Chapter 7
Something’s off. Liz is being unusually quiet this morning.
She looks tired—purple bruises under eyes—and if I’m not mistaken, she’s lost weight.
I’m wondering how concerned I should be.
Ryder’s news knocked us all on our asses.
He’s been one of my best friends, my brother, since the third grade.
The thought of losing him…I can’t imagine my life without him in it somewhere.
So I know it must be ten times worse for Liz.
For every tear I’ve silently cried into my pillow at night since Ry first told me and the guys about his illness, Liz must have cried a million more.
Liz, Jay, and I haven’t talked much about what comes next. That needs to stop. We need to be there for each other just as much as we need to be there for Ryder.
“Do you mind if we walk the rest of the way?” Liz asks beside me. Her jogging pace has been almost a snail’s crawl this morning.
We’re about a half mile from the house. I slow down to an easy walk, and when I look over at Liz, I notice how green her complexion appears.
“Are you okay?”
Her breathing becomes choppy, and she swallows convulsively a few times before answering. “I’m good. Sorry I haven’t been a great running partner this morning.”
Her hand moves to her stomach.
“Liz, you don’t—”
I don’t get to finish my sentence before she dashes off to a nearby hedgerow of bushes. The sounds of her retching as she vomits has me running over to her. Like any good guy would do, I lift her ponytail out of the way as she throws up again, then I rub soothing circles up and down her back.
“Are you sick?” I ask her with concern.
The flu has been going around school. I knew something was wrong. As soon as I saw her this morning, I should have insisted she come inside the house and rest or go back home to crawl into bed.
Liz uncaps the bottle she carries with her and swishes some water in her mouth.
“Not sick,” she eventually replies.
I take in the pallid color of her face. She’s no longer green, but white as a sheet. She’s also clammy to the touch.
“You most certainly are,” I argue. I’m barely able to deal with what’s going on with Ryder. The thought of something being wrong with Liz has me feeling queasy.
I wrap an arm around her waist. I’ll carry her back to the house in my arms if I have to.
“Julien, I swear I’m fine,” she protests.
“You definitely are not fine.” I try to get my other arm under her legs to lift her up.
“Julien!” She bursts out laughing at my failed attempts to carry her because she keeps wiggling out of my grasp.
“There is nothing funny about you being sick. And stop moving around so much.”
“Julien.”
I ignore her and heft her up.
“Julien, stop. Please put me down.”
I shake my head at her and start walking. “I may not be able to take care of Ry, but I can damn sure take care of you.”
Her laughter dies instantly, and her hand reaches up to my face. “Julien, I’m not sick. I’m pregnant,” she hushes, her voice soft.
My footsteps falter. “What did you say?” But I heard every word; they are now seared into my brain.
As gently as I can, I put her down, wonder and amazement clouding my mind. Dropping to my knees in front of her, not caring if I’m making a public scene for anyone to see, I cradle her flat stomach in my hands. There’s a baby in there. A tiny little peanut with a beating heart.
“Jesus, Liz,” I breathe, peering up at her.
Her green eyes are shiny with emotion. I place a kiss to her navel, which is difficult with all the cold weather gear she’s wearing, and stand up, pulling her to me.
I touch our foreheads together and kiss her cold, pert nose.
“I don’t know what to say. How do you feel about it? ”
Whatever decision she makes, whether to keep the baby or not, I will support her one hundred percent.
“I haven’t figured out how I feel yet. Shouldn’t I be terrified about having a baby now? I’ll only be eighteen when he or she comes. What happens when I go to college? I don’t even have a job anymore.”
She used to work part-time after school at the public library, but that all changed after the car accident.
I want to tell her she has nothing to worry about. Between me, Jay, Ry, Fallon, and her uncle Daniel, we’ll make sure she has everything she needs.
“What has Ryder said?” I ask her.
Liz bows her head to my chest.
“Liz, what does Ry think?” I try again when she goes silent.
“He doesn’t know yet.”
Understandable. With everything he’s going through right now, I get why she may be reluctant to tell him. But what she says next, takes me by complete surprise.
“The baby may not be his.”
I think I stop breathing for a second. I knew something happened between her and Jay the night her memories returned.
Jay would neither confirm nor deny what it was, but deep down, I knew.
Then Liz ran off with Fallon. She hasn’t told me exactly what happened between the two of them while he was whisking her away from one international destination to the other. Could Fallon be the dad?
“I can hear you thinking, you know,” she says against my sweat-soaked shirt.
“Sorry,” I murmur. I reach down for her hand, linking our fingers, and pull her to walk beside me. “Is there anything I can do?”
Her smile is like the rays of the sun breaking through a cloud. “That’s almost exactly what Fallon said yesterday.”
“He did?” I guess that answers my question. “How is he taking the news knowing he might be…”
Liz’s sharp bark of laughter startles me. “Julien, no. You thought Fallon was the other guy?”
“Well, yeah. Maybe?”
She shakes her head no.
“Jay?” I query, going with my first assumption.
“Yeah. There’s a small possibility.”
“Hmm.” Irrational anger fills me for reasons I can’t decipher yet.
Me and the guys have a tangled, complicated relationship with Liz, shaped by a lifetime of love and deep friendship.
She and Jay used to date before she and Ryder got together.
They both love her immensely, as do I, even though I am in a relationship with Elijah and love him dearly.
Our group dynamic works for us. It may be confusing to others who are outsiders looking in, but what we have together makes perfect sense to us.
“Do they know?”
She stops walking. “Jay saw the pregnancy test. I told Fallon yesterday. And now you know.”
She doesn’t say anything about Ryder. “Christ, Liz. You need to tell Ry.”
“I know.”
“Liz.”
“I know,” she says more sternly.
The rumble of an engine gets louder and louder until a familiar truck sidles up alongside us on the road. The window rolls down and Jay leans an elbow out.
“I had a feeling when you didn’t text me back that you were out running with Jules.”
She gapes at him. “Yeah, and? I usually run with Julien every morning. You know that.”
His eyes waver to me, then back to her. “You probably didn’t sleep last night or ate breakfast this morning. And should you even be jogging anymore? Get in the truck. I’m driving you back to the house. Jules, you want a ride?”
“Jayson, I don’t need you to babysit me, and I don’t need a ride back to the house. Julien and I will be there in a few minutes. And frankly, I’m getting a bit irritated with all the hovering.”
He puts the truck in park and turns off the ignition.
The streets are quiet this time of morning, the sunrise having just crested the horizon, signaling a new day has begun.
Jay opens the driver’s side door and hops out.
Liz squares her shoulders, her hands on her hips, and I can tell from the expressions on both of their faces that a showdown of wills is about to begin.
“Liz, please get in the truck.”
“No. And Julien knows, so feel free to speak your mind because I know you’re dying to,” she says, her eyes narrowed.
With her hair in pigtails, wearing her favorite winter hat with ears on top, green eyes blazing, her cheeks and nose tinged red from the cold—she looks like a ferocious snow fairy.
I would tell her how adorable she looks just to lighten the mood, but I have a feeling that I would get punched right now if I did.
Jay lets out a frustrated breath, the cloud of vapor billowing out around his face. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”
Her posture relaxes. “If you mean being bossy and controlling, then yes.”
“I don’t mean to be. I’m just worried.”
Her entire demeanor softens, as does her voice. “I understand where it’s coming from, and I love you for it. But I need you to please, for the love of God, chill.”
I reach my arm around her waist and hold out my hand to my brother.
When he takes it, I pull him into our huddle.
I know there is so much going on that we need to talk about but having deep conversations about life on the side of the road at six in the morning is not the time.
Between Ry, Liz and the baby, and our upcoming graduation and college, our lives are about to get very messy.