Page 13

Chapter 12

Keelan

18 years old

I knock on Jenny and Rina’s dorm room, the soft sound echoing through the quiet hall. Nobody moves to open it. I knock again.

I look around to see if there’s any sign of her. Jenny didn’t leave the party with us last night. She wanted to hang out with her friends. Of course, I wasn’t going to kill her joy just because JR, the walking sexual harassment case in waiting, had ruined my evening.

But she didn’t text me when she got in. I’ve already texted her three times with no reply. I called and it went straight to voicemail.

Worried, I texted Rina just before coming over, but she didn’t reply then, either.

I’m about to knock again, this time louder, when the door slowly swings back. Rina is standing there, barely opening it.

“Hey, I’m sorry to wake you… have you heard from Jenny?” I ask her. She’s wiping the sleep from her eyes.

I don’t blame her. It is pretty early for a Saturday wake-up call.

“No, I figured she was with you.”

I shake my head, already reaching for my phone. “I’ll text her cheer friends. She must’ve stayed with one of them.”

Rina nods, opening the door a little more. “Do you want to wait for her here?”

“You mind?”

She shakes her head, stifling a yawn. “Just stick to her side, Landry.” She steps aside, allowing me space to enter.

“Will do, Your Majesty.”

I can hear the eye roll as she shuffles to her bathroom.The Queen Amidala outfit from last night is flung across her desk haphazardly.

I sit on Jenny’s still-made bed and text the numbers of Jenny’s friends that I have. Something is off. She never ghosts me like this. Jenny loves a good time but she’s always made it a point to check in.

I hear the faucet turn off in the bathroom and try to avert my gaze as Rina walks out in her little shorts.

“Still nothing?” she asks, sliding back into her bed and pulling the sheets over her.

“No,” I lay back on Jenny’s pillow. “Hey, what’d you do with the divider that used to be here?” I get comfortable and lay the phone in my lap.

Rina shuffles further down into her bed and turns to face me. “Jenny said it killed camaraderie. We got rid of it at the student yard sale two months ago. Some guy on the soccer team bought it.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“You miss it?” I ask her with a clear view of her from the bed for the first time. An unobstructed view of a wispy-haired Rina Lopez is a captivating sight.

“I’ve gotten used to it. Your girlfriend’s showing me how to be an ‘open book’”, she says with air quotes.

I smile. “She’s pretty good at that.”

“A little too good,” Rina says. “But some things aren’t meant for everyone to know.”

“Uh-oh,” now I turn on my side, facing her. “Looks like someone’s got some juicy secrets.”

She pulls the covers to her chin. “You wish, Landry.”

“Oh, come on. If I’m going to be your tutor, I should know a few things about you. Don’t you think?”

“No,” she says matter-of-factly. “And I never agreed to that.”

I sit up on the bed across from her. “Rina, don’t you want to see the look on your mom’s face when you suddenly ace her final exam, and she didn’t think you could?”

Rina stays silent for a moment. The air is thick with anticipation of what she’ll say next. Or maybe that’s just my overly dramatic brain.

“I think she’s pregnant,” she says out of nowhere.

I feel the air leave my lungs in one big whoosh. “Jenny?” I can hear the panic in my own voice.

“Oh… no!” Rina scrambles to sit up. “No, no, God, no! My mom, Landry. Elena.”

I instantly feel the breath return to my lungs. “Oh!”

“Yeah,” she shakes her head. “Sorry, that sounded so bad.”

“You think Mrs. Lopez is pregnant?”

She swings her legs over the side of the bed and brings her knees up to her face like she always does when she’s uncomfortable."I’m pretty sure.”

“And you think that’s why she’s being hard on you?”

“No… I think she’s cheating on my dad… with Coach Wilson.”

Now I sit up straighter. “JR’s dad?”

She nods her head slowly.

“What? How do you know?”

“He was touching her belly a few weeks ago. She isn’t showing, but I’ve noticed her wearing bigger clothes lately.”

“Yeah.” I think about how her outfits have become looser over the last few weeks.

“And you don’t think the baby is your dad’s?”

She scoffs. “I mean, I guess it could be. But my mom has this thing that happens to her.”

"What is it? Oh, my god, is she a werewolf? She's a werewolf, isn't she? I've always wanted to meet a real-life werewolf."

Rina's eyes are sad.

"Sorry, that was a dumb joke. I have a bad habit of using humor to make hard things feel lighter."

She shakes her head. "No, I get it. Well, ever since I was little I always wanted a sibling. A little brother or sister that I could play with. I was never picky. I just wanted a sibling. I begged my parents to have another kid."

"Okay… so what happened?"

She watches me. "Mom would get pregnant. She'd feel nauseous. Her body would feel weird. She always knew. The pregnancy tests would come back positive."

Oh-oh. This doesn't sound good.

"But when the time came to listen to the heartbeat… there never was one."

My entire body deflates. “Shit, Ri… that’s… shit.”

“For a literary guru, you sure have such a way with words,” she says, a playful grin pulling at the corner of her mouth for the briefest of moments.

"Well maybe this one is different. Maybe she's not telling you because she doesn't want to get your hopes up… again."

"Or, maybe she's not telling me because she can't have a baby with my dad and was able to get knocked up by someone else." She sighs, bringing a pillow to her chest.

“What are you going to do?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do. I can't tell my dad. That would crush him. Besides, I don't have any proof. I just know it's been years that she's been trying to have a baby. And she's much older now, so you'd think it would be even harder to get pregnant.”

“Wow, that is pretty wild. You’re talking about someone that could practically be your kid.”

“Yep,” she says, her lips snapping together like she’s already considered it. “Crazy.”

My phone buzzes in my lap, and we both perk up. I reach for it, reading the text that comes through.

It’s not Jenny. It’s Marissa, one of her cheer girls.

Marissa

She's not with you?

I sigh, staring at the message, wishing there was some way I could track her location. What good are cell phones if we can’t even find the people we care about? Some day, I hope there’s an app for that.

“What’s wrong?” Rina asks.

“They haven’t heard from her.” I look up and see the second her expression changes.

“That’s not like her,” Rina admits. “She always comes home. Unless she's with you."

“I know,” I say.

She tosses her covers away from her and reaches for her sneakers. “Keelan, we gotta find her. What if she’s hurt?”

I push off the bed, “You don't think?”

“The last place we saw her was at JR’s, right? What if he…”

She doesn’t even have to finish her statement for me to imagine what could’ve happened.

“I’ll kill him,” I grit out, already making my way to the door. I rip it open, Rina on my tail, but I stop as soon as I do. Jenny’s standing there in yesterday’s makeup and an oversized t-shirt that isn’t mine.

My eyes trail down her body. She’s holding a pair of heels in one hand, the stringy pieces of her costume in the other.

“Hey, I didn’t expect to see you here.” Jenny’s eyes bounce from me to Rina and back to mine.

“Are you okay?” Rina asks from behind me.

Jenny doesn’t answer her. She just looks at me, and I can already hear the words before she even says them.

“Keelan… can we talk?”