This Is So Not Happening

           Granted. But if he were my boyfriend, I wouldn’t care what kind of slums he hung out in.

ally

January seventh. It was January seventh. It had been almost three weeks since Chloe had confessed. We’d been back in school for five days. My deadline had come and gone. She couldn’t use holiday break and the fact that the major players had been scattered on various vacations as an excuse anymore. She saw Jake every day. She saw Will every day. And she still hadn’t told.

Of course I hadn’t told either, but I kept telling myself it wasn’t my responsibility. I kept hoping she’d live up to her end of the bargain and do the right thing. But I kept being disappointed.

I couldn’t take it anymore. My body was filled from head to toe with white-hot, indignant fury. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day. If I didn’t do something soon, I was going to explode. Or punch Chloe in the face. Which probably wouldn’t do much for my karma—flattening a pregnant girl.

As soon as the bell rang on Friday afternoon I practically sprinted to Chloe’s locker. Jake was already on a bus to an away swim meet, so there was nothing she would be able to do right now, but she lived across the street from him. She could practically spit on his bedroom window from her own. If I had anything to say about it, today was the day Jake would be set free.

Chloe was slowly placing books inside her backpack. The moment she saw me coming she started to work a hell of a lot faster.

“Hey, Ally,” she said, closing her locker door as I arrived. “I’m just on my way to—”

“You’re telling him today,” I said through my teeth. My fingers curled into fists and I had this awful feeling that if she said anything other than “okay,” I was going to hurt her.

“I … I can’t,” she said, glancing nervously past me down the hall.

I cupped one fist with the other hand. “Yes, you can. You promised me, Chloe. You promised me you’d do it by New Year’s.”

“I know, but … we’re meeting the parents tomorrow,” Chloe said, adjusting her backpack straps over her shoulders. “The adoptive parents? They want to meet both of us. Apparently it’s important to them to talk to both the baby’s parents and—”

“Then maybe you should invite Will,” I said through my teeth.

Chloe took a deep breath, as if for patience. Was she kidding me? She was going to stand there and act as if I was making an unreasonable request? Buttoning her coat over her boat-size belly, she started to walk slowly down the center of the hall. I fell right into step with her.

“But Jake’s excited about it too,” Chloe said, averting her eyes every time someone turned to stare at her stomach. “If I tell him now … he’s going to be devastated.”

“And telling him after he meets these people will be so much better?” I said.

We reached the end of the hallway. A right turn led to the lobby. A left to the gym. Down the hall behind her I could see a bunch of guys from the basketball team messing around, downing Gatorades before hitting the weight room. Will was one of them, his maroon-and-gold b-ball shorts hanging low.

“Ally, this is hard enough,” Chloe said, taking an almost condescending tone. “Just let me get through this weekend, and then I promise I will tell him.”

Will glanced over at us, checking Chloe out in a longing sort of way. I blinked, and it was as if I was being cooled by a calming breeze. Just like that, my anger was washed away. Just like that, I saw everything with perfect crystal clarity. I knew what I had to do.

“Fine,” I said.

Chloe pulled back, surprised. “Fine?”

“Yes. Fine. Whatever you say,” I told her, pressing my lips into a thin line. “It’s your baby.”

“Thank you,” she said, relief crossing her face, flattening the worry lines on her brow. She started past me, headed for the lobby. “I’ll see you at A

“You’re going to A

A

“I know. I was surprised too,” Chloe said, lifting her hands and shoulders. “Later.”

Then she traipsed off toward the lobby. Well, more like trudged. I suppose it’s hard to traipse when you’re carrying an extra thirty pounds or so.

Slowly I turned around to face the gym again. The guys were busy being guylike, laughing and shoving one another like they always seem to do. I took a breath, squared my shoulders, and steeled myself. My heart pounded with uncertainty, but my mind was completely made up. Chloe was clearly never going to come clean. She’d made a promise and was continually breaking it. The girl may have been pregnant, but that didn’t mean she could do whatever she wanted. That didn’t mean she could lie to everyone. I was doing the right thing.

Besides, I’d promised her I wouldn’t tell Jake, but I’d never said a thing about Will.

I stepped up next to the pack of guys. They stopped talking to look me up and down in my hugely sexy baggy jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt.

“Will?” I said.

He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, clearing away the red Gatorade mustache he was sporting.

“Hey, Ally,” he said. “What’s up?”

I clenched my jaw. “We need to talk.”

ally

“I can’t believe I never realized that Will was the real father,” A

“Yeah, well, maybe that’s because you’re not evil like some people,” I said, tossing the streamer wrapper into the trash.

“Um, yes she is,” David said.

A

“I can’t believe you actually invited Chloe to your party,” I said, filling another balloon with helium from the rented tank. “What’s that about?”

A

My eyes met David’s across the room. Uh-oh. “That was not a nothing nothing,” he said. “That was a something nothing.”

“A