by Kieran Scott
Celia laughed as the officer in question, who didn’t look a day over eighteen even though he’d graduated three years ago, strolled by with his shoulders rolled back, his head swiveling from side to side like he was auditioning for a new Terminator movie.
“Uh-oh, Ally,” Celia said suddenly. “Incoming.”
The little hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I didn’t know Celia that well—only from the few times we’d hung out together—but being a peripheral friend, she knew all about the Jake/Chloe/Ally triangle situation. I looked over my shoulder. Lincoln Carter was strolling toward us, his hands in the pockets of his brown corduroy jacket.
I didn’t know what I had been expecting, but it wasn’t Lincoln. Celia and Lincoln were friendly, so I wondered if he’d maybe told her what had happened at the cast party and I suddenly felt betrayed. Prickles filled my stomach and I went hot around the collar, more in the spotlight than ever.
“Hey,” he said, pausing in front of me.
“Hey.”
I glanced over at my friends, then moved a few feet away. Lincoln followed. Luckily, the others took the hint and didn’t. My throat was dry and tasted like ash from the fire. I licked my lips nervously and looked up at him.
“What’s up?”
He lifted his shoulders, keeping his hands in his pockets. “Not much. I guess I’m just wondering … how you are.” His expression was somewhere between concerned and hopeful. I didn’t get it.
“How I am?” I said dumbly.
He pressed his lips together, like he was maybe regretting coming over here. “Yeah, I mean. I heard about … you know, Jake and Chloe and I just wondered … if you’re okay.”
My stomach dropped. This felt completely wrong, talking about this with him. Lincoln had been my escape from the reality of my life. And now here he was, stepping right into the thick of it. It wasn’t his fault, I knew, but I didn’t like having him in my reality. I wished he’d stayed separate. I wished he’d stayed clean.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I said. “I’ve known about it for a while, actually.”
“Oh. Really? So you guys are still …?”
My face burned. “Yeah. We’re still together. We’re fine. Better than ever.”
The hope died off his face and I felt the prickles in my stomach harden into a rock-hard ball. That was maybe overkill, but what was I supposed to do? I didn’t want him to go on thinking that he had a chance with me just because everyone now knew my boyfriend was gonna be a father.
“Oh. Okay.” His expression darkened. Like maybe he was seeing me in a different way suddenly. Like maybe he was judging me for staying with a guy who was obviously a slut player.
He could join the club.
“Anything else?” I said, feeling defensive. I lifted my chin.
“Nope. I guess I’ll just … see you around.”
“Yeah. See ya,” I said softly.
He turned and was gone, walking back to his friends a lot quicker than he’d come. Guess if I ever was looking for a random hook-up in my future, it wasn’t going to be with him. Annie appeared at my side, watching him go.
“It’s too bad you two never smooched for reals,” she said. “Because damn.”
“Why don’t you go out with him, then?” I asked, annoyed. That conversation had left behind an icky, sticky feeling in my gut. I liked Lincoln. And I didn’t like the idea that he might think less of me now.
On the far side of the bonfire, the cheerleaders launched into some elaborate pyramid and the team began to gather together near the dugouts. I saw their coach looking over some notes and realized the show was about to start—the speeches and cheering and actual rallying. I’d never come to a football pep rally when I’d lived in Orchard Hill the first time, and I was kind of curious to see what went on.
“Welcome, everyone, to this year’s Orchard Hill High football pep rally!” the football coach suddenly shouted into the microphone.
As the baseball field filled with cheers, I glimpsed one maroon-and-gold jacket set apart from the rest. It was Will Halloran, running back and cocaptain of the team. He was about twenty yards off from his teammates, at the end of the dugout—an area that was mostly in shadow. He was talking to someone, but I couldn’t see who.
“What’s Will doing over there?” I said, mostly just to change the subject. “Isn’t this his big night?”
As everyone turned to look, he shifted position and we saw that he was in a deep one-on-one with none other than Chloe Appleby. Her baby belly, which I guess she was no longer hiding, stuck out between the open flaps of her camel, leather coat.
My skin sizzled with intrigue. What the hell were Will and Chloe talking about? I’d never seen them speak to each other in my life. I’d noticed him looking at her longingly a couple of times this year, but I figured he was just suffering an unrequited crush. As we stared, Chloe gave a desperate gesture with her hand and Will touched her arm in a way that’s usually reserved for boyfriendly types.
“That’s … interesting,” Celia said.
“Ho. Lee. Crap.” Annie brought her hand to her forehead and turned around. Her eyes were so wide they were like doughnuts.
“What?” I said, my pulse starting to race. If there was one thing I knew about my best friend, it was when she had good gossip to spill.
“Oh my God,” she said, covering her face with both hands now. “Oh my god oh my God oh my God. She couldn’t. She … she wouldn’t.”
“Who couldn’t what?” David said, looking around at the rest of us. “What the hell is she talking about?”
“Oh my God, she can’t possibly be that evil,” Annie said, dragging her fingers down her face and smudging her eyeliner. “Can she possibly be that evil?”
My stomach started to slowly clench into a marble-size ball, and I wasn’t even sure why. I glanced over at the spot where Will and Chloe had disappeared, as if they’d signal the answer to me via flash card.
“Who?” Marshall asked, baffled.
“Annie, what’s going on?” I asked. “What do you know about Chloe and Will?”
“Are they, like, together or something?” Celia asked.
And suddenly, just like that, this snatch of conversation from last summer came back to hit me in the face. I had asked Annie if she knew anything about Jake and Chloe and she’d told me they had been hanging out a lot, but then she added, “The weird thing is, Chloe’s also been hanging out a lot with—”
And then she’d been interrupted when David and Marshall had come bounding through the door like two puppy dogs.
Suddenly my brain went fuzzy. The wind shifted and my senses filled with the acrid, smoky scent of the fire. I reached out and clutched Annie’s forearm, like she was going to anchor me to a sane reality. Because right now, my brain was going to some seriously insane places.
“You don’t think Chloe and Will … over the summer … the other guy …” I couldn’t even form a real thought, let alone a sentence. Had Chloe and Will hooked up? Had Chloe and Will had sex?
Annie nodded, her dark eyes bright with suspicion. “He was the other guy,” she confirmed. “I kept spotting them together everywhere—at the movies, the farm, at Stanzione’s…. But you don’t think she would … I mean, she wouldn’t actually lie about who her baby daddy is, would she?”
I just stared at Annie. Chloe would never. She couldn’t ever. Why? Why would she do something like that? I couldn’t believe it, even though a huge, huge part of me was dying to believe it.
“I mean, after I heard about Jake and Chloe I just figured I was wrong about Will and Chloe, but, I mean …” She gazed off toward the dugout. “Son of a—”
“Wait a minute. Will and Chloe hooked up?” David blurted.
“And now, like, two seconds after everyone finds out she’s pregnant, they’re having emotional tête-à-têtes?” Celia put in.
“Oooh, I love it when you talk French,” Marshall said, nuzzling her from behind. Then, suddenly, his head popped up. “I bet
he thinks he might be the father! I bet that’s what they’re talking about!”
My mind was reeling. It was like the entire bonfire was trying to swallow me whole. The light, the heat, the ash, the laughter, the screaming, the music, the drums. I couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t see.
“Okay, everyone, just calm down,” I said, splaying my fingers. “We just jumped to about a million conclusions.” I turned and walked toward the chain link fence around the field. Moving away from the fire helped, and leaning my weight on the fence helped even more. “What do we actually know? Do we actually know Chloe and Will were a thing?”
Annie bit her lip. “We’re ninety-nine point nine percent sure. At least I was then. And I am now.”
I swallowed hard. “Then we don’t actually know anything,” I said, looking at each of them. “Maybe they were just hanging out. Maybe they were just friends. Maybe she came here to, like, talk about a bio project or something.”
“But what if—” Annie began.
I shook my head, clutching the cold links of the fence behind me. “I can’t believe Chloe would do that. I mean, why would she do that?”
“I believe it,” Annie muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. “If you were queen of the Cresties, who would you rather get knocked up by? Jake or Will?”
I tasted bile in the back of my throat. Because she was right. If Chloe had to be in this awful situation, it would be a lot more livable with a fellow Crestie and Country Club member like Jake by her side than with a blue-collar worker like Will. It was disgusting, but it was just how Orchard Hill had always functioned. But Chloe was a good person. I’d known her my whole life. Compared with the rest of the Cresties, she’d always been the most human, the most kind, the most down-to-earth. I couldn’t imagine her screwing with people’s lives this way. But if there was even a chance …
“We gotta find out,” David said, his jaw set. “I mean, if the baby isn’t Jake’s—”
“He needs to know,” I finished. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. “Okay, okay. Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said, pacing away from them, then back again. “I’ll tell him about Chloe and Will, and then he can ask her about it. Because technically, this is between them, right?” There was a prolonged moment of stoic silence. “Everyone good with that plan?”
My friends just stared at me. My throat filled with nervous desperation.
“You guys can’t tell anyone,” I said. “You can’t. I swear, if I hear this around school before I get a chance to deal with it, I will disown each and every one of you.”
We looked around the circle solemnly, each of us meeting everyone else’s gaze. My friends looked so sure that our hastily woven story was true, my heart pounded an excited beat. Because for a split second I let myself believe it too. I let myself imagine what life might be like if Jake wasn’t actually the baby’s father.
Everything would go back to normal for us. All the strain and jealousy and tension? Gone.
“Do we have a deal?” I asked pointedly. I put my hand in the middle of the circle, like I was one of the Three Musketeers or something.
“Deal,” Marshall said, putting his hand atop mine.
Celia groaned reluctantly. I knew that sharing gossip this huge about two of the most popular Cresties would totally improve her status. Right now she was seeing that possibility slip away. But she put her hand on top of Marshall’s.
“Deal.”
“Deal,” David said, adding his hand.
Annie took a deep breath. She looked up at the sky, blew out a cloud of steam, and shuddered in her Doc Martens. Then, finally, she slapped her hand down so hard on top of David’s that he winced.
“I just want you people to know this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. And you’re looking at a girl whose appendix burst on the same night her pet hamster died,” she said. Then she looked me in the eye and I just knew that whatever happened next, she was with me. “Deal.”
december
Can you even believe that Ally Ryan and Jake Graydon are still together?
I know! Shouldn’t he, like, be going out with the mother of his baby?
Do you think he and Chloe did the deed while he was with Ally?
No way. She definitely would have broken up with him if he cheated on her.
Not necessarily. He’s Jake Graydon.
So?
So? With that face? Everything’s forgivable.
Nah. Ally Ryan isn’t like that. She has, like, integrity and stuff.
If she has integrity, shouldn’t she break up with him so he can be with the girl he impregnated?
Okay. This is making my head hurt.
Tell me about it. When did other people’s relationships get so complex?
ally
“Where have you been?”
I scurried to the end of the counter at Jump, Java, and Wail! on Sunday night, grabbed Jake by the apron with both hands, and kissed him. Someone nearby went “Aw!” One of Jake’s coworkers muttered, “Get a room.”
Jake leaned back, blushing. “Philadelphia, remember? I just got back a couple of hours ago. Also, your dad’s in the office, so maybe chill with the PDA.”
“Noted,” I said. I lowered my voice as I slid onto the last stool. “So? Did you lose your phone? Fry your laptop? Forget how to work a landline? I left you, like, a million messages.”
Jake’s blush deepened. He wiped his hands on a clean towel and looked around, as if any of the middle-aged couples huddled around tables were interested in us. Sunday night was not usually a big night for our age group at Jump. Which was probably why it was always packed with adults.
“I know,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. It was just a crazy weekend.”
I made a surprised, choked sound. “Crazy enough to not respond to a text that said ‘You might not be the father’?” I whispered.
I saw Jake’s jaw working as he stood up straight. He glanced over at his coworker as he untied his apron. “Chase, I’m taking my fifteen.”
“Got it, bro,” the guy replied, not looking up from his iPhone. So much for my dad’s strict rule about not texting while on shift.
Jake came around the end of the counter and tugged me toward the back of the shop, where we sat down at the most secluded table there was—the one cornered by the door to my dad’s office and the emergency exit. The one no one from school ever came near. Jake sat down and blew out a sigh. He was acting beyond weird. Shouldn’t he be excited? Angry? At least moderately annoyed or intrigued? I tugged off my scarf and hat and sat across from him.
“I already know about Will Halloran,” he said. “I know he and Chloe went out this summer.”
Someone had left a glass canister of cinnamon on the table and he started to fiddle with it, sliding it back and forth from hand to hand across the pebbled marble. I felt like he’d just whipped my chair out from under me.
“What?” I whispered, leaning into the table. “And you didn’t tell me?”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
I felt like reality had just reversed itself. “How could it not matter? How do you know Will’s not the father?”
“Because. Chloe never slept with Will,” Jake replied, holding the canister with both hands now. He scratched at some crust on the side with his thumbnail.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because she told me,” he replied.
My jaw dropped. “And you believed her? Just like that?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw my dad emerge from the back room. He looked like he was about to say hi, then noticed how serious we looked and thought better of it. He moved to the other side of the shop.
“Do you really think Chloe would lie about something like that?” Jake snapped defensively.
I sat back. For a long moment I couldn’t locate my voice. Was he seriously defending Chloe’s honor to me right now? When I was trying to help him? When I was trying to throw him a lifeline? I couldn’t b
elieve that he didn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation.
“Well, let’s see, I never thought she was the kind of person who’d fool around with two guys at one time, but apparently I was wrong about that,” I said finally. “And I didn’t think you were the kind of person who’d have sex with someone else when you were supposed to be in love with me, either.”
“We were broken up!” Jake snapped angrily. “God! I thought we were done with this.”
“Yeah, well, I guess not,” I said, pushing my chair back. I wanted to storm out, but I couldn’t. I needed more from him. I needed him to say that he’d talk to Chloe. That he cared enough about knowing the truth. That he cared more about being with me than hurting her feelings. “Don’t you think you should just ask her again?” I said. “See what she says? This is a huge deal, Jake. For you and for Will.”
“I know it’s a huge deal, Ally!” he whisper-shouted angrily. “Do you think you know better than me what a huge fucking deal this is? I’ve seen the baby. I’ve seen it roll over and kick and suck its thumb. There’s a baby out there that’s mine and sometimes all I can think about is that I never even get to name him or talk to him or see him play soccer. I’m dealing with that. Maybe you’re the one who’s not.”
Suddenly I saw something in his eyes that stopped me cold. It was fear. Just the tiniest flicker, but it was there. He was scared of asking about Will again. He was scared he might find out he wasn’t the father.
Jake wanted the baby to be his.
And I was going to be sick.
“I have to go,” I said, standing, trying not to cry in front of him.
“Ally, wait. I’m sorry,” Jake said.
“Forget it,” I said.
I shoved through the door and onto the wintry sidewalk, the bell jangling jauntily above my head. I’d gotten about five steps along the salted sidewalk when my dad came after me.
