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Sylvester yelped suddenly as if having a thought. “Oh my god.” He smacked his hands over his mouth to stop himself from saying whatever thought had just popped into his head.
I sighed. “You may as well say it.”
“If Ria’s pregnant with your kid, does that mean the kid is gonna need atree name? Is your kid gonna be called...Tree Moon?!”
Winston shook his head. “Jesus, Sylvester.”
“He asked for it!”
I shrugged. “Don’t feel bad. You’ve given me a good incentive to follow Winston’s advice and get out of the city. If I never again hear ‘Tree Moon’ it’ll be worth it.”
That was how, for the second time in a month, I blessed one of my siblings with a surprise doorstep visit. This was highly out of character for me, but I was prepared to try and style it out.
Juniper answered the door as if she was ready to rugby tackle whoever might be knocking, then she brightened up and leapt into my arms when she saw it was me. “Forest! What’s up? Is something wrong with one of the Joneses?”
I hugged her back and shook my head. “No, no. I just felt like visiting my eldest little sister.”
She took a step back and narrowed her eyes, scanning me over. “Oh god. Ria dumped you, didn’t she?”
I got on the defensive immediately.Siblings. “What, why was that your second guess? And why can I not just be checking in, seeing how you’re doing?”
She wagged her finger knowingly in my face. “You’ve got a look in your eyes I’ve only seen in the mirror twice before: at our parents’ funeral, and when my high school girlfriend dumped meduringprom. We’re only technically half-siblings, but we must’ve inherited the same ‘haunted eye’ gene, whatever that is.”
I grimaced. Time to admit it, I guessed. “...Yeah, she did dump me. Though, for full clarity’s sake, our relationship was technically fake. But we were in love.”
Her eyes widened slowly for around ten seconds before she yelled out into the hallway. “Billy! Bring the popcorn!”
I stared around. “Who is Billy, and does he have to listen to my tale of relationship woe?”
“Oh, Billy’s mute, but helovesgossip. Swears he never tells a soul.”
“And how did he tell you that?”
“Wrote me a note saying it. He’ll love this one by the sounds of it. It’ll make his top ten for sure.”
It didn’t sound like Billy the self-proclaimed secret keeper was actually very good at encrypting the secrets he was given. But I was tired and didn’t much care about my privacy by this point.
“That gives me... so much confidence. Fine. Billy can sit in. Not like I have anything to lose anymore, anyway.”
RIA
Now that I didn’t have a back-up plan, I was fully miserable. Selling Forest out to Apollo would have possibly made me feel worse in the long-term, but in the short-term I would have felt like I was solving the immediate problem and helping ensure my family’s safety.
Now, I had nothing, no plan. And deciding against siding with Apollo had brought into my mind the uncomfortable fact that I obviously still loved Forest. And that he had said hurtful things to me. And that I’d told him I didn’t want to speak to him, so now obviously he wasn’t trying to speak with me.
I’d been terrified that my family were going to be hurt, and I’d been wounded by his accusations of me having kept the pregnancy a secret. In hindsight, I may have gotten a little too vicious. But in that moment, when he’d been so furious with me for keeping it a secret, I’d just wanted him to stop accusing me. And to do that, I’d had to crush him worse than he could crush me.
Maybe, just maybe, I’d overreacted.
I decided the person with the most balanced opinion in here – and just the most mentally balanced person in general – was my mom. So it was she who I selected to help me work through my complicated feelings about the situation.
I managed to get her alone, while Mrs Jamroz and Grandmother were occupied with entertaining the three boys. “Mom. If I tell you everything that happened, can you help me decide what to do?”
My mom seemed relieved that I was willing to share with her. “Of course, Ria. You can always talk to me.”
I talked her through everything that happened. From the very beginning, from the time I’d first met Apollo, to the argument I’d had with Forest just before reuniting with my family at the safehouse.
“Ah.” My mom nodded, as if all the pieces finally fitted together for her. “I did wonder why he had not been to visit.”
