I immediately got to my feet, only to realize that my knees were too weak to carry me. Thankfully, before I could make an embarrassment out of myself, my dad caught me in his strong arms and engulfed me in a hug.
“It’s going to be alright, kiddo,” he told me, although I noticed that he didn’t sound all that sure himself. He gently pushed me away to get a look at my face. “How is she?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said, sitting back down. My dad took the seat beside me. “They just took her away fifteen minutes or so ago. I have no idea what’s wrong with her. I just heard her puking and—”
Dad looked up all of a sudden, cutting me off, and abruptly stood. I whirled around to see a beautiful woman dressed in a white doctor’s coat approaching us. She looked familiar, but I was pretty sure I’d never met any young doctors with red hair like her before.
She was looking down at a clipboard, but when she stopped in front of us she looked up and fixed us with an emerald-green gaze. She asked, “Are you two the relatives of Mrs. Julie Warrilow?”
“Yes, I’m her husband,” my father answered and then reached over to squeeze my shoulder, “and this is our daughter. Do you know what’s happened to her, doc?”
“I certainly do, sir, and I would just like to say,” she said, pausing for a moment, almost as if for dramatic effect, before she finally continued, “congratulations.”
My dad and I stared at her, dumbfounded. “Ha?”
Her smile was brilliant as she announced, “Sir, your wife is one month pregnant.”
I thought I was going to faint right there and then.
My dad looked like he was ready to join me in the act of swooning, but he kept himself perfectly still and composed so that he could listen to all the details that the doctor was telling him. She explained that the reason why my mom became unconscious was because of all the accommodations that the baby was making as it settled into what was going to be its home for the next nine months.
“It wasn’t unusual that she became weak due to the changes occurring inside her body,” the doctor reassured us, “but I do insist that you let her rest if ever she does any heavy work or chores regularly. It would be best if she’d lie down every once in a while so that, in case another episode like this happens, she won’t have an accident.”
As they talked, I spaced out for a while, still relishing in the news I’d just received: my mom was pregnant—pregnant! I was actually going to have a little brother or sister. I wouldn’t be an only child anymore.
A tingle ran through my body, spreading out to my toes and fingertips. I restrained myself from squealing in excitement right there in front of the doctor and the woman who was no longer crying but was merely staring off into the distance with puffy eyes.
From all the secrets and stories I’d heard, having a younger sibling—or even an older sibling—seemed like such a pain, but I could already picture everything so vividly: I wouldn’t be alone in the house if Dad still wasn’t home from work and Mom was out doing an errand. I could spend my free time helping my sister doll up, or maybe watch Star Trek movies with my brother, and I would have somebody to share my books with, other than Nick. I couldn’t wait!
I glanced up at the doctor, and as she spoke, her body moved slightly, and the fluorescent light above her caught something pinned to her coat. I looked and saw her name printed in big letters: DR. STILLMAN.
I stared at it for a moment, mulling over that last name. Huh, I thought quietly to myself, what a coincidence. This woman couldn’t be related to Colin, could she? I mean, how many redheaded Stillmans could there be in LA?
My questions were soon answered when footsteps pounded on the floor, the sound getting closer and closer, and I craned my neck, trying to see who was making the noise. My jaw literally dropped (okay, maybe not to the floor, but just a few inches from its original position) when I saw Colin stroll into the scene as if he did it every day, carrying plastic takeout bags from McDonalds, and called out to the doctor, “Sis!”
To say I was surprised was an understatement.
The doctor—Dr. Stillman, Colin’s sister—had just finished talking to my dad about check-up schedules for my mom, and turned at the sound of his voice. “Colin,” she replied warmly and when he was right in front of her he enveloped her in a hug, “I wasn’t expecting you to come here so early.”
“Yeah, well, there wasn’t much to do at school so…” he said, pulling away from her, his words trailing.
She took one look at the plastic takeout bags he was holding and made a face. “McDonald’s again, Col?” she asked with more than just a hint of incredulity in her tone. “You know how unhealthy that is. I’ve told you this before, haven’t I?”
“Oh, come on,” Colin said, grinning, “it’s just once in a while—” As he spoke, he glanced towards me and my dad like he’d only noticed our presence right then. His eyes widened when they finally settled on me. “Seven? What are you doing here?”
“I was just about to ask the same thing,” I said.
Colin must’ve felt my dad’s intense gaze because he turned and grinned sheepishly. “Um, looking good, sir,” he said.
“Cody Stillman.”
“It’s Colin…sir.”
“Same difference.”
Meanwhile, Colin’s sister looked back and forth between her brother and me, as if she were watching a tennis match. With a small smile, she gestured at both of us. “So…I assume that the two of you know each other?”
“Yeah, she’s from school,” he said and then turned to me. “Seven, I would like to introduce you to the fantabulous Candice Stillman, the eldest of three siblings and an amazing obstetrician. And sis, this is Seven Warrilow—a wild one, this one is—and maybe you already know her dad, Mr. Sean Warrilow.”
My dad narrowed his eyes just a little tiny bit. “What do you mean by ‘a wild one’?”
Colin glanced briefly at me before replying, “She’s quite…vivacious at school.”
“Vivacious?” my dad said questioningly as he looked over at me with a cocked eyebrow. I merely smiled.
“Of course I know them; they’re the family of a patient of mine. I didn’t know their names, though,” Candice said, extending a hand towards me and smiling, “but now that I do, it’s a pleasure.” I took her hand and shook it, offering her a grin. She shook my dad’s hand as well.
“Wait, your patient?” he asked, surprised. He looked over at me. “Who’s pregnant?”
“My mom,” I answered, unable to hold back a smile.
At first, Colin merely stared at me in silence, and then he blinked and said, “Wow. I mean…wow! Congratulations!”
“Thanks. I’m a little excited, actually,” I gushed and then paused, rethinking if what I just said was truly accurate. I let out a little laugh. “Okay, maybe more than a little excited.”
“I promise you, it’s going to be awesome! I mean, the more the merrier—right, sis?” he asked, reaching over to drape his arm over his sister’s shoulder.
“Definitely,” she answered. “I still remember when Cass was born. You were like, what, two?” she asked as she turned to him questioningly.
“Yeah, I think so,” Colin said thoughtfully and then quickly added, “Cass is my younger sister, by the way.”
“Okay, well,” Candice addressed my dad, “we won’t keep you any longer. We still have to eat dinner.”
“Yes, us too,” my dad said, smiling politely. “We better go get my wife. What room is she in, doc?”
“Room 207,” she informed us. She extended her arm towards a certain corridor and said, “Go through this way and turn at the first corner. She’ll be the third room to the right.”
“Thank you once again. We’ll see you next Wednesday at nine in the morning, right?” he asked, putting his arm around my shoulders and steering me in the direction we were to go in.
“Right,” she said, nodding.
“Bye, Mr. Warrilow! Bye
, Seven!” Colin called after us, “Say hi to Mrs. Warrilow for me!”
“Bye,” I replied, waving. When I turned away, I caught my dad staring at me peculiarly. “What?” I asked.
“Your smile is so wide, it’s actually reaching me,” he joked, moving away and pretending as if he was being shoved by some invisible force.
“Dad,” I said bashfully, “stop it, seriously.”
“I’m just kidding,” he said, reaching over and ruffling my hair.
We reached the corner Candice mentioned, but before we turned off, I looked back one last time. Colin and Candice were still standing there, but Candice was now nudging him at the side with her elbow and saying something I couldn’t hear. He replied with an irritated look, but I noticed that his face was slightly red.
My dad and I took another step forward and then they were gone from my sight.
***
Date: March 26, 2013
Early the next morning, earlier than I would’ve preferred on my first day of spring break, I sat shotgun to our car while the rain crashed down. I dipped my chin deeper into my scarf, seeking warmth from its soft, thick fabric. I gripped my phone with cold fingers and reread the message I’d typed there for the umpteenth time: Happy birthday, Colin! :)
I’d known it was Colin’s birthday the moment I snapped my eyes open this morning. Actually, no, I knew it days before, a week even, but I’d pushed it to the farthest corners of my mind.
But now that it was here, I was torn between sending him a greeting or waiting until I saw him at detention—which was where I was headed to now, unfortunately. I bit my lip, hard, and my thumb hovered reluctantly over the SEND button.
Why is it so hard to send a stupid message? I thought to myself irritably. It’s just Colin. It’s just his birthday. Who cares?
I took a deep, deep breath. Forget it. I could always say it to him in person. Greeting him now might make me look like I was excited for him (and I was). Finally reaching a decision, I pressed the backspace and dutifully erased the message.
“What are you doing?” a voice suddenly asked.
I jumped, having forgotten that my dad was right there beside me. Apparently the car had stopped at a red light and he took the opportunity to lean across and peer at my phone. I frantically hugged the gadget to my chest and murmured a guilty, “Nothing.”
He eyed me warily before settling back into his seat. “Really, now? You looked like you wanted to drill your finger through your phone.”
“Really, Dad,” I said exasperatedly, deleting the message and putting my phone on hold, “it’s nothing.”
We remained silent for a while, the wiper going back and forth across the windshield in an almost rhythmic beat. And then my dad chuckled to himself, breaking the ice. “You know, Seven,” he said, looking through the droplets of water on the car window, “I was just like that when I was sixteen.”
I turned to him and asked, “What do you mean?”
“Well, back then, although cell phones were the rage, a few still preferred to stick with letters. Your mother was one of them,” he said, reminiscing. “I used to write her tons and tons of letters, just to win her heart, and I had to hide them from your grandparents.”
“You wrote letters?” I asked, snickering at the thought.
“Hey, believe it or not, I was a pretty romantic guy,” he said, looking quite smug.
“Fine, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt,” I said, grinning. “But Mom told me she gave you a pretty hard time back then. How’d you make her fall for you?”
I really loved listening to my parents’ love stories. I loved listening to anybody’s love story, actually. After all the heartbreak and deceit I’d seen and heard around me, it was just nice to know that maybe true love wasn’t only found in books and chick flicks.
With a knowing smile, he leaned forward and lowered his voice, as if he was sharing a secret recipe that might be the key to world domination. “I applied a little thing I call ‘reverse psychology’.”
The light turned green and he looked back to the road, easing the car around the corner. I caught a glimpse of The Book Station and Patrick inside, opening up the shop. Thunder rolled in the sky.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s doing the opposite of what you planned to do,” he said. “For example, there was a time that I was getting tired of your mother rejecting me again and again, and I just stopped. I didn’t want to, but I did. Do you know what happened next?” I shook my head. “She went after me.”
I gave him a dubious look. “Are you sure you’re not making this up, Dad?”
“Hey, where’s your faith?” he asked, placing a hand on his chest, right over his heart, and pretending to look hurt.
I laughed.
We soon reached my school and I pulled out the dark blue umbrella I’d brought from home. “Bye, Dad,” I said, reaching over and kissing him on the cheek before popping the umbrella open and exiting the vehicle, “thanks for the ride.”
My dad waved goodbye and then drove the car away, tires crunching the wet asphalt. I headed inside the school, folding the umbrella and shaking off some of the water I’d gotten in my hair.
“Whoa there, doggie,” someone said, and I looked up from under my curtain of black hair. Colin stood a few feet from me, unbuttoning his coat with the hood still up, droplets visible on the hard cloth. He was watching me carefully with a small smile.
I didn’t mean to, but the sight of him made me smile too. That deepened his.
“Hey,” I said and then added, “happy birthday.”
“Aw, that’s sweet, you remembered,” he said, grinning as he shrugged off his coat. Underneath he wore a teal checkered shirt.
“Blame Facebook,” I said defensively, pulling my scarf off and trying to sound indifferent.
“But thanks,” he said, and I told myself that I was only imagining the twinkle in his eyes.
“Sure,” I replied.
We made our way down the empty hallway, unfamiliar with the lack of the usual crowded bodies and noisy chatter. We reached the library where we’d been told to go to. There we found Mr. Zach, the substitute teacher for almost every subject, sitting by one of the long tables.
“Both of you take a seat,” he instructed us in a dull voice and I took a seat at the table beside the one he’d been using.
“Hey, Big Zach!” Colin said, mentioning the nickname the students had made for Mr. Zach, who was, as his namesake implied, pretty big. Right then, his button-down shirt looked like it was going to burst, his necktie was stained with what looked like tomato sauce, and his pants, when he sat down, rode halfway up his calves, exposing his matching brown socks and a little bit of his leg hair.
Mr. Zach jabbed a fat finger in Colin’s direction and hissed, “Shut that mouth of yours and sit.”
Colin pouted, looking quite adorable in my opinion, and said, “You wound me, good sir. And to think, it’s my birthday today.”
“Well, happy birthday,” Mr. Zach deadpanned and then rolled his eyes. When Colin took the seat beside me, Mr. Zach said, “Alright, you guys better sit still and keep quiet. I’ll be in the office, which is just across the hall, where I can hear everything, do you understand?”
Without waiting for us to respond, he turned away and squeezed his body out of the doorframe.
I dug my hand into my bag and retrieved the book I was currently reading. Opening the page to where my bookmark was, I picked up where I’d last left off. I was only able to finish reading one paragraph when Colin suddenly got up to his feet and pressed his back to the wall. I watched as he inched towards the purposely left ajar door and peered out.
“Colin,” I whispered, afraid to be heard by Mr. Zach, “go back to your seat.”
“Now’s not the time to be a good student, Seven,” he said, still looking out of the door. “I’m hungry.”
“You didn’t think of getting food before coming to dete
ntion?” I asked him, shaking my head.
He turned back to look at me. “I don’t exactly wake up earlier than seven o’clock just to get breakfast, so no, I didn’t think of getting food before coming here,” he said, rolling his eyes at me. He extended a hand to me. “Now, are you coming or what?”
“Me?” I squealed. “No way! I’m not getting into any more trouble just because you want to eat.” I decided not to dwell over the fact that Colin was asking me to go out and eat him—almost like a date.
Colin opened his mouth to reply, but then the sound of heavy footsteps suddenly came and his eyes went wide. He sprinted to his chair and had just landed on the seat when Mr. Zach poked his head inside the room and glared at us. “Didn’t I tell you two to keep quiet?!”
I trained my eyes on my book, not planning on responding, but Colin said with a whine to his voice, “But, Big Zach, I’m hungry.”
“Well, suck it up, pretty boy,” the substitute teacher spat. “You’ll have to wait until I dismiss you from detention.” He was just about to leave again when he sharply turned back to warn us, “Another noise and I won’t be so lenient anymore, got it?”
And with that, he left.
The moment he was out of sight, Colin sprang up to his feet once again, but as he passed by me, I reached out and grabbed the hem of his shirt. “Didn’t you hear what he just said?” I hissed under my breath.
“No, because all I hear is your cowardice,” he told me matter-of-factly as he began putting his still slightly wet coat on.
I scowled at him. “I’m not a coward.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asked, crossing his arms and looking down at me. “If you’re not a coward, then prove it. Drop that book of yours, stop dreaming of another person’s adventure, and come have your own with me.”
I looked up at him, meeting his eyes. I knew I shouldn’t do this. I’d already gotten myself into detention thanks to Colin, and I didn’t want any more trouble. I just wanted to sit back in my comfort zone and read until all of this was over and I could go home.
The Black Notebook Page 16
