by Keelan Storm
She saw that sickeningly familiar smile that had charmed her all those weeks and shuddered. She wanted to leave, but knew by the look on his deceptively handsome face that he would follow her, even if she went back into the ladies’ room.
Knowing she needed to get out into the public eye, Isabel decided it was safest to acknowledge him, and gave him a reluctant smile as she kept on her path towards the door.
“Hey, Izzy, I haven’t seen you around too much lately,” he said in a way that made to seem like nothing unpleasant had ever happened between them.
“Yeah, I’ve been busy.” “Busy trying to forget what you did to me,” she thought bitterly. For once, she was glad someone hadn’t called her Isabel. He would have tainted her name.
He fell in step beside her as she passed. “You look upset. That boyfriend of yours do something to you?”
“What?! He’s the last person who should be talking about upsetting me.” Straight faced, and eyes forward, she replied, “No, Tucker’s great. I couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend.”
“Where is he then? Shouldn’t he be comforting you when you’re upset like this?” Wesley asked. Implications threaded his question, but she wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
“Did you need something, Wesley?” Crap. Even she could hear how annoyed she sounded. She needed to stay controlled around him, at least until they got outside.
He tried to appear nonchalant when he answered. “I was just wondering when you might realize what a loser you’re with and come back to me.”
“Excuse me?” Isabel nearly blurted. She could not have heard that right. “Couple of points, Wesley. First, Tucker is not a loser, and second…do you honestly expect me to go back to you after what you did to me?”
“My patience was a little short that night. I know.”
“A little short?” she asked accusingly.
“Well, anyway…” he said, trying to blow past the sticky part of his topic. He placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her. She stopped instinctively and had to fight to keep her hand from going to her stomach. She was not yet at the doors. Even though they were close now, she didn’t want to take her chances.
He looked down at her, and she felt it best to look back at him at that moment. The charming smile covered the snake’s face once again.
“Izzy, we spent nearly a month together. You know as well as I do it didn’t mean nothing. We had something.”
For once, her stomach turned for something besides pregnancy. “I think you mean you didn’t spend those weeks on me just to get nothing.” “Temper, Isabel…Calling him out is not going to help. You don’t want to set him off,” she told herself as she started towards the doors again. She heard a chuckle from behind her.
“That’s fine. Leave. You’ll eventually come around. I don’t give up that easily.”
Shrugging off the sound of his sickening voice, she pushed open the doors and stepped into the warm, September air. “In your dreams,” Isabel thought as she started towards the table where her friends still sat, anxious to fill them in, but the bell rang before she even made it off the sidewalk.
“Oh, captain, our captain!” A couple of juniors ran up, falling in step at her sides.
“Love that new dance we’ve been working on, Izzy. Your routines are seriously sick this year!” Casey exclaimed as they headed to the gym for practice.
“No, kidding! I can’t wait to show it off at the pep rally today. Cheerleaders can suck it, ‘cause we know how to bring it,” Dinah chimed in.
Isabel laughed, thankful they’d run up when she’d needed the distraction. She’d have to fill her friends in later.
* * *
“Where do you wanna sit?” Emma asked Annie as they stared up at the quickly filling bleachers.
“I dunno. Do you see where Tucker’s sitting?”
“Hey, Annie! Emma!” they heard from somewhere further up.
She looked up to see Tucker waving for them to join him in the top row. There were a few other people sitting close by but plenty of room still for her and Emma.
Thankful that Hector was on the football team so he wouldn’t be around to put his foot in his mouth, she’d had enough of that at lunch, Annie waved back and pulled Emma along to join their friend.
“You excited about the pep rally, Tucker?” Emma asked when he scooted down to make room.
“There’s one part that interests me in particular,” he replied, a smirk on his face.
“Which one?”
“The dance team,” he said simply.
Annie rolled her eyes sarcastically. “You mean Izzy.”
He shrugged. “Can you blame me?”
“No,” she grinned, “I feel the same way about the football team.”
“A.K.A. Jet,” Emma stated.
Their conversation continued lightly for the next several minutes until it was time for the pep rally to start. Annie watched, elated. Not just from the excitement of the crowd, or the school spirit that spread from the cheerleaders, dance team, and football players, but from the knowledge that soon after this was over, she and Jet would be free to have their first bit of alone time since the school year had started.
“Izzy really is a great dancer,” Emma commented after the dance team had finished their last number.
“Yeah, it’s what she does best. She absolutely loves it,” Annie replied. She heard Tucker snicker and glanced at him curiously. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing really,” he answered her, but a smirk played at the corner of his lips.
“Yeah, right, Tucker. Tell me,” she urged.
He shrugged, still smirking. “I just disagree. I know something she does even better.”
She gave him a sharp jab to the ribs with her elbow. “Leave it to a guy to think of that!” she thought as he winced, still grinning as he rubbed his side.
Emma’s eyes opened wide as she watched the exchange. “You and Izzy are…?!”
“I didn’t say that,” Tucker answered quickly. It had just dawned on him that Izzy probably wouldn’t be too happy if she knew he had let that tidbit slip, although people were sure to figure it out soon enough.
“But you implied it,” Emma threw back. “Wow, I knew y’all were serious, but I didn’t expect Izzy to move so fast.”
“Let’s just drop it, okay,” he pressed, trying to move away from the topic before others sitting around them could overhear.
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Emma assured him. “I was just surprised is all.”
By this time, Annie had returned her attention to the gym floor. She saw Izzy shimmying pompoms with the other dancers on the sidelines and caught her gaze. They shared their identical crooked grins and waved back at one another.
A skit that the cheerleaders were performing ended then, and the crowd was given one last upbeat speech about how the Bentonville Sharks would “fight and bite” to win against their opponents at that night’s game.
She watched as the players exited the field, finding the familiar, sun-darkened Greek with ocean blue eyes looking up at her. She beamed as she waved down, and her heart skipped at Jet’s answering smile and wink before he ran off. There was no football practice today to keep them apart. She could hardly wait.
“Catch y’all later,” Emma said as they exited the gym. Annie followed Tucker to the benches under their courtyard tree to wait for Izzy and Jet. Most of the student body was dispersing, ready to go home, but Tucker waited until it was clear before he nudged Annie’s leg.
“What’s up?” He knew she had to have something on her mind. She was way too fidgety. She pressed her lips together and took a breath, debating before she replied.
“I was just curious about something, but I don’t want to get too personal.”
“Whatever, Annie, what could possibly be too personal? Just ask.”
“Fine,” she started, doing a quick glance around to make sure it was clear. “I was kin
da thinking about what you let slip to Emma. I mean, do y’all still do it even though you know Izzy’s pregnant now?”
“Just about every day after school,” he replied, surprised she didn’t already know from Izzy.
“It doesn’t freak you out at all?”
Tucker half groaned, half laughed. Leave it to Annie to ask a confusing question.
“No, she’s still Izzy, but sometimes it’s hard to believe that our baby’s really inside her. I mostly worry about when she’s bigger. Not because she’ll be bigger…” he clarified when Annie gave him a look, “More because things will be a lot more difficult then…and different. She’s just now barely starting to say her clothes are tighter, and you still can’t really tell from looking at her, so things haven’t changed yet.”
Annie nodded, seeing how it made sense. “Just be good to her, Tucker. She’s been so much happier since y’all have been together, somehow, even with the whole mess y’all are going through.”
“What are you getting at, Annie?”
She paused with a moment’s hesitation before saying what was actually on her mind. “Just don’t go and have a dating relapse and screw my sister over, okay?”
“What?” That was unexpected.
“Sorry. I know I’ve probably let myself think about this too much, but I’m worried about what you might do. I don’t want Izzy to get hurt, not that I think you would do it on purpose, but you don’t exactly have the best relationship track record, and now there’s a baby on top of it… I know it sounds horrible. You’re my friend, and I love you,” she added at his deflated expression, “but she’s my sister.”
Tucker shook his head. He had thought for sure his friends knew what Izzy meant to him. “Annie, me leaving Izzy is the last thing you’d have to worry about. Being with her is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I would do absolutely anything to make her happy.”
“Including agreeing to keep the baby?”
He looked at his friend, who was so similar yet still so different from his girl. She had read way too easily into what he had just said, and leave it to Annie to call him out.
“Yes. Including agreeing to keep the baby,” he admitted.
Annie looked down, pensive. He wondered what could be going through her mind, but resisted the urge to ask, realizing this was one of the few times Annie wouldn’t be prepared with an answer. She eventually looked up.
“How do you feel about all of this, Tucker?”
“Terrified, confused…”
A long sigh escaped him. She was the first person to ask him that. Her concerned green eyes studied him, waiting with the same strained patience she sometimes used with Izzy for his answer.
“At first it just felt unreal, like, could this really be happening? I mean, Izzy already knew she wanted the baby. She said she fell in love with it instantly. She told me that keeping it was her only option.”
“What about you?” Annie asked, already aware of how Izzy felt.
“I wasn’t sure what we should do, but when I saw the look in her eyes when she talked about the baby, I knew I couldn’t ask her to give it up. It would have hurt her too badly. She means everything to me.”
“Tucker, you’re still avoiding a very important point.”
“What?”
“How do you feel about the baby?”
“Very conflicted,” he admitted grudgingly, swiping a hand back through his hair. “I want this baby because it’s mine and Izzy’s. It’s a part of us. I already knew my future was hers. I knew it the night we made the baby. But I’m worried because I didn’t fall in love with it like Izzy did. You should have seen the way she reacted when we heard the heartbeat. I didn’t feel like that. I didn’t feel anything.”
Annie pursed her lips and gave him a meaningful look, “You need to talk to her.”
“It will hurt her.”
“She should know.”
“So now you want me to hurt her?”
“No, I want you to tell her before she figures it out on her own. We both know that would be worse.”
“Give me some time, Annie. It’s still early. Maybe things will change.” He hoped they’d change.
She stared at him for a few long moments. “Okay, but if they don’t, I won’t keep it from her forever.”
“Deal,” he agreed, knowing she was right.
* * *
“That was a really fun pep rally,” Izzy commented cheerfully as she climbed into Tucker’s Chevy.
“You looked great dancing out there.”
“Thanks,” she replied, shoving her red and black pompoms inside her dance team bag at her feet, “I was having trouble with this one move during practice today, but I nailed it at the pep rally, thank goodness.”
“Maybe it’s because you were upset after lunch.”
She looked up from messing with her bag, confused. “I wasn’t upset at practice. Why would I have been upset?”
“Because of what Hector said. By the way, Izzy love, you still look amazing.”
“Thanks…I got past the whole Hector thing pretty quickly, though,” she said, shoving aside her growing annoyance at the nickname again. It wasn’t Tucker’s fault this baby was making her go crazy.
“Really? How?”
“Oh, that’s right. I didn’t get a chance to tell you yet!”
“So tell me,” he encouraged as he started his truck to head home, curious if she’d discovered some trick he could use to handle her mood swings.
“You’re not going to believe this. I was going to head back over to y’all, but Wesley was waiting for me in the hall when I left the restroom.”
“What?” he nearly growled, his hands gripping the wheel tighter than necessary as he pulled onto the main stretch of road.
“Yeah,” she nodded. “It was really uncomfortable. I felt…” she paused in search of the right word, “powerless, I guess, around him after what happened, and then it was like he was purposely waiting for me when the halls were empty. I didn’t know what he could possibly want.”
“What did he want?” Tucker asked, tension straining throughout his tone.
“He was trying to pass off what he did as no big deal. He was like ‘my patience was a little short’,” she mocked using quotations with her fingers, “and he wanted me to leave you to go back to him. Can you believe that? It was absurd. I was so relieved when I finally made it outside.”
Tucker wrestled with the anger that only seemed to flare through him when something involved Wesley, his hands clenching and unclenching the wheel as his jaw set. That douchebag had hurt Izzy in more ways than one, and today he had the nerve to approach her? The thought of her alone in the hall with him…he wanted to pound the guy’s face in.
“Tucker, you need to slow down before you get a ticket,” Isabel scolded. “You shouldn’t get so worked up about this. He didn’t do anything to hurt me. I think he just wanted to mess with my head because he saw that I was upset.”
His foot eased off the pedal just a smidge to appease her. “I can’t help it, Izzy. The thought of him near you makes me so angry! I think I’ll have a talk with him tonight at the game…”
“No. No, you will not.”
“Why not? He’s a piece of scum! I can’t let him get away with doing that to you!”
“Oh, yes, you can. I didn’t care that you fought him the last time because he actually hurt me. Today he was just being an ass. I don’t want you to fight if it isn’t necessary.”
“It is necessary,” he growled under his breath, but unfortunately, she’d still heard him.
“Tucker, if you even so much as try to even talk to Wesley tonight, I will be so beyond angry with you. Not from the hormones either. I will be angry of my own accord, and you will not want to deal with me.”
“Why is this such a big deal to her? I’m just trying to defend her. Wesley deserves a piece of my mind…and fist,” he thought as he worked to calm his anger. Y
elling about his frustrations over Wesley was not going to help him plead his case. “Izzy…” he started.
“And stop calling me Izzy! My name is Isabel!” she fumed, nostrils flaring as she glared.
“And this isn’t from the hormones?” he muttered beneath his breath.
It was out of his mouth before he even really thought it, but he knew the second it happened that he had made a huge mistake.
“This is not about hormones, you jerk! This is about everyone calling me Izzy, and I hate it! Annie came up with the stupid nicknames. Just because she doesn’t like her name doesn’t mean I hate mine!”
He stared at her mixture of flush, glare, and tears in utter astonishment. She was all over the place, and he didn’t know which emotion to address first. Unnerved, he couldn’t help thinking, “Is this what I’m going to be dealing with the next few months?”
“Okay…” he treaded carefully, trying to figure out what he could say to calm her as he pulled into the wrap-around driveway at his house.
“I’m just going to go home,” Izzy said coldly, cutting him off.
“Izz-abel,” he caught himself just in time. “We’re supposed to be going to your next doctor’s appointment today.”
“Correction. I am going. You aren’t going anywhere with me until I know you won’t overreact when I tell you about something.”
“Izz,” he stopped and sighed. “Isabel, I don’t think I’m,”
“Don’t argue,” she snapped, slamming her door as she got out.
He still walked her home, the mood covered in icy silence. Tucker thought he could try to salvage things one more time before she went in, but she didn’t even pause, slamming the door in his face.
“Fuck…” he thought, as he stood dejected on her front porch, kicking himself again for making things worse.
17
Interrupted
“I can’t believe we’re actually in your house, by ourselves…” Annie sighed as she followed Jet down the hall to his bedroom.
“It’s great, isn’t it?”
