It’s not until the fifth, sixth and seventh days do I realize that I'm still tired to the bone. So doused in drowsiness that it is physically hard to walk at times. And after I vomit every morning on those days, I attribute it to the crap I've been putting in my stomach. That is until I'm sitting on Chloe's couch, watching an episode of Law and Order SVU while the happy couple is at work, when the teenager on the screen finds out she's pregnant.
And then it hits me.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. No, it can't be. I sit in stunned silence for what feels like hours.
I have to know. Besides my real parentage, I have never been the kind of person who would rather not be privy to information. I'm direct, straight forward. What you see is what you get. And so if I'm preg...I'm having trouble even thinking the word. If I am, I need to know.
Good thing New York has a Duane Reed on every goddamn corner. Who knew this store was even still in business?
I act like a ninja in the store, as if the entire population of Mitchum, NC, my hometown, might pop out from behind the aisle at any moment. I pull my hood down further on the walk home, feeling the eyes of strangers judging me. In reality, they can't even see inside the bag, much less care what I'm doing.
Finally, I'm back in Chloe's walk up, trembling in the bathroom. Slowly, I unwrap the test from its packaging. This is the most surreal moment of my life. Even more surreal than finding out Jackson was my biological father. I can't actually believe I'm here in this moment, doing this. It feels like I'm out of my own body, watching from somewhere in the corner. I'm the girl I would make fun of for being alone, taking a pregnancy test in her best friend's bathroom.
The noise from outside the window, which usually keeps me annoyed during the day and awake at night, is dull and muted. I feel like my heart is about to fall out of my throat and flop onto the floor like a fish, caught and fighting for its life on the deck of a dry boat.
I make quick business of peeing on the stick, of course getting some on my hand and cursing myself for ever being stupid enough to land in this predicament in the first place.
Whoever invented these things is the devil? Wait three minutes? Sure, I'll just go knit while I await the results of a stick I just pissed on that may or may not change my entire life.
I spend the full three minutes alternating between pacing the small bathroom and trying not to pull my hair out. When it’s finally up, I throw my hands over my face, peeking out from behind my fingers like I'm watching The Exorcist alone on Halloween.
Just rip the band aid off, Kelsey.
I move to the sink, where the piece of plastic that holds my future sits. My stomach is in my toes, all of the light in the room focusing like a spotlight on the test. It’s like I have tunnel vision. Looking down, I see the two faded blue lines running perpendicular to each other. A plus sign. I'm pregnant.
Fuck.
Thoughts don't even register in my brain. I slide down the wall into a sitting position, not realizing the fat, salty tears rolling down my face until the collar of my shirt is practically soaked.
I must sit there for hours like a zombie, because next thing I know Chloe is talking at me, words that don't register, and darkness as set in.
She flicks on the light. "What are you doing?" Her voice is incredulous.
I glance up, not really making out her whole face from behind my veil of tears. Its then that I find her staring at the pregnancy test still sitting on the counter
"Oh, Kels..." The shock and sheer worry on her face make me find my voice.
"I guess you were really right when you said I was going to have Clint's babies..."
And then I burst into tears.
23
Clint
Packing up the house goes about as well as playing nine innings with two broken hands. Everything smells like her, feels like her. I can see her pale curves laid out on my comforter as I fold it and stuff it in the trunk. There are tiny red strands scattered on my sheets and pillows. Little love notes she'd doodled and stuck into the pockets of my jeans litter my desk.
I can't even step foot in her room. Minka has to pack it up and has it all shipped back to the O'Brien's mansion in Mitchum.
No one knows where Kelsey escaped to. Minka and I have called her phone 50 times a day each. Chloe hasn't heard a peep from her. If I was worried the first day she left, I'm in a downright perpetual state of panic now.
All I do is sleep, pace the house, go for runs and spend hours on my computer. Hours spent trying to track her down. Obsessively checking her social media to see if she updates one single thing. I have calls in to Jackson, which wasn't pleasant or easy since I still want to sucker punch the guy in the gut, to alert me if anyone at any preserve around the globe sees her.
But she's gone. Her phone has been off for a week, no way to trace it. We've filled her voicemail until we can no longer leave pleading, threatening, crying messages. I feel like a helpless, scared child.
Kelsey's always been impulsive, but I have never seen her more emotionally raw in my life than when she was standing in that trailer doorway, scorching earth beneath her feet. She had a wild, untamed look in her eye. She might be doing something stupid, dangerous. And I couldn't do anything but wait by the phone.
To make matters worse, I have nothing to distract me from it. After leaving the college house and coming back to Alabama, I don’t know what to do with myself. None of the non-profits I reached out to have called, no new job offers put on the table. I mostly spend my days now sitting on my parents old ass couch in their tiny ass ranch.
Don't get me wrong, I love my parents. I made peace with their faults long ago, and vowed to never to settle into the same path. But I can't help but feel depressed. The one thing that made my life bright and sunny was Kelsey, and now she's disappeared. Vanished.
And it’s all my fault.
I knew I never should have kept my suspicions from her. I should have spilled to her in the car on the way home from the preserve the first time I ever met Jackson. But instead, I'd internalized it. Made it my mission not to hurt her. And by doing so, I'd sliced her heart right open.
I still can't get that horrified look on her beautiful face out of my brain. It’s ingrained on it, branded into my skull. It haunts me when I do manage to fall asleep.
Mom and dad don't know what to make of me and my new attitude. They've called my brothers, all three of them stopping by at some point or another to lend a wise word, a shoulder to lean on. None of it helps. I can't shake the slump I'm in, and part of me doesn't want to. Pain is the only thing I can feel right now, and I welcome it. Crave it.
I'm lying on my back in the grass behind my parent's house, melodramatically contemplating my life that has gone to shitwhen my phone rings. Startled, I immediately jack up to a sitting position, adrenaline and hope surging through my veins. It’s what I do every time the phone rings these days. It could be Kelsey.
But it’s not. Only Miles, the obnoxious picture of him crossing his eyes flashing across the screen.
"What's up?" I answer.
"Nice to hear from you too, buddy. Miss you, hope you're doing well."
His voice is dripping with sarcasm and goofiness, typical Farris, but I'm not in the mood.
"Yeah, yeah. Was there something you needed?"
"Fine, man. I wanted to uh...to let you know something."
My stomach does that weird twist it has always done right before I left the locker room for a game. Maybe he has news about Kelsey. But his voice sounds off. Suddenly I don't know if I want to hear it. He doesn't give me the chance to stop him.
"Kels has been staying with us the past three weeks."
It feels as though I've just been beaned in the skull by a wild pitch. What did he just say?
"Huh?" I shake my head, trying to clear the fuzzy shock clouding my thought process.
"She flew straight here from Virginia, she didn't even have a bag. Chloe met her outside, she was like a zombie, Clint. Still is. Thing is
-"
"You fucking knew where she was this whole time and you both fucking lied to me?!" I am practically screaming through the phone. The violence in my blood is visceral, I want to reach through the phone and grab Miles by the throat.
"Dude, I know. I'm fucking sorry-"
"YOU'RE SORRY?! I have been going out of my goddamn mind trying to track her down. Worried sick about her. And she's been sleeping in your cushy penthouse for three fucking weeks? Fuck you, Farriston."
I think I hear him wince on the other end of the line. "I'm sorry, man. I just...we didn't know what happened. And let me clarify that we live in a third floor walkup..."
"Farris." My voice is deadly quiet. He seems to get the message.
"We didn't know what happened. She won't talk about it, just keeps knocking herself out with sleeping pills and junk food. She's left our spare bedroom all of four times. Chloe told me we needed to give her her space, let her process. But...something's changed, man. I think you need to get up here."
The knots forming in my stomach twist. "What's changed? What do you mean?"
"Dude, just...you need to get up here."
I only stay on the phone long enough to get his address. Then I'm running inside to throw clothes into a backpack and book a flight.
24
Kelsey
Chloe has called in the cavalry.
I know she has as soon as the spare bedroom door hits the wall, causing me to roll over on the bed where I'd been facing away from it. There stands Minka, pissed-off mama bear written all over her face.
"Minks, what are you doing here?"
Her gaze doesn't even flit to my face as she stomps over to the bed and grabs my wrist. She squeezes, and I realize she's timing my heart beats.
"Chloe says you refuse to see a doctor."
It’s not a question, but a ticked off accusation.
"Look I know you're mad I didn't tell you where I was." I struggle to sit up I'm so tired.
"We'll discuss that fucking issue later. Right now we're going to the Ob/Gyn. I won't sit by as you avoid getting the medicines and checkups you need."
So Chloe's told her about the baby. Fuck. The baby. I can't even fathom that those words are running through my thoughts.
I pale, tears clogging my throat. "I don't even know if I'm keeping it, Minks."
I see a flicker of sympathy and sadness wash over her eyes. And then she goes steely. "Even so, you may want to give it up for adoption. And for that you need to keep yourself healthy. We're done with this moping routine. Get your ass up, meet me in the living room in five. Chloe will drive us."
And with that, my bossy best friend leaves me alone. I push up, adjusting myself as the room spins once around me. She's right. I haven't been taking care of myself, or this baby. I've barely eaten at all, the only thing I do is lay in bed. I haven't researched into my options, haven't started taking the right vitamins.
I wish I could drown my days in alcohol or weed. But obviously one of things I want to drown my sorrows about the most is preventing me from that. A baby. Mostly I've been sleeping. My brain has taken all of the thoughts about my father, the baby, Clint...and put them in a sealed off box way in the back. I just can't think about it. If it hits me all at once, I don't know if I'd ever stop crying.
Slowly I get up, pulling on whatever sweatshirt is closest and shuffling out to the living room.
Minka and Chloe sit huddled together at the breakfast bar on the kitchen counter, and both guiltily stop talking when I walk in.
"Traitor." I grumble at Chloe.
She sighs and shrugs, her violet eyes apologizing so profusely that I almost let her off the hook. "I had to. You wouldn't move from the bed."
I don't blame her. I wouldn't know what to do with me either.
"So are we going?"
The cab ride there is deadly quiet with the three of us squished into the dirty backseat. I just lean my head against the glass, trying to wipe my brain of any thought.
Minka comes in to the exam room with me once we're at the doctor. Says I won't be absorbing all of the information, so she needs to take notes.
She's right. I only hear snippets of the conversation. Words like "folic acid" and "abortion" are brought up. The doctor goes into the gestational cycle, and takes what seems like gallons of blood from me though, I barely even feel the needle prick. Minka's face is pinched and concerned the entire appointment. I almost cry when the doctor takes a look between my legs, the cold speculum invading my vagina. As deranged as it is, the last thing to be inside of there was Clint, and I clench back tears at the memories. The whole thing is just awful.
Afterwards, I'm rewarded for my cooperation with a vanilla milkshake from Shake Shack. Which I only take under duress. Who am I kidding? I scowl and ask for a second one.
When we get back to the apartment, I plan to go straight back to bed. But Minka's glare and her wiry body blocking my path tell me I have other plans, so I join her and Chloe on the couch.
Chloe goes first, her sweet disposition designed to put me in an easier mood. I can tell they've talked about how to tackle this. How to tackle me. "Kels, we are so worried about you. We just want to help. What is going on?"
I smile, but it feels sour on my lips. "I'm pregnant if you didn't notice."
"That's not why you left Grover." Minka cuts in, throwing all of the nice bullshit out the window.
I stare at my hands, silently begging for them to drop this. I wish the floor would open up and swallow me.
Chloe touches my fingers with her own. "We're your best friends. Whatever, or whoever, is causing you pain, we will crush it. Together."
My kind, innocent best friend's statement of violence is what finally breaks me.
I choke on a sob before telling them the entire sordid tale. Minka and Chloe’s faces go from sympathetic to horrified to pure rage as I describe everything from the way my mother dropped the biological dad-bomb on me to finding Clint and Jackson conspiring.
They sit in stunned silence as I finish, sucking in a shaky breath.
“Fucking, bitch.” Minka grumbles, and I know she means Madeline.
“I can’t believe Jackson never told you. That he could…keep this such a secret. I can’t believe I never noticed…” Chloe is shaking her head back and forth, trying to make sense of it all.
“Do you really think Clint meant to hurt you?” Minka’s expression is too hard to read, but I know she’s psycho-analyzing me as she loves to do. She wants me to come to a conclusion without her dictating the facts to me.
And I have thought about it. I never heard his side of the story. I ran too quickly to consider that. But no matter what his explanation is, he hurt me.
“You should have heard them in there. Having a conversation that was so personal, so about me. It was like I was being staked through the heart.”
Chloe nods in my direction. “I know. But maybe Clint went there to try and get Jackson to fess up. Maybe he was only trying to protect you.”
“You didn’t see him after you left, Kels. He was a wreck. Like the universe had just taken away his will to live. He couldn’t even pack up his stuff because it smelled like you. I swear I had to send him away with tears in his eyes while I did it.”
The haunted expression on Minka’s face relays just how horrible it must have been to see Clint over those few weeks.
“Even now, Owen says he won’t pick up the phone. And when he does it sounds like he’s withdrawn into himself. He kind of sounds how you look.” Minka raises one eyebrow in that smarts way of hers.
“I don’t…I don’t know what to think.”
Chloe winces before speaking. “Can we change gears? What are you going to do about the baby?”
We all grow silent while a few fat tears escape from my ducts.
“I don’t know about that either. Guys, I am not ready for this. I can barely take care of myself, even when I’m fully functional and happy. A baby? I wouldn’t know the first thing about raising a k
id. Look who my fucking parents are. My mother is about as warm and nurturing as an electric chair.”
Minka contemplates, biting at her lips. But Chloe is the one who immediately speaks.
“I don’t know anyone in this world who would be a better mom. You are fiercely loyal. Remember when you almost dragged Allison through the hall when Minka went through that whole thing sophomore year? You think on your feet, which is the best parenting skill I can imagine. You are constantly adapting and changing. Kids are like one big roller-coaster, I can’t think of anyone who would handle that better. You give your whole heart, every time. You know how to soothe hurt, have fun, and you’re the best game maker-upper ever. So yeah, I think you will be an awesome mom. And who is ready for anything in life anyway? If we were never ready for anything, nothing would ever happen.”
Leave it to the fairy godmother of the group to make me all teary-eyed and sappy with her magical, fairy dust speech.
Minka chimes in. “She’s right. You will be an amazing mom. That baby is the luckiest little sucker ever. Plus…he or she will have some kickass aunts.”
I finally smile a true, genuine smile. I feel better than I have in days.
“You are the best friends any girl could have, you know that?”
They smile and Minka clucks her tongue. “Yeah, we know, we’re awesome.”
“Okay, Minks. Time to fill me on every drug, food and beverage I can’t have for the next nine months.”
25
Clint
I fucking hate planes.
Hate everything about them. The heights, the germs, the claustrophobia.
I’m a big guy. Smaller than I used to be, but still just larger than your average person in both height and bone structure. Stuffing me in a circular metal tube for five hours is akin to death for me. Not to mention we’re 39,000 feet off the surface of the earth and I’m stuck next to this jack hole who’s been wiping his runny nose on his sleeve for four hours.
Catching to Win (Over the Fence #3) Page 16
