“Oh, yeah. Nothing I’d rather do than spend more time with you,” Annie shot back.

“No, no, no, no, no.” Faith shook her head facetiously. “I will be on stage under the spotlights. The stage crew stays back behind the curtains, in the dark, where they belong.”

I was surprised when Annie didn’t yank out her laptop and break it over the top of Faith’s head. But I’m pretty sure she considered it.

The whistle blew and the guys jogged back out to the field. Annie did take out her laptop, but instead of braining Faith with it, she opened it atop her knees, typing in some observation or another. She hit save and pressed her hands into the bleachers at her sides.

“I gotta say, Chloe looks unreasonably hot for someone in her delicate condition,” she said casually.

I choked on my own saliva. Shannen and Faith both ceased to breathe. I could feel them staring at Annie and I slowly, slowly, closed my eyes, waiting for the explosion.

“Her what?” Shannen hissed.

“Chloe’s not … you don’t mean she’s …” Faith watched from the corner of her eye as Chloe went back to the sideline with the other backslappers to cheer on the team. For the first time, I thought her butt looked maybe a teeny bit wide in her denim shorts. “She’s pregnant?”

“Omigod. That’s why she scarfed that entire bacon cheeseburger yesterday!” Shannen exclaimed, her eyes wide as she grabbed Faith’s arm. “I thought she was just depressed.”

Annie was almost transparently white. “You guys didn’t know?”

I dropped my head into my hands. There was a crushed Wendy’s cup in the dirt below the bleachers, Wendy’s face mashed down the middle so that her eyes had combined to make one big Cyclops eye.

“How do you know?” Shannen demanded.

“Ally? A little help here?” Annie said.

Their heads swiveled slowly to look at me. So slowly I could practically hear their neck bones creaking.

“Ally? What the hell is going on?” Shannen demanded.

“Annie knows because I told her,” I said quietly, checking around to make sure no one was listening in. “And I know because …” God. This was going to hurt. “Jake’s the father.”

“What?” they screeched in unison.

Now everyone in the bleachers was watching us, either intrigued or annoyed, depending on their age range. Plus some of the backslapper girls, the assistant coach, and a pair of grade-school kids playing tag. Chloe, at least, hadn’t noticed us yet. She was too busy screaming for Connor, who’d just blocked a great shot.

“Can we just keep it down, please?” I said through my teeth.

“No. No way.” Shannen’s eyes darted around the field, the trees, the garbage cans, the fences, as if some inanimate object held the answer. “When? How has Chloe’s father not killed Jake? How has Hammond not killed Jake? How have you not killed Jake?”

Out on the field, Hammond slammed into Jake’s side as if he was blocking out the other team.

“Well, at least one of us is trying,” I said, lifting my chin toward the action.

Hammond stuck out his leg, tripped Jake, then shoved him with both hands into the dirt. The ref blew the whistle, but then looked around, confused. Could he red card a player for fouling a member of his own team? Instead, Coach Martz shouted for Hammond to come out and replaced him with my friend David Drake.

“Yeah! Go, David!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, mostly because the inner tension was about to kill me. I had to let it out somehow. Jake had pushed himself up from the dirt and was dusting off his uniform. He didn’t look hurt, but he did look pissed.

“What’s she going to do?” Faith was so pale I was actually a little concerned she might faint. “She’s not going to have an abortion, is she?”

“I love how you only turn religious when babies come into the picture,” Shannen said snidely. “Of course she’s gonna have an abortion. She’s seventeen!”

“You guys, it’s none of our business, so can we just drop it?” I blurted. The last thing I wanted to admit here was that I had no idea what Jake and Chloe planned to do, because he hadn’t told me. This huge thing, and my boyfriend hadn’t felt the need to clue me in. And I was afraid to ask him about it. I turned to narrow my eyes at Annie. “Thanks a lot, by the way.”

She lifted her black-clad shoulders. “Sorry. I figured they knew by now.”

I sighed and shook my head, feeling suddenly exhausted. Jake was going to be so mad when he found out Faith and Shannen knew. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but first I’d slipped and told Annie and now she’d slipped and told them. And I used to be so good at secret-keeping.

“Is he okay?” Shannen asked, watching Jake closely.

My heart was heavy as I tried to sit up straight. “Not exactly. He’s gone into complete zombie mode the past week. He barely eats, I don’t think he sleeps, he hasn’t been studying, and he’s skipped a couple of practices…. There are scouts coming next week, people he invited, and if he doesn’t pull it together, he’s screwed.” I swallowed hard and looked over at Shannen and Faith. “I know he messed up. I mean, they both did, but … it’s like his whole life is hanging by a thread. His entire future. And there’s nothing I can do.”

“Have you talked to him?” Shannen asked.

“Of course. But I can only give so many pep talks before I start sounding like my mother, and that is not attractive,” I said with a pathetic smile.

Shannen hooked her arm around me and pulled me toward her side. Behind me, I felt Annie tense up and I wondered if it bothered her that much that a Crestie was giving me a hug. But then, I didn’t care. At this point, I was taking the sympathy and the friendship wherever, however, and from whomever I could get it.

“We have to tell Chloe we know,” Faith said quietly. “She has to know we’re here for her.”

“We’ll talk to her after the game,” Shannen said, letting me go. “As long as you promise not to get all preacher-girl on her ass.”

Faith pouted her lips and crossed her arms over her eyelet tank top. “Fine. I promise.”

I sighed and turned my attention back to the game. I supposed I was going to have to tell Jake they knew. That conversation was going to be a real laugh and a half. Note to self: There’s a reason why you never get your Crestie friends and your Norm friends together in the same place. Nothing good ever comes of it.

jake

“I can’t believe you told Annie!” I shouted, standing in the center of Ally’s room.

“Shhhh!” She closed her door quietly and faced me. “I’m sorry, but I had to talk to someone. After Connor’s I was totally freaking out, and you just disappeared! Besides, technically I told her before you told me not to tell anyone, so I didn’t actually break my promise.”

I stared at her. We both knew how lame that was. “And now Faith and Shannen know….”

God, Chloe was going to kill me. No, she was going to torture me, then kill me. And then probably torture me some more. I sat down on the edge of Ally’s bed, my palms sweating like crazy. First we lose the game because Hammond’s too busy putting the beatdown on me to bother trying to score, and now this.

“Well, they were going to find out eventually, right?” Ally said.

“Not necessarily,” I said quietly.

There was a long moment of silence. I could hear Ally breathing.

“What do you mean? Is she … I mean, are you guys gonna have an abortion?” she asked.

“No. I don’t know.” I pressed my fingertips into my eye sockets so hard I thought I might pop the suckers out and into my skull. “I have no idea what she’s gonna do.”

Ally sat down next to me carefully. Like I was a piece of glass and she was afraid to knock me over onto the floor. “You guys haven’t talked about it?”

“Oh, we’ve talked about it,” I said, flopping onto my back, making her bounce. “We just haven’t decided anything. Every time it comes to deciding anything, we choke.”