by Kieran Scott
“Can we just keep it down, please?” I said through my teeth.
“No. No way.” Shannen’s eyes darted around the field, the trees, the garbage cans, the fences, as if some inanimate object held the answer. “When? How has Chloe’s father not killed Jake? How has Hammond not killed Jake? How have you not killed Jake?”
Out on the field, Hammond slammed into Jake’s side as if he was blocking out the other team.
“Well, at least one of us is trying,” I said, lifting my chin toward the action.
Hammond stuck out his leg, tripped Jake, then shoved him with both hands into the dirt. The ref blew the whistle, but then looked around, confused. Could he red card a player for fouling a member of his own team? Instead, Coach Martz shouted for Hammond to come out and replaced him with my friend David Drake.
“Yeah! Go, David!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, mostly because the inner tension was about to kill me. I had to let it out somehow. Jake had pushed himself up from the dirt and was dusting off his uniform. He didn’t look hurt, but he did look pissed.
“What’s she going to do?” Faith was so pale I was actually a little concerned she might faint. “She’s not going to have an abortion, is she?”
“I love how you only turn religious when babies come into the picture,” Shannen said snidely. “Of course she’s gonna have an abortion. She’s seventeen!”
“You guys, it’s none of our business, so can we just drop it?” I blurted. The last thing I wanted to admit here was that I had no idea what Jake and Chloe planned to do, because he hadn’t told me. This huge thing, and my boyfriend hadn’t felt the need to clue me in. And I was afraid to ask him about it. I turned to narrow my eyes at Annie. “Thanks a lot, by the way.”
She lifted her black-clad shoulders. “Sorry. I figured they knew by now.”
I sighed and shook my head, feeling suddenly exhausted. Jake was going to be so mad when he found out Faith and Shannen knew. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but first I’d slipped and told Annie and now she’d slipped and told them. And I used to be so good at secret-keeping.
“Is he okay?” Shannen asked, watching Jake closely.
My heart was heavy as I tried to sit up straight. “Not exactly. He’s gone into complete zombie mode the past week. He barely eats, I don’t think he sleeps, he hasn’t been studying, and he’s skipped a couple of practices…. There are scouts coming next week, people he invited, and if he doesn’t pull it together, he’s screwed.” I swallowed hard and looked over at Shannen and Faith. “I know he messed up. I mean, they both did, but … it’s like his whole life is hanging by a thread. His entire future. And there’s nothing I can do.”
“Have you talked to him?” Shannen asked.
“Of course. But I can only give so many pep talks before I start sounding like my mother, and that is not attractive,” I said with a pathetic smile.
Shannen hooked her arm around me and pulled me toward her side. Behind me, I felt Annie tense up and I wondered if it bothered her that much that a Crestie was giving me a hug. But then, I didn’t care. At this point, I was taking the sympathy and the friendship wherever, however, and from whomever I could get it.
“We have to tell Chloe we know,” Faith said quietly. “She has to know we’re here for her.”
“We’ll talk to her after the game,” Shannen said, letting me go. “As long as you promise not to get all preacher-girl on her ass.”
Faith pouted her lips and crossed her arms over her eyelet tank top. “Fine. I promise.”
I sighed and turned my attention back to the game. I supposed I was going to have to tell Jake they knew. That conversation was going to be a real laugh and a half. Note to self: There’s a reason why you never get your Crestie friends and your Norm friends together in the same place. Nothing good ever comes of it.
jake
“I can’t believe you told Annie!” I shouted, standing in the center of Ally’s room.
“Shhhh!” She closed her door quietly and faced me. “I’m sorry, but I had to talk to someone. After Connor’s I was totally freaking out, and you just disappeared! Besides, technically I told her before you told me not to tell anyone, so I didn’t actually break my promise.”
I stared at her. We both knew how lame that was. “And now Faith and Shannen know….”
God, Chloe was going to kill me. No, she was going to torture me, then kill me. And then probably torture me some more. I sat down on the edge of Ally’s bed, my palms sweating like crazy. First we lose the game because Hammond’s too busy putting the beatdown on me to bother trying to score, and now this.
“Well, they were going to find out eventually, right?” Ally said.
“Not necessarily,” I said quietly.
There was a long moment of silence. I could hear Ally breathing.
“What do you mean? Is she … I mean, are you guys gonna have an abortion?” she asked.
“No. I don’t know.” I pressed my fingertips into my eye sockets so hard I thought I might pop the suckers out and into my skull. “I have no idea what she’s gonna do.”
Ally sat down next to me carefully. Like I was a piece of glass and she was afraid to knock me over onto the floor. “You guys haven’t talked about it?”
“Oh, we’ve talked about it,” I said, flopping onto my back, making her bounce. “We just haven’t decided anything. Every time it comes to deciding anything, we choke.”
“Oh.” Ally looked down at her hands.
“Yeah, and then one of us changes the subject, like ‘So did you do the bio homework?’ or ‘Let’s go get burgers!’ and we pretend like nothing’s going on.”
Ally shifted, turning on her bedspread slightly so she could look down at me. “Well … what do you want to do?”
“I don’t want to have a baby,” I said firmly. “But it’s not like I can make her have an abortion. And I don’t even know … I don’t even know if I could live with that. Like when you think about it and it’s not about you, you think, ‘Oh, yeah, just deal with it. Get rid of it or whatever.’” My throat nearly closed over the words “get rid of it.” “But when it’s reality …”
“It’s not that easy,” Ally finished for me.
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t believe we were actually talking about this, but I was also so relieved we were talking about this. I’d been dying to spill it to her, but terrified she’d shut me down. I should’ve known better. I should’ve trusted her. “No, it’s not.”
“So … adoption?” Ally said.
“Yeah, but then she actually has to be pregnant. Like, in front of everyone. That’s how she put it, anyway.” I covered my face with my hands and groaned. “There’s no answer.”
“No good one, anyway,” Ally said. She sighed. “You just need to be there for her. Whatever she needs. That’s what I’d want if I were her.”
I couldn’t believe she’d just said that. I couldn’t believe she didn’t just hate us both. We sat there, quietly, for a long time. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say to Chloe, what I actually wanted. I just knew I was so glad, so grateful, to have Ally right then. I slowly reached out and curled my fingers around hers.
“What would you do if it were me?” she asked, her voice practically a whisper. “Do you think you’d feel different about it?”
My breath caught in my throat. I’d marry you was the first thought that popped into my mind. And it was true, I realized suddenly. I would marry her. I would take care of her. I would do whatever it took to protect her. But what was I, insane? I was seventeen. I couldn’t say that out loud. I sat up. Ally and I locked eyes. I could feel the heat coming through her fingers.
“I feel like ice cream,” I said suddenly. “Wanna get some ice cream?”
“Totally,” she said.
And we were out of there like the room was on fire.
ally
About halfway through my soliloquy on Monday afternoon, I finally stopped feeling like I had to pee, and started
tuning in to what I was saying. Up until about five minutes before I was called in to audition for the play, I was questioning my sanity. I hadn’t acted since the spring musical in Baltimore my sophomore year, and there were a lot of good actors at Orchard Hill High, vying for only a few good roles. Why even bother?
But then some random chick I’d never met had told me to break a leg, and Corey Hinds from my Spanish class had flashed me a thumbs-up from the wings, and I remembered why I’d decided to do this in the first place. I needed a distraction. I needed to be able to hang out somewhere where people barely knew me and definitely didn’t know Jake. I needed something to do that he had nothing to do with. Faith was the only Crestie in drama club. It didn’t get much safer than here.
So here I was.
Besides, if I had to make a speech at my mother’s wedding, I might as well get used to performing in front of complete strangers again.
I finished my performance and stood there for a moment, the spotlight frying my face as I squinted out at Mrs. Thompson, the houndstooth-clad drama teacher.
“Very good, Ally,” she said. “Thank you. We’ll be posting callbacks tomorrow. Can you send Faith Kirkpatrick in next, please?”
“Sure. Thanks!” I said brightly.
I skipped down the stage steps and into the auditorium, experiencing that particular light-headed high I always get after finishing with something I’d dreaded. When I shoved open the heavy auditorium doors, the hopefuls in the lobby looked up expectantly. Faith was walking a tight circle in the center of the space, her mouth moving in silent recital.
“Faith. You’re up,” I said, hooking a thumb over my shoulder in a dorky way I never would have done if not for the high.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“Good, I think. Who knows?”
“Oh, I always know,” Faith said haughtily, flicking her blond ponytail. “Mrs. Thompson only ever smiles if you suck, because she, like, feels bad for you. So did she smile?”
I narrowed my eyes. It had been hard to see her face with the lights blinding my vision. “I don’t think so.”
“Yay! That’s good, then!” She gave me a brief hug before slipping past me.
“Break a—”
She held up a hand. “I don’t need it.”
Then she disappeared inside, letting the door slam behind her. I shook my head at her ego and grabbed my messenger bag off the bench next to the wall.
“Hey! Are you done? Did you nail it?”
Annie was near the bottom of the stairs when she called out to me. Chloe was a few paces behind her. The two of them were coming from an Orchard Gazette meeting, no doubt. Chloe was editor in chief of the student news site, a fact that Features Editor Annie never ceased to resent.
“It was pretty good, I guess. I’m just psyched it’s over,” I replied.
“Cool. Wanna go get some food?” Annie asked.
“Sure.”
Chloe was just walking by as we headed for the door. She paused and shot me a tentative look. “Hey, Ally.”
“Hey,” I replied. “How’re you … I mean … how’s it going?”
Annie stood next to me, her hands shoved tightly under her arms. I could actually smell the bitterness of her hateful scowl as she stared Chloe down.
“Good. I’m … good.” Chloe shrugged. “How’s Jake?”
Annie cracked her knuckles.
“He’s fine,” I replied, wondering why she was asking. We all saw one another every day in school. Although they’d been avoiding each other in the halls most of the time, I’d noticed. Almost like they thought if they were caught talking to each other, people would know their secret.
“Good. Okay. Well. See ya.” Chloe turned and traipsed outside, slipping on a pair of designer sunglasses. She didn’t look tortured or tired or conflicted, the way Jake kept saying she was. The way that most people would have been in her situation. She just looked like Chloe Appleby. Crestie Queen.
“How can you be so nice to her?” Annie demanded, turning on me the second the door was closed.
“Nice to her? I just asked how she was,” I replied.
“The girl hooked up with your boyfriend!” Annie hissed.
I rolled my eyes. “He wasn’t my boyfriend yet!” I shoved through the door and out into the sunshine, even as my heart tightened into a cold, dry ball.
“Oh please, everyone knew you were in love with him,” Annie replied, scurrying to catch up with my long strides. “You know she only did it because she was pissed off you kissed Hammond. You do know that, right?”
I scoffed, even though I’d had this suspicion myself. I’d had a lot of suspicions about Chloe’s motives. That’s what happens when you spend half your time obsessing about something. Was she getting back at me for kissing Hammond freshman year? Was she getting back at Hammond? Was she just bored that night? Horny? Or did she—and this was the worst one—like Jake? “Please. That was a million years ago.”
“Yeah, and she just found out about it in June and then suddenly developed the hots for Jake?” Annie paused at the edge of the parking lot. “Have you ever heard the expression ‘There are no coincidences’?”
I frowned. “No.”
“Well it’s an expression because there are no coincidences,” Annie told me. “I mean, did you hear her? ‘How’s Jake?’” she said in a high-pitched, mocking voice. “It’s like she’s rubbing it in. Either that or she actually does like him, which would be a huge—”
“Stop,” I said, practically choking on the word. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” I turned my steps toward my mother’s car. It was parked in the faculty lot, waiting for me. Gray had gotten out of work early and picked my mother up for some kind of wedding meeting—flowers or limos or table linens or something. “Are we getting food or what?”
Annie sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Yes. We’re getting food.”
“Good.” I opened the driver’s side door and tossed my bag inside. “Try not to look so disappointed that I’m not as suspicious and negative as you are.”
“You will be.” Annie smirked. “Eventually.”
I smiled, but inside I just felt sad. Because I had an awful feeling she was right.
jake
Okay, it was time to get my ass in gear. I hadn’t done any homework in about a week. Not that my teachers were surprised. I’d never been a big homework-doer. But over the summer I’d taken this college class and I’d actually worked and I’d landed myself an A. And I’d kind of liked it. So I’d had this whole resolution to do real work this year.
Until I found out I was gonna be a baby daddy.
Now it was Friday afternoon and there was no practice because we had a game tonight, so I was going to spend the next three hours catching up. Pretending life was normal. I straddled one of the lounge chairs on our back patio, my precalc book open in front of me, and started to write down the first equation from Tuesday’s assignment.
“Jake?”
My pencil point broke. Chloe had just stepped out from behind one of the flowering bushes. She was wearing sweatpants rolled at the ankle and a wrinkled Abercrombie T-shirt. There were tear streaks on her face and she had no makeup on. It was so weird. Every day at school she was just Chloe, all perfect hair, perfect body, perfect clothes. In fact she was so Chloe it was hard to imagine anything was off. But right now she looked nothing like herself.
“What’s wrong?”
I stood up and my foot knocked my notebook closed over my broken pencil.
“I just … I can’t do this anymore.” Her flip-flops slapped as she walked over to me and pressed her face into my chest.
Crap. Crapitty crap crap. I put my arms around her and she cried for a minute or two, soaking the front of my white T-shirt. I never thought I’d look longingly at a math book, but I did right then.
“What happened?” I asked. “Can’t do what anymore?”
She turned her face to the side so she could talk, but her skinny arms hugged me
tight enough to crush my ribs.
“I’m starting to get fat,” she whimpered with a sniffle. “My mom even noticed. And now that Faith and Shannen know, someone’s gonna slip. I just know it.” She pushed away from me and swiped under her eyes with her fingers. Her hands were shaking. For the first time I noticed she did look a little bigger than normal. “Every time the phone rings, my heart stops. I’m just waiting for, like, Mrs. Kirkpatrick to call up my mom and tell her everything. They can’t find out like that. They just can’t.”
“Okay …”
“And every five seconds? It’s like I know for absolute sure what I want to do, and then five minutes later I want to do the exact opposite.” Her voice caught and she turned to hug me again. “I haven’t slept in, like, weeks…. I’m totally losing it.”
My throat was dry and my heart pounded so hard it hurt. “You can, like, talk to me about this stuff, you know. You don’t have to avoid me in school all the time. If you’re freaking out … you should tell me.”
Chloe gave me this tight smile. “I don’t want to bother you.”
“You’re not. I mean, we’re …” I paused and cleared my throat. “We’re in this together. We should be figuring it out … together.”
Her eyes were so hopeful right then I knew I’d said the right thing. For once. “But what about Ally? Won’t she mind if we’re talking all the time?”
“Ally’ll understand,” I said automatically.
Chloe nodded and stepped back from me. “So, what do you want to do? If you had to decide right now, would you keep the baby or …”
My mind went completely blank. Here I’d just offered to be there for her and I had no answer to that question. I didn’t want to be a father. I knew that. But ever since hearing that heartbeat, the whole abortion thing gave me the skeevs. So there was adoption, but if we did that, then everyone would know. What would it be like if everyone knew?
“God, Chloe, I have no idea.”
She teared up again, but smiled. “Yeah. Me neither.”
