This Is So Not Happening (5 page)

“Tell me about it,” he said, rolling his eyes.

I chose not to ponder what part he’d been thinking about the whole night. He actually did look kind of tired. His skin was waxy and his eyes were a little bloodshot. But it didn’t matter. He was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. Those junior girls who’d been watching us were probably plotting my assassination right now. Everyone wanted Jake Graydon. Even Chloe Appleby, apparently. That was just the way it worked around
here. And I couldn’t exactly blame them. But he was my boyfriend, and he was going to stay that way.

“And I realized I couldn’t be a hypocrite,” I said.

His brow knit, confused. “What do you mean?”

I looked away and lifted a shoulder. A school bus pulled up at the end of the long line of cars along the drive. The door opened with a hiss, spewing forth laughing sophomores and timid-looking freshmen.

“I mean, I did …
stuff
with Cooper this summer too,” I said, fiddling with my own fingertips. His jaw clenched, but he said nothing. This sort of icky triumphant feeling bubbled up inside of me, which made me feel like a total jerk. But is it that wrong that I thought he deserved to feel jealous too, on some level? Just this once? “You were right. We weren’t together. So unless you’re gonna hate me for Cooper, I can’t hate you for Chloe.”

Jake nodded, looking less than pleased. I bet he was wondering what “stuff” I’d done with Cooper. Good. Let him wonder.

“I know this is gonna be complicated. Like, beyond complicated,” I said. “But I love you. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Jake blew out a sigh. “Thank
God
,” he said dramatically, tipping his head back and leaning back against the brick wall. “I swear I thought I was going to have to kidnap you and make you run away with me or something. I had us living in a hut on the beach in Mexico by next weekend.”

I laughed and grabbed both his hands, lacing our fingers together. “Is that what you were up all night thinking about? Your kidnapping plot?”

“Yeah. Why? What did you think I was thinking about?” he asked innocently.

The warning bell rang and a couple of kids shrieked as they ran for the sophomore/freshman entrance. Jake and I exchanged a look of dread as the last reverberations died away. I didn’t want to go in there. I didn’t want to deal.

“How were we going to get to this beach exactly?” I asked.

He smirked and slung his arm over my shoulders. “I was thinking private jet. If you’re gonna kidnap someone, I figure you gotta go big.”

As we made our way back around to the front of the building, our steps got slower and slower. But no matter how hard we tried, eventually we arrived. Chloe and Faith were just getting up from their bench and walking inside.

“Hey, guys,” Chloe said, glancing at me uncertainly.

They were the first words Chloe had spoken to me since telling me off at Shannen’s birthday party last year, after she found out I’d kissed Hammond once when we were freshmen. I guess she realized it wouldn’t make sense to stay mad at me for kissing her man three years ago when she’d gone all the way and back with mine, like, last month. I thought about averting my eyes, walking away, giving her the cold shoulder, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. As much as it killed just to be near her, I’d never been good at being mean. It wasn’t in my DNA, even though I sometimes wished it was. Just a little.

“Hi.” I stared at Chloe’s back as we followed her inside, trying to sort through how I felt. Who was she in this scenario? An unlucky girl who got pregnant by mistake, or the evil slut who went after my man? Was it possible to be both?

“I can
not
believe you guys skipped Connor’s last night. Even Hammond and Shannen didn’t show,” Faith said, grabbing my arm. Her straight blond hair shone in the sun and she tugged
down on the skirt of her plaid dress, which she’d probably be doing for the rest of the day. I couldn’t exactly decide how I felt about her, considering she’d been a total bitch to me last year and then sucked up to me all summer. But at the moment, figuring out my friendship with Faith was pretty low on my priority list. “What were you guys up to, anyway? Having an orgy without me?” she joked.

Chloe turned green and practically flung herself inside. Jake’s grip on my hand tightened like a vice. Faith giggled and skipped ahead of us, and Jake grabbed the door before it could slam into my shoulder.

“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound normal and failing miserably.

“Anytime,” he replied, matching my tone.

Our expressions were grim as we stepped over the threshold together, hand in hand. This was it. My senior year. It was gonna be superfun.

Jump, Java, and Wail! was packed for a Wednesday night. A crowd of sophomores sat in the corner making ridiculous noise like they were the only people in the place. Probably drunk with freedom over being allowed out on a school night. I kind of remembered the feeling. Now here I was,
working
on a school night, whispering to my girlfriend about the girl whose oven I’d bunned.

I wished I was a sophomore again.

“So you didn’t talk to her? Not once?” Ally was saying.

“Nope. We have, like, one class together and every time I even looked at her she looked away.” I wiped out a wet mug with my towel and added the mug to the stack behind the counter. “I guess she’s avoiding me.”

“Huh.” Ally toyed with a box of sugar packets, mixing the white in with the brown. I was going to have to fix that later. Her dad, my manager, was kind of OCD about the sugar. “I wonder if she—”

“So what’s up, you two? How was the first day?”

Ally’s father walked up behind me and grasped my shoulder. I instantly stood up straight. Ally stopped talking and her face turned red. But her dad hadn’t overheard. Otherwise he wouldn’t have had that big-ass smile on.

“Hey, Dad,” she said, getting up on her knees on the stool to give him a hug over the counter. “It was … good.”

“Soccer practice was rough,” I added.

“How’s the team this year?” he asked, glancing up as an older couple walked through the door. Chase, the sixth-year college “student” at the register, took their order, which wasn’t that complicated, so I stayed where I was. Ally sat back down again.

“Good,” I replied. I picked up another mug to dry, but my hand was shaking, so I stopped. “We’re good.”

“And, Ally … how’s your mom? How’s the wedding planning going?”

His smile twitched and his voice broke when he said “wedding.” Guess he wasn’t cool with his ex-wife getting remarried. But from the grin he had on, he was
trying
to be. Kind of like I was trying to act normal even though I’d spent ninety percent of the day feeling like I could heave.

“Good,” Ally replied, shrugging. She looked at me instead of him. Ally wasn’t that psyched about the wedding either and I knew talking about it with her dad was tense. As much as I liked Mr. Ryan, I hated that her parents had put her in the middle of their gross love-triangle. “I haven’t really gotten that into it.”

“Don’t avoid it on my behalf, bud,” he said. “This is a huge deal for your mom. You should be there for her.”

She just stared at him. “If you say so.”

Mr. Ryan narrowed his eyes. “Are you two okay? You seem out of it.”

That was when Chloe walked in. Ally and I both froze. Chloe glanced around, and when she saw Ally, I think she almost backed out again. But then she changed her mind and came over. Then Keisha called Mr. Ryan over for some help with something.

“I’ll be back,” he promised, eyeing us.

“Great,” I said under my breath.

Luckily he didn’t hear me.

Chloe hung on to the strap of her bag as she stopped nearby. “Hi, guys.”

Ally stared down at her hands. Now she was the one who looked ready to heave.

“Hey,” I said.

I wiped my palms over and over on the towel. They were sweating like crazy.

“Um, Jake? Can I talk to you for a second?” Chloe asked.

Her eyes kept darting around. From me to Ally to Ally’s dad to the loud-ass losers by the window. She looked like she wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. From the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Ryan head back to his office. Once the door was closed, I found my voice.

“What’s up?” I asked.

Chloe shot Ally a look. “Alone?”

My teeth clicked together. “Ally knows everything. We can talk here.”

Chloe touched her face, then her elbow, then her stomach. It was like she was uncomfortable in her own skin. Finally she let out a sigh.

“Fine. Okay. I was just wondering … I have a doctor’s appointment this Friday at five.” Her voice was so quiet I could barely hear her over the gurgling cappuccino machine behind me. “Would you come with me? Please? I don’t want to go alone.”

I felt like somebody had just flipped on one of those bright police spotlights right in my face. “Why?”

Ally’s eyes kind of bugged out. Chloe looked like she was about to cry. What? That wasn’t a valid question?

“Sorry. I just … I have practice, so …”

Ally looked away. She went digging in her bag like a raccoon in a garbage can. Okay. Clearly I was doing something wrong here.

“You can leave practice a few minutes early, right?” Chloe said. “I just … don’t think I can do this by myself and no one else knows, so …”

My stomach felt hollow. And even though this was about the last thing on the face of the earth I ever wanted to do, I couldn’t say no. Not with Chloe looking so scared and sad.

“Um, okay,” I said. “Sure.”

“Thanks.” Chloe put her keys down on the counter and pushed her hair back from her face with both hands. She sat down next to Ally and sort of slumped. Ally automatically put her hands up to steady her.

“Are you okay?” Ally asked.

“Yeah, I just … I need something to eat,” she said. “I get hungry and two seconds later, I get dizzy.” She looked at me. “Can I have a muffin or something?”

“Yeah.” I rushed to get one for her, snatching it out of the pastry case with the metal tongs and dropping it in front of her like a grenade. Chloe picked one of the crumbs off the top and placed it carefully on her tongue. She chewed it so slowly you’d think I’d fed her snails.

Ally and I stared at each other. I could tell she wanted me to say something, but what? I was so sure I’d say the wrong thing—kind of like I just had when she asked me to go to the doctor—that panic started to rise up inside my chest, blocking everything else out. Ally finally saved my ass.

“How are you … I mean, have you been feeling okay?” Ally asked her.

I felt this warm rush, guilty that I hadn’t been the one to ask, and grateful that Ally was being so cool. I clicked the tongs together at my side over and over again.

“Yeah. Just the dizziness,” Chloe said, slowly putting another crumb in her mouth. “And I’m nauseous in the mornings, until I eat.”

She reached for her bag and took out her wallet.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Paying for the muffin.”

“No. It’s fine. It’s on me,” I told her.

Ally kind of smiled, her lips tight and flat. At least I’d done something right.

“Thanks,” Chloe said. “I should go.” She slid off the stool, taking the muffin with her. “I’ll pick you up at the field on Friday?”

“Um, yeah,” I said.

Even though Hammond would probably kill me. I clenched the tongs together so tight I thought they might break.

“Actually, better let me meet you there,” I said. “I’m gonna have to make up an excuse, and you picking me up would kind of kill whatever I come up with.”

“Okay. I’ll text you the address,” Chloe said. She looked at Ally. “Thanks for being so cool about this. After what I said to you at Shannen’s party and now this … I don’t know why you don’t hate me.”

Ally cleared her throat. She shifted on her stool and rubbed her palms together between her legs. “Don’t worry about it.” She cleared her throat again. “If you ever need anything …”

She trailed off and let the thought die. I wasn’t sure any of us believed it anyway.

Chloe looked at the floor. “Thanks. I’ll see you guys at school.”

Then she practically ran out. It took a second for me to start breathing again. The sophomores in the corner laughed suddenly and loudly, and I wanted to fling my tongs at their heads.

“That was cool of you,” Ally said. “Saying you’ll go with her.”

“Yeah,” I said, placing the tongs down on the counter. I leaned forward, my elbows on the marble, and put my hands over hers. “I can’t believe you were so nice to her.”

Ally’s eyebrows shot up. “I was? I totally froze.”

“No, really. You’re amazing,” I said, hanging my head. “And I suck.”

“You don’t suck,” she said lightly. She took one of her hands out and put it on top of mine. “This whole thing sucks.”

I nodded, and stared down at the mound of our tangled-up fingers. I was going to the doctor on Friday. The lady doctor. With the girl who was going to have my baby. I held on to Ally so tightly I was surprised she didn’t squirm. We just sat there like that for the longest time. Me clinging to her, her letting me, until the line at the register got too long to ignore, and I had to let go.

Life’s just weird. One second there’s tons of stuff that matters so much it’s stressing you out like crazy. Like getting my recruitment website just right. Making lists of coaches and scouts to call once the season started. Figuring out which schools to apply to and whether I wanted to be close to home or far away. Last week, it was life-consuming.

But I hadn’t thought about any of it since Tuesday night. Not once.

On Friday morning, I sat at the huge island in the center of Gray’s kitchen, my Frosted Flakes getting soggier and soggier as I stared at the babycenter.com website on my computer. I’d gone there thinking I could maybe figure out what Chloe’s options were, and the first thing I’d seen was a due-date predictor. They wanted you to put in the date of your last period, and then they’d tell you when the baby was due. Of course, I had no idea when Chloe’s last period had been. When had they had sex? June? July? August? How pregnant was she, exactly? Did her baby look like a cell sac, or was it already the size of a walnut, like the picture in front of me?