by Kieran Scott
“Okay!”
I sprinted down the hall, grateful to have a job. I grabbed the bag from the floor. As I turned toward the door, I noticed the teddy bear in the center of her bed and grabbed it. I don’t even know why.
Downstairs, Mr. Appleby was helping Chloe into her coat. I walked over with the bag and the bear, and her mom snatched them out of my hands. Chloe was panting, scared out of her mind, from the look on her face.
“Let’s go,” Mr. Appleby said.
Chloe took the bear and clutched it to her chest. We started out the door.
“Not you,” her dad grunted at me.
I froze.
Chloe shot me a helpless look. “But, Daddy—”
“No! I don’t want that kid anywhere near you or me or the baby,” he said gruffly. “No arguments. Now let’s get in the car. We’re wasting time.”
I stood in the open doorway as Chloe was dragged off by her parents and helped into the car. I wanted to go with them, but at the same time I wanted to stay here and not have to deal. Right after her door was closed, Chloe lowered the window and stuck her head out. I took a step forward, ready to give her whatever she wanted.
“Call Will,” she said. “Tell him to meet us there.”
I tasted bile in the back of my throat. I couldn’t think of one thing I’d rather do less. But I nodded.
“Okay,” I said, my voice harsh.
Then her dad took off, peeling out of the driveway and slamming on the brakes as he saw the mess on the street. He managed to maneuver his way out somehow, but I imagined he was cursing me the whole way. One more reason for him to hate me.
I tugged my phone out of my pocket and opened my contacts, then stopped. Who was I kidding? I didn’t have Will Halloran’s number. I tipped my head back and groaned at the sky. One thing. She asked me to do one thing and I couldn’t even do it.
I imagined going back to my house and waking up some Norms to see if they had the kid’s number, but that might take too long. I could have driven to the hospital and asked Chloe for it, but her dad wouldn’t let me near her, plus I was drunk, plus my car was blocked in, plus Chloe was a little preoccupied right now. I pressed the heels of my hands to my forehead.
“Think, moron, think,” I said to myself. Who did I know who would have Will Halloran’s number?
And then it hit me. Just like that. I hit the speed-dial button. Ally answered on the fourth ring.
“Jake?”
She was half-asleep.
“Ally,” I said, warmth rushing through me at the sound of her voice. “I know you hate me right now, but I need your help.”
ally
Will and I ran into the emergency room entrance at the hospital, out of breath from our sprint across the frigid parking lot. For the middle of the night, there sure were a lot of cars parked out there. It had taken us the ten longest minutes of my life to find a spot, and the whole time Will had been rocking forward and back in his seat, muttering something under his breath that sounded like a prayer.
“Whoa, whoa! Can I help you?”
A skinny, redheaded nurse in pink scrubs stopped Will before he could get through the next doorway. From the twigginess of her freckled arms, I wouldn’t have thought she could stop a kitten, but she somehow held him back.
“My girlfriend. She’s in labor,” Will said, panting. “What room is she in?”
The woman shot me a curious and kind of judgey look over Will’s shoulder.
“Her name’s Chloe Appleby,” I said.
“Hold on. Let me check.”
She moved over to the desk at roughly the speed of spilled pudding and tapped a few keys on her computer.
“Here it is,” she said. “And what’s your name, son?”
“Will Halloran,” Will said.
“You’re on the list of approved friends and family.” She looked me up and down as she slowly wrote out a pass for Will. “And you?”
“Oh, I’m not going up,” I said. “I’m good.”
“She’s Ally Ryan,” Will blurted, wiping his palms on the butt of his jeans. “Allyson Ryan.”
I shot him a look like What the hell? And he shrugged. Panic was coming off of him in waves and I got the feeling he was just terrified of going anywhere alone.
“Is she on there?” Will croaked.
The woman’s eyes flicked over the computer. “Why, yes she is. It’s your lucky day, kids. You get to witness the miracle of childbirth.” And then she snickered.
My heart, which was just starting to calm down from the midnight cardio, started to pound anew. The woman handed over two passes and nodded at the door. “Elevator’s that way.”
Will started through the door, but I hesitated, shifting from foot to foot. “Is she … like, did she have the baby yet or is she still—”
“In labor?” the woman said, clearly amused. “I don’t have that kind of information, kid. You’ll have to see for yourself.”
Right then an ambulance came tearing up to the glass doors, sirens blaring, and Will yanked me through the door and into the hallway. His finger trembled as he hit the up button for the elevator. Suddenly a wheelchair slammed through the door we’d just come through ourselves, with a hugely pregnant woman panting like a dog. An orderly pushed the chair in our direction, while a beefy dude—her husband, I guessed—shoved a Flip camera in her face.
“How’re you feeling, hon?” he asked as they barreled toward us.
“I’m feeling like I’m going to take that camera and shove it up your ass!” she shouted back through her teeth.
Will and I gaped. The elevator pinged and opened. The orderly shoved the woman inside, while her husband, now looking a tad green, trailed behind her.
“You two coming?” the orderly asked.
“We’ll wait for the next one,” I heard myself say.
As the doors slid closed, the woman started screeching.
“Um, I don’t think I want to go up there,” I said, clutching my pass with both hands as Will hit the up button again.
“Don’t make me do this alone,” he replied.
His plea was so sincere, so childlike, so not-manly-three-varsity-letter-athlete, that I couldn’t turn him down. The second elevator pinged and we stepped inside. Mercifully, it was empty.
On the fifth floor, a nurse directed us to Chloe’s delivery room. Mrs. Appleby met us outside. She looked freaked, but determined. Like she was steering an out-of-control bus full of kids.
“Good, you’re here,” she said to Will. “She keeps asking for you.”
Will glanced warily at the closed door. “Is she okay?”
At that moment, the door opened and a nurse stepped out. Chloe’s cries of pain filled the hall. Will looked like he was about to fall over.
“She’s doing fine,” Chloe’s mom assured him. “Come on. I’ll take you in.”
I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “So I should just …”
“You can wait out here, Ally. Thanks for bringing Will.”
“Yeah, thanks for driving me. I don’t think I could have—”
“It’s not a problem.”
I waited until the poor guy was through the door, then sat down in one of the waiting area chairs. My knees were weak. My hands were quaking. I felt both tired and completely alert at the same time. Figuring our friends would want to know what was going on, I sent a quick text to Faith and Shannen, telling them to come by in the morning. Then I settled back to wait. And think about the last half hour.
Jake had called me. I’d woken up in the middle of the night to see his face on my phone for the first time in over a month. I didn’t even know what I thought he might have been calling to say, but I did know I grabbed the thing and answered it so fast I clearly wanted to hear whatever it was. I hadn’t been prepared for the panic.
He’d told me Chloe’s water had broken. Why he’d been there when it happened, I had no clue. He’d asked me for Will’s number, and I’d said I would call Will, but Jake had insisted. He had to be th
e one to do it. I’d hesitated. What if he said something awful to Will? I wouldn’t have put it past him. But Jake had begged, and he’d sounded so plaintive that I’d given in. And two minutes after we’d hung up, Will had called me and asked for a ride. Something about his dad being out on an emergency job and him not being able to find the keys to the other car.
And now here I was. But where was Jake? Clearly he was once again a part of this. Clearly he’d somehow come around to the fact that he cared. Should I let him know what was going on?
I stared down at my phone. There was a distinct flutter of hope around my heart. Hope that maybe Jake hadn’t changed beyond recognition. Maybe I should just try. Maybe I should just see. I typed a text.
WILL & I @ HOSP. CHLOE STILL IN LABOR. TNX 4 CALLING US.
I hit send before I could rethink it, and his text came back almost instantly.
GLAD U GUYS R W/HER. KEEP ME POSTED.
I leaned back in my chair and sighed. This night just could not get any weirder.
jake
I could hear voices inside Chloe’s hospital room. The door was cracked, but I couldn’t see who was in there. Was I supposed to knock? Walk in? Wait for whoever it was to leave? A nurse walked by me and shot me a sort of disturbed look, like maybe I was there to steal a baby or something. I flashed my visitor’s pass at her and knocked on the door.
God, please don’t let it be her dad in there. Or Will.
“Come in!”
Chloe and Ally both looked up. I froze and almost dropped the vase full of lilies. Ally was here. Oh, shit. Ally was here.
“Hi,” Chloe said.
“Hi,” Ally said.
I looked over my shoulder. “Um, I can come back.”
They exchanged one of those looks. Those looks between girls where it’s like they have an entire conversation without saying anything.
“It’s okay,” Chloe said eventually. “Come on in.”
I approached the corner of her bed awkwardly. She looked pretty good, but tired. Almost, like, droopy. Her hair was back and she had no makeup on and there were dark circles under her eyes. It seemed like forever that I just stood there with no clue what to say. There was only one chair in the room and Ally was in it.
“Here. Put those on the windowsill,” Ally said finally, standing up so I could slide by. My arm brushed hers and I felt like I was having a heart attack.
I put the flowers down next to the other ones—there were a lot—and Ally sat down again. If I wanted to get out of the two-foot space between me and Chloe’s bed, I would have to step over her knees. I cleared my throat and leaned my butt back against the windowsill. I hadn’t been this close to Ally in ages. It was torture.
Ally and Chloe both stared at me.
“So,” I said finally. “Um, how was it?”
Chloe scoffed and looked past me out the window. “It sucked.”
I nodded. My collar prickled. My palms were slick. Ally was looking at me like she’d never seen a guy before. Was she surprised I was here, or did she think that I shouldn’t be?
“Did you … I mean, did you get to see the baby?” I asked.
Chloe shook her head and a tear slipped down her face. Shit.
“She doesn’t even know what she had,” Ally told me quietly. “Boy or girl. She told them she didn’t want to know.”
I nodded again. My heart felt four times as heavy as usual. What was I doing here? What was I supposed to say? I looked at Ally. I just wanted to grab her and pull her out of here and go do something normal with her. Like get a burger or go for a walk or see a movie. But I couldn’t do that. Because we weren’t together. Because she hated me. Because there were huger things going on right now.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.
“You’ve done enough,” Chloe said.
My insides dropped. Was she mad at me? Again?
“I’m sorry. That didn’t come out the way I meant it,” Chloe said. She wiped her eyes with both hands and grabbed a tissue from a cart next to her bed. “You guys, thank you so much for last night. For getting Will here. I mean it. I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”
She blew her nose noisily and the tears came faster. I clenched my hands. I’d never been more uncomfortable in my life.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize.” Ally got up and went over to Chloe’s bed, sitting down right next to her. She put her arm around Chloe, and Chloe leaned into her, crying.
Ally stared at me. I turned up my palms like What should I do?
She kind of jerked her head toward the door. I didn’t think it was possible to feel any worse, but that did it. That killed me. I stood up and wiped my palms on my jeans.
“Um … Chloe, I’m just gonna go,” I said quietly. “But if you need anything—”
She nodded, sobbing, and pressed her eyes closed. On my way to the door, I shot one look over my shoulder at Ally, hoping for something, I don’t know what. But she wasn’t looking at me. She had pulled her knees up onto the bed and turned toward Chloe completely. It was like I was already gone.
april
I heard it was a boy.
I heard it was a girl.
I heard she had twins. One of each.
No! It wasn’t twins. It was a baby with two heads. One looked like Jake and one looked like Will.
Okay. You have been reading way too many supermarket ’zines.
What if, like, neither one of them was the father? What if it came out looking all, like, Asian or something?
Omigod. Do you think that’s why she hasn’t come back to school? Is she afraid Will and Jake are gonna gang up against her?
She probably just doesn’t want to come back until she’s lost all the baby weight.
Well, let me just tell you, I saw her at Scoops last night and she’s not gonna be losing an ounce if she keeps ordering up Monster Brownie Manias.
No. Freaking. Way. Her ass must be the size of North Dakota!
More like South Dakota. Because it is most definitely moving in that direction.
Oh my God, you are so bad!
Just telling it like it is, ladies. Chloe Appleby as we knew her? Definitely done.
ally
I felt like I was slogging through fog. Everything around me was hazy and shapeless. I could spend entire class periods staring at the leaves on the trees outside, watching them tossing around in the breeze, focusing and unfocusing my eyes. At lunch, Annie and David and Marshall, who was now Celia-free, just let me be. Every day I ate quickly, then went outside to the courtyard to read. Suddenly I couldn’t stop reading. Every weekend I was at the bookstore picking up the latest new releases in the teen section. Anything with a romantic cover. Anything about being star-crossed or forbidden or on-again-off-again. I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t stop myself. If I was awake, my face was pretty much buried in a book.
And then there was Jake. Always talking to some new girl, always smiling at some adorable face, always messing around with his friends. It was like he didn’t miss me one bit. It was like I’d never even existed.
The thing was, nothing in my world seemed to matter. Not my mom’s wedding, not the upcoming prom, not graduation. Everything seemed so dull. So ordinary. I couldn’t look forward to any of it.
“I think I’m depressed,” I said while rain pelted the windows of the cafeteria. I’d been sitting quietly at our lunch table for ten minutes, not eating, not reading, just dipping my straw in and out of my soda can.
David, Annie, and Marshall looked up, surprised, like until that moment they’d thought I’d lost the power of speech.
“Well, yeah,” Annie said, pushing her laptop aside.
“What? You think so too?” I asked, sitting up straight.
“Let’s see. You walk around school like a zombie, you never talk to anyone, and no one’s seen you eat a non-carb in a month,” Marshall said, glancing at my tray full of mashed potatoes and gravy. “It’s pretty obvious.”
“Agreed,” David said, popp
ing a chocolate chip cookie into his mouth.
“Also, Sarah Dessen has obviously replaced me as your best friend, which is just not healthy,” Annie added, shaking her head.
“Good to know I’m so transparent,” I said, miffed.
“You want to spill?” Annie asked, leaning into the table. “Because we already have, like, five good plans to snap you out of it.”
Marshall and David nodded in this sort of disturbingly eager way. Suddenly my face began to burn.
“You guys have been talking about me?” I asked.
Their gaze darted this way and that. At least they had the decency to look guilty about it.
“Cookie?” David offered, opening the Famous Amos bag toward me.
I narrowed my eyes at him and took one.
“Okay, plan number one, the sugar high,” Annie said, holding up a pinkie. “We go into the city and snag passes to the Candy Expo, pretend we’re up and coming confectioners, and just go to town sampling everything. Plan number two, shopping spree, on Gray, in his car, on Fifth Avenue. Plan number three, the kidnap plot. We snag Jake Graydon out of the locker room after lacrosse practice and—”
“Hi, guys!” Faith dropped into an empty chair at the very end of our table. She was wearing a frilly pink top, and her blond hair was back in a ponytail that she’d somehow styled into one very long curl down her back. Annie’s mouth snapped shut. Marshall and David shifted warily in their seats, as if an alien had just crash-landed in our midst. “Ally, I have the hugest favor to ask you.”
I blinked. Ever since Jake and I had broken up and Chloe had had the baby and Faith had snagged the lead in the spring musical, we’d barely spoken. Just seeing her right now seemed out of context. Like part of some former life gate-crashing this one.
“What kind of favor?” I asked.
“You have to join prom committee,” she said, lowering her chin, the better to give me a serious stare.
