I chuckle and take another drag, turning away and blowing the smoke out as far away from the pregnant girl as I can, realizing that smoking in front of her probably isn’t cool. I drop the cigarette onto the ground and stub it out with my toe, hoping that no one notices. I feel like an idiot often enough. No need to draw any more attention to it. Besides, they’re kind enough to take one of the gazillion sofas from the house off our hands—apparently they’re renting a trailer on the other side of town and they need furniture. I don’t want to make things any harder for them. They seem okay in my book.
Star rolls her eyes at us, and turns to say something to Maisie, who has her hands folded on top of her round belly, and I’m halfway through turning back to York to give him a little shit, just for kicks, when I get a jolt.
“Wait,” I say, turning around to face Maisie as the idea turns over in my head and clicks neatly into place. “You’re knocked up, right?”
Jesus, the fucking looks all three of them pin me with. Like you think, dumbass? I wave my hand at her belly and roll my eyes. “Okay, not actually the point,” I say. “I’m not stupid. I know you aren’t hauling around a beach ball under there.” Though, to be honest, it’s starting to look like it. The girl’s kind of tiny and her belly is getting huge. She looks like she’s at risk of tipping over at any minute.
“What’s your point then?” York says, crossing his arms over his chest.
Good, I think. Stick up for you sister. God knows I’d do anything to have family do that for me. Pretty sure Star would, too.
I glance back at Star, and give her a little wink before turning back to the siblings.
“How would you like some diapers?”
***
“Thank you for this,” York says again, after we’ve unloaded the last of the stuff we brought over for them, settling it all into the trailer. “Seriously. Thank you.”
“Seriously, kid. Shut up about it. It’s not a big deal,” I tell him and jerk a thumb toward Star just as she disappears into the other bedroom with Maisie to look at some of the baby stuff or some shit. I don’t know. Women. “There was an entire room of this shit at her mom’s place.”
“Look,” he says, dumping the last box into the trailer’s second bedroom and shutting the door. “It may not be a big deal to you, but it is to us. My sister can barely afford this place as it is. They pay shit at the diner. I have no idea how she’s going to be able to afford this baby, even with me helping her out. So, no. Not gonna shut up about it. ’Cause it means a lot.”
I can’t help it, I look around the place. It’s kind of a dump, but then, so is the entire trailer park, so for all I know, this one is considered a palace by comparison. Except for my five years away, I’ve spent my entire life in Avenue, and I’ve never set foot in the trailer park before. Everyone pretty much knows it is a shit-hole and stays away.
My mom would be having kittens if she knew I was here.
I can’t even imagine trying to raise a kid here.
“If you don’t mind me asking, where’s the dad?” I say. “I mean, isn’t he going to pitch in?”
York just sort of boggles his eyes at me, like I’m speaking in fucking Chinese or something. “The dad.” He repeats, like the word doesn’t make sense or something, like he’s trying the words out for the first time, seeing how they feel in his mouth.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m pretty sure your sister didn’t climb on top of herself and get herself pregnant.”
He scoffs, and I can tell I’ve touched a nerve. “The dad,” he says, like he’s trying to wrap his mind around just how to put his anger into words. I know the feeling. Anger management helped with that. A little. Mostly it just stopped me from taking my anger out on the few possessions I’d been allowed to keep in prison. Destruction wasn’t the most helpful of coping mechanisms, I was told. “The dad is a fucking piss-ant bitch,” he snaps, and I can’t help the smile that image brings up. This kid is pretty creative with the insults. “Maisie won’t even tell me who it is, you know that?” His eyes are wide and I can see the hurt that lingers behind them.
“Dude, really?” I say, because I’ve seen the lengths this kid will go to for his sister, and the fact that she won’t even tell him who the daddy is, well that’s gotta hurt. “That sucks, man. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not like I’d even care,” he says, throwing his hands out, and wow. This kid has been keeping this bottled up for a long-ass time. He’s pissed. He looks like he’s about to start pacing around the trailer. “But she doesn’t want me to know, which means that either she doesn’t want him to find out she’s pregnant, and she’s afraid I’ll go hit the guy up for child support on her behalf or something. Or—” he scrubs his hands over his face and lets out a sigh. “Or, the guy already knows and doesn’t give a shit, which means he’s the biggest bastard on the planet and she’s afraid I’ll try to kill the guy. Either way, you’re right.”
I look at him, wondering just what the hell I could be right about. The corner of his mouth quirks up and he shrugs helplessly.
“It sucks,” he says, and burrows his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunching down again, and all at once I’m struck by how fucking young he is. How young they both are. And he’s right. This really fucking sucks.
We stand there awkwardly for a minute until the silence gets so fucking loud that the kid apparently can’t stand it anymore. “I’m going to go return the truck,” he says, bouncing on his heels and looking at me like he’s waiting for me to say something. Finally I realize he’s waiting for my permission or say-so or some other dumb shit, so I nod at him and he’s out the door like a flash the second my head stops moving, leaving me standing there in their living room wondering how the hell is this my life?
But still, it could be worse. I could be living where they are, a kid myself with a baby on the way, stuck living in a shitty trailer on the bad side of Avenue. But they seem to be making the best of it. The trailer is . . . Well, it’s better than I thought it would be, I’ll admit it. On the outside, it looks pretty run down, but compared to the inside, it’s like night and day. The place is neat and tidy, even if it’s barren of pretty much anything personal. I can’t help but wonder just how fast Maisie’s parents kicked her out when she told them about the baby. There are a few warm touches here and there, but nothing that could really identify it as belonging to either her or York. To be honest, it looks like they left in a hell of a hurry. And as nice as they’ve tried to make it, just looking at it causes a pit to form in my stomach. At least my parents packed my shit up for me. At least they didn’t kick me out at eighteen like Maisie’s parents. Yeah, she has her brother, and York apparently doesn’t care that his big sister had gotten herself up the duff, not when he’d followed after her. I don’t know how they did it. At eighteen I was a fucking dumbass. I would have died.
For the first time since I got out of prison, I realize just how worse off some of the other people in Avenue are than I am. At least I have my stuff. And Bruiser.
And Star.
Thank fucking god for Star.
But even though it makes me sad, the place is decent, for a trailer. There are little blue checkerboard curtains hanging in the windows, a couple of mismatched pillows on the sofa they got from us, and an ultrasound photo taped to the fridge. It’s definitely better than what I’ll have once Star leaves.
Shit.
I don’t even want to think about that. Not yet.
I’m not ready.