“No way do I want to buy a pregnancy test with my brother.”
“Grab some Pepto-Bismol, too.”
“You got it.”
Waiting in the car was the worst. Every station on the radio was playing crappy music, and my mind wouldn’t quiet down. I was driving myself insane thinking about all the worst-case scenarios.
Dane would kill me.
My mom would never stop crying.
My dad would never stop giving me depressed, disappointed looks.
Leilani would be freaked.
My life would be over before it really started.
Leilani’s mom would go on another one of her month-long benders to cope.
Then I let myself think about how great it could actually turn out. What if everyone was supportive? What if everyone took the high road and just skipped the awful parts and went straight to being happy about it?
My family was stable. Yeah, it wasn’t ideal, but Leilani and I would be able to figure it out, and she would be an incredible mom. I would be able to figure out the school and work thing. I would make sure she was able to see her dreams come true no matter what the outcome was.
When Jules got back in the car, I had built myself a nice little fantasy of a perfect life with Leilani and our little bundle of joy.
“Why the fuck are you smiling?” Julie asked as she buckled her seatbelt.
“What if she’s actually pregnant? It would be pretty cool to be a dad.” The words hit the air and I realized how crazy they sounded. I was about to turn seventeen. Leilani was barely fifteen. Her home life was shit. My parents would freak out. I spiraled right back into the doomsday crap in three seconds flat.
“You have got to be kidding me. You have actually lost it, haven’t you?”
I started the engine. “Yeah, you’re right. This is all going to turn out terribly. If she isn’t pregnant, she is going to kill me for telling you anyway. There is no winning in this for me, is there?”
“Nope, but I’ll still love you, even if you are fucking up my best friend’s life.”
“Wow. Thanks, sis.”
“Don’t mention it.”
We walked in with the pizza and waited until everyone was busy eating to duck back into the bathroom, where Leilani was still praying to the porcelain gods. Her eyes snapped to us with rage as I locked the bathroom door again.
“Babe, I know. You’re going to kill me, but we have to know for sure.”
“You told her?” Leilani whisper-screamed.
Julie sank down next to her best friend, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I kind of eavesdropped on you guys before and then forced it out of Mav. Don’t be mad at him. I am really happy for you guys.” Julie handed her the box. “It’s probably going to be negative, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Yeah, okay. Can you guys go in the shower and pull back the curtain or something? I don’t want to do this alone, but I need a little privacy.”
We did as she asked, and it was awkward as hell, standing in my bathtub with my sister as my girlfriend peed on a stick with only a thin sheet of fabric separating us.
I heard the pee stop and the cap clip back onto the test. Once Leilani flushed the toilet, we climbed out of the tub.
“I hate waiting.” She sighed as her round eyes filled with tears.
Pulling her into my lap, I sat on the cool tile floor with her tucked tightly into me.
“I can’t look. Jules?” Leilani looked up at my sister as she hopped up onto the counter.
“Don’t worry, I’ll watch it.”
It only took a few minutes, but they were the longest minutes of my life. I spent them stroking Leilani’s hair as she softly cried in my arms.
“Guys…” Julie’s face went white as she stared down at the stick on the counter. “You’re going to have a fucking baby.” She was whispering as tears streamed down her face.
Leilani started shaking immediately.
A huge smile spread on my face. It was not the reaction I was expecting, but fuck it. It was better than getting mad. How could I be mad? I was in love with a gorgeous girl and she was carrying my child. There was no turning back now, and we were going to get through this together.
“We need to get everyone out of the house.” I looked up to Jules and she jumped down.
“On it.”
I hugged Leilani with everything I had. “We’re going to be parents.”
She wiped her face. “How are you so calm?”
“Because if I freak out now, what good is it going to do? It won’t change anything and I have to be the man and take care of you. This is going to suck. It is going to be fucking hard. Our parents will freak and Dane is going to be pissed, but I don’t give a shit. All I care about is being there for you and that little guy you’re carrying. Everything will work out because it has to, and we will make it because we love each other.”
“We don’t have to keep it,” she muttered before sobbing again.
“Is that what you want?” I asked.
“No, I just wanted to give you an out.”
“Babe.” I made her look at me. “I am in this. I love you. I am not going anywhere. I don’t want an out.”
She wrapped her slender arms around my neck. “I love you, too. Holy fuck, we’re going to be parents.” As excitement started to creep into her tone, my heart started to melt.
“Now, let’s get you home then sneak back out so we can talk more about all of this.”
“Deal.”
Chapter 7
Rings and Promises
I opened the front door for Leilani as she stood on the front porch. She pulled my hand and I joined her on the front swing. With her head cradled on my shoulder, I rubbed her stomach.
“Are we really going to be okay?” she asked meekly.
“I promise everything is going to be fine.”
“How do you know?”
“Because when everyone sees how seriously we are going to take this and how much we love each other, they are going to be stoked.”
“You parents are going to lose their shit.”
“Yeah, probably, but you know how Marty and Gina are. They’ll get over it faster than most would, and they will be excited once they come to their senses.” I was trying to convince myself more than Leilani, but it sounded good and seemed to calm her down.
“What do I tell Dane?”
“The truth, and sooner rather than later. Want me to do it with you?”
She rapidly shook her head. “It’s probably better if I do this one solo. We’ll tackle the parents together, but Dane and I have been all each other has for so long, I think it’s just better.”
“If that’s what you want, I completely support it.” I kissed the top of her head. “I have something for you.”
She glanced up at me. “Oh really?”
I nodded, pulling a ring box out of the side pocket of my cargo shorts. “I was going to give it to you tonight anyway. Obviously, this was not the plan, but I think it might mean just a little bit more now.”
Leilani opened the small velvet box and tears filled her eyes.
“Leilani, I love you, and I always will. I promise you that.”
She slipped the silver band onto her finger, gazing at the opal stone. The ring was a promise, one of those typical high school promise rings that guys give when they’re love drunk but too young to actually prose. I had been holding onto it for weeks, trying to find the right time to give it to Leilani and this seemed like the best time to really show her how serious about her I actually was.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you are.”
“I should go get this over with. If I don’t do it now, I will chicken out for sure.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“See you tomorrow at school?”
“I’ll be there.”
Not even an hour had passed since Leilani left to tell her brother about us and the baby, and I was staring up at m
y ceiling fan as taps started to rattle my window. Opening it, I saw a face I was not expecting.
“We need to talk,” Dane barked as he climbed through.
“Yeah.”
I sank down on the bed as I watched my best friend pace in circles in the middle of my cluttered bedroom.
“How could you not tell me you were screwing my sister?”
I ran my hand over my face. “I am not screwing her. I love her.”
He stopped dead in his tracks. “I want to hate you so bad. I want to fucking beat the living hell out of you, but Leilani is so damn happy. How are you two so calm right now?”
“Because we love each other,” I replied matter-of-factly.
“This is all so fucked. You do know that right? She can’t even drive! We’re just kids! How is this all going to work out?”
“Because we don’t have any other choice.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“We have to tell my mom. That is going to be a fucking shit show.”
“We’ll tell my parents first and they will help us.”
“They are going to kill all of us. Like all of us. Not just you and Leilani, I’m in this now, too.”
“They won’t.” They probably would, but I didn’t want to admit that while my best friend was freaking out.
“Do you really love her? I didn’t think you could possibly love a chick. You have never spent more than a night with a girl since you lost your virginity to that counselor at band camp.”
“Leilani is not some chick. She’s everything to me.”
“You better be real here, man. This is my sister we’re talking about.”
“Look, dude, I fucking swear I am more than aware of how big all of this is. It’s going to be so damn messy, but I am not going to be like your dad. I am not going anywhere.”
“I’ll kill you if you hurt her.”
“I would never, and you should know that about me by now. I am at least a man of my word.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, okay. Well, I’m happy it’s you and not someone like Jackson Mallory.”
“Fuck, me too.”
Chapter 8
In a Crash
About seven months later
Telling our parents went about as I expected it to go. There was a lot of crying, and even more screaming, which all led to hugging and practical conversations. Leilani’s mother even started to step up. All in all, it was going as well as it could have with how messy of a situation it was.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go to the doctor with you? You know I kind of like being there.” I sat on Leilani’s bed playing with one of the stuffed animals she had gotten at her baby shower a few weeks back.
“My mom seems really excited to go with me, and I think we need this.” She brushed her long hair, looking at me through the mirror over her desk.
“I know, but I want to hear the heartbeat one last time before our little prince is here.” I thumbed through my notebook, landing on the last page where we had scribbled a list of baby names. “You know we have to decide soon, right?”
“I’m still liking Ethan. Doesn’t it sound perfect? Ethan Steele?”
“I am still a fan of Brock.”
“Gross.”
“We’re never going to agree on this one, are we?”
“We still have Lucas, Oliver, Matthew, and Benjamin on the list.”
“But what if he is called Benji? That is just out of the fucking question. Anyway, we’ll talk about this later. I have to get to work since you volunteered me for extra shifts.” I shoved up from her bed, kissing her forehead. “Call the bar when you’re finished and I’ll duck out of work. Want to head to Lorenzo’s for pizza tonight?”
Leilani rubbed her stomach. “The baby thinks pizza is exactly what we should have for dinner.”
“Sounds like a plan, my love.”
If I had known that was going to be the last time I saw Leilani, I would have told her all the things I loved about her, how perfect she was, how complete she made my life. I would have forced her to let me go with her instead of giving in to letting her mother drive her to that damn appointment. I hated myself. My heart was broken. I was a shuddering mess.
“Mav, we don’t know for sure.” My dad was doing his best to calm me down, but we both knew Leilani was the fatality in that accident, and as we drove up to the crash, my worst fears were realized. I flew out of the passenger’s seat just in time to see Leilani’s mother, Claire, being put onto a stretcher. She was screaming her daughter’s name as the paramedics stabilized her head in a brace.
I dropped to my knees as the coroner’s van pulled up, and I saw there was a body bag. That was what the love of my life had become—a news story, zipped up in a black plastic bag on the side of the road.
How could everything change in a matter of hours?
I had just seen her, had just felt our baby kick, and now they were both gone.
“Mav, come on, son.” My father was pulling me to my feet yet again. “We have to get to Dane before someone else tells him.”
When we arrived, I used my key and burst into Dane’s house.
“Dane? You home?” I called up the stairs as I took them two at a time.
“Yeah man, up here!” I ripped open his door as he was toweling off from a shower. “Hey, what’s up?” he asked nonchalantly.
I was shaking, standing in the middle of my best friend’s room with my hands clenched so tight my knuckles were going white.
“You haven’t heard yet?” I panted.
“Heard what?” he asked with a concerned look on his face.
Right then, the doorbell rang. As he turned to head for the front door, I put my hand on his shoulder. “Wait, it’s better if you hear it from me.” I was trembling, my eyes flicking to everywhere else in the room other than Dane’s gaze.
“Hear what? You’re acting strange. Where’s Leilani?”
My head fell as a tear rolled down my cheek.
Dane gripped both of my arms, his voice cracking. “Mav! Where the hell is my sister?”
My voice shook as I fell to the floor at his feet. “There was an accident.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
I couldn’t hold it in any longer. As my dad walked into the room, I completely lost it.
“Son, I think you need to sit down.” My dad sat down next to Dane as he told him the entire story.
The bloodcurdling scream that leapt from Dane’s chest was a sound that would haunt me for the rest of my life. It wasn’t just my life that was crashing around us; his was too.
My father pulled Dane into a hug. “We’re all going to get through this together. That’s what families do.”
“Where is my mom?” he asked coldly.
“I think they took her to the hospital. She’s pretty banged up. Do you want me to drive you there?”
“No. Fuck her. She’s dead to me. Leilani was the only reason I stayed in this fucking hellhole for as long as I did, and it’s my mother’s fault I am going to have to bury my sister.”
His words broke me completely. In that moment, it was actually real. Leilani was dead. It was not just a nightmare. I was never going to see her smile again or hear her laugh or watch her stomp her foot when she was in one of her pouty moods. It was all over.
Epilogue
The Road to Healing is Long
Years later
It was hard, but somehow we all got through it. Leilani’s funeral damn near broke me, and the trial that sent Claire away for vehicular manslaughter was brutal. Dane ended up moving in with us for the last few years of high school and part of college. I didn’t know how he stayed so strong through all of it, but he kept saying it was what Leilani would have wanted.
I didn’t date again. I never wanted to open myself up to that kind of pain. All I focused on was work and The Hysterics. Over the years and through the tragedy, we became something real. We were staring down the barrel of fame, and it was so cl
ose I could fucking taste it. We had finally hit our big break. Sitting backstage, all I could think about was how excited Leilani would have been for us. She would have been in the front row, screaming her head off as we took the stage. Instead, as I walked out to a wild crowd, I looked around to see faceless patrons. It was a horde of music junkies waiting for their next fix, and I was about to give it to them—not for me, not for them, but for her. Leilani would have wanted me to follow my dreams, and I woke up every day knowing I was making her proud.
My mind snapped to real time as the lights burned down on us. It was a packed show, the first really big one we had ever played. As I took a deep breath, I muttered to myself, “This one is for you, babe. I love you, Leilani.”
A moment later, I heard Rodney scream into the microphone, “Ladies, ladies, calm down. We’re The Hysterics, and we’re here for you. Please be so kind as to welcome my awesome bandmates. We have Dane on the drums.”
The crowd exploded, and Dane’s face broke out in a smile. After waiting for the noise to die down, our frontman continued.
“Maverick on the bass.”
I started to play a light thumping rhythm at the sound of my name, and Dane jumped in on it, too.
“Colt is over there on lead guitar.” Rodney pointed over to him as a devilish sneer spread quickly and he started to play along.
“And I’m Rodney.”
We were The Hysterics. Our road had been paved in tragedy and brotherhood, but isn’t that always the backstory for great musical groups?
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