Out with the In Crowd (14 page)

My jaw dropped. She couldn’t have said anything more hurtful. “That isn’t true.”
Please, God, don’t let that be true.
“It
is
true! You were crushed when Eli cheated on you, and you didn’t even like him most of the time you dated. But it’s not okay for Mom to be hurt by what Dad did?”

Mom looked confused. “When did you date Eli?”

No time for that now. To Abbie, I said, “I’m not saying Mom shouldn’t be hurt—”

“You hound me about all this stuff I need to get done, about how you think I should be living my life. Like you’re some kind of expert. You know, I wouldn’t even be pregnant if it weren’t for you.”

“Abbie . . .” I couldn’t think of anything to say. I longed for her to take it back.

Tears streaked Abbie’s face. “We can’t all be like you, Skylar. You’ve always been so beautiful and perfect. You suck up all the oxygen in the room, never leaving anything for me.”

“That’s not true—”

“Who are you to say whether or not it’s true?” Abbie’s chair grated across the tile as she stood. “Do you know what it’s like to be plain and boring while your sister’s some exotic beauty?”

“How can you say that?” I asked, assessing her shiny auburn hair, her seemingly pore-free skin.

“You think you’re so superior, but one of these days something bad is going to happen to you”—Abbie jabbed at her stomach—“and everyone will know what a fraud you really are.” Abbie marched out of the room. Mom and I watched her go.

Mom winced at the sound of Abbie’s bedroom door slamming. “She doesn’t mean a lot of that. She’s just moody.”

“But . . .” I pushed back in my chair, frustrated. Mom and Abbie had the gift of starting an argument, then leaving before you could finish it. “Is it so horrible that I’ve been trying to talk her into childbirth classes? Into buying diapers before we bring home the baby?”

“Of course not.”

“And I don’t think I’m better than everyone else,” I muttered.

Or did I? It had only been a few weeks since Connor harped at me for the same thing.

Mom sipped at her coffee. “So, you dated Eli?”

Mom sipped “Yeah.”

“You just blatantly disregarded our rules?” She wagged her head. “What a horrible example to set for your sister.” I couldn’t help laughing. “Do you also blame me for Abbie getting pregnant, or is that just her?”

Mom’s mouth pursed. “The responsibility for that lies with Abbie and Lance alone.”

I released the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. She’d said what I needed to hear, and now maybe I could offer her something. “It’s not that I don’t understand why you’re angry with Dad,” I said in a soft voice. “I just wish you’d keep working on it.”

Mom snorted, the most undignified sound I’d ever heard from her. “Keep working on it. Right.”

“Why don’t you go back to counseling? It seemed like you guys were making progress.”

Her expression hardened. “This isn’t open for discussion. I’m not taking advice from my teenage daughter.”

“Maybe you should,” Dad said from the doorway. Both Mom and I jumped. “She’s pretty smart.”

How long had he been standing there? With his gaze still on Mom, Dad said, “Skylar, please excuse us.”

The screech of my chair sounded extra loud in the tense quiet. Mom’s and Dad’s gazes remained locked on each other, reminding me of those Discovery Channel shows about face-offs between animals.

I hustled out of the room and upstairs, not wanting to get any more involved in the battle. Outside my room, I paused and looked toward Abbie’s closed bedroom door. It didn’t completely muffle her crying. I tiptoed closer, my hand hesitating on the doorknob.

I thought of earlier, of her venomous words.

I withdrew my hand and retreated to my own room. Why bother helping her when she didn’t appreciate it?

I attempted a variety of activities—studying for American History, cleaning out my closet, sewing—before I finally gave up and called Connor. He didn’t answer his cell, so I called his house line, aggravated that I’d become one of those girls I’d always pitied, the ones who called their boyfriends in the tiniest of crises. Of course, this wasn’t a “tiny” crisis. I didn’t know what this was, really.

Curtis answered with a chirpy, “Hello, Ross redi-sense.”

“Hi, Curtis, it’s Skylar. Is Connor—”

“Skylar!” he cried with the enthusiasm that appeared endless with five-year-olds. “Mom said you were here earlier. I was at Tae Kwon Do. I learned how to do a front snap kick and a forearm block and—”

“Curtis?” Amy said in the background. “Don’t forget to ask who she’s calling for. Remember how we practiced?” “Oh, right.” Curtis took on a rehearsed voice. “Who would you like to speak with?”

I grinned. I was so not a kid person, but it was impossible not to adore Curtis. “Is Connor there?”

“He is, but . . . hey, Mom? What do I say if he’s here but doesn’t want to talk?”

“Did Connor say he didn’t want to talk?” I could hear Amy’s frown through the phone.

“Yeah. I was in his room showing him my new moves when that girl showed up. And he said, ‘If Skylar calls, I can’t talk.’ ”

Could you actually feel a coronary? If symptoms included a faltering heartbeat, a loud whooshing in the ears, and the mind focusing on one thought and one thought only—
IS
IT JODI??
—then I’d swear I just had one.

“Is it Jodi, Curtis?” I asked as Amy said, “Give me the phone, Curtis.”

“What’d I do?” he whimpered.

“Nothing, I just want to speak to Skylar,” Amy said, her voice considerably softer. She came on the line. “Hi, sweetie.”

My entire mouth had gone dry. “Is Jodi there?”

She hesitated long enough that I knew before she confirmed it. “Yes. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. I thought you knew she came over.”

“
Came
over?” I repeated. “As in, this happens often?”

Amy groaned. “You should talk to Connor about this. I didn’t mean to get involved, but I could tell I hadn’t trained Curtis for what was going on.”

What was going on?

“I’ll be right over.”

I hung up before Amy responded, then just sat there. How could Connor do this to me? Of course, he’d be able to twist this around and justify it. He’d leave me feeling suddenly stupid for being mad. The pitfalls of dating someone smarter. It would probably be like the last time I drove over there to yell at him—I wound up angry with myself. But I didn’t care. I had to go.

I thundered down the stairs, snippets of our recent conversations running through my head. I’d told him to be careful with her. He knew she made me nervous, that his relationship with her wasn’t a compromise issue. If he wanted to be nice to her, fine, but he shouldn’t be inviting her over to his place. Repeatedly. And telling his baby brother to lie to me.

“Skylar!”

With my right hand halfway to the door to the garage, I turned to face my dad. He and Mom sat at the kitchen table, one chair between them. “What?”

“Where are you going?”

“Connor’s.”

“Well, it’s gonna have to wait. Your mother and I have something to discuss with you girls.”

“It can’t wait.” I took a breath to explain but didn’t know how to tell my father that a sleazy, manipulative girl had wormed her way into my boyfriend’s house in an attempt to steal him.

“It can wait,” Dad said as he strode to the base of the stairs. “Abbie? Will you come down here, please?”

Nothing.

“It’ll take me less than five minutes,” I pleaded. Two minutes to drive to Connor’s, two minutes to drive back, and thirty seconds to inform him we were over. That’s all it had taken for me to end things with Eli when I’d caught him cheating with Jodi. Okay, I hadn’t
caught
them, but I’d overheard them talking about what happened between them the night of homecoming.

Dad turned on his no-nonsense voice. “Sit down.” Up the stairs, he boomed, “Abigail Marie? Can you hear me?”

I appealed to Mom. Surely as a woman . . . “I
have
to go.”

”But she looked even sterner than Dad. “Your father said to sit.”

“So, suddenly you’re on the same team?”

“Watch it, young lady,” Dad said. “Abbie?”

“I hope you two know”—I yanked a chair out from the table—“you’re making a mess of my life.”

“Well, what’s new?” Dad said, then jogged upstairs.

I fidgeted as my brain burned with questions about Connor and Jodi. How long had this been going on? Before Eli and Jodi broke up? Before he knew she liked him? There had to be a good explanation. Connor wouldn’t sneak around behind my back. I knew him.

Didn’t I?

Dad returned downstairs with a puffy-faced, sulking Abbie. She collapsed into a chair without looking at me.

Dad settled into his seat and clasped his hands on the table. “Well, girls, your mom and I have been talking. She’s filled me in on her plans to move to Hawaii, and she says she’s talked to both you girls about it.”

He looked to us for confirmation. We nodded.

“Okay.” Sadness flickered on his face, replaced quickly by a look of stony resolve. “So at the end of the school year, you’ll both move out there.”

15

“What?” Abbie and I said simultaneously.

What?” Abbie and I said simultaneously.

“I’m not moving to Hawaii,” I said.

“And I’m moving before the baby comes.”

Mom nodded at Abbie. “I know we talked about that, but as your dad and I discussed it, it made less and less sense. You can have the baby here with your doctor, in that nice new hospital. That way all your friends will be close by.”

“I don’t
want
my friends close by,” Abbie growled. “That’s why I’m moving.”

I forced a laugh. “Yes, run away. That’ll solve everything.” Abbie glared at me but didn’t respond.

“Abbie, I know things are really difficult for you at school,” Dad said, “but you don’t want to be moving this late in your pregnancy. Who knows how long it’ll take for your mom to find a house, and you want to be settled before you bring the baby home.”

It amazed me how calmly he discussed this. His wife— the love of his life, he claimed—buying a house far, far away and taking his girls and granddaughter with her.

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you get out of this?”

Dad glanced at me. “Pardon?”

“I thought you wanted us to be a family. Now you’re telling Abbie and me to move?”

He frowned. “This is about what I think—what
we
think—is best for you girls.”

“Well, I’m not going.” I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms.

“You don’t want to be there for your sister and her baby?” Mom asked.

“Ha!” I let the chair fall onto all four legs. “I’m not the one who keeps running off and then shows back up whenever she feels like it. I’m taking her to doctor appointments, reminding her the baby’s going to need diapers one of these days—”

“Stop it,” Abbie snapped. “Let Skylar stay if she wants to.”

Mom hesitated. She glanced at Dad, but he stared into his coffee cup. “Skylar, I really think you should come. At least for the summer.”

I pushed back in my chair and let it fall again because I knew Mom hated it. She said it wore out the furniture. She’d always worried about wearing out furniture, which seemed strange since we never kept anything longer than a couple years.

“I’m not going. I’m eighteen, and I’m not going.”

Dad looked at me. “Are you sure, honey? Maybe it’d be good for you to get away. At least for the summer. You’ve had a rough year.”

Abbie sneered. “Yeah.
Skylar’s
had a rough year.”

I ignored her and said to Dad, “I’m not leaving you here alone.”

“Your father wants you to go, Skylar,” Mom said.

But Mom wasn’t looking at Dad. She didn’t see the faint relief in his smile.

This all confused me. Why would Dad give up and let Mom move to Hawaii? Did she have, like, embarrassing pictures of him? Evidence of tax evasion? I just didn’t buy that he thought it was best for us. In what universe would it be best?

As we sat there for over an hour making plans, I still couldn’t figure it out.

“Who’s hungry?” Mom asked, reaching for the phone. “Let’s order takeout.”

I glanced at the clock. A little after nine. “Isn’t it kinda late?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Mom said as she scrolled through the list of numbers saved on our phone, mostly restaurants. “I’ll be staying here until I move.”

That wasn’t what I’d meant. I’d meant all of Mom’s favorite restaurants would be closed by now.

“You’ll be staying here?” I repeated. That sure cleared things up. I stared at Dad, but he wouldn’t meet my eye line.

“Your father and I discussed it, and it only makes sense. How does pizza sound to everyone? I think everywhere good is closed.”

Dad had once told me he’d stop at nothing to be with the person he loved. Did that include gambling that if she stayed here—in the nice, comfy house where she didn’t have to worry about working—she might never leave for Hawaii? “I’d like to place an order for delivery,” Mom said into the phone.

Dad finally looked at me. “Didn’t you have something you needed to do at the Rosses’?”

My boyfriend lying to me—right.

I pushed back from the table, my legs aching from sitting in the same position for so long. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Can I come?” Abbie asked.

I hesitated. I didn’t want anyone witnessing what was about to go down, but it’d been awhile since Abbie had looked at me without narrowing her eyes. And some company might be nice. Especially for the drive home.

I shrugged. “Whatever.”

Mom hung up the phone. “Pizza will be here in thirty.” “We’ll be back in plenty of time.” I grabbed my keys off the kitchen counter and left through the garage door. In the car, I said, “No dillydallying. I don’t plan on staying long.” “Yeah, I gathered. What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” If she thought I’d tell her after the betrayal that had just happened . . .

Abbie sighed. “I’m sorry about earlier. About the things I said. I can be a hothead, you know. And my hormones are crazy these days.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“I know, I just . . .” Abbie sighed and leaned back in her seat. “You’re really difficult to like sometimes. You’re so—”