Obsessed

Chapter 47

The little baby girl looks perfect. Only a small amount of hair is on her head but it clearly isn't as red as Emma's and Randy's. Kyle is holding her and shows her to Emma. Toby and I watch the scene from a step behind. It's not really our family, but we still want to show support. Kyle is smiling really big. He's going to be a great dad one day.

Toby tells me he's going to be back and leaves the room. Randy, after awing at the baby, comes over to me. Kyle and Emma have turns holding the baby and playing with her while Sonya talks to a doctor and fills out some forms.

"Her name's Juliet," Randy says, coming up beside me.

"Beautiful."

"Emma and Kyle are like the baby whisperers."

"Yeah." I smile.

"They'd make a nice family."

"Hmm?"

"Emma and Kyle. You know, he's always had a crush on her."

"Why are you saying this?" I say, getting slightly irritated.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm his-" I cut myself off, "We're together."

"That's not what he told me." I'm officially furious.

"Wow. Ok, I'm obviously not welcome here." I turn to leave.

"Sorry Kristen, I just thought you had a right to know."

"Next time, I'd rather be out of the loop."

I walk out of the room feeling heated. I don't know what that was supposed to be. I have no idea how I'm supposed to respond to that either.

I run into Toby on my way out. He has two coffees. "Hey Kristen, are you going?"

"I'm tired." He passes me one of them.

"What's her name?"

"Juliet."

"You seem annoyed, are you ok?" He asks.

"I'm fine."

"Fine. Hmm. What happened?" He probes.

"Nothing."

"C'mon, I know something is wrong."

"Randy just said something. But it doesn't matter."

"Let's go for a walk." He offers.

"Ok. But just for a little while, because I'm actually going to pass out if I don't get to sleep soon." We laugh.

We walk out onto the street in front of the hospital and sip our coffees together. We talk for a little while. Surprisingly, we don't mention the weather. "It's good that you and Kyle aren't fighting anymore."

"He can't hate me for long."

"I think he needs you. You're his only family."

"He has Randy and you."

"Yeah but you're his real family."

We change the topic eventually, but it feels good to know that Toby and I are on the same page. "There's an opening at this bar down the road. I got the job."

"That's great. So you're not working at that French restaurant anymore?"

"Yeah I am. Weekdays from twelve to five pm. Then Friday, Saturday and Sunday from ten to one in the morning I'll work at the bar."

"All I do is scoop ice-cream. That sounds really hectic."

"Trying to keep myself busy."

"You could always start a project. Maybe join a club or knit or something." He chuckles.

"I want to save up so I can tour Europe and go backpacking."

"Wow. That sounds really cool."

"Yeah. You could come too."

"Ha." Toby and I lock eyes momentarily on the street. I notice a hopscotch grid drawn on the ground. "Hey look it's a hopscotch thing." I step past him and pass him my coffee.

"You're not going to do that are you?" I grin. I pick up a stone and throw it onto the grid. Then I hop on my right foot and then on both and then back on my right foot. I think the coffee mixed with my tiredness has made me strangely hyper.

I start giggling then demand for Toby to join me. But of course he's too 'cool' to hopscotch. So I pull his arm and we both end up toppling onto the ground laughing. "You're like a bunny rabbit."

"Ha! Why? Because I'm fluffy?"

"Because you're cute and you like hopping." I laugh some more and then he holds out his hand to help me up.

"I should probably get home."

"I can drop you off."

"Thanks."

***

The next month is great. Mostly. Sierra keeps inviting the whole group out places. Now, that includes Randy and Belinda. Emma tags along too sometimes. Harmony always brings Don and Toby decided that we're his new best friends too. Our 'squad' consists of, officially, ten people. We're like the deca-awesome tribe. When Emma comes, much to my demise, we're more like the deca-awesome plus one.

We ended up playing Quinom Phantom once. It's all about this ghost who has to travel around the board and in the middle of the board there is a puzzle and once the puzzle is complete the game is over. It took us two days to finish the game. Only Toby and I really loved it, but our group became closer by the end of it anyways. Kyle was uninterested in the game and so was Emma so the two of them sat out and watched a movie in the other room.

That was pretty much how the first month of break was. Kyle and I are just stopping by his place before we go out with the tribe for dinner. "Here it is." I say and pass him the shirt he was looking for.

"Do you have x-ray vision or something?"

Kyle and I go downstairs and I pour myself a glass of water. Kyle goes through the mail on the kitchen counter. "That's funny."

"What?"

"This one is addressed to me."

"Is that weird?"

"Usually everything is for Toby." Kyle opens up the envelope which looks big and special.

"What is it?"

"I've been accepted at Lingard...?"

"What? I didn't know you applied."

"I didn't."