CHAPTER EIGHT
TREVOR COULD NOT BELIEVE that Cait was still dodging him. He had some rights here, didn’t he? Shit, yeah, he did.
He tried to catch her between classes; she was as quick as a minnow in a lake, darting away. After school—she never again made the mistake of leaving without having surrounded herself with girlfriends first. Postdance—more friends, or else her mother or another girl’s mother was waiting in the car out front. Her phone never seemed to be on anymore, but he sent texts.
Cant we talk?
The only response he got was:
When Im ready so quit stalking me.
Sure. He sent back:
Ill quit stalking when you talk.
She ignored that one.
The weird thing was, he didn’t know what it was he needed to say, or to hear from her. Only that he felt like his skin had shrunk and now it itched and prickled and he felt trapped inside it. It was a little like when he’d thought sex with her would make him feel all better, but…different, too.
Because he knew what an asshole he’d been and he needed her to say it was all right even if it wasn’t.
No.
Lying on his bed, he groaned and pushed the heel of his hand against his forehead. He needed her to say it because she meant it. But he also knew that wasn’t happening. Because she was majorly, totally screwed over. And it was his fault.
His phone rang and he rolled over to snatch it up. Not that it would be Cait, but… He was disappointed anyway when he saw the number. Bree’s. She’d left a couple messages, and he hadn’t called her back.
This time, after a brief hesitation, he answered.
“Hey,” she said. “You’ve disappeared.”
“Yeah, well, things have been…” He tried to think how to explain without explaining. “Happening,” he finally concluded.
“Like what? Did you decide to go out for basketball?”
“No.” Man, he knew the coach would still take him, and there were moments when he really missed playing, but… How fair was it if he got to play a sport he loved while Cait had to quit dance?
“Do you tell Mom everything?” he said abruptly.
His sister huffed. “You know I don’t. Did I ever tattle?”
A grin tugged at his mouth. “Yeah, when I shaved the head on every one of your Barbie dolls.”
“I was five! And that was mean.”
“They’d gone to boot camp.” Another huff. He was still grinning. It was wiped from his mouth, though, when he took a deep breath. “This is not for Mom. Swear?”
“Swear.”
“My girlfriend is pregnant. Um…she used to be my girlfriend.”
There was a long, shocked silence. “Used to be? You’ve only been there for, like, three months?”
“Yeah, uh, we didn’t last long.” He sat up on the edge of the bed.
“Long enough.”
Trevor blinked at his sister’s tart tone. Suddenly she didn’t sound so much like a kid. He grimaced. A kid? She was…not even a year younger than Cait. He knew when both their birthdays were. Eight months and…six days.
In sudden alarm, he asked, “Have you, um…?”
“Had sex? No way!”
“I’ll bet some of your friends have,” he said.
“Well, sure. But I haven’t met anybody I liked that much. And even if I did…I’m going to try to wait until I’m in college,” she finished in a rush.
He was surprised by his tangle of emotions. He hated the idea of some guy screwing his little sister. Scoring. Even worse—wow—of her pregnant.
“That’s a good idea,” he said.
“One you’ve lived by.” Before he could counter that, she went on. “Is the girl a senior, too?”
“Uh, no.” He realized how much he’d been saying that: uh. To give himself time to think, maybe. “She’s a sophomore.”
“And you got her pregnant?”
“She was there, too.”
Bree made a sound he took as disgust, and Trevor let his head fall forward. I am such an asshole. And there’s no way I can make it better.
“What are you going to do?” his sister asked.
“I don’t know.” It was a really hard thing to admit. To accept.
Almost as hard as accepting that there probably wasn’t anything he could do.
* * *
“HOW WERE THINGS AT school today?” Molly asked brightly. She drained the spaghetti.
“I didn’t puke, if that’s what you mean,” her daughter said disagreeably.
“That’s not what I meant, but I’m glad. The medicine’s helping, then.”
“I guess.”
Cait did help carry food to the table and filled her plate although then she looked down at it in dismay. “I’m so hungry! When I’m not sick, all I want to do is eat. I’d be a whale if I…” She put on the brakes.