I barely made it to the girl’s room and dry heaved over one of the toilets when Laila’s voice called out to me. “Hey Paige, sweetie. You okay?” The stall door squeaked open as she crowded in behind me. She gathered my hair up from my hand so I could better balance myself and locked the door behind us. “I thought you were feeling better.” There was more than one unspoken question in her voice. “You don’t have an ear infection do you?”
A feeling of ice slid over my heated skin. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come on sweetie. I may be country but I’m not stupid. I’ve seen you rubbing your belly when you think no one’s looking.” I didn’t know what to say. Should I try to deny it and risk alienating the only ally I had at this school? Or should I risk telling her the truth and maybe she could help me with my secret? “Does your guy back home know? What about your parents?”
Guess there was no point in denying it when she’d already figured it out. Or was I simply letting my fear of being alone on another level rule my decisions? “Everyone knows,” I mumbled. “I was just kind of hoping to finish out here before I started showing.” It was a partial truth, but it would do.
“Is that why you’re here? Did your parents want you away from your guy?”
“I guess.” My birth mom had wanted me on this mission by myself so in a way she’d wanted me away from my guy. “It’s all just a bit more complicated than that,” I said as I pushed myself up into a standing position and leaned against the stall wall.
Laila’s big blue, and very innocent looking eyes, looked up at me with a mixture of pity and sympathy. “Does your guy want you to have the baby? Or is that part of the problem?”
I thought about how Khol had reacted when he first found out I was pregnant; as opposed to the angst Bryn had delivered me. It kind of felt like Khol wanted me to have the baby, and Bryn wasn’t really sure how to react. “Which one?” I said without thinking.
Laila blinked up at me and gasped as if I’d just punched her in the stomach. “You mean—you mean—”
It was too late to take back what I’d just let slip out of my mouth unintentionally. “Yep. I don’t know who the father is.”
“But you said you were serious about your boyfriend back home.”
“I am. Both of them.” I laughed with a hysterical edge. “I’m in love with two guys, one who wants me unconditionally, and the other . . . well, the other I used to think did but now . . . I just don’t know. And I don’t know which one of them is the father of my unborn child.” But what about my dream conversation with myself last night? Was the love I felt toward Khol enough to even be counted against what I felt for Bryn? Was I going to just discount what my subconscious was trying to call to my attention? I thought this morning I had made up my mind to stop with all the damn wishy washiness of my adolescence.
I could see everything processing in Laila’s eyes, and like a light being switched on, I could also see when she fully accepted what I’d just told her. “Oh, you poor thing.”
I scowled down at her. “I don’t need or want your or anyone else’s pity.”
“No, of course not.” She waved me off and unlocked the stall door. “My lips are sealed.” She headed over toward the wall of sinks and paused. “Do you still wanna go to Cliff’s party this weekend?”
I had to bite back a laugh, but a sincere one this time. She reminded me of Jenna so much. “I just can’t drink is all,” was my response. “But since we’re spilling secrets, why are you so excited about being invited, and why are you being so nice to me? I mean you’ve kind of been hanging around with me, and not with a whole lot of anyone else since I’ve met you.”
Laila’s cheeks flushed briefly. “I—ah—well—most of the kids I grew up with around here . . . they’re just different. It started happening sometime around middle school. At first it was just a couple of them, and I just chalked it up to people changin’ as they grow up, but lately . . . I don’t know, it’s like I don’t even know half of them anymore.” Her shoulders slumped and she let out a huge sigh. “It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I mean some of them just creep me out somehow.”
I reached out and touched her shoulder briefly, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “I don’t think it’s weird at all. But if they creep you out then why do you wanna go to the party?”
She started applying lip-gloss as she talked to me. I decided to try and avoid my own appearance for as long as I could. I was getting more used to the white hair, but I still wasn’t a fan. “I’m just tired of feeling left out by the people who used to be my closest friends. They just stopped inviting me to their parties after this one night when . . .” Her mouth clamped shut in a thin line and her eyes took on a vacant look as she obviously relived the night she was referring to. “It just got really weird is all.”
“Okaaay,” I drew out as I lifted an eyebrow in question. “Care to elaborate?”
Laila made a big production out of stuffing her lip-gloss back into her bag and fussing with her hair before answering. “Not much else to say. It was weird.”
I could tell she was lying, but I also could tell that was about all I was going to get out of her for the moment, so I decided to temporarily drop it. “But you’re all gung ho to go to this party now? Aren’t you worried it’ll . . . get weird again?”
She gave me a nervous smile as she turned to leave the bathroom. “It was prolly just a misunderstanding of sorts, and I just overreacted.”
I frowned at the back of her head before I started to follow after her. “Yeah, okay.” I so didn’t have a good feeling about this.
The next couple of days passed by with nothing out of the ordinary. How going to school, while pregnant with a child who I didn’t know who the father was, while I tried to remain undiscovered by alien parasites hiding inside of my peers, had become ordinary was beyond me—but it had. Nala mostly kept to herself, except when she was attempting to push healthier food down my throat or stinky tea for my morning sickness. But my nights were filled with Bryn. Some were memories, and some were nightmares, but every night when I closed my eyes, I knew I would come face to face with his fathomless dark blue eyes and the man who owned them. I wasn’t sure what it meant that the longer I was away from Khol, the less I thought about him and the more I did Bryn. I was starting to question how I had any romantic feelings for Khol at all after what happened between us. He had forced himself into my bed, and caused me to attempt to end my own life. Forgiving him, knowing what I did now, yes . . . but the rest . . . everything was just so mixed up in my head.
I was currently caught up in the memory of the first night Bryn and I had ever been together. It was so real I could almost believe I was reliving that night.
I could hardly wait to feel Bryn’s arms around me, and I fully expected to be greeted with the same enthusiasm from him, and yet when I went to him, his arms stayed limp at his sides and his eyes regarded me with dark emotion. “What’s wrong?” I asked studying his face for some clue. He didn’t say anything; he just kept watching me, his eyes churning with something I couldn’t read. When I looked closer, I could see his whole body was wrought with tension. “Bryn?” I licked my lips nervously, noting that his eyes followed my every move. He slowly stalked toward me, backing me up against the wall. His hands came to rest on either side of my head, balled into fists. And even though he seemed so angry, so dangerous, my breath caught in my throat and my pulse began to race with excitement. “Bryn?” I said again, my voice coming out breathy and low.