This Is So Not Happening (13 page)

Hammond turned sideways to slide behind Jake’s chair, jostling it purposely with his knees so that Jake was shoved forward, and joined the guys at the other end of the table. Again, for the first time this semester.

“That was weird with a capital
W
,” Faith said. “Has he even spoken to you since the big reveal?” she asked Chloe.

“Not at all,” Chloe replied. “Maybe he’s finally realizing what a jerk he’s been.”

“Like that’s possible,” Shannen muttered, pushing her fork around in her noodles.

Chloe lifted a shoulder as she stood. “Miracles do happen.” It was amazing how she could still be all bright-side-focused
with everything that was going on. “I’m gonna go get some food. Anyone want anything?”

“I’ll get it.” Jake jumped up like he’d been launched from a slingshot. “What do you need?”

Chloe laughed and touched his arm. I couldn’t help staring at her dainty, manicured fingers on the sleeve of his blue sweater. “It’s okay. I can handle a tray.”

“I’ll come with you,” Jake said, turning up the aisle. “In case you need me to carry anything.”

Chloe rolled her eyes but realized it was pointless to argue. “Okay, fine. We’ll be right back,” she said over her shoulder. It made me cringe, the way she said “we.”

I watched as she walked away with my boyfriend, their heads bent toward each other in conversation. I watched as dozens of other people marked their progress toward the food line too. Some of them even looked back at me curiously, wondering what was going on. I caught Annie’s eye across the aisle and she raised one eyebrow at me like,
Told you so
. I clenched my hands together under the table, telling myself not to care. Annie was wrong. Chloe didn’t like Jake that way. They were just in this together. There was no getting around it.

Then Lincoln strolled past Annie, munching from a candy bag as always, and she very slowly licked her top lip. Suddenly I was both blushing and nauseous. When he saw me, he winked, and I was just grateful his back was to Annie when he did it.

“Don’t let them get to you,” Shannen said, knocking my arm with her elbow. Clearly she’d noticed the looks Chloe and Jake were grabbing. “People are morons.”

“Yeah. I know,” I replied, averting my eyes from Annie, who was now making kissy-faces. I watched as Jake’s hip bumped
Chloe at the food line and neither one of them flinched away.

Shannen was right, of course. It didn’t matter to me what anyone else thought. What mattered was what I thought. And I thought Jake Graydon and Chloe Appleby looked like a perfect couple.

“You’re nervous, aren’t you?”

Lincoln stood so close to me I could smell the gummi bears on his breath.

“Me? No.”

I took a deep, calming breath, but it caught on an itch in the back of my throat. My hand slapped over my mouth as I attempted to hold back the cough, my eyes burning with tears as the spotlights bore down on me.

“Well, I’m nervous,” he said.

I held up a finger and turned around to cough my brains out. Nice. Very attractive. When I was done, I turned to him hopefully. “Really?”

He smirked. “No.”

Yeah. Should have seen that one coming. I flicked a tear from the corner of my eye and sighed.

“Okay, people! Let’s block this scene!” Mrs. Thompson clasped her hands together as she walked to the center of the auditorium. “I want Hermia and Lysander stage right. Demetrius and Helena right next to them. And the Duke should be center stage. Bottom, you stay where you are.”

We glanced over at Kevin Parsely, who was playing the part of
Bottom. He’d been curled up on the stage floor for almost an hour.

“Are we gonna get some pillows, ever?” he whined, tucking his arm under his ear.

“I know. I know. I apologize,” Mrs. Thompson said. “You’ll have pillows to fall asleep on at the next rehearsal.”

The cast cheered. I’d never realized how often the characters in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
passed out until I started rehearsing the play on the dusty hardwood floor. I guess that was why the word “dream” featured in the title.

“Okay, we’re going to do Demetrius’s big speech now,” Mrs. Thompson said, gesturing up at Lincoln. “And from what I understand, Mr. Carter here has gone professional on us and memorized it.”

“I have,” Lincoln said, preening slightly.

“That’s the spirit,” Mrs. Thompson said, shaking one fist. “Now, as the speech draws to a close, you’re going to share your first kiss with Helena.”

A bunch of people in the wings hooted. I felt like I was going to melt from the humiliated heat my body was generating. Lincoln was clearly amused by my flesh-eating blush, so I glanced over my shoulder at Faith, who just grinned back merrily. I loved how everyone enjoyed seeing me uncomfortable. Too bad Annie was missing this. She wanted me to hook up with Lincoln? Well, I was about to finally grant her wish. With an audience.

“You truly believe you’re in love with her, but more than that you want to sell it to the Duke,” Mrs. Thompson said. “So sell it! And … begin.”

Lincoln reached for one of my hands and began his speech to the Duke, who was played by Tyler Dross, a junior from the
wrestling team who was about double the size of anyone else on the stage. I tried to watch Lincoln with loving eyes as he explained his shift of admiration from Hermia/Faith to my character/me, but I could think about only one thing.

Lincoln and I were about to kiss. Lincoln and I were about to
kiss
. The lights were burning a hole in the back of my neck and I felt sweat prickle my underarms. My hand was growing clammy in Lincoln’s and I hoped he didn’t notice. What if I had bad breath? What if our tongues touched? What if we bumped noses or I stepped on his foot or, God no, slipped and bit him in front of everyone? Before I knew it, Lincoln was coming to the end of his speech.

“‘But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food,’” he said. Then he turned to me, and his eyes were so full of love, my heart actually skipped a beat. “‘But, as in health, come to my natural taste.’”

He lifted his free hand and cupped my face. His fingers were soft and long and warm. I knew I should do something. Tilt my cheek into his touch, or at the very least smile, but I was frozen.

“Now I do wish it, love it,
long
for it,” Lincoln said. He turned fully toward me, toe to toe, and released my hand, holding my face between both his hands now. “And will forever more,” he said with a dramatic pause, “be true to it.”

No one breathed. No one moved. No one spoke. Slowly, Lincoln lowered his face toward mine. Just before his eyes fluttered closed, he gave me the teeniest, tiniest smirk. And then, he parted his lips ever so slightly, and kissed me. I wasn’t sure whether it lasted five seconds or ten or a hundred, but I do know he tasted like sugar, and his lips were perfectly moist, and by the time it was over I couldn’t see straight.

“That was great, Lincoln!” Mrs. Thompson cheered. “Just great! Now let’s do it again, and this time, Ally, try to
not
look as stiff as a corpse.”

Everyone laughed. I felt like dying. “Sorry,” I muttered.

“She was nervous,” Lincoln explained, taking a step away from me. “Maybe I should slip her the tongue this time.”

The laughter grew and there was more hooting and hollering. I hit Lincoln’s arm with an open hand, but the embarrassed smile was stuck on my face.

“No slipping of the tongue will be necessary, Mr. Carter,” Mrs. Thompson said in a warning tone. She looked up at me and curled her script into a tube. “Now, come on, Ally. You’ve been after this guy the entire four acts. This is the greatest moment of your life. You’ve finally snagged the guy you love! Show me that!”

Faith took a step toward me from behind. “Just think of Jake,” she whispered.

A chill went down my back. The last thing I wanted to think about was Jake. Thinking about Jake would make me
seriously
tense. Like what if he walked in right now and saw me and Lincoln kissing? How would he react? Would he be pissed?

And then I thought, probably not. He’d be too busy wondering where Chloe was and whether she needed a foot rub or something.

Huh. Maybe I
should
let Lincoln kiss me with tongue.

“Okay, let’s run the speech again!” Mrs. Thompson directed.

This time, I turned to look at Lincoln with stars in my eyes, and this time—with Jake and Chloe in the back of my mind—I kissed him back.

“All righty, then! Just a few small adjustments and you’ll get to see your baby!”

I looked at Chloe. She quickly looked away. Sometimes it seemed like all she did anymore was go to doctors. At least my dad had dropped the whole paternity-test idea once he’d heard the baby was being given up for adoption. That meant one less needle Chloe had to deal with.

The woman running the sonogram machine was so big I didn’t know how she balanced on that little stool, but her personality was even bigger. She hadn’t stopped grinning or humming since we’d been brought into this tiny room. Not while squirting that gross gel crap onto Chloe’s stomach. Not while checking her chart. Not even when I stepped on her foot getting around the end of the table. She just kept smiling at me, but I was so tense I couldn’t even fake-smile back. Chloe’s mom had wanted to come to her first sonogram test thing, but Chloe had wanted me to be here, so both of us had lied to our parents about where we were going this afternoon. I kept waiting for her dad to burst in and throw me out on my face.

“Ya ready?” the woman asked finally.

“Um, I guess,” I replied.

“Well, all righty, then! Here goes!”

The woman whipped out a wand with a ball thingie on the end and put it on Chloe’s stomach. I didn’t know what to expect to see on the screen, but it was nothing but a bunch of scraggly
green lines. Chloe craned her neck to see and the woman tilted the screen in her direction.

“There you go, hon,” she said, moving the wand around the whole time.

Suddenly a baby-shaped thing appeared on the screen and my heart flip-flopped like a dying fish. I saw a head. I saw a nose. I saw a belly. I even saw an arm and a hand.

“All righty, now! And there’s your little one!” the woman announced happily.

“Oh my God,” Chloe said shakily.

“That’s really in there?” I said, glancing at Chloe’s small stomach. “How does it fit?”

The woman laughed as she hit a few buttons on a keyboard. “Well, it’s only about the size of a chicken nugget, hon, but it’s in there!”

Chloe tugged her hand out of mine and tears seeped out the corners of her eyes. She put her head down again and turned away from the screen, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off the baby. It lifted its arm and put it down again. It was moving around in there.

I leaned forward. The tech’s free hand flew over the keyboard, making beeping noises and a sound like a picture being snapped. I stared at the baby’s profile. That baby was part me. How freaky was that? Did it look like me? Was it going to be tall like me or short like Chloe? Would it have her green eyes, or blue ones like mine?

And then I realized I was never going to know. Because I was never going to meet this kid. My stomach suddenly felt like it was full of needles. For the first time I got it. I got what Chloe meant the other day at lunch. This was my kid. My
kid
. But it
wasn’t going to be mine. My eyes prickled and blurred. What the hell was wrong with me? Was I going to effing cry?

Suddenly the baby rolled over. The humming lady and I both jumped.

“Whoa!”

“What? What is it?” Chloe asked, her head popping up again. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no, hon,” the humming lady said with a laugh. “Baby’s just real active right now.”

Suddenly my eyes were clear again and I couldn’t stop staring at the screen. If it moved again I didn’t want to miss anything.

“I didn’t feel anything,” Chloe said, blinking down at her stomach.

“You probably won’t for a couple of weeks now, but baby’s definitely awake in there. Have you eaten recently?” she asked.

“I had some ice cream about an hour ago,” Chloe replied.

“All righty, then! That’ll do it! Lot of sugar will always get ’em moving.”

She went back to pushing the wand around, humming what sounded like “Joy to the World.”

The baby kicked out a leg and I laughed. “Gonna be a soccer player like me.”

Chloe stared at me. Her lip was kind of trembling and she looked pale.

“What?” I asked.

“I just …” she said, her voice wet.

“What?”

There was a long pause. A long,
long
pause filled with nothing but beeps and clicks and humming.

“Nothing.” Then she looked away again, chewing on her thumbnail.

Oooookay. But I knew better than to press it. Chloe had been all over the place with her emotions lately.

“Can you tell if it’s a boy or a girl?” I asked the tech.

“I don’t want to know,” Chloe exclaimed, so loud my heart stopped for a second.

The woman smiled and looked a little sad. “We can’t tell that yet anyway, hon.”

I cleared my throat. “Oh.”

The baby lifted its hand to its mouth.

“This is so cool,” I heard myself say under my breath.

Chloe gave me this look, like she didn’t know who I was.

“Isn’t it, though?” the humming lady said.

She gave me one of her huge smiles, and this time I couldn’t help smiling back.

The day I had been dreading was already here. SAT score day. I wished I was one of those kids whose parents were so busy they had no idea when these things were happening, but I wasn’t. My mother’d had it circled on the calendar for weeks, even before our big baby announcement. Ever since I’d told my parents Chloe was giving the baby up for adoption, they’d chilled out on the safe sex and responsibility lectures and I’d been allowed to hang out with my friends again, but that just meant they were back to focusing on college and my probable failure. So I wasn’t surprised that my mom was waiting for me
the second I got home from our latest game (we’d pulled a win out of our asses and were now going to the district semifinals—no thanks to me and my two left feet). She was standing in the doorway between the foyer and the kitchen, the family computer screen glowing behind her.