—I mean, you don’t, like…you don’t want me like that, right?”

  I glanced away from her, not sure how to answer without hurting her feelings. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure what that feels like. I care about you. I’d pick you over my family any day. I’m comfortable around you.”

  “I’m not fishing for compliments, Eddie. I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page,” she said. “And trust me, when you have that with someone, you’ll know.”

  “Like you and RJ?” I wiggled my eyebrows at her. “Think he’s still gonna love you when you’re all fat and pregnant? Won’t be long if you keep eating entire boxes of Little Debbie Zebra Cakes in one sitting.”

  She smacked me on the chest. “Then quit buying them for me!”

  It felt good to banter like that—familiar and so us. Both of us sank back against the wall, sitting in comfortable silence for a minute or two.

  “You know they’re going to take everything from us if we don’t agree to their plan,” Caroline said. “No college, no trust funds, no anything. And your dad might screw my family over.”

  “Yeah, he’s good at that,” I said bitterly. “But screw them. I don’t care about Princeton. I never have. I don’t even want my trust fund. Not if it means selling my soul to the family business. If you aren’t allowed to go back to school tomorrow, then I’m not going either.”

  I kept my eyes on the spot above the tub where the LEGO net used to hang, but when Caroline didn’t jump onto my eff them train, I turned to look at her. My heart sank. “You’re gonna do it, aren’t you? God, you can’t let them keep you from finishing your senior year.”

  “I’m still getting my diploma,” she argued. “I worked my ass off to get into George Washington, and if I don’t go, RJ will be all the way in London.”

  There was no doubt she had more on the line than I did. I mean, I had to keep my grades up and score decent on the SAT to get into Princeton, but my stats were probably similar to hundreds of applicants who got rejected. Applicants who couldn’t list Edward Wellington III as their legacy.

  “It doesn’t feel right,” I said. “Erasing myself from everything. Not having to participate in finding a family for…” I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t say my kid then, but suddenly, that was what he’d become.

  Caroline turned to me, resting her hands on my shoulders. “I’m going to tackle this adoption thing just like everything else in my life—with perfection.”

  “Everything?” I pressed, reminding her of our night together and her occasional need to escape behind the fog of alcohol or recreational drugs.

  “I was going through a phase,” she argued. “And getting out of a relationship that sucked completely. You know I can do this on my own, and you know that I know you don’t want me to.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t.”

  “Then trust me,” she pleaded. “Trust that I will make sure this baby is with the best family ever—much better than either of ours. And trust that I’m being completely honest right now when I tell you how much I respect that you’re here, in my bathroom, ready to give up everything.”

  I almost made a crack about my emotional connection to her bathroom, but I didn’t have it in me. I nodded, agreeing to trust her, to let our families dictate our every move for the next six months, but the weight of this decision started eating at me, bit by bit. We returned to the meeting, gave our blessing, but agreed that I wouldn’t officially sign the waiver of right to notification, just in case something leaked to the public. It was a worst-case scenario precaution. Instead, I signed a preliminary agreement to sign the waiver, which held no value at all, because our lawyers made it up to scare me.

  When I went back to school the next day, I couldn’t get it out of my head—my name would have virtually no connection to this kid. It was worse than my father’s negligence, than the cold home my parents created for me and my sister. It was worse, because it was nothing. It would mean that I gave him nothing. Couldn’t even be bothered to name myself his father…

  “Hey,” Finley says, touching the front of my wet T-shirt and breaking me out of that memory. “You’re freezing.”

  “I’m fine.” I shake my head and attempt to stand. “I shouldn’t have come here. It’s not fair to dump all this shit on you—”

  Finley responds by sliding closer, touching my face, and then bringing her mouth to mine. For a moment, I get caught up in kissing her, she’s so warm—I really am freezing. The air is cranked up in this apartment to North Pole setting, and soon, she’s peeling the wet T-shirt over my head, tossing it on the floor beside the towel she loaned me. I grasp her hips and tug until she’s all the way on my lap, pressed up against me.

  When I finally bring myself to pull away from her, I ask, “Do you think I’m crazy? You must think that.”

  “I think”—she leans back, her gaze roaming over my face—“that you have a very big heart.”

  Something breaks inside me. I don’t thi
nk anyone has ever said that about me—definitely not as a positive attribute. I bring her mouth back to mine, kissing her in a way that seems to say more than any words we’ve spoken to each other. And I’m wondering if this is what Caroline meant. When she told me I’d know when it was like that with someone.

  • • •

  I lean over Finley’s bed, scooping my now only slightly damp boxer briefs from the floor so I can put something on. “Pass me another diet cracker.”

  “They’re not diet crackers,” Finley argues, hugging the box to her chest.

  I pry one of her arms loose and point to the big letters on the front. “Low fat. That’s diet crap.”

  She rolls her eyes but offers me the box. “We could order pizza?”

  “Nah.” I’m starving, but I know she already ate dinner. Besides, I’d rather not put my wet clothes back on to retrieve a pizza from the front door.

  Finley looks completely sexy, wearing nothing but pink panties and a tiny tank top, her hair all messy and wild from rolling around on the bed with me. “You’re going to have to find someplace to live. Probably soon.”

  I nod. We’ve been hashing out details for over an hour. The more missing pieces I fill in for her, the more relaxed she seems to get. “I’ve been looking online.”

  I grab my phone from the nightstand and pull up a list of links I’ve saved. She looks them over while I dive into the box of low-fat crackers, eating two or three at a time.

  “Connecticut, huh?” She lifts an eyebrow. “Those swim team parents must have really done a good job welcoming you.”

  “I think I marked that one before.”

  Fin puts the phone down. “So how does it work? She’s already doing the adoption stuff even without your permission?”