Away from the past

What's it gonna be?

May 12th

Jesse's POV

It's been hard this past week trying not to constantly check on Liana. She assured me that she is okay but I can see the pain in her face. Getting to know her these past few months, I know she doesn't want people constantly looking over hard but I know it's tough for everyone not to. Today she's with her family, as she should be while Elly, Jordi, and I hang out at Jordi's place. This reminds me of when we all were a little bit younger and would do this all of the time.

"Baby girl is starting to move so much." Elly puts her hand on her belly.

"Have you looked at the names we picked?" Jordi follows.
Ellia gasps.

"We were supposed to look at them the day of the party. I completely forgot about that. I'm still on an excitement high from that day."

"Open it now, I have the names with me." I pull the pieces of paper out of my bag.

Jordi is excited about seeing everyone's name choices.

"Wait, Liana isn't here. I don't want to do it without her." Ellia pleads.

Jordi groans. "Just FaceTime her. I can't wait much longer."

Ellia pulls out her phone and it instantly rings.

"Hey girlie, what's up?" Liana answers.

"Hey, so we just realized we didn't look at the names and I didn't want to look without you. Jordi is being super impatient so do you want to look at it with us through the phone?" Ellia's voice is soft.

Elly turns the phone to all of us and I see that Liana is sitting against a tree. I don't recognize the background which makes me that much more curious.

"Yeah, I was looking forward to this. Hurry!!" Liana exclaims.

I start to unfold the papers, feeling everyone's gaze on me.

"Okay, first we have Jordi Jr?" Our heads shoot to Jordi who is smiling. Elly jokingly shakes her head. "Under Jordi Jr we have Thalia Jo for a girl and Tobias James for a boy."

"Aw, I love those names, especially the boy one." Liana's voice comes from the phone.

"Me too! They're beautiful Jordi." Elly puts her hand on his.

"Next we have, Leia (Lay-uh) for a girl and Oliver for a boy."

"That was me." Liana says. "I couldn't think of middle names so I didn't write any."

Ellia showed her gratitude and love for the names. Lastly, it was my turn.

"Isabella Grace for a girl and Alexander Kai for a boy" I thought these were pretty cool names. Who knows what Ellia was thinking in that moment.

I assume choosing a name for a baby is difficult seeing as though that will be the name they answer to for the rest of their life. It still so weird knowing my best friend is having a baby. We are babies ourselves and for her to be responsible for a human life still hasn't sunk in.

Liana didn't stay on the phone much longer but the three of us stayed together most of the day. I've gotten past the fact that nothing around here will be normal, ever. We will grow, we will move past the decisions we made in our present lives but there will always be the memory for Liana of having to go to court when you're a teenager to see the guy who abused you held accountable for what he did. Elly will always have that memory of taking a pregnancy test and being scared out of her mind at such a young age.

I never imagined my life like this but then again, we never know what our future holds. Something about the three other people I call my best friends make me grateful they came into my life. I'm not the kind of guys to get sappy but all of this craziness has made me realize that although things can and will get tough, with the right people around you, you can get through anything.