Effortless (45 page)

Running her hand through her hair, Anna continued to stare at
the sticks in her other palm. “I need a drink,” she muttered.

She started to twist her body, like she was headed to the
kitchen. I grabbed her arm. “Anna, you can’t drink, not if you’re
preg—” She glared at me nearly saying the dreaded word again and I
quickly changed it to, “not if you’re with child.”

I smiled at my turn-of-phrase, Anna frowned. “Damn it! This
sucks already.”

Forcefully taking the sticks from her, I made her sit on the
couch, away from them. Her eyes watched the various tests in my
hand. I almost felt like I could wave her into a trance with them,
like a snake charmer at a circus. I wished I could, since every ten
seconds she asked, “Anything?”

Glancing every time, I responded with, “No, be patient.”

Around the tenth time she asked and I glanced, I noticed
something. When I didn’t answer her immediately, Anna stood up. I
held her back with a hand, trying to remember if, on this
particular brand, two dashes was a good thing…because I was
definitely seeing two.

“What? What’s the verdict?” she asked, agitated as she grabbed
my hand keeping her back.

“I don’t know yet, Anna.”

Narrowing my eyes, hoping that I was remembering the directions
wrong, I looked for the one that used plain English to spell out
your fate. As the words blossomed to life right in front of my
eyes, I nearly felt like crying.

My sister was nearly frantic with worry when I looked up at her.
In the loudest voice I could muster, I whispered, “You’re
pregnant…they’re positive.”

Her eyes widened and glossed over. Dropping my arm, she quietly
asked, “All of them?” like somehow if just one said no, it would
negate the rest.

I glanced at them again, then up to her. All of the ones without
words were similar—two dashes, a dash and a plus sign, one even had
a smiley face. Adding that to the one that joyfully pronounced
PREGNANT
and it could only mean one thing.

I nodded and gave her a sad smile. “All of them.
Congratulations, Anna, you’re gonna have a baby.”

She started sobbing…and not because she was happy.

When Anna gathered herself, she seemed convinced that she could
change the outcome of technology. “No!” Grabbing the sticks, she
started marching her way to the bathroom. On the way, she screamed,
“No fucking way! These are wrong. I am NOT pregnant!”

I gingerly followed behind the angry-at-fate woman, trying to
help her without getting my head torn off. After she slammed the
bathroom door shut, I timidly knocked on it. “Anna? What are you
doing?”

Her voice trembling with fear and rage, she yelled, “I’m taking
the rest of them! Because they’re wrong! There’s no way that fucker
knocked me up! None!”

I sighed, not wanting to tell her that it was possible. Griffin
may be an idiot, but his sperm could still swim…apparently. Very
quietly, I asked, “Are you sure it was Griffin?”

I cringed after I asked, knowing the temperamental woman would
probably throttle me for kind of calling her a slut for a second
time. The door cracked open and twin emerald eyes blazed at me.
“Yes…I’m…sure.”

She slammed the door shut again and I winced. “Okay, just
checking…”

When it was silent for a long time, I slowly opened the door.
Anna had every test lined around the small sink. They were all
various colors and styles, and the results screens showed various
forms of words or symbols, but the results were the same on every
single one of them.

Confirmed by a dozen different tests…Anna was pregnant.

She looked back up at me, teary eyed, her anger sapped. “What do
I do, Kiera?”

I stepped into the room and hugged the lost woman. She seemed
completely thrown, and I’d never seen my sister thrown. She tended
to roll with whatever life gave her, breezing from place to place,
man to man, job to job. A child though…that was a permanent
responsibility that she couldn’t flit away from.

“You’ll do the best you can, Anna, and I’ll help you as much as
I can.”

I pulled back to look at her and she broke away from me, taking
a step back in the small room. Shaking her head, she sputtered,
“No, I can’t do this, Kiera. I’m not you. I’m not responsible or
reliable or even that smart.” She tossed her hands up in the air.
“I work at Hooters for fuck’s sake. All I have is nice hair and a
great rack. What the hell do I have to offer a kid?”

Sighing, I put my hand on her arm. “You’ll do better than you
think, and I know you, you’ll love that baby…so much. And what more
does a baby need, but love?”

Tears down her cheeks, she shook her head again. “I can’t do
this…I don’t want to. I don’t want kids, I’ve never wanted kids.”
She ran her hands back through her hair, groaning. “Oh my God…Dad!
He’s going to kill me. Mom…she’ll never look at me the same…”

Sniffling, she covered her face for a second and I patted her
arm. “They’ll…come around, Anna. They’ll be proud grandparents, and
you and Griffin—”

She dropped her hands, her jaw dropping. “Griffin…oh my God.
Griffin is going to be a father!” She said it like she just now
realized what his role in all of this was going to be.

I rubbed her arm supportively. “Yeah, that’s kind of how it
works, Anna.”

Shaking her head, her face still in disbelief, she said,
“Griffin can’t be a dad, Kiera. He just can’t.” She pointed out the
bathroom window, to where our boys were miles and miles away from
us. “He blows pot into puppy’s faces, Kiera! Can you picture him
around a child?”

I cringed. Nope, not in a million years. I tried to switch it to
a placating smile, but Anna noticed my expression. In some attempt
to reassure her, I said, “Well, you’ll have me and Kellan and Evan,
and Matt especially, since he’s family. They’ll…keep Griffin in
check.”

Sighing, she closed the toilet seat and sat on it.
“Griffin…he’ll think I did this on purpose, like those groupies
they were warned about.” She looked up at me, fresh tears in her
eyes. “He’ll never want to be with me again.”

Tears in my own eyes, I shook my head. “Anna, he won’t…” I
closed my mouth. No, Anna was right. It’s exactly what he would
think. Shaking my head, I shrugged. “I’m sorry.” 

I swallowed back the tears threatening to spill over as sympathy
washed through me. Whatever was between her and Griffin, it was
clear that Anna genuinely did like him, maybe love him even. I
wasn’t sure, but I knew it was over now, and I knew how much an
ending relationship hurt.

Watching my struggling emotions, Anna suddenly stood up. “I’m
gonna be sick…” I moved to hug her, thinking her pain was
emotional, but she held one hand out to me and one to her mouth.
“No, I’m really gonna be sick.”

Turning around, she quickly opened the toilet lid and proceeded
to throw up in it. Holding her hair back, I rubbed her shoulder
while she rested her head on her arm. She sniffled a few times,
breathing heavier, then her anger seemed to resurface.

Shooting up to her feet, she wiped her mouth off on a nearby
towel. As I gave her whatever words of encouragement I could think
of, she grabbed the paper bag from the drug store and started
shoving all of the tests inside of it. Crumpling up the bag, she
stormed out of the bathroom.

Curious which way the emotional woman was going to swing now, I
followed her out. Oddly enough, she stormed into my room. “Anna…now
what are you doing?”

Opening one of my dresser drawers, she shoved the bag inside and
closed it. Glaring, she looked back at me. “No, this isn’t
happening. This is just some weird dream that I’m going to wake up
from any minute.”

Dropping my mouth open, I pointed at the bag in my drawer.
“You’re not dreaming, Anna. That did happen, and you need to deal
with it now.”

She gave me a blank look as she started to walk out of the room.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kiera.”

I grabbed her shoulders as she walked past me. She didn’t look
at me. “You can’t just wish this away, Anna. It’s going to happen
to you whether you want to acknowledge it or not.”

Her face completely emotionless, she finally turned to look at
me. “No, Kiera…it
doesn’t
have to happen.”

All of the blood drained from my face, from my body. Did she
mean…? I couldn’t believe my sister would contemplate that. I knew
she was freaking out, I knew she was distraught, but…I couldn’t
believe she’d even consider…ending the pregnancy. “Anna…you
can’t…”

She jerked away from me, a trace of emotion back on her
features. “I don’t know yet, Kiera, okay. I just…I need to let this
sink in for a few days, alright?”

I nodded at her, swallowing. Thinking was a good thing. Head
down, she started to leave my room. At the door she stopped and
looked back. “Don’t tell anyone about this, Kiera, please? Not Mom
or Dad, not Jenny, not Kellan or Denny…no one.”

I sighed and took a step towards her. “Anna, you don’t have to
do this alone.”

She shook her head and held her hand out to stop me. “Please? If
I decide to have an abor… If I decide to stop this, I don’t want
any of them to ever know. Ever. Please? I haven’t told Kellan about
your little secret! And I totally covered for you when you were in
the hospital after the Denny-Kellan fiasco, made up some stupid
story about your appendix bursting when Dad got the bill…you owe me
this.”

Her voice wavered so bad, it betrayed how much this decision was
eating at her. I knew my sister wasn’t a cold person that could end
a life on a whim, but I knew the idea of bringing a baby into the
world scared the crap out of her, especially in her weird situation
with Griffin. Hoping she’d come around if I gave her space and
silence, I nodded. “Alright, I promise you I will not say a word…to
anyone.”

She nodded and turned to leave and I grabbed her arm. “But you
have to tell me… before you do it.” Tears dripping down my cheeks
now, I shook my head. “If you decide not to keep it, you tell me
before…not after, okay?”

Her eyes watered, tears slowly leaving them and trailing down
her splotched cheeks. Pulling her into a hug, I added, “That’s my
niece or nephew in there. You have to at least give me one last
chance to talk you out of it. And if I can’t…you have to let me go
with you…to hold your hand.”

When I pulled back, tears were streaming down her face and she
nodded, hiccupping back a sob. My own face as wet as hers, I cupped
her cheeks. “I love you, Anna. I know you’ll do…what’s best.”

She nodded, then turned and left. 

The next few weeks were all about my sister. We spent my spring
break holed up in the apartment, me trying to convince her to see a
doctor, her telling me no, throwing up in the bathroom, then crying
on her bed for hours.

I’d go sit with her and stroke her hair. I pointed to her
Hooters calendar on the wall, told her she was beautiful, and that
this was her month to shine. It was April now, and her gorgeous
face was proudly featured for the world to see this month.
Complaining that she felt bloated and fat already and her tight
outfit was getting tighter every day, she’d torn down the calendar
and shoved it in her nightstand.

I hoped on a daily basis that her job wouldn’t influence her
decision on whether to keep the baby or not. She was kind of top
dog at her restaurant, the only girl there that had made the
calendar. I wasn’t sure if they’d let her continue to be a waitress
once she started showing. I mean, I’d never seen a pregnant girl in
an opaque tank top and super-tight boy shorts. But I knew that
legally she had rights, and if she ever gave her job as an excuse
to terminate the baby, I’d bombard her with a list of them.

I walked on eggshells when I was near her, trying to not freak
the stressed woman out. And it didn’t take much to stress her out.
I didn’t entirely blame her for that, her situation was scary and
daunting, plus she was being flooded with mood-altering hormones on
a daily basis, but I did snap at her to back off when she rudely
snarked at me that the smell of coffee made her want to hurl, and I
needed to stop bringing it into the house.

She cried when I barked my response at her and I instantly felt
bad and stopped making coffee in the mornings. I guess I could
suffer through a few days of caffeine withdrawal to help her.
Especially if it helped to convince her that she could be a mom.
And I knew she could. Under all the carefree playfulness was a
woman with a great well of love in her. She may not have found the
right man to share it with yet, but I knew it was there.

I even invited her to another one of Jenny’s six week long art
courses. Why I kept signing up with her, I still had no idea. Pity,
I guess, since I still felt bad about the whole Boise trip.

Anna grudgingly came with me, sulking and moping the entire time
as she sat beside me. Jenny raised an eyebrow at the woman who was
generally bubbly and happy, but didn’t ask about it. Maybe she
figured Griffin had been an ass to her. And…he definitely had, he
just wasn’t aware of it yet.

Nobody was. Anna still wouldn’t let me tell anyone, not even
Denny, and he’d noticed her mood right away. Probably because he’d
come over to pick me up for a movie and Anna hadn’t given him a
dirty look. She’d barely even glanced at him as she’d muttered,
“Have a good time. One of us should…”

She was always saying things like that, like she’d just received
word that she had a fatal disease and only had nine months to live.
I told her repeatedly that she had a great support system and she
could still have a life after a child, but I was pretty sure she
didn’t believe me. She was still pregnant, though, seven weeks
according to an online due date calendar. I kept my fingers crossed
that I’d be holding my niece or nephew by the end of November.

Looking a little green, Anna watched the teacher explain the
object of today’s lesson. Anna groaned loudly, when she saw what is
was. Today we were drawing people, and not just any people…today we
were drawing children.

Rolling my eyes, I cursed fate and wished today had been an
abstract day. Anna seemed to agree with me and partially stood from
her stool, like she was going to leave.

Her perfect pony tail swishing along her back, Kate tilted her
head and asked Anna, “You alright? You look like you’re going to be
ill.”

Anna’s eyes widened, but she sat and picked up her pencil. As
two cute-as-a-button ten-year-old kids sat down to be our models
for the afternoon, Anna sighed and muttered, “I’m fine.” I took a
second to at least thank fate for not having our model be a
sleeping infant. I think that would have driven poor Anna over the
edge.

Jenny was already busy working on her project when the rest of
us finally started. I sighed, watching her flawlessly draw out the
basic shape of a human head. Mine looked like Mr. Potato-Head. I
still couldn’t quite get the hang of realism…and this was my
umpteenth class.

Jenny smiled over at me when I sighed morosely. “You’ll get
there, Kiera,” she said warmly, any trace of a fight lingering
between us gone.

Jenny didn’t hold grudges for long, which was a good thing.
Plus, she’d gone to see Evan while I’d been on break. She’d called
to ask me to go to Texas with her and Rachel, but I’d had to stay
with Anna, to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid while I was
gone, and Anna did
not
want to see Griffin yet. Hating
that I was missing out on spending a week with Kellan, I’d told
Jenny that I couldn’t go. I don’t think Jenny understood why, but
any resentment she’d had towards me had faded when she got
back.

Sighing again, I erased part of the line I’d just drawn. “I
don’t know why I keep coming to these classes with you. I’ll never
be good at this.” Jenny laughed a little and I joined in with her.
“I guess I’m trying to be well-rounded.”

Giggling, Jenny pointed at my misshapen person. “Well, I think
you need the practice, cuz that looks oblong to me.”

I smacked her on the shoulder, then watched, amazed, as she went
back to her incredibly lifelike drawing. I was horrid at this, and
Kate was okay, but Jenny…she was amazing.

By the end of the class, I had something that could possibly
pass for a mammal. That beat my sister, though…she had a stick
figure. Kate’s was good, a little un-proportional, but good.
Jenny’s took my breath away. She’d decided to not draw the offered
models. Well, maybe she had drawn them, but she’d chosen to draw
them as babies.

I wasn’t sure if Jenny was just having an,
I love my man and
I want to have his kids someday
moment, or if she’d maybe
subconsciously picked up on something, but the infants she’d turned
the models into were perfect. Almost real.

“Wow, Jenny…wow.” It was all I could think to say.

A scraping noise on the other side of me brought my attention
back around to Anna. She’d scooted her chair away from her easel
and was staring at Jenny’s picture with her jaw dropped. One hand
was resting on her stomach as her eyes slowly glassed over.

I put my hand on her thigh right as Jenny asked, “You okay,
Anna?”

My sister nodded, not looking up at the artist. “Yeah, that’s
just…really good, Jenny.”

The perky blonde beamed at Anna’s awed face. “Thanks! I’m glad
you like it so much. Do you want it?”

Anna finally glanced up at her, her eyes getting thicker by the
second. “You’d give it to me?”

Jenny shrugged, tearing it off the paper stand. “Yeah, I was
just goofing around.” Rolling it up, she handed it to Anna. “Here,
since it moves you so much, you should have it.”

Anna took it with trembling fingers. I thought she might break
down into a sobbing, hysterical, hormonal mess, but swallowing a
few times, she managed to wrangle in her mood and smile at Jenny.
“Thank you, I really like it.”

Leaning close to my sister, I quietly asked her if she was
okay.

She nodded. “Yeah.” Looking me in the eyes, she jerked her thumb
over her shoulder. “I’m not feeling so hot. I think I’m going to go
home and crash.”

I nodded at her and patted her shoulder. As she left, Kate
bunched her brows together, her topaz eyes seeming a little
confused. “Is your sister…alright?”

Thinking about the look on her face as she’d stared at Jenny’s
infants, I smiled. “Yeah, yeah I think she’ll be just fine.”

Since the lot of us didn’t have anything to do until work later
tonight, we headed over to one of my favorite coffee spots. Since
Anna had banned the substance from our home, I’d started going out
to get it. It was a heck of a lot more expensive, but I was a
fulltime student with a fulltime job. Smart or not, I needed all
the help I could get.

Kate, Jenny and I sat in a booth in the back, since we planned
on hanging out here for a while. Rachel joined our group after
Jenny texted her, and the party of four quickly turned into a
gossip session about boys. Kate especially stroked the
conversation, wanting to hear all about our loves, since she still
didn’t have one.

Biting my lip, I thought about mine. I thought about Kellan and
the thing he was hiding from me. He’d almost told me a couple of
times, and that last time, the time before our intimate session
over the phone, he’d been choked up over how to do it.

His words flew through my brain as Rachel quietly admitted that
Matt was an excellent kisser.

God, this is hard…

Kellan’s words mixed with Denny’s warning in my brain and ice
formed in my stomach.

If you think he’s cheating on you, Kiera…then he probably
is…

Finally getting a chance to think about it, now that the stress
with my sister was on a back burner for a moment, I considered all
of the conversations with Kellan recently. While always sounding
glad to talk to me, and always eager to try and turn me on, he also
seemed…worn, tired, like he was carrying a weight with him.

I didn’t know what that meant, but my heart told me it wasn’t
good. My heart told me he’d fallen for someone else, and he didn’t
know how to tell me. I understood how it could happen…it had
happened to me after all, but it killed me that he was stringing me
along, biding his time to rip my heart out. Like Denny must have
thought at some point, it would just be better if he told me…better
to know, than constantly wonder.

Feeling a well of despair start to creep up on me, I stared at
my creamy coffee and ignored the conversations flowing around me. A
chin on my shoulder brought me back to the present. Tilting her
head at me, Jenny asked, “You alright? You sort of look like your
sister did earlier.”

I glanced at Rachel and Kate, the pair deep in a conversation
about who Kate could start seeing. Looking back at Jenny, I worried
my lip and considered what I should say to her. She’d just seen the
guys. Had she noticed anything? Had Evan said anything?

Curiosity burning holes in my stomach, I finally asked, “When
you were out visiting the boys…how was Kellan?”

Jenny blinked, not expecting my question. “Uh, fine, I guess.
Why?”

Looking back down, I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just feel like
he…wants to tell me something…”

“Maybe you’re just deferring your own guilt?”

I looked back at her after her comment and she raised a pale
eyebrow. “You know, because you haven’t told him about Denny being
in town…right?” Shaking her head, she added, “I’m guessing that he
knows nothing about how much time the two of you spend
together.”

I sighed, shaking my head. “No, I haven’t told him yet, but I
will, I just…” My eyes watered on me and Jenny’s disapproving scowl
faded. “I need to know what he’s hiding first,” I whispered.

Jenny’s face softened as she put an arm around me. “Hey, it’s
okay, Kiera. I mean, I didn’t notice anything suspicious, and Evan
would have told me if Kellan was…doing anything wrong.”

I swallowed, secretively wiping my eyes. Glancing at the pair
across from us, still deep in their own conversation, I muttered,
“Kellan’s good at hiding things if he needs to…Evan had no idea
about the two of us, remember?”

Sighing, Jenny pulled me into her shoulder. “Yeah, but Kellan is
so in love with you…he wouldn’t cheat on you.” She whispered it,
but I felt like it crashed around the room.

I cringed, swallowing back more tears. I really didn’t want to
break down in front of Kate and Rachel. I didn’t want to discuss
this with a table of people. Really, I wanted to push it back to
the far corner of my brain where I never thought about it…that
would be wonderful.

Trying to cheer me up, Jenny spunkily said, “Besides, I only
ever saw him on his phone, talking to you. Would he talk to you so
much if he were cheating on you?”

All of the color drained from my face. “He was on the phone? A
lot?”

Bunching her brows, she nodded. “Yeah…with you…right?”

I slowly shook my head. My sister had been such a mess the week
that Jenny and Rachel were gone, that I’d barely had time to answer
my phone, let alone talk to Kellan. In fact, the only times I had
talked to him were really late at night, after Anna had finally
passed out from exhaustion. Jenny would have surely been asleep as
well during those conversations, so whoever she’d seen him talking
to…it hadn’t been me.

Clutching her arm, I leaned forward intently. “What was he
saying on the phone? Did he sound…happy, in love?”

My voice broke on the word and Jenny’s pale eyes glassed over.
Shaking her head, she murmured, “I thought he was talking to
you…”

Near hysterics in my voice, I tugged on her arm. “What did he
say?”

She swallowed, shaking her head. “I don’t…I wasn’t paying
attention, but…he…” She swallowed again, her eyes nearly to the
brim now with sympathetic tears. “He was laughing…he
seemed…happy.”