Forced to have the Player's Kid (Book One of The Great Age Plague Series)

Chapter Thirty-Two

Before the part where the camera man died, but after the part the girl's stomach exploded (my favorite part) I ended up falling asleep in my egg shaped chair with my arms wrapped protectively around my stomach. I didn't wake up until around seven am, in which I heard Cally vomiting into a nearby trash can. The noise didn't seem to wake Keon or Josh, so I simply tip-toed over to Cally while blinking away the bright sunlight streaming in through the cracks in the curtains.

"Are you alright?" I asked, patting Cally's back lightly. Unable to speak, Cally nodded right before retching again into the trash bin. Wrinkling my nose, I turned my face away, trying not to breathe in. At this point, I was already nauseous, and Cally's vomiting wasn't making it any easier. Still, I wanted to help my friend.

"I'm.... okay now. I think. Can I brush my teeth?" said Cally, straightening up and away from the trash can. She wiped her mouth and put a hand on her swollen belly. I nodded, my heart going out to her. As I led her back into the mansion, a tiny part of me wondered how much worse things were going to get for me, as Cally was ahead of me in the pregnancy timeline.

"I have a few spare toothbrushes. I'm also ravenously hungry, so I'll be in the kitchen. I'm assuming you don't want anything right now?" I said, sliding open the back porch door. Cally shook her head, looking positively green, and I led her to the bathroom with the spare toothbrushes. After finding and handing Cally a toothbrush, she stopped my departure from the room by grabbing my wrist.

"Wait, I gotta talk to you," she said. I blinked, feeling instantly nervous by the tone in her voice. It was the all- too familiar Cally Gossip Voice, the kind she would use to interrogate me about the gossip I didn't want to tell or spread, since I just wasn't that kind of person. It was a pushy voice, one that was hard to ignore. 

"What?" I said, giving her a tired look, trying to indicate that I really didn't want to gossip. She smiled overly-sweetly, making me want to roll my eyes, and took my hand gently.

"Well I just wanted to know.... do you like Keon? Because there were some major vibes going on between you two last night and I think he's pretty cute," said Cally. After this, she flashed me a pearly-white smile, but I simply gawked at her.

"Look, Cally," I said, as gently as a could muster "I told you, romance is not my concern right now." At this, Cally's beautiful features dropped and she let go of my hand. Pouting like a small child, she crossed her arms. Just the change in posture alone made me prickle like an animal on the defense, and I felt a migraine coming on quick.

"Come on, Adira! You know you like him," she said, with mocking in her voice. Just then, my head throbbed. I sighed deeply, wanting to talk about anything other than this. Sadly, I realized that Cally and I hadn't really had a good, sit down conversation in months, and it annoyed me that this was what she wanted to talk about after all that had happened.

"It's not important right now. Can we please talk about something else?" I begged, looking down at the floor. At this point, Cally gave a snotty little "hmph" noise and started tapping her foot like a princess waiting for her servants to give her what she wanted. 

"No! Sweetie, stop avoiding the subject. Did you do anything with him that night you were together?" she asked. Suddenly, I just couldn't take it anymore. Maybe it was just the pregnancy hormones, or the fact that this gossipy-popular girl side of Cally drove me nuts, but I was just done with the whole conversation.

"You know what Cally? Stop talking. I don't want to talk about boys right now. If you haven't noticed, outside the walls of your bedroom and in a world away from your perfect boyfriend, a plague has been destroying the world and it killed my mom. I think we, and the world, have bigger freaking problems right now than who we are going to take to non-exsistent prom!" I screamed. At this, Cally's eyes got wide and her mouth dropped open, like I she'd just watch me kill Bambi in front of her. Enraged, I didn't wait to hear her response and stomped away to the bathroom in Josh's room. Once inside, I started hyperventilating and I sat on the cool floor to calm down. I had never lost my cool like this before, and while it partially felt invigorating, it also felt horrible. I had just yelled at my best friend in the whole world, one of the only people I had left. Sighing, I drew myself a hot bath, feeling the guilt trinkle in by the minute.