by Kieran Scott
“I have an idea,” my mother said, perching on a stool next to the chair. “How about tonight you and I go out to dinner? Just the two of us?”
“Really?” I said, brightening slightly.
“Yeah. You pick the restaurant. Anywhere you want.”
I smiled. I knew she was busy with work and wedding planning and everything, so the offer meant a lot.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Aw, sweetie.” She kissed my temple and gave me a quick squeeze. “Everything’s gonna be okay. You’ll see.”
My phone rang, and the seamstress returned to the dressing room with her clipboard. My mom got up and I grabbed my phone to answer it. Annie’s tongue stuck out at me from the screen.
“Hey,” I said, smoothing my skirt out. “What’s up?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Annie said.
My already-tentative smile died. I sat up straight. “What?”
“The Evites to Jake’s birthday party just went out,” Annie said grimly. “He invited every single person in the entire senior class and half the juniors. I even got one.”
I swallowed hard. “Everyone except me.”
“Everyone except you, Chloe, and Will.”
I drooped back in my chair and stared. I didn’t even know what to feel. For the millionth time in the past month, my vision blurred. I picked at a string sticking out of the cushioned part of the armrest as the store’s soundtrack flipped to the classic wedding march.
“I guess I’m not surprised.”
“He sucks, Ally. I’m going to form a protest. I’ll get every Norm in town to stay home.”
I snorted a laugh. “Like I’d do that to you.”
This party was like a jackpot for Annie. Usually she had to sneak into Crestie parties to do her anthropological research. Now she was actually invited. Besides, keeping the Norms home wouldn’t exactly hurt Jake. All of his close friends were Cresties. In fact, with the way his brain had been working lately, I had to wonder if he’d only invited the Norms to make me, Chloe, and Will feel even more left out.
As the music swelled to its crescendo overhead, I couldn’t help remembering Jake’s birthday last year. When he’d gotten his car and the first thing he’d done was zip right over to the Orchard View Condominiums to see me and we’d driven up to the country club and we’d kissed. For the first time.
“You know you did the right thing breaking up with him, right?” Annie said. “The strong thing.”
“Yeah.” My voice was thick. “I know.”
“Are you okay?” Annie asked.
“Ugh. I wish people would stop asking me that,” I replied, swiping one tear off my bottom lashes. Mercifully, the wedding march had ended, and my mom started motioning to me to wrap it up. “I’m fine. Thanks for letting me know, Annie, but I’ve gotta go. We’re doing final measurements.”
“Cool. Well, have fun.”
“I will,” I said.
I hung up the phone and forced a smile onto my face as my mother and the seamstress approached with their measuring tape and pins. For the next fifteen minutes I was turned and poked and prodded and appraised, the whole time just trying as hard as I could not to burst into tears.
jake
My party was the party that kicked every other party’s ass. As I did a lap around the game room, I actually started to think that every single person I had invited had shown up. At least it seemed like it. There were dozens of people gathered around the pool table, faces I barely recognized hunched over the pinball machines, and the Idiot Twins had drawn a crowd at Ping-Pong, jumping and flailing and hitting backhands like they were on the court at the US Open or something. The music was loud, the beer was flowing, and everyone was having a kick-ass time. I was on top of the world.
I half wished Ally would try to crash, just so she could see how not affected I was by the fact that she’d dumped me.
“I can’t believe your parents actually let you have this thing.”
Shannen strolled over to me and rested her crooked arm on top of my shoulder. She looked fucking hot in the skinniest jeans I’d ever seen, with a wide-necked top falling off her shoulder. And no bra strap. So was she commando under there, or wearing some insane, strapless bra? Did girls know how much the not knowing drove us crazy?
“Yeah, well. Dad’s still psyched I’m not a baby daddy and he has friends in high places, so no one’s gonna be shutting us down.” I turned toward her and put my beer cup on the top of the billiards cabinet. She was standing so close, I could almost see down her shirt and get my answer. When I realized I was looking, I almost gagged. This was Shannen. She used to be my best friend. If I was thinking about getting a peek, then I was definitely seriously drunk. “I’m glad you came,” I said, looking away.
“Me too,” she replied.
Was it just me, or was that her sultry voice?
“Come with me. I need to talk to you.”
She took my fingers lightly and tugged me toward the door. My heart pounded. Whatever this was, it was probably not a good idea. But I couldn’t think of a reason not to go—she had no boyfriend, and I definitely had no girlfriend—so I went. Shannen led me out into the kitchen, past the dozens of bowls of snacks and hundreds of forgotten cups, and over to the foyer. She was heading for the stairs. I glanced down at her ass and instantly felt myself stiffen. This was Shannen. This was not good. This was very not good.
But then she turned around and sat down on the bottom step. I glanced up toward the second floor in confusion.
“Have a seat.” She patted the space next to her. I sat.
“What’re we doing?” I asked.
Shannen looked down at her beer cup, held lightly between her fingertips. “We used to be best friends, right, Jake? We used to tell each other everything?”
Suddenly I didn’t like where this was going. I leaned back, resting my elbows on the steps behind me. The music was dull from in here, and I was already starting to lose my buzz.
“Yeah,” I said.
“So for old times’ sake, I just want you to tell me one thing,” Shannen said. She placed her cup aside and leaned back next to me. “Are you ever going to talk to Chloe again?”
I balked. “That’s what this is about? Shit.”
“I’m serious. I just want to know,” Shannen said. “Because this torture stuff you’ve got going on? It’s not you. And I think if you talk to her, you might stop doing it.”
I felt like my eyes were on fire. “Why does no one seem to get what she did to me was not even close to being in the realm of forgivable?”
“I didn’t ask you to forgive her,” Shannen said simply. “I asked you to hear her out.”
“Why should I?” I demanded.
“She fucked up.” Shannen shrugged. “Everyone fucks up.” She picked up her cup again. “You fucked up last summer and everyone kept right on talking to you. Even Ally.”
The sound of her name squelched the buzz completely. My chest felt hollow, but heavy somehow. “Yeah. And look how long that lasted,” I shot back.
Shannen laughed. “It lasted a long frickin’ time,” she said, her eyes dancing. “She stuck with you even knowing you banged her best friend. She stuck with you even though you were at Chloe’s beck and call for months. And she stuck with you even after you became the loud-mouthed asshole from hell you’ve been for the past two months.”
“Wow. Tell me how you really feel,” I said.
She took a swig of her beer and held it in her mouth for a second before swallowing. “I’m just saying. That girl stayed with you longer than I would have. She stayed with you longer than most people would have. Because she loves you.”
Something was welling up in my throat. I tried to swallow it back, but it wouldn’t go.
“But back to Chloe,” Shannen said. “You should talk to her. You’re going to do it eventually anyway, right? I mean, look. You hated me last summer, but here we are.”
She nudged me with her shoulder and I sat up s
traight, rubbing my hands together. “Yeah. How did that happen?”
Shannen’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure….” She sat up too. “Somewhere in there we just started talking again. But the thing is, you don’t have that kind of time with Chloe. You can’t just let it happen. Five more months and we’re outta here. Everyone’s either gonna go off to college remembering you as a cool guy with awesome friends”—she paused and gestured modestly to herself—“or as the complete and utter prick who tortured a pregnant girl.”
Over in the game room, one of the Idiot Twins whooped over a win and everyone applauded. Meanwhile, I felt the full weight of what Shannen was saying. I felt the clock start ticking on my senior year. On life as I knew it. On any scrap of a chance I had left with Ally. To me the future had always been this kind of hazy blur. Something fictional that the future me would have to deal with, not the me me. But now here I was. Having to deal. Shannen got up, hooked one thumb into the back pocket of her jeans, and tipped her cup in my direction.
“Just something to think about.”
“Says the girl who spent last year torturing Ally Ryan,” I said, trying to get in the last word.
Shannen slowly smiled. “Haven’t you heard, Jake? I’m reformed.”
“Or maybe this is just a prank like everything else, right, Shan?” I said, pulling myself up by the banister. “I go over to apologize to Chloe and she, what, throws a pie in my face?”
Shannen laughed, shaking her head. “First off, pie? That is so beneath me. And secondly? You wait long enough and the real joke will be that she won’t even listen to you.”
Then she turned and walked away to rejoin the party, casually ignoring the fact that she’d just obliterated my night.
jake
Cars were parked at every imaginable angle. On my driveway, in the cul-de-sac, down the street. Half the population of OHH was passed out inside my house, and from what I could tell, the morning traffic jam was going to be worse than the first half hour after a Giants game at the Meadowlands. I squinted in the darkness as I tried to make my way through, but it was like a maze. It took a good five minutes to cross over to Chloe’s yard, a trip that would usually take ten seconds. Five straight minutes of second-guessing myself and almost turning back.
First of all, it was two in the morning.
Second of all, what was I supposed to say?
Third, was I doing this because I wanted to, or because Shannen had basically forced me to?
But no. I had decided this on my own. For the past two hours I had sat in my room, thinking, while everyone else had the time of their life downstairs. That was what Shannen had forced me to do—what I’d been avoiding doing forever. And even though I hadn’t stopped being pissed off, I realized I had been acting like a dick. I knew how hard the pregnancy was for Chloe. I knew because I’d been there. And for the past few weeks I’d mocked her about the things that were worst for her. Her weight, the rumors, the slut thing. Her situation already sucked. She didn’t need me making it worse. I could’ve been the better guy and just let her be, but I didn’t. I took my anger and hurt out on her—the stuff that Ally had said had changed me—and it had only made me feel worse. It wasn’t until I imagined apologizing that the weird pressure I’d been feeling around my heart since September finally went away.
I looked up at Chloe’s house and swayed on my feet. I was very drunk. Was that going to be a good thing or a bad thing? Whatever. There was nothing I could do to change it.
Carefully as possible, I made my way over to the trellis attached to the deck attached to Chloe’s room. I got a grip with my hands and started to climb, but two steps up, the world started spinning around me. I gritted my teeth and tried to keep going, but the toe of my boot slipped on the next step, something gave, I lost my grip, and suddenly I was weightless.
My back slammed into the cold dirt. The trellis crashed down on top of me.
Ow. Mother effing ow.
A light flicked on overhead. My heart stopped. This was where Mr. Appleby came at me with a baseball bat. It was finally going to happen.
But then, suddenly, Chloe was hovering above me, her light brown hair tumbling over her open robe.
“Jake? What the hell are you doing?”
I coughed as I shoved the flimsy trellis aside and struggled to my elbows. “I was coming to talk to you. Here. I’ll climb the other one.”
“Omigod. No. Don’t move.” She glanced over her shoulder toward her room. “Actually … meet me at the front door.”
“Okay.”
The inside of my head felt crooked, like my brain had shifted sideways or something. I shook it, like they do in the movies sometimes, but that just made it worse. Groaning, I shoved myself to my feet, dusted my jeans off, and staggered toward the front door. When I got there, Chloe was standing at the open doorway, her pink, fuzzy robe tied around her big belly.
Huge belly, actually. Ginormous.
“What’re you doing here?” she demanded in a whisper. “Don’t you have guests?”
“Party’s over,” I told her. “I came over to say …” I paused and cleared my throat. “I came over to say …”
Wow. This was harder than I thought. I wanted to say it, so why couldn’t I say it?
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Come inside, it’s freezing out here.”
I swallowed hard, her dad with a baseball bat flashing through my mind again, but I went inside. The marble-floored foyer was a lot warmer than the driveway. She shut the door quietly and hugged herself.
“Okay. What?” she demanded.
I closed my eyes and just did it. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. For everything. I mean, for everything I’ve done or … or said, or whatever, to make you feel … bad about the … the—”
I gestured at her stomach, and her hands moved to cover it.
“Anyway, I’m sorry.” I cleared my throat again. “I do think what you did sucked, but I maybe shouldn’t have been such an asshole about it.”
Chloe let out a small laugh.
“What?” I asked defensively.
“Nothing, it’s just … Nothing. I’m sorry too. I tried to tell you that back in January, but you wouldn’t listen,” she said. “And now it just seems so pointless. I’m gonna have this baby any day now and it’ll all be over.”
I pressed my lips together and looked her up and down. “Can I just ask you one thing?”
She took a deep breath. “Sure.”
“Why? Why did you do it?” I asked.
Chloe sighed and walked over to the living room or parlor or whatever her mom called it. She leaned against the back of a couch and sighed.
“I think I just … I wanted it to be you,” she said, glancing up at me quickly. “I wanted it to be yours. Will and I were broken up and it wasn’t pretty,” she said, shaking her head. “The idea of going to him and telling him … I just couldn’t. And you were my friend. You were a good guy….”
My chest sort of swelled when she said that. Because I didn’t feel like a good guy. Not right now.
“My parents knew you. My friends were your friends. It just would have made everything so much easier. So I said it was you, and once I said it … it felt impossible to take it back.”
She paused and took in a broken breath. “And you were so amazing, Jake. You were obviously just as scared as I was, but you were always there. I needed that. I needed someone on my side. And you were always there.”
Out of nowhere, my eyes stung. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I turned away from her and brought my hand to my forehead. “God, I suck.”
“You don’t suck,” Chloe said. “You just … shit.”
“I know. I know. I’m a shit. I—”
“No. No, Jake!” Chloe said, panicked. I turned around and she was staring at the floor. Standing in a puddle. “I think my water just broke.”
I took an instinctive step back. Because, gross. “Omigod.”
“I know!” she said.
“What do we d
o? Call an ambulance? Should I get my car?”
Even as I said it, I saw my car blocked in by four thousand other cars.
“No, just …” She paused for a second and her brows came together. “Ow. I guess that’s a contraction.”
Now my pulse started to slam. My already shaky head went fuzzy.
“What do I do? Tell me what to do,” I said.
“Get my parents!” she cried, holding on to her stomach with one hand and the back of the couch with the other.
I looked over at the stairs. “If I go into your parents’ room right now, your father is going to blow my head off.”
“Jake! Just go!”
I turned and sprinted up the stairs. The only reason I knew which of the two dozen doors was her parents’ was because of the time I’d taken High-Maintenance Tori up here at one of Chloe’s parties sophomore year. Just thinking about a random hook-up right now made me sick. I was about to just open the door, but instead, I decided to knock. It was flung open in about two seconds, and there was Chloe’s mom. Thank God.
“Jake?” She shoved her hair out of her face. “What the—”
“It’s Chloe. She’s downstairs. Her water broke. She’s having, like, contractions.”
Mrs. Appleby’s face was white. Her husband appeared out of nowhere, jamming his feet into shoes and his arms into a sweater.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled at me as he passed by.
His wife was inside the room now, shoving things into her purse and throwing clothes on over her nightgown.
“I just … long story. I—”
But he was already gone, barreling down the stairs.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked Chloe’s mom.
She stood up straight, her eyes darting around the room. “Um … get Chloe’s bag! She packed a bag for the hospital. It’s purple and it’s at the foot of her bed.”