Believe in Us (Jett #2)

by Amy Sparling

  “Okay, well I guess I won’t say anything.” When I stand up, it feels like I’m back in control of my own body now that I’m no longer falling over the cliff of panic.

  “You can’t tell anyone, Mom says again. “We haven’t done the procedure yet and Becca doesn’t want anyone to know until I’m officially pregnant and we know that it’ll work out.”

  I nod, but I must look uncertain because Mom’s eyes narrow. “Do not tell Keanna. Don’t tell anyone.”

  I hate lying to my mom but I’m definitely not lying to Keanna.

  As soon as we go on lunch break, I slip out of the gym where I’d been serving as a personal trainer for a fourteen-year-old boy I’ve been helping my dad train. Keanna smiles when I find her at the front desk. She grabs her purse. “Taco Bell today? We haven’t had it in a while.”

  “Whatever you want is fine,” I say, taking her hand. We slip into my truck and I blast the radio while we sit in the parking lot. It’s not like anyone can overhear me but I’m not taking any chances since I totally lied to my mom. When the music is nice and loud, I tell Keanna every single thing my parents told me.

  “Wow.” Keanna touches her throat. “So, I guess that’s good right?” Her voice gets higher. “I mean yeah, that’s awesome for them. Yay for Becca . . .”

  “Why are you acting like a crazy person?” I ask.

  She shakes her head quickly and reaches for the radio button, changing channels. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t seem fine.”

  I have to work on her all the way to Taco Bell before she finally tells me what’s wrong. Her lip quivers and she gives me that look—the same fearful face I’d seen the night her mom left her for good.

  “I know this makes me a terrible person, but if Becca has a baby . . . she won’t want some teenager living at her house anymore.”

  “Keanna, that won’t happen,” I say, brushing her hair behind her ears. She shakes her head and disagrees with me and I remember Dad’s words to just listen and not try to fix everything.

  So I listen, right here in the parking lot of the Taco Bell, as Keanna pours out all of her insecurities and worries. I want to tell her that it’ll be fine, but I’m not sure she’d believe me if I did.

  Chapter 5

  Keeping this secret has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. I spend nearly all of my time with Becca when I’m not with Jett, and it’s been completely insane trying to hide what I know. It doesn’t help at all that Becca is being overly happy and excited all of the time. Even if I didn’t know that she was trying to have a baby, I’d suspect that something was up.

  For the next few days, Becca is like a freaking ray of sunshine floating on clouds and spewing hearts of happiness out of her eyes. Nothing at work gets her down—not even when she spills her coffee and it gets all over her white jeans. She just giggles and calls herself a klutz and then runs home to change clothes.

  “It’s cute but it’s weird,” I tell Jett during our lunch break on Thursday. Well, it’s my lunch break. Jett is working out in the gym and I’m sitting next to his weight bench. “Lately Becca is like some kind of . . . well, I can’t even think of an example to compare her to because no one is as happy as she is lately.”

  “I wonder how long she’ll take to tell us about it,” Jett says, exhaling as he lowers the weight bar. He does another rep and then sits up and reaches for his sweat towel. “You think she’d be dying to tell everyone since she’s so excited about it.”

  I peel off a dirt bike sticker that some kid stuck to the floor the other day. “Who knows? Women are weird when it comes to babies.”

  I don’t really know this from personal experience since my own mother only talked about how annoying babies are, but I’ve seen enough movies and TV shows to know that baby fever drives women crazy. That’s why some of them go off and kidnap babies to raise as their own. I shudder.

  “What is it?” Jett asks.

  My phone alarm goes off, signaling the end of my lunch break. “Just thinking about baby-stealing crazies,” I say with a shrug.

  He lifts an eyebrow as he leans over to kiss me goodbye. “You’re a weirdo.”

  I run my tongue over his lips just to prove him right. “So are you!” I say as I head back into the hallway and toward the front desk. I actually forgot to get anything for lunch because once I saw Jett shirtless and working out, I kind of forgot all about food. Now my stomach is growling. Guh.

  Two teen girls are talking to Becca when I get back to the front desk. “Ah,” Becca says, turning to me. “This is Jett’s girlfriend, so you should probably ask her.”

  She gives me a warm smile. Uh, okay.

  “Hi?” I say to the girls. I realize now that they’re dressed to kill as far as Texas summers go. Short shorts and skin tight tank tops, perfect hair and perfect makeup.

  The brunette speaks first. “You’re Jett’s girlfriend?”

  “I’m Keanna, yeah.” I look back for Becca but she’s already gone, slipped through the back exit for her lunch break.

  “Jett’s girlfriend?” The other girl says with a pretty Spanish accent.

  “Um, yeah.” Why is that so hard for them to believe? I put my hands on the front desk. “Can I help you?”

  They give me the look over, and it’s exactly like in the movies when the bitchy girls are making a pointed example out of the loser girl. “What’s wrong?” I ask, suddenly fed up with all of this dumb drama. “You look like you can’t possibly believe that I’m Jett’s girlfriend. Well, I am. He’s in the gym if you’d like to verify.”

  “It’s not exactly the who I’m questioning,” the brunette girl says. “It’s the why. Jett doesn’t settle down.”

  I know they’re trying to get a rise out of me, to make me question my relationship. But it’s not going to work. “Guess you don’t know him very well,” I say, turning my attention to the computer behind the front desk. There’s nothing on here worth looking at but I take the mouse and pretend to click on stuff. It’s only been a few weeks but Jett has promised me he’s not the guy he used to be. He’s asked me to trust him and I guess I knew this kind of thing would happen one day, so I keep my head high and act like I’m not effected at all. After all, the more I pretend like my life is perfect, the more I’ll start to believe it.

  *

  After work, Jett texts me that he’s helping his dad with a client so he won’t be free until later tonight. I go home to shower and Becca finds me when I’m drying my hair. Her brown hair has been curled and is tossed up in a messy bun. She’s wearing yoga pants and a tank top but you’d think she’s been at the spa all day with how much she’s glowing.

  It’s getting really hard keeping the baby thing a secret from her. I wish she would just hurry up and tell me.

  “Where’s Jett?” she asks, leaning inside my room.

  “Working,” I say while I put up the hair dryer. “What’s up?”

  “Want to help me cook dinner? I’m thinking something easy like chalupas.”

  “Sounds good,” I say. Part of me thinks it’s a little dorky to have only two friends—your boyfriend and a thirty-four-year-old woman who is also your caretaker. But the other part of me remembers what my life was like before I met these people. Constant moving around, craft fairs, cheap motel rooms that smelled like urine and cigar smoke. I didn’t have a single friend back then; just my mom and I don’t count her as a friend at all. She wasn’t even that good of a caretaker.

  When I was in school, I’d keep to myself or manage to make maybe one or two friends who never really got me. Sure, I had guys who only wanted a hookup, but there was never any kind of connection there. Hooking up with guys gets really, really, old.

  Here in this tiny little town, I have two adult friends, Becca and Bayleigh, and one hell of an amazing boyfriend. Even if it only lasts for the summer, even if I have to move away once I’m eighteen and the Parks want their house to themselves and their new baby, it won’t matter. I’ll still be happy that I
got one perfect summer with people I care about.

  Becca and I go about making chalupas, which is probably the easiest dinner ever, second only to a bowl of cereal. I chop up lettuce and avocado and she cooks the refried beans. Park comes in when we’re almost finished, his hair all sweaty from a day of work. “Smells great,” he says as he gives Becca a quick kiss on the lips. “I’m going to shower real quick, will you save me some?”

  “Of course,” Becca says. Her eyes trail down to her husband’s feet. “Those shoes better not be tracking dirt in the house.”

  Park winces and bends down to remove his shoes. He tiptoes them to the back door and then tosses them outside.

  Becca laughs and shakes her head and then she joins me at the dining table, her plate filled high with extra cheese and black olives.

  “So,” she says after I’ve eaten a few bites of my dinner. I tense as I look at her. That wasn’t a casual so. It had something else hidden behind it. Something she wants to talk about.

  “What’s up?” My mouth is suddenly dry. I reach for my soda but it doesn’t help much.

  “We should look into getting the transcripts from your last school. That way we can get you registered for Lawson High next week.”

  She gives me this encouraging smile. This isn’t the first time she’s brought up enrolling in school for next year, but it is getting late enough in the summer that I won’t be able to put it off much longer. I know I need to go to school, so that’s not the big deal, I guess. I think the reason I don’t want to deal with any of this is because I hated my last school. I don’t like thinking about any of it. I just want to float through life being happy and carefree just like the last few weeks. I don’t want school and the fear of having enough lunch money, or the right clothes, or friends. I know Jett says all of those things won’t be a big deal, and I pretty much believed him until I heard about the baby thing.

  Now that Becca will have a baby in nine months, I need to find a way to get out of her house. That means saving money and not stupidly blowing it all on clothes. Looking for a cheap apartment and maybe a car to get around since Lawson doesn’t have public transportation. All of this will take a lot of work—a ton of work—and it scares the shit out of me so yeah, forgive me if I don’t want to talk about enrolling in a new school right now.

  “I don’t think we have to worry about it,” I say, trying to put on a soft smile. “I think I’ll just get my GED and—”

  “What?” Becca flinches. “Honey, you can’t drop out of school.”

  “I won’t be dropping out, I’ll be getting a GED.” I hold up my finger and try to be convincing. “It’s way better than dropping out.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Keanna . . . you shouldn’t be so quick to give up high school. It’s your senior year,” she says, putting emphasis on the last two words as if they’re super important. “You should have fun and take fun classes, do high school stuff.” Her eyes light up. “Prom! You can’t miss out on prom. And Senior Skip Day is a blast . . . you’ll miss out on all of that if you just get a GED.”

  I stare at my food and try to picture a world where I actually went to prom and had a real date. I never thought that would be possible before now. Now, I can almost picture Jett looking stunningly handsome in a black tux, and me, dressed in one of those frilly, sparkly dresses. We could even pose in front of the fireplace like everyone else does.

  “See?” Becca says, pointing at me with her half-eaten chalupua. “I can tell you’re thinking about it. High school should be fun, and senior year is the best. You get to be lazy and take blow off classes for the second semester. You should really go, sweetheart.”

  Things like honey and sweetheart are terms of endearment that Becca has been calling me pretty much since the day I moved in. I don’t deserve the pet names but she gives them out freely, as if she knows they make me feel wanted. Like I belong.

  I smile. “You’re going to be a great mom one day.”

  Becca blinks. Her cheeks flush and she reaches for her glass of wine. “Thank you, dear. I don’t know what made that come into your mind.”

  “You’re just really nice to me and I’m not even your kid,” I say, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Anyway, I appreciate what you’re saying but I’m just not sure I should stay here and go to school for another year. I’ll be eighteen in November and that’s not far away.”

  She purses her lips but I keep talking. “So I think I could probably get a GED before November and then when I’m eighteen I’ll just move out of here and get out of your hair.”

  “Keanna!”

  I flinch. For a second, Becca sounded exactly like Dawn used to when she’d yell at me. Becca sighs through her nose and then drops her food onto her plate and looks at me. “Keanna, don’t say that. You are not in my hair at all. I love having you here. I—”

  She stops and sighs. When she tries to talk again, she gets all flustered. “I just—Keanna, no.” Her lips flatten into a thin line. “Just think it over some more, okay? You are welcome to stay here as long as you want, honey. I can’t stress that enough. Do not skip out on having a great senior year experience just because you think you need to leave.”

  The way she’s acting, all flustered and weird, makes me think there’s more to this than she’s letting on. Maybe I’m just reading into it, but I don’t think she’s being weird because of the baby thing. I think it’s something else.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?” I ask slowly, not sure if I want to hear it, whatever it is. “You look like you want to say something but you’re not. Is it my mom?” My voice trembles but she shakes her head.

  “No, there’s nothing. I haven’t heard from Dawn, have you?”

  I shake my head. I haven’t even texted my mother from my new phone yet. Becca smiles and reaches for the bowl of shredded cheese. “I just worry about you, kid. I don’t want you to make any mistakes. You have a whole future ahead and I’m here for you, okay?”

  I nod and I don’t bring it up again while we eat dinner, but I’m not stupid. There’s something else, something not related to having a baby, and she’s not telling me.

  That means it must be important.

  Chapter 6

  As soon as I’m home from work, I text Keanna and ask her to come over. She writes me back with a smiley face and I feel a sense of relief. Every day that she still wants to hang out with me is a good day. This is the first time I’ve ever felt this way about a girl—like I can’t get enough of her. Usually girls get annoying after an hour or so. Texting, phone calls, lunch dates? Hell no. Not until now.

  Now I come home from work and pray that she’ll want to come over, that I’ll get the little smiley face reply day after day. So far she’s never said no. I fear the day that she grows tired of me.

  I do a quick cleanup of my room, tossing dirty clothes into the hamper, pulling my bed sheets up so that the bed is sort of made. We usually spend all of our time on my futon in front of my TV, but I want the place to look nice anyway.

  Then I jog downstairs and wait for her on the back patio. Her face glows from her cell phone screen as she walks over.

  “You should play this game,” she says, pointing her phone toward me. The screen is a mixture of colors and shapes. “It’s so addicting.”

  “You’re addicting,” I say, slipping my arms around her and kissing her neck. That gets her to put the phone away. Her arms wrap around me and I hold her tightly, squeezing her up into a bear hug for as long as she’ll let me. I breathe in the scent of her green apple shampoo and then kiss her head.

  “So what do you want to do tonight?”

  Her lips move to the side and she pretends to consider it for a moment. “How about the same thing we always do?”

  “And what is that? I forgot.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Make out and watch TV?”

  “I believe the cool kids are calling that Netflix and chill.”

  She crinkles her nose. “I don’t want to be a cool
kid. I want to be us.”

  We go inside and Keanna says hi to my parents who are cuddled up on the couch, watching a movie on TV. Mom says something back, asking her about some nail salon and Keanna breaks free from my hand and walks over to talk to her.

  I make this loud sigh and pretend to stomp over there like a petulant child. “Mother, how many times do I have to ask you to stop stealing my girlfriend?”

  “This is your fault,” she says, giving me that classic mom look. “You shouldn’t have dated such a cool girl and maybe I wouldn’t want to walk to her.”

  Keanna laughs and high fives my mom. Dad takes the remote and pauses their movie. “What are you guys up to?”

  I shrug. “We’re gonna Netflix and chill.”

  Dad looks confused and Mom’s eyes brighten. “Hey, that’s what we’re doing!” She elbows Dad. “See Jace? We’re still cool.”

  “Netflix and chill is internet slang for a booty call,” Keanna says all matter-of-factly. “Looks like someone didn’t tell your son that, though.”

  My cheeks burn and it only gets worse when both of my parents laugh at me. “Okay, maybe we’re not that cool anymore,” Mom says.

  I grab Keanna’s hand. “Can we please leave these two old geezers to watch their movie in peace?”

  She grins. “I guess, but your parents are so much cooler to talk to than you.” She pokes me in the stomach, a playful smile on her lips.

  Mom holds out her hand for another high-five from my girlfriend. As we head over to the stairs, Dad calls out, “Have fun Netflixing and chilling!”

  Mom laughs and says, “Be safe!”

  “Oh my god,” Keanna murmurs under her breath as we walk up the stairs. “Do you think they think we’re having sex when we’re up here?”

  I shrug. “Of course they do. We’re teenagers.”