Leap Year (✔)

March 28

~1434 Days till next Leap Day~

The sun shone deceptively bright as Rosie tugged her jacket closer around her. Hailey and Pablo sat across from her at a picnic bench. To their right, Darliss Prep.

Hailey's was showing now, her pregnant stomach poking out against even her loose sweatshirts. Her parents were trying to keep the pregnancy hushed up, so they had pulled Hailey out of the rest of the school year. But Pablo and Rosie still had one last afternoon with their friend before she was banished to her apartment.

"Last day." Hailey sighed, looking up at the old brownstone building. "Four years, and I'm never going back. That's crazy."

Rosie didn't know what to say. She'd felt this way a lot recently, like Hailey's pregnancy was this wall between them. Not being able to talk to one of her closest friends stung like a paper cut that refused to heal.

"As soon as you're going into labor, you'll call me first thing, right?" Pablo asked.

Hailey rolled her eyes. "I'll call Zach and then you guys."

Right. Zach.

"I still can't believe you and Zach..." Rosie looked to Pablo and they both cracked up. The thought of Hailey just kissing a boy was unimaginable. This was the girl who covered Rosie's eyes freshmen year when they went to see Booksmart.

Hailey groaned. "This again! I know, I know. Obviously I learned my lesson. And from the number of lectures my parents have given me, I think I'll be taking an oath of chastity from now on."

"But, do you remember when it happened..." Rosie trailed off as Pablo's smirk widened. "The time that got you pregnant?"

A hint of a smile played at Hailey's lips, but she tried to hide it. "Do you remember that time we were all in Rosie's room? It was September and Rosie was still obsessing over Brie. And I said I had to go to work..."

Rosie remembered all right. It was the afternoon she and Brie had kissed for the first time.

"Well... let's just say... I wasn't really scheduled for that shift."

Pablo squealed and started poking Hailey's arm. "You and Zach! You and Zach!"

Hailey burst into giggles. "Stop it. Stop it. This is serious. You have to help me pick a name."

"Is it a boy or a girl?" Rosie asked. She wasn't the best with remembering names, let alone coming up with them.

"Why does the gender matter?" Pablo countered. He'd been trying to get his mom to start calling him Roshanda for years.

"Unfortunately not everyone's as free-thinking as you, Pablo." Hailey sighed. "I don't want to find out the gender ahead of time. I'll need something to look forward to. Everyone I talked to says... they say it's gonna hurt more than anything I've ever experienced."

Rosie wished she could lift some of Hailey's anxiety, but this was something Hailey had to get through on her own.

"Better her than me," Pablo whispered as they rose from the picnic table a few minutes later. "Gay benefits, am I right?"

Rosie slapped him.

➣

More than anything in the world, Rosie wanted to go home after school and play with her iguana. She'd finally settled on a name: Chester, after Hailey had swiftly rejected the suggestion for her own baby. As soon as Rosie had stuck her face against the cage and whispered his new name, Chester's cute, green scaly nose sidled up to hers.

Unfortunately, time at home with Chester was now a luxury as every spare minute of Rosie and Brie's time was spent at Lafayette Theatre in another endless, mind numbing rehearsal.

At least Brie actually had lines to practice. Rosie was stuck either in the freezing auditorium or the sweltering, cramped backstage area as Jo refused Laurie's proposal for the four-hundredth time. The directors insisted on rerunning a scene until it was perfect, which pushed every rehearsal late and aggravated everyone in the cast.

At least Rosie had Brie to keep her sane.

It was almost unbelievable to see her on stage, the same girl who couldn't get through a class presentation waltzing around with the stars of the show. Still, there was a chance that Brie would freak out and cancel at the last minute. Rosie had memorized all of Beth's lines. Just in case.

With Brie's character dying midway through, they got to spend some time together, a few minutes plucked here and there between costume fittings and director's notes.

Rosie loitered offstage for Brie's scene to wrap up, but as soon as Brie left the stage, she marched over to her corner behind the costume rack and pulled out her laptop. Working on her senior project. Again.

To Rosie's extreme annoyance, Brie still refused to tell her-- or anyone else-- what her project idea was.

"I just want one hint," Rosie complained, approaching Brie's sacred corner hideout.

"Nope." Brie tilted the screen away from Rosie's prying eyes. "You'll have to wait until May when we present them. I want mine to be a surprise."

"May?" Rosie pretended to be upset. "But school's practically over by then. Can't you just give me one little hint... before you go off to college and we can't talk as much anymore?"

Brie's face darkened. "I'm not going to college."

"Oh, this again!" Rosie rolled her eyes. Brie changed her mind about college faster than Pablo responded to a text message. It was like she was just trying to get attention from the whole ordeal. "Why won't you just go? I don't see the problem."

"Stop it, Rosie. You don't know what you're talking about."

"I don't understand why you get so defensive about this."

"I'm not defensive!" Brie shouted. The backstage area wasn't large and the cinderblock walls meant noise carried easily. The other actors peeked up from their scripts to see what the commotion was about.

Rosie threw her hands in the air. This was ridiculous. Brie wasn't taking her life seriously. "Do you want to go to college?"

Brie crossed her arms. "Do you want to live with your dad?"

Silence.

Brie's question echoed in Rosie's eyes, the same question that had been lingering in her own mind since her birthday. No, of course Rosie didn't want to. But living her dad and Dina was something she was willing to sacrifice to spend the rest of high school at Darliss, with her friends. Why couldn't Brie understand that?

"Because it's the same answer," Brie continued. "We don't want to, but we feel like we have to." She stared deep into Rosie's eyes, as if daring her to tell the truth. "I'm right, aren't I? You don't want to live with him?"

Rosie clenched her lips together. Of course she didn't. But she couldn't stand the smug smile on Brie's face. She couldn't stand giving her the satisfaction of being right. "Yes. Yes, I do."

Brie's face softened. "Rosie."

Rosie felt her throat start to prickle. Like it always did when Brie said her name. "I don't know, okay? I just don't know."

➣