“You need to come home now, Erik,” I heard her say. She was in the living room, presumably to speak to my father without upsetting me, but I could still hear her.
“No,” she snapped. “Conseguir su culo en un puto avión ahora mismo y venir a casa, Erik.”
Get your ass on a fucking plane right now and come home, Erik.
I couldn’t help the small smile tugging at my lips. My mother only spoke fluent Spanish to my father when she was angry with him. I was surprised he understood her, but then again, he should have after twenty-five years of marriage. They were polar opposites in every way – my father with his tall, pale willowy frame and light hair, and my mother with her short-ish frame, olive skin, dark hair and a fiery disposition like mine. Somehow though, they worked. My father adored my mother, and he’d instilled in me the desire to experience that, to have a man carry me on his hands the way my father did my mother. I wanted that, but I wanted it with Reid, and I was so sure I’d done everything possible to fuck it up.
I rested my hand on my stomach, and looked down. Things were going to change. Again. And I knew Reid and I had to sit down and talk. I couldn’t keep this from him.
“Your father is on his way.”
My head snapped up, and my mother tossed the phone onto the counter with a sigh. “I’m going to cancel the rest of my appointments this week,” she continued. “Then - ”
“No mama,” I cut her off. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll be fine here on my own until classes start again.”
“But I can’t leave you, not now.”
I pushed away from the breakfast bar, and stood next to my mother. “It’s fine, really. You can’t cancel all your trips this week for me.”
With pursed lips, my mother gave in, if a little reluctantly. “Fine, but I’m cutting back as of May. You can come and stay here for the holidays where I can look after you. We can convert the adjoining bedroom next to yours into a nursery...”
The look on my face made her stop talking.
“You’re not going to make me give the baby up for adoption?” I asked.
My mother closed the small gap between us, and wrapped her arm around my waist. “Not in a million years, Niño. I agree that you are a little young, and you will finish school after the baby comes, but this baby is a blessing.”
My throat constricted. I’d had so many concerns about what happened next, and my mother had laid them all to rest with that one statement.
“We will figure it all out,” she added, kissing me on the forehead. “You have nothing to worry about.”
I rested my head on her shoulder, and took in deep breath. She was wrong about the last part – not having anything to worry about – because I still had to tell Reid he was going to be a dad.
I just didn’t know how he was going to take it, and the thought of him not wanting anything to do with me or our baby made my stomach drop.
He wouldn’t abandon us would he?
No, I thought. Reid would take care of his responsibilities.
But there in was the problem.
I didn’t want to be just another responsibility.
I wanted us – me and our baby – to be his everything.
Chapter 6
Jade
I’m gonna love her for both of us
My father stood across from me, and I was grateful for the large island in the kitchen that separated me from his anger. I don’t ever remember seeing him so angry before - and all because my mother had dropped the ‘our twenty year old daughter is pregnant’ bombshell. Yeah. He wasn’t taking it so well.
“What were you thinking?” He half-shouts, barely containing his anger. The vein in his neck pulsed, sending all his blood to his face. “You are twenty years old with your entire life ahead of you, and you screw it up by screwing around?”
I flinched, not only at his abrasive tone, but also at his insinuation that I slept around.
“Cálmese!” My mother admonishes, urging my father to calm down while her own temper is rising. “There is no need to yell at her like that, she’s not a child.”
“Oh but she is,” my father snaps, glaring at my mother. “Adults do not make such stupid mistakes like getting knocked up while in college.”
I stood still, watching him have it out with my mother. I felt strangely removed from the entire situation, and couldn’t muster up the need to argue with him. There wasn’t much point since my father was the ‘if I want your opinion I’ll give it to you’ type. His response surprised me, especially his anger, because until now he’d always been very supportive of everything I’d done, mistakes included. He’d never shouted, lost his temper, or made me feel stupid. Then again, none of my other mistakes had ever been so...consequential.
“Sleeping around? You make it sound like our child is a whore!” My mother snarled.
“Does she know who the father is?” Asked my father. He turned towards me, his expression tight. “Do you?”
I jumped at the hardness in his voice, and felt my own indignation simmering below the surface of my skin. I flexed my fingers at my side, struggling to stay composed.
“Yes,” I replied, keeping my voice even despite the slight tremor. “It’s Reid.”
My father’s head snapped back. “Reid?”
I nodded once, my eyes darting between my parents.
“Well where is he? Why isn’t he here?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but then stopped when I realized that my answer wasn’t as simple as I’d thought. It wasn’t black and white, and telling my father the truth would only add fuel to an already volatile fire.
“If you won’t tell me, I’ll find him myself!”
My father started for the front door, and I raced after him in a panic.
“Don’t!” I grabbed his forearm, and pulled him back. He turned, his tall figure looming over me.
“Why not? He should be here with you, telling us he’s the one responsible for this!”
“Erik -” my mother started but I cut her off.
“He doesn’t know.” The first tear slipped over my eyelid, and I flicked it away quickly. I hated showing emotion, but for some reason my chest was tight, and filled to the brim with everything I was feeling.
With pinched brows, and a taut expression, my father looked at my mother and then back at me. “Do you think he’ll stick around once he does know? He is no more prepared to be a father than you are a mother, Jade. He’ll run the moment he finds out, and then what?”
“Then I’ll love her enough for the both of us!” I cried. “Reid can make his decision once I tell him, but either way, this baby” – I flattened my palm against my still flat belly – “will be loved by me.”
I will love her. I already do.
We had yet to find out the gender, but I had a feeling in my gut that it was a little girl. My little blessing.
“So you’re going to throw away your future, your dreams for this child?” My father barked. “You can’t be that reckless! You’re not ready to be a parent!”
I straightened my shoulders, and stood tall. “What would you know about being a parent?” I asked through gritted teeth. “You’re never here.”
My fathers’ face remained stoic, but his reaction to my words reflected back at me through his eyes, contrition shining the brightest.
“This was not part of my plan,” I said, swallowing back the emotion clogging my throat. “And neither was falling in love with my best friend,” – my fathers’ eyes widened at that – “but plans change, and I will adjust. With or without yours and moms help.”
I turned on my heel, and ran up the stairs. My mother called after me but I needed out. I heard her say something to my father, but the words were muted the closer I got to my bedroom.
My mother had left everything the same, even though I’d been going to college and living away from home for two years. The walls were still light purple, with the white furniture my parents had bought me for my sixteenth birthday, and the king-si
zed canopy bed with dark purple bedding. As a girl I loved spending my time here, reading, listening to music...hanging out with Reid.
Our parents were best friends - Reid’s father had gone to college with mine, and they played golf together every Sunday when they weren’t away on business, and our mothers were always in contact, whether it was at some social event, or afternoon lunches with girlfriends.
We’d been interwoven into each other’s lives from birth, and now the ties that kept us bound were coming undone. At least that’s how it felt.
I took out my phone, and saw several missed calls, and texts, most of which were from Reid. I couldn’t bring myself to return them, or call him back. I knew I’d have to see him soon, but until then I could pretend that I wasn’t scared of how things were going to change after I told him I was pregnant. I could pretend that I wasn’t going to feel guilty for altering the course of his life, and I could pretend that the fear of losing him wasn’t going to drown me.
** ** ** ** **
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been asleep, but I woke up feeling better than I’d felt in weeks. It was a strange sense of calm, and I reveled in the lack of inner turmoil that had been plaguing me lately. A peel of laughter coming from downstairs caught my attention, and after slipping into a light silk robe, and freshening up in the bathroom, I made my way to the kitchen. My mother was sitting at the breakfast bar, a cup of coffee in her hands, smiling at my two friends. Kennedy smiled when I walked in, while Grady looked at me pointedly and huffed in disapproval.
“Took you long enough,” he said. His mouth tipped up into a half-grin, and he pushed away from the counter to envelope me in a hug. “We’ve been waiting for you to wake up for two hours already.”
“What are you even doing here?” I asked, looking between him and Kennedy. “You’re supposed to be in Cabo for the rest of the week.”
Kennedy stepped up to my other side, and rested her arm over my shoulders. “We go where you go,” she said happily. Her blonde hair was hanging loose over her shoulders, and her skin was perfectly sun-kissed.
“How are you feeling?” Asked my mother. She watched me from over the rim of her coffee cup, and I caught her meaning.
“Rested,” I replied, half-smiling. “Can I have some coffee, please?”
My mother stood, and went about making me some much needed java, while I took a seat. She placed it in front of me, and leaned in to kiss my temple. “Decaf,” she whispered. “Make sure you eat something, por favor.”
“Si, mama.”
“I’ll give you some time alone with your friends,” she added, speaking to all of us. “I’ll be in the study if you need me.” Her heels clicked on the tiled floor, and my nerves started thrumming in rhythm with her steps. Reid should be the first to hear, but I was bursting to tell someone, and I trusted that neither Kennedy nor Grady would spill. It was working up the courage to tell them that I was having difficulty with.
“So,” Grady sat down next to me, “before we get to the d-r-a-m-a that you missed in Cabo, are you feeling better? Did you see the doctor?”
Kennedy stood at my other side, and looking between them I realized I was safe. They weren’t going to judge me, or make me feel like a complete screw up.
I could tell them.
“I’m pregnant,” I blurted out.
Their eyes widened, and their mouths popped open.
“Jade...” Kennedy’s expression turned sympathetic, and that’s when I felt my chest crack.
“Oh baby girl.” Grady’s arms came around me, and then Kennedy’s. There in the comfort of my friends’ arms, I allowed myself a private moment to fall apart because I was terrified.
Terrified of not being ready for what came next.
Terrified of facing it alone.
Terrified of having Reid turn his back on me one last time and never looking back.
The thought of not having him in my life – even as things stood between us now – was paralyzing.
“Have you told him?” Asked Kennedy, her blue eyes filled with care.
“No,” I replied around the lump in my throat. “But I know I’ll have to do it soon. My next doctor’s appointment is in four weeks, when I find out whether it’s a girl or a boy, and I’d like to think he’d want to be there for that.”
“What do you think he’ll say?”
I looked at Grady as he rubbed up and down my back. “I’m not sure. I think that scares me more than actually telling him.”
His gaze drifted up to meet Kennedy’s and a strange unspoken message passed between them.
“What?”
With a sigh, Kennedy sat down next to me and said, “We have to tell you something.”
Grady shifted on my other side, but I kept my eyes trained on Kennedy. My stomach dropped before she said anything, and my body stiffened in response.
“After the...incident...with Stella,” she started, “Reid told Dane that Stella had a busted lip, and a bruise on the side of her face. Stella said you did it.”
“But you saw the whole thing,” I replied. “I didn’t put a hand on her.”
“I know, but I saw her face this morning, and he was telling the truth.”
“And he believed her?”
Kennedy dropped her head and I knew that Reid did in fact believe whatever bullshit Stella had told him.
“She also told him you threatened her,” added Grady. “But he wouldn’t repeat exactly what Stella told him. He said he wanted to talk to you first.”
I laughed bitterly, and the bile rising in my throat burned. “What’s the point? He already believes her.”
Grady reached over and covered my hand with his. “We know she’s lying, and we’ll find out exactly what the psycho bitch did to get her face to look like you’d pummeled her. You can’t get upset over this, okay? Right now you have to take care of yourself, and we’re gonna be with you all the way.”
As much as I appreciated their support, I’d reached a point where I was tired of feeling like some kind of victim of whatever Stella was doing. I’d decided to get back to being my old self, and there was no way some Psycho Hobbit was going to stop me. I was done fighting, and no matter what the outcome was going to be after I told Reid about my pregnancy, I was done with the stupid game we’d been playing. I was done dancing around him, the tatters of our friendship, and his bitch of a girlfriend. I had someone who mattered more than all of that.
I sat up straight, braced my shoulders, and inhaled.
“If he wants to talk, then we’ll talk, but if he thinks I’m fighting Stella for him any longer, he’s wrong.”
Chapter 7
Reid
Let Her Go
I checked my phone for the umpteenth time, noting that it was, in fact, quite late. It was already nightfall, and as I stepped out of my Range Rover I wondered if I was making a mistake. Jade had to have been sleeping, but after landing at the airport only a few hours ago, I had to speak to her.
Stella and I had stayed for the rest of our trip to Cabo, while Dane, Kennedy and Grady had left soon after Jade. Every instinct in my body told me to go with them, but like the idiot I was, I stayed behind with Stella instead. She seemed a little more relaxed once we were alone, and I couldn’t help but be bothered by how much she disliked my friends. I thought it would have taken her some time to get used to our group, so I never thought much of it, but I was starting to see things now, that hadn’t been so obvious before.
I crossed the dimly lit road, and up the familiar drive way leading up to Jade’s house. My parents lived right next door, but they weren’t home, and even if they were, it was too late to call on them now anyway.
I pulled my black, leather jacket closer to my body, and fought the chill in the air as I expelled a smoky breath. I was cold, freezing, but it had less to do with the temperature and more with the chill inside me. I hadn’t spoken to Jade in days, since our confrontation at the hotel, and she’d ignored every attempt I’d made to get in touch. That only
made my already frayed nerves over what I was going to do intensify. I knew things with Stella and I couldn’t stay the same – I was unhappy – but I had no idea how to judge where that left my relationship with Jade. We were supposed to be heading back to school tomorrow, and I decided to get this out the way before we were forced to see each other every day and pretend.
Wanting some kind of resolution was what led me to her front door.
I knocked, hoping someone would still be awake, and the moment I thought no one would answer, the door opened, revealing my very own girl-next-door.
“Reid?”
Jade’s hair was tied up, and hung loosely over one shoulder, and she wore a grey U of B hoodie – my grey hoodie -, light purple sleep shorts, and a pair of white knitted Ugg boots that I’d bought her for her birthday last year. I stood there, transfixed. She looked tired though, and while I was relieved that she’d answered, I was also worried about her.
“Hey,” I said, finding my words. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Amidst the frigid winter temperature, the air between us still crackled, filling with my need to pull her to me and hold her close, and the unspoken words that could no longer remain unspoken.
“Can I come in?” I asked. I inhaled the cold air, and caught a whisper of Jade’s favorite perfume. It made my insides tingle in remembrance, knowing what her skin tasted like when mixed with that scent, and our sweat. It was both heady, and a punch to the gut, winding me all at once.
“It’s late,” she replied. “What are you doing here?”
Her voice was soft, but I caught the undercurrent of uncertainty lingering under her breath.
I shuffled on my feet, wiping my sweaty hands on the inside of my pockets, and cleared my throat. “You haven’t returned my texts or my calls,” I shivered, “We need to talk.”
She bit her lip, and hesitated slightly before swinging the door open, and stepping back so that I could walk in. The foyer was dark, but I saw light coming from the living room, and figured she must’ve been on the sofa when I knocked on the door.
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