This Is So Not Happening

“I tripped.”

I sounded like a caveman.

“Oh.” She sat down on the edge of her bed, almost exactly like Chloe had before. “So. What happened?”

“I went to Chloe’s,” I said, pressing my fist into my palm. “She’s a wreck.”

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Ally said. She hugged herself hard. “I can’t believe you had sex with her.”

“It was one time!” I whisper-shouted desperately.

Ally swallowed.

“And I used a condom, I swear,” I pleaded.

She looked away.

“It was so, so, stupid, Al,” I said, walking over to her. I almost actually knelt at her feet to get into her line of vision, but stopped myself. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I was pissed off about you and Cooper and she was upset about …”

About Will, I’d almost said. But then I remembered what Chloe had told me. That no one could know about Will.

“About something else,” I said. “And it just happened. I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t—”

“Oh my God. Stop!” Ally said, holding her hands up in front of her face as if I was trying to pummel her. She got up, forcing me backward, and walked toward her desk. “I just can’t believe you actually did it with her. Why her?”

“But it was just one time,” I said, sounding whiny. “And it’s not like I cheated on you. We weren’t together.”

Ally let out this laugh that sounded more like a snarl. “Okay, fine. What if I told you I slept with Hammond?”

My face burned to a crisp. “What?”

She took a couple of steps toward me. “What if I told you that down the shore this summer, Hammond and I were hanging out a lot and one night it just sort of happened? He started kissing me and I just couldn’t stop myself. What if he—”

I closed my eyes and my fingers clenched into fists. “Stop.”

“But we weren’t together, Jake,” Ally said, mocking me. “It’s not like I cheated on you.”

“Stop!” I shouted, glaring at her.

She flinched. “See? Doesn’t feel so good, does it?”

I swallowed a few times and tried to blink away the mental image of Ally and Hammond doing it. Of him getting to see her naked.

“You didn’t actually …”

She sighed. “No.” She almost sounded disappointed.

Thank God. The images of her and Hammond started to fade. And then I realized, I could maybe forget about it, because it hadn’t happened. But Ally would never be able to. Because what happened between me and Chloe … it had happened.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “But what am I supposed to do? I mean, I can’t take it back. And it’s not like it was the first time I ever … I mean, it was the first time with her, but I’ve had sex with other—”

“Omigod, stop talking! You’re making it worse,” Ally snapped. “I don’t need the gory details of your sex life!”

She stormed across the room and started refolding a stack of clothes she had on the window seat, but she was just making them wrinklier. There was a huge lump in my throat and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do or say. This had to be the worst night of my life, hands down.

“It’s not like I thought you were a virgin or something,” she rambled, shaking her head as she basically balled up a T-shirt. “I mean, you’re Jake Graydon. You’ve hooked up with, like, every girl in school, right?”

Well, not every girl.

“So … what?” I said, frustrated. I mean, what was I being accused of? Having a life before I met her? “Like you’ve never …?”

“No, okay? I haven’t.”

Ally dropped the clothes in a messy pile and faced me across the bed.

“Feel better now? You get to walk around knowing that no guy has ever gotten past third base with your girlfriend, while I get to imagine you screwing every hot girl who struts by in the hall.”

I’d never seen her look so angry. So hurt and so small. There was something breaking inside of me.

“You’re going to break up with me now, aren’t you?” I asked quietly.

She didn’t move or blink. Part of me wanted to beg her not to leave me. How pathetic is that? But I couldn’t help it. I loved her. I’d never felt this way about anyone. And the idea that I could have messed it up so bad made me want to throw myself out the window.

And part of me needed her. Part of me realized that there was no way in hell I was going to get through this without her. How was I supposed to deal with Chloe? With Hammond? With Chloe’s parents? With mine? With a baby? I couldn’t figure this shit out on my own, and Ally was the smartest person I knew. And pretty much the only person who cared about me. Or she did. Before tonight.

Most of the summer I had been without her, and every day had sucked worse than the one before. I couldn’t live like that again. I just couldn’t.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

I walked around the end of the bed and over to her. I almost died of relief when she let me touch her. I put my hand on her shoulder, and when she didn’t pull away, I moved it so that my thumb was just touching her cheek.

“Ally, I love you, okay?” I said. “I love you more than anything. I never loved her. It meant nothing.”

Ally took in a broken breath. “Apparently it meant a baby.”

I looked at the floor. At her feet in her favorite Converse. I really did want to die.

“I think you should go.”

Fear filled my chest.

“No. Come on. Please. Let’s just—”

“I want to be alone,” Ally said.

My hand dropped. I couldn’t just leave. I needed more. I needed to know this wasn’t it. So I leaned in to kiss her, but she turned her head. My lips bumped her cheek.

“Okay,” I said hopelessly. “Okay. I’ll go.”

I turned around and headed for the door. Then something Chloe had said suddenly hit me and, as much as it sucked, I had to turn back.

“Don’t tell anyone, okay? Chloe hasn’t even told Sha

I expected Ally to yell or throw something at me for asking her to do me a favor—do Chloe a favor—but instead she just nodded. “Okay.”

Then there was nothing else to do but turn around and walk out.

jake

I lay on the floor of my room, knocking the back of my head against the carpet over and over again in the dark. On my desk, my computer was set to Ally’s website where Ally kept scoring the wi

A baby. Chloe pregnant. I couldn’t even imagine it. I’d never even held a baby in my life. It couldn’t be real.

How was I supposed to be a father? What was I going to do, quit school and work at Jump, Java, and Wail! full-time? A wave of cold terror went through me at the thought. But wait. Stop. No. I might not even have to be a father. Chloe could have an abortion. Or she could put the baby up for adoption, right? I mean, she wasn’t going to want to, like, marry me or some shit, was she?

My eyes squeezed closed. Probably I should’ve asked her a few of these things when I was at her house. What was wrong with me?

More cheers from the computer. I pressed my lips together and stopped breathing. Ally and I had worked on the website over the past couple of weeks, uploading videos of her playing basketball so scouts and coaches could check her out. I’d had one since the middle of last year. My dad had gotten some guy at his office to throw it together for me with clips of soccer games, swim meets, and lacrosse matches. Anything to try to get me into a good school, because we knew my grades weren’t go