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“We’re not upset with you, baby. We just need to know what’s wrong so we can fix it."
She took a deep breath, her eyes welling with tears, though she stood up straighter as if deciding she wouldn’t allow herself to cry. The still-hidden truth hung in the air like static, sparkingover all of our skin, raising the hairs on my arms. Somehow, I think I knew my whole world was about to change. Just like it had changed when I first met Jade Wells in homeroom.
"I’m pregnant,” Jade finally said, and the room seemed to spin.
34
DANE
To say it took me a minute to process Jade’s words would be the world’s biggest understatement. It felt like hours passed in the few seconds after she said the wordsI’m pregnant,and still, I wasn’t even on the road to processing what this meant. For her, for me, for all of us.
Maybe it was willful ignorance, but for a long second, I couldn’t even make the connection between this sentence and me. My thoughts were full of worries for Jade. What was she going to do? Was she feeling okay? How was she going to finish school, go off to college, work with horses like she dreamed?
But then the pieces clicked together, and all I could say was a tight, stressed-out, “Whose is it?”
Now, the tears she’d been holding back all this time spilled over, trailing down her lovely cheeks. It wasn’t fair that she was still fucking gorgeous when she cried. She croaked out, “I don’t know. It’s–it’s one of you guys, but… I have no clue which.”
My ears were ringing. I couldn't bear to witness Jade's tears any longer. Without a word, I stood up from the couch and bolted toward the door.
“Dane!” Jade called after me, her teary voice breaking my heart—or it would if I allowed myself to acknowledge that I had one. Right now, I felt hard as stone, emotionless aside from the strong need to flee. She and my friends called after me as I made it through the front door. Since Xander had driven, I left on foot, the weight of Jade’s distraught protests lingering in the air even as I walked further and further from her aunt’s house. The cool fall air bit into my skin as I walked, the rhythmic pounding of my footsteps echoing my inner turmoil.
I didn’t even know where I was walking until my feet carried me someplace familiar. After what felt like years, I found myself outside the used bookstore I loved, a haven of dusty tomes and whispered possibilities that called to me even now. It was here, on our first date, that Jade and I talked about our dreams for the future for the first time. It made sense to come back here when it felt like all of those dreams were falling out of my reach at frightening speeds.
Not that they’d ever been that close to begin with.
Inside, the air smelled of aged paper and lemon floor cleaner, a hint of coffee from the old Keurig they had in the back room—I was here often enough that a few of the employees knew me by name, would share their coffee with me if I asked. My heart rate slowing to normal for the first time since Jade told us the news, I found solace among the familiar shelves. When I passed the cash wrap, a kindly employee with glasses and wisps of gray hair greeted me. I couldn’t remember the old man’s name, but he was one I’d definitely met before.
“Welcome in,” he said to me in a friendly tone. “Looking for anything in particular? A gift for a sweet lady friend, maybe?”
His eyes twinkled knowingly. I blinked at him, realizing he had been in the store the night I’d brought Jade here, too, and that must be why he said this.No, but she’s got an unexpectedgift for me, it seems. Well, maybe me. Maybe one of my friends. There’s no way to know.
"Oh-ho.” He almost laughed at my expression, though not unkindly. “Just here to think, I guess? You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind. Perhaps you’re in the last quarter of your story, when the plot reaches its climactic end!”
I barked a humorless laugh. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Ah, young man," the old man mused, peering at me over the rim of his glasses. "I won’t pretend to know what you’re going through, but would you care for some advice?”
I didn’t, of course, but if I ever wanted to come back to my favorite bookstore again, I probably should maintain a friendly rapport with the staff. I struggled not to roll my eyes as I gave him a weak wave, telling him to go on if he must.
“I’ve lived a long time, Son, and one piece of knowledge has helped me walk through all of life’s changes with a clear head and a sense of adventure. Life is like a good book, full of unpredictable twists and turns that keep us turning pages. Sometimes, we find ourselves in chapters we never expected to write, but there’s always a happy ending."
Sure, it sounded like any other stupid platitude a side character might give to the protagonist of a shitty made-for-TV movie. But for some reason, his soothing voice and weirdly-applicable words seemed to release some of my tension anyway. “A happy ending, huh? Are you sure that’s always true? What ifmylife is a dystopian novel or a psychological thriller?"
He chuckled. “You’re one of those types, huh? A brooder? Who’s your favorite writer, McCarthy?”
I quickly shoved the copy ofBlood MeridianI’d been holding back on the shelf, making the old man cackle.
“Don’t worry so much, Son. I can tell you’re living in a book with a happy ending. Maybe a romance, eh?” He bounced his overgrown eyebrows at me, laughing again when my expressionsoured. He waved a hand to dismiss my pessimism and delivered his final piece of wisdom. “You’ve got a lot of life left to live. A book unfolds page by page, and so does life. You’ve gotta learn someday to embrace the uncertainty! A story’s no fun if you know how it ends. It’s in life’s uncharted chapters that we discover our strength."
As I wandered the aisles in the quiet, texts from Bryce and Xander lit up my phone, desperate, sometimes angry beacons calling me home. They were upset with me for leaving, for evading the discussion we desperately needed to have. Nothing from Jade, but now that I’d calmed down, I understood why. My cowardly response had been the wrong one, apparently, and though I’d known that the second I started out Jade’s aunt’s front door, I’d done it anyway. I’d caused a rift, and I felt the pang of guilt settling in.
When I made it home that night to my grandmother's trailer, I lay on my small, uncomfortable bed with the faded flannel blankets, wrestling with the chaos inside me. The reality of Jade's pregnancy had set in, and my initial fear began to give way to something unexpected—excitement. A spark of warmth ignited within me at the thought of our family growing, regardless of the biological mystery of it all.
Jade, Bryce, and Xander had become my family, and the idea of our family expanding… there was something comforting in it, somehow. I'd known true loneliness before, and now that we were all together this way, I refused to return to that desolate place. The fear of being alone dissipated, replaced by a hope that we could make this work somehow, whatever Jade decided.
The frantic texts continued, the urgency in my friends’ words tugging at my conscience. It was time to face the music, to confront this head-on. I wanted to be there for Jade in the journey that lay ahead. Our story might not follow a conventional plotline, but in the hushed aisles of the bookstore,I’d found the courage to embrace the unexpected, to trust that the happy ending would come.
35
