This Is So Not Happening

Sha

Then she turned and walked away to rejoin the party, casually ignoring the fact that she’d just obliterated my night.

jake

Cars were parked at every imaginable angle. On my driveway, in the cul-de-sac, down the street. Half the population of OHH was passed out inside my house, and from what I could tell, the morning traffic jam was going to be worse than the first half hour after a Giants game at the Meadowlands. I squinted in the darkness as I tried to make my way through, but it was like a maze. It took a good five minutes to cross over to Chloe’s yard, a trip that would usually take ten seconds. Five straight minutes of second-guessing myself and almost turning back.

First of all, it was two in the morning.

Second of all, what was I supposed to say?

Third, was I doing this because I wanted to, or because Sha

But no. I had decided this on my own. For the past two hours I had sat in my room, thinking, while everyone else had the time of their life downstairs. That was what Sha

I looked up at Chloe’s house and swayed on my feet. I was very drunk. Was that going to be a good thing or a bad thing? Whatever. There was nothing I could do to change it.

Carefully as possible, I made my way over to the trellis attached to the deck attached to Chloe’s room. I got a grip with my hands and started to climb, but two steps up, the world started spi

My back slammed into the cold dirt. The trellis crashed down on top of me.

Ow. Mother effing ow.

A light flicked on overhead. My heart stopped. This was where Mr. Appleby came at me with a baseball bat. It was finally going to happen.

But then, suddenly, Chloe was hovering above me, her light brown hair tumbling over her open robe.

“Jake? What the hell are you doing?”

I coughed as I shoved the flimsy trellis aside and struggled to my elbows. “I was coming to talk to you. Here. I’ll climb the other one.”

“Omigod. No. Don’t move.” She glanced over her shoulder toward her room. “Actually … meet me at the front door.”

“Okay.”

The inside of my head felt crooked, like my brain had shifted sideways or something. I shook it, like they do in the movies sometimes, but that just made it worse. Groaning, I shoved myself to my feet, dusted my jeans off, and staggered toward the front door. When I got there, Chloe was standing at the open doorway, her pink, fuzzy robe tied around her big belly.

Huge belly, actually. Ginormous.

“What’re you doing here?” she demanded in a whisper. “Don’t you have guests?”

“Party’s over,” I told her. “I came over to say …” I paused and cleared my throat. “I came over to say …”

Wow. This was harder than I thought. I wanted to say it, so why couldn’t I say it?

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Come inside, it’s freezing out here.”

I swallowed hard, her dad with a baseball bat flashing through my mind again, but I went inside. The marble-floored foyer was a lot warmer than the driveway. She shut the door quietly and hugged herself.

“Okay. What?” she demanded.

I closed my eyes and just did it. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. For everything. I mean, for everything I’ve done or … or said, or whatever, to make you feel … bad about the … the—”

I gestured at her stomach, and her hands moved to cover it.

“Anyway, I’m sorry.” I cleared my throat again. “I do think what you did sucked, but I maybe shouldn’t have been such an asshole about it.”

Chloe let out a small laugh.

“What?” I asked defensively.

“Nothing, it’s just … Nothing. I’m sorry too. I tried to tell you that back in January, but you wouldn’t listen,” she said. “And now it just seems so pointless. I’m go

I pressed my lips together and looked her up and down. “Can I just ask you one thing?”

She took a deep breath. “Sure.”

“Why? Why did you do it?” I asked.

Chloe sighed and walked over to the living room or parlor or whatever her mom called it. She leaned against the back of a couch and sighed.

“I think I just … I wanted it to be you,” she said, glancing up at me quickly. “I wanted it to be yours. Will and I were broken up and it wasn’t pretty,” she said, shaking her head. “The idea of going to him and telling him … I just couldn’t. And you were my friend. You were a good guy….”

My chest sort of swelled when she said that. Because I didn’t feel like a good guy. Not right now.

“My parents knew you. My friends were your friends. It just would have made everything so much easier. So I said it was you, and once I said it … it felt impossible to take it back.”

She paused and took in a broken breath. “And you were so amazing, Jake. You were obviously just as scared as I was, but you were always there. I needed that. I needed someone on my side. And you were always there.”

Out of nowhere, my eyes stung. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I turned away from her and brought my hand to my forehead. “God, I suck.”

“You don’t suck,” Chloe said. “You just … shit.”

“I know. I know. I’m a shit. I—”

“No. No, Jake!” Chloe said, panicked. I turned around and she was staring at the floor. Standing in a puddle. “I think my water just broke.”

I took an instinctive step back. Because, gross. “Omigod.”

“I know!” she said.

“What do we do? Call an ambulance? Should I get my car?”

Even as I said it, I saw my car blocked in by four thousand other cars.

“No, just …” She paused for a second and her brows came together. “Ow. I guess that’s a contraction.”

Now my pulse started to slam. My already shaky head went fuzzy.

“What do I do? Tell me what to do,” I said.

“Get my parents!” she cried, holding on to her stomach with one hand and the back of the couch with the other.

I looked over at the stairs. “If I go into your parents’ room right now, your father is going to blow my head off.”

“Jake! Just go!”

I turned and sprinted up the stairs. The only reason I knew which of the two dozen doors was her parents’ was because of the time I’d taken High-Maintenance Tori up here at one of Chloe’s parties sophomore year. Just thinking about a random hook-up right now made me sick. I was about to just open the door, but instead, I decided to knock. It was flung open in about two seconds, and there was Chloe’s mom. Thank God.

“Jake?” She shoved her hair out of her face. “What the—”

“It’s Chloe. She’s downstairs. Her water broke. She’s having, like, contractions.”

Mrs. Appleby’s face was white. Her husband appeared out of nowhere, jamming his feet into shoes and his arms into a sweater.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled at me as he passed by.

His wife was inside the room now, shoving things into her purse and throwing clothes on over her nightgown.