Out with the In Crowd (4 page)

“She’s out.” His voice sounded casual.

“Will she be having dinner with us?”

“Will she be having dinner “I wouldn’t count on it.”

So it seemed very little had changed in the last few months. Mom and Abbie fled, Dad denied, and that stuck me with clean-up duty.

When I returned for more clothes, I found Dad on his cell phone, making dinner reservations.

“You might want to take it easy on the whole celebrating thing,” I said when he’d hung up.

He stopped his sock collecting to look at me. “Skylar, I know your sister’s situation is far from desirable, but we should make the most of it.”

“It’s not that. It’s . . .” I hesitated. Did he seriously not know this? “Abbie might not keep the baby.”

From the look on Dad’s face, I’d guess that no, he didn’t. “Why not?”

I heard myself laughing. Why was I laughing? This wasn’t funny. “Because she’s fifteen. Because things were over with Lance long before she even found out about the baby. Lots of reasons.”

Dad’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he stared into the pile of socks he’d paired. “She’d really give it up? Give
her
up?”

My throat constricted. The idea of Abbie putting the baby up for adoption made me emotional too, but still I argued. “Keeping the baby closes so many doors for her. Abbie’d graduate high school with a two-year-old.
If
she graduated.”

Dad muttered something unintelligible and returned to rolling socks.

“What happened with Mom?” I asked, fear stiffening my spine.

“Nothing you should concern yourself with, Skylar.” His voice was silky smooth. “Everything will be fine.”

I was coming to believe this less and less.

After dinner’s stuffy atmosphere and stilted conversation, I headed to Connor’s house. His nine-year-old brother, Cameron, flung open the front door and pointed a Nerf Blaster at me. He fired a round into my chest. “Gotcha!” Then he raced off, the dog chasing him.

Much better. I smiled and entered the house.

As I shrugged out of my coat, Amy came into the foyer, her fuzzy slippers whispering against the tile. “Cameron’s hospitality needs some work.”

“Clearly we’re past the days of me intimidating him.”

Initially, Cameron had had a crush on me and would bury himself in the couch pillows whenever I came over. That stopped even before I became Connor’s girlfriend.

Amy glanced at my dress, black and strappy with a short, billowy skirt. “You look beautiful.” Her eyes widened and her mouth formed an
O
. “Was there a dance tonight? Did my son make you go alone?”

I laughed. “No. Dad forced us into a celebration dinner. Abbie’s having a girl.”

Only after the words came out did I think enough to cringe. When Amy first met us, she’d said she would have named her daughter Abigail Amelia but wound up with four boys. Maybe it would sadden her to hear of Abbie having a girl.

Amy’s face showed no hints of regret. Instead, she clapped her hands together. “A girl! How wonderful.” She glanced at the staircase, I assumed because it led to Chris’s bedroom. “How’s Abbie doing?”

“I can’t tell. She slept until we left for dinner and was pretty quiet at the restaurant. But I don’t know if it’s because of the baby or because . . .” I didn’t know how to explain because I didn’t know what had happened. Dad remained tight-lipped about the events of their counseling session. Amy rescued me.

“Connor said it looked like your parents had a fight.”

“To put it lightly.” I lowered my gaze to the floor tiles, suddenly ashamed. “Dad’s stuff was all over the lawn, and we still haven’t heard from Mom.”

Amy opened her mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by five-year-old Curtis. “Mom! Cameron’s getting ice cream!” “Excuse me,” Amy said, rushing toward the kitchen. “Cameron Michael, what did I tell you about ice cream?” As they hashed it out, I jogged upstairs. Chris’s bedroom door was closed, but I found Connor’s open. He sat at his old, scarred desk, chewing on the end of his pen as he read from his American History textbook.

“You’re doing homework on a Friday night?”

Connor startled, then released the breath he’d sucked in. “Walk louder in the future.” He swiveled his desk chair to face me. “And yes, I’m doing homework. My girlfriend had plans.”

I sagged against the door frame. “She’d have rather been with you.”

“Would she?”

“Yeah. She had a lousy night.”

Connor cocked his head. “Let’s stop talking about her in the third person.”

“You started it.” I settled onto the carpet, and he sank onto the floor beside me, touching his knee to mine. “My parents are fighting again.”

“I assumed.”

“Dad won’t say what about, but it’s gotta be something big.” Emotion choked my voice. “Mom isn’t answering her cell.”

“It’ll be okay.” Connor smoothed my hair, and I remembered being a little girl, Daddy doing the same thing.

I squeezed my eyes shut and wished for those days, when we lived in the little blue house in a less fashionable area of town. Dad’s construction company hadn’t yet taken off, and Mom spent her days saving money rather than spending it. Did they fight back then? If they did, I couldn’t remember.

The general chaos of downstairs reached our ears—Curtis’s giggles and Connor’s dad hollering at the dog, “Down! Cevin, down!”

Cevin’s tags jingled as he trotted up the stairs. I adored Cevin, despite his stupid name. It was pronounced “Kevin,” but the younger boys wanted to spell it with a C so he wouldn’t feel left out.

“It’s always so loud at your house.” I nestled closer to Connor, wanting to bask in his warmth. “I love it.”

Cevin burst into the room, bringing his big personality with him. With his perky ears and floppy tongue, he seemed to be saying, “Here I am!” like he just knew Connor and I had wondered.

Connor watched me rub Cevin’s ears. “You need a dog.”

“I’d love one, but my mom would have a fit. Can you imagine dog hair all over her white furniture?”

“I hate that furniture.” Connor scratched Cevin under his chin. “I don’t even feel like I can sit on it.”

“It’s nice furniture.” Where did that come from, this sudden need to defend Mom’s impractical decision?

Connor blinked at me. “I didn’t say it wasn’t nice.”

Connor blinked at me. “I Silence seized the room.

I looked away from him. What was going on with us? We’d had almost three great—dare I say perfect?—months, but now we suddenly bickered over nothing. I didn’t want to add “boyfriend problems” to the ever-growing list of things currently wrong with my life.

Cevin’s ears perked at something only he could hear, and he dashed out of the room, leaving Connor and me alone with this awkward silence.

I plucked white dog hairs off the skirt of my dress. “How’s Chris doing?”

Connor shrugged. “He’s been in his room since we got home. I went in there and tried to get him to talk about stuff, but he didn’t seem interested.”

Guilt gnawed at me, though it was a little difficult to pinpoint what I felt responsible for. Driving Abbie to Lance’s over the summer? Being too self-involved to notice what my little sister was doing? “You think it’d help if I tried talking to him?”

Connor shrugged. “Go ahead.” But I could see the skepticism in his face.

“I don’t think I can fix it, but maybe he’ll feel more comfortable opening up to me.”

He frowned. “Chris and I talk about a lot of stuff.”

“I know you do, I just . . .” And here it was again, my inability to communicate. Why did expressing myself feel like such a struggle these days? “I want to try.”

He gestured to the wall his bedroom shared with Chris’s. “Then try.”

“That’s all the encouragement I get? I’d find it adorable if you wanted to talk to Abbie about all this.”

Connor batted his long eyelashes. “Don’t you always find me adorable?”

I didn’t want to smile—I wanted to hang on to my frustration— but couldn’t keep the corners of my mouth from popping up.

The ice between us thawed, and Connor reached for my hand. “It’s sweet that you want to talk to Chris. Just don’t get your hopes up. He’s not real chatty even under normal circumstances.”

“You forget,” I said with a coy smile, “that I’m an expert at chatting up guys.”

I meant it to be flip, flirtatious, but I could tell it didn’t resonate well with Connor. “I try to not think about that,” he said.

“I was just joking.” My heart hammered—why had I even made reference to my past? “I didn’t really mean—”

“Skylar.” Connor cupped my face and smacked a loud kiss on my forehead. “Go talk to my brother.”

“But—”

“Now.” He smiled (did it really look strained, or did I imagine it?) and gave me a good-natured push. “Go impart your wisdom.”

Doubt wiggled around in my brain as I knocked on Chris’s door. What exactly did it mean, that sour expression on Connor’s face when I’d alluded to the old Skylar? Sure, I’d partied hard in the past, but that was all forgotten and forgiven when I turned my life over to God. Although people, in my experience, didn’t forgive and forget as quickly as he did.

“Come in,” Chris said.

I’d been focused on Connor. Now what did I plan on saying to Chris?

I nudged open the door to find Chris sprawled across his bed, belly down. He didn’t look at me, just kept reading his graphic novel.

“Hey.”

Then he looked. “Oh, hi. I thought you were my mom.”

“Nope. Just me.” I glanced at his desk chair. “Mind if I sit down?”

He shrugged and I sat. I looked about. His room hadn’t changed since my last time in there a couple months back— clean, organized. Maybe it seemed this way because I’d just come from Connor’s dump of a room, but Chris’s belongings appeared to be arranged purposefully. A few car posters were hung on the wall, but they’d been framed, not just tacked up with silly putty. The books on his shelf were alphabetized and placed so all the spines lined up in a perfect row. The pictures on his dresser—three of family, one of Abbie—were arranged at a slight angle, toward the door.

I studied the picture of Abbie as best I could from across the room. I didn’t recognize it. Her hair was in braids and she wore a sleeveless shirt, so it must have been taken early in the fall. When I looked closer, I realized she had on
my
shirt. Okay, I did
not
remember loaning that to her.

“She gave that to me awhile ago, when we were dating.” I looked at Chris and found him studying Abbie’s picture as well. “I guess I should take it down now, but I just haven’t.”

“It’s a good picture of her,” I said.

Chris nodded and continued to stare at it.

It touched my heart seeing how he valued her. How he’d let my messy, outspoken sister invade his organized, quiet life.

Abbie had been pregnant the whole time Chris knew her. She liked him too much to date him, wanting to keep him at arm’s length so he wouldn’t get caught up in what was already a complicated situation. But Chris relentlessly pursued her. I thought he’d run for the hills when he learned her last boyfriend got her pregnant. Instead, he’d been desperate to help in any way she allowed. Chris was sweet. Naive, maybe, but sweet.

“So, did you want something, or . . . ?”

I’d been staring at him. How embarrassing. “Not really. I just wanted to see how you are.”

He shrugged.

“Well, I wanted to say how much I appreciate the friend you are to Abbie. It means a lot to her. And to me.”

Chris snorted and scooted to the edge of the bed. “I’m a horrible friend. I do stuff hoping it’ll convince her to drop Lance.”

“She’s not dating Lance, you know.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He crossed his long, lanky legs and watched his jiggling foot. “She told me I need to move on.”

I grimaced at the pain in his voice. “She thinks it’s what’s best for you.”

“That makes it even worse. Here she’s putting my needs before hers, but I can’t seem to stop wishing she’d change her mind.” Chris raked his hands through his hair over and over, something I’d noticed Connor doing in tight situations. “If only I could go back in time and fix things.”

Guilt plagued me once again as I dwelt on those sweltering summer nights when I’d snuck Abbie to and from Lance’s in exchange for gas money. If only I’d changed my ways sooner and been a better example for my sister. If only I’d told Mom and Dad about Lance. If only I’d refused to drive Abbie. “Me too.”

“I can’t believe I’m losing her to Lance Hartfield. That guy’s a major tool.”

“You’re not going to lose her to Lance,” I said. “Look at today.
You
were there for her. Where was Lance?”

“I know. And inside, I celebrated.” He shook his head, looking disgusted. “Can you believe that?”

“Don’t beat yourself up for being human.”

Chris didn’t answer, just watched his hyperactive foot. Then he turned back to his graphic novel. A not-so-subtle cue for me to leave.

The chair squeaked as I stood. “I’ll get going.”

The chair “Later.”

I closed the door behind me. In Connor’s room, I found he’d returned to doing homework. He pushed aside his textbook as I entered. “How’d it go?”

I sank onto the bed, feeling suddenly defeated. “There’s nothing I could do, really. I guess you were right.”

“It was really nice of you.” Connor turned in his chair to face me. He rested his hands on my knees.

“You know, I knew what was going on with Abbie and Lance, but I just ignored it.” I built up speed with each word. “Like everything would be okay if I closed my eyes. Just like my dad is doing now with my mom, like he always does, and it never fixes anything, it just—”

“Hey, slow down.” Connor pulled me against him as the tears I’d been holding back all evening finally broke through.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier.” I sniffled. “I got freaked out by the way Jodi acted at Sheridan’s, but I know you’re not Eli. I know you won’t cheat.”

Connor held me even tighter and smoothed my hair. “I’ve never understood this about girls. You start crying about one thing, and it somehow gets connected to everything else.”

I pulled back and blinked at him. “Just say you forgive me.”

His gaze never left mine. “Of course.”