Chapter 30 | You're Too Cute To Die

“All I’m saying is when you fall in love, the emptiness fades away.” — The Wedding Singer

“You’re going to have to speak to me eventually, you know,” My mom tells me, glancing at me from across the table. I look up from my bowl of Lucky Charms and shake my head in response, just to prove her wrong. “I just don’t understand why you’re so upset with me,” She goes on and I sigh under my breath, already getting tired of this talk. She should really just give it all a rest.

Today is March 1, which means that it’s been exactly thirteen days since my mother grounded me for missing curfew and spending the night with Graham for our make-up Valentine’s Day. I, being the stubborn person I am, decided that if she was going to be all mean and sexist, then I wasn’t going to speak to her.

And I haven’t. I haven’t uttered a single word to my mother since that Sunday a couple of weeks back and until I am officially ungrounded, I don’t plan on speaking to her. Today is the last day though and my prison sentence should be up tomorrow, so I’ll start back talking to her. Well, unless she makes me mad today, which is very likely.

The thing is, I wasn’t even all that upset about her grounding me (okay, I was, but that wasn’t the main thing that pissed me off). The main thing that pissed me off was that the same day she grounded me, after Sienna and Piper went home, and after Aspen finally stopped badgering me about intimate details about Graham, my mother came into my room and rained even more on my parade. In addition to being grounded for an entire two weeks, she decided that she’d take away all of my art supplies, disconnect the cable in my bedroom, and ban my friends from coming over, including Graham.

So, that being said, I’ve only been able to see Pipes, Sienna, and Graham for the past two weeks during school hours, which really sucks, because I’m used to spending a lot more time with them all. Also, it really sucks that I couldn’t see Graham, because we have a really big Theology test next week and I’m still his tutor, but because my mom is ridiculous and annoying, I haven’t been able to help him get ready for it. So, thanks to my mom, he’ll probably fail and I’ll feel bad.

“Okay,” My mother sighs when she realizes that I’m still giving her the silent treatment. “Well, just so you know, I’m going out of town on a business trip tomorrow,” She explain and I start eating my cereal noticeably faster so that I can leave this kitchen and return to my Heather-free room. “I’m going to Paris and I’ll be there for two weeks,” She adds. “Do you want something back?”

“Why do you even try with her, mom?” Beckett asks with a laugh, walking into the kitchen dressed in his pajamas. Thank God. I was getting tired of having to see my adult brother walk around the house in only his boxers. It’s very awkward and should stop.

“To show her that I don’t care if she’s mad at me,” My mother replies. “Sawyer, you really should stop taking this whole thing so personally. You broke the rules and I grounded you. That’s what normal parents do. If you break the law, you get arrested. I am just preparing you for the real world,” She explains and I suppress the urge to roll my eyes because that’s dumb and nonsensical.

“Did I hear you say that you’re going to France?” Beckett asks, going over to the cupboard and taking out his box of cereal- Raisin Bran Crunch, which is the worst brand of cereal ever, but it’s his favorite, for some odd reason. He grabs a bowl from the cabinet, the gallon of milk from the refrigerator, and a spoon before coming over to the table and sitting down parallel to me.

“You did,” She confirms with a nod. “I have to meet with the CEO at the company’s regional office in Paris, then I have to go to a week-long convention, and then a four day convention,” She explains.

“But that’s only twelve days,” Beckett realizes. “What are you going to do for the last two days?” He asks what I was wondering.

“Well, it is Paris,” She reminds him. “I’ll go shopping and I’ll eat a lot of Parisian food and I’ll go sightseeing,” My mother tells Beckett.

“Well, you have fun with that,” Beckett says. “Will you bring me something back?”

“Sure,” My mom nods. “What do you want?”

“I don’t know,” He shrugs. “Something cool.”

“Okay then,” She laughs. “What about you, Sawyer? Do you want a souvenir back?”

Just to push the whole I’m-not-speaking-to-you even further, I beckon for Beckett to lean over closer to me and when he does, I whisper in his ear what I want back from Paris and tell him to tell our mother.

“She says she wants macarons,” Beckett repeats what I said. “But that she doesn’t want a 24-pack, she wants a 48-pack,” He adds.

“Fine, but I want you to know that I think you are acting like a brat, Sawyer,” My mother tells me then, giving me an annoyed look.

I finish my cereal then (thankfully) and then I stand up from the table and take the bowl over to the sink, putting it in and walking out of the kitchen. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I am acting like a brat. I don’t mean to, I really don’t, but I just think that me not talking to her is the only way to preserve the peace between us. I mean, if I really said what was on my mind to her, we would get into an argument and she’d probably ground me again and it would just be awful and like I said, I am not very confrontational.

I make my way upstairs to my bedroom and then go over to my bed, plopping down on it. Being grounded is pretty much the most depressing thing ever, because it’s then that you realize how boring your house is. I can’t watch TV, because, like I said, my mom had the disconnected in my bedroom; I can’t leave the house; I can’t make-out with Graham (which I haven’t done in a whole two weeks since our time up at his family’s cabin); and I can’t go to Subway or Starbucks (my mom has literally been trailing me to and from school for the past two weeks, just to make sure that I’m doing what I’m supposed to, which is go to school, therapy, work, and then home). Basically, I’m a prisoner in my own home.

So surely, you can understand why I am so upset with my mom.

Because I have absolutely nothing else to do, I grab my laptop and open it up, going onto Netflix and starting the movie Stuck in Love. I’ve seen it before, several times, actually, but it’s just such a good movie and it has Nat Wolff in it, so I might as well kill an hour and a half of my time by watching it. Man, I wish I had to work today, I kind of hate my job at the hospital, but I most definitely prefer taking people’s health insurance information down for five hours over sitting here with my hypocritical mom.

While the movie is playing, I decide to text Piper. She and Jason are fighting (again) and she’s really sad right now and as her best friend, I obviously have to be here to support her. I’m not quite sure why exactly they’re fighting and Piper doesn’t want to talk about it. I think he probably cheated on her (again) and I wish she’d just stop dealing with him, but she’s blinded by love, I guess.

About halfway through the movie, there’s a knock on my door and I sigh, not really in the mood to talk to anyone in this house. I know that it isn’t Aspen, because she’s at dance class right now, so it’s either Beckett or my mother. Then again though, my mother usually just doesn’t knock on my door because she’s rude and doesn’t respect privacy, so I assume it must be my brother.

“Come in,” I call, pausing the movie and glancing over at the door.

“Hey, baby sister,” Beckett greets with a goofy grin on his face, walking into my bedroom.

“Hey, adult brother,” I say, sitting up in my bed and looking at him.

“So, yesterday was your last day of school before Spring Break, right?” He asks, sitting down at the foot of my bed.

“Thankfully,” I confirm with a nod. “Is it Spring Break for you too?”

“Yeah, and you know how I usually go somewhere with my frat brothers? Well, I decided not to this year, since I’m dating Aspen. I have pretty much no money though and mom said that she’s not giving me money just to blow over Spring Break, but she doesn’t want me to spend the Spring Break stuck in the house, so when I was downstairs just now, she gave me the keys to the vacation home. I don’t think Aspen will want to spend the break without you though, so I was coming to ask if you wanted to come with.”

“Wait just a minute,” I say, getting confused by his words. “Vacation home? What vacation home? We don’t have a vacation home.”

“We definitely have a vacation home,” He states, taking the keys out of his pocket and showing them to me. “You’ve never been?”

“No,” I deny, shaking my head. “This is news to me. Since we do we have a vacation home? And where is it?” I ask Beckett curiously.

“We’ve always had it,” He tells me. “Whenever I was a kid, we’d go there a lot. I’m pretty sure we went there a few times when you were still really young though. I guess eventually we just stopped going. But yeah, granddad and grandma bought it a long time ago and gave it to mom and dad when they first got married. When they got divorced though, mom got to keep it. Anyway, it’s in Cape Cod and Aspen and I are going and I think you should too.”

Wow. It’s so crazy how much you don’t about your own family.

“Well, I mean, obviously I would love to spend Spring Break in the vacation home I never knew existed in Cape Cod, but there is absolutely no way Heather’s going to let me go,” I say matter-of-factly. “I’m still technically grounded for another day, you know.”

“But she just told us that she’s going to be in France for two weeks,” He reminds me. “I’m pretty sure she’d rather you spend a week in Cape Cod with your, in your words, ‘annoyingly overprotective’ brother instead of being here in the house by yourself.”

“Beckett Jameson, I like the way you think,” I reply with a grin, realizing that he’s probably right. My mom would never be okay with me staying home alone for a week while she’s on the other side of the world. After the stabbing incident, she’s paranoid.

“Yeah, I’m much smarter than you give me credit for,” He says. “You have to ask her yourself though if you can come,” He adds.

“It was going just great until you ruined it,” I mumble, rolling my eyes. “Why can’t you just ask her for me?” I ask him with a sigh.

“Because she’s our mother and she she’s sad that you’re not talking to her, so talk to her.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s not sad that I’m not talking to her, Beckett,” I tell him with a scoff.

“No, she is,” He assures me. “If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t keep trying to speak to you,” Beckett reasons.

“Okay, fine,” I sigh, running my fingers through my hair. “Well, does she seem like she’s in a good mood?”

“Yeah, she seems like she’s in a great mood,” Beckett tells me. “She said she’s going shopping for her trip soon though, so hurry.”

“Of course she is,” I reply, rolling my eyes. She shops way too much. “Well, if she says no, you have to convince her to say yes.”

“I’m telling you, she isn’t going to say no, but in the even that she does, I will convince her to say yes,” Beckett agrees.

“Okay, well, I’ll go ask her now then,” I say, closing my laptop and standing up from my bed. “Wait, can Graham come?”

“Wouldn’t you rather spend the week with your favorite brother and your best friend?” Beckett asks instead of answering.

“Actually, no,” I bluntly deny, shaking my head. “I’ve spent time with just the two of you for the past two weeks,” I remind him.

“Yeah, I guess you do have a point there,” He replies, realizing that I’m right, as usual.

“Besides, you told me that you liked Graham; why don’t you want him to come with?”

“I do kind of like him,” Beckett says. “And it isn’t that I don’t want him to come, it’s just that I don’t want to have to spend a week watching my baby sister, who is too young for a relationship, make out and doing other inappropriate stuff with her boyfriend.”

“Remember last week when I went downstairs to get some popcorn and saw you and Aspen dry humping on the couch?” I ask him, raising my eyebrows in question. “Because that terrible sight has been etched into my brain, just so you know. So, if anyone gets inappropriate with someone, it’s definitely not me, it’s you,” I tell him with a small laugh.

I guess that’s kind of a lie though. I mean, from what I’ve seen, Beckett and Aspen most definitely do a lot of inappropriate stuff, but so do Graham and I. At least Graham and I have the decency to be discreet with our inappropriateness though by hiding out in the back of my car or in a locked bedroom. Aspen and Beckett though, they just don’t care.

“Okay, okay, okay,” He sighs, clearly embarrassed by the fact that I’m bringing last week up. He should be embarrassed. I mean, it was awful for me to have to see. “Fine, you can bring Cambridge, but two better not kiss or touch each other while I’m around.”

“Okay, as long as you can promise the same thing for you and Aspen,” I respond.

“Deal,” He says, getting up from my bed. “Speaking of, I’m going to the bakery.”

“What does Aspen have to do with you going to the bakery?” I ask with a confused look.

“She asked me to bake her cupcakes, but I don’t want to, so I’m going to go buy some.”

“Wow, you’re such a great boyfriend,” I say sarcastically.

“Yeah, I know—I’m obviously the greatest boyfriend ever.”

“Maybe second,” I say before walking out of my bedroom and heading down the stairs. I hear him walk out of my room too, but he doesn’t come downstairs. I think he goes to his room.

I walk into the kitchen and am surprised to see that my mother isn’t in there. I decide though that while I’m in here, I might as well go ahead and take my antidepressant medication. She didn’t give it to me this morning, for some reason, which is odd, because ever since my overdose back on Christmas, she’s literally watched me take them. I find the pill in the cabinet and swallow one down with some water before putting the bottle back in its spot and then walking out of the kitchen, still in search for my mother. Hopefully, she hasn’t left to go shopping already.

The only place she’d be besides the kitchen is her room though, I guess, so when I leave the kitchen, I make my way towards her bedroom. When I reach it, the door is wide open, also strange, because it’s usually shut. I walk inside though and see her sitting on her bed, dressed in a fancy looking pair of high heels, black skinny jeans, and a white button up blouse. It’s weird, seeing her dressed like that, because she’s always in work clothes.

“Hey honey,” She greets, looking over at me from her TV, which is currently playing an episode of Law and Order: SVU, as always.

“Hi mommy,” I greet, immediately pulling out the ‘mommy’ card, because I feel like it kind of butters her up, even if she denies it.

“So, you’re actually talking to me now, huh?” My mother asks with an amused look on her face.

“Well, I just wanted to ask if I could go to Cape Cod with Beckett and Aspen for Spring Break.”

“Sure,” My mother confirms with no hesitation.

“Oh,” I say, slightly taken aback. “That was easy.”

“Well, I’d planned on having you go anyway. I wasn’t just going to let you have the house to yourself for an entire week. I was going to send you to Worcester to be with your grandparents, but I decided I’d be nice,” She tells me. “There’s a condition though.”

“Of course there is,” I mutter with a sigh, not even a little bit surprised. “What’s the condition?”

“You have to promise me that you won’t deliberately miss curfew again,” My mother tells me.

“Okay, sure,” I shrug, pushing a lock of my hair behind my ear. “I promise to never deliberately miss curfew ever again,” I state.

I mean, obviously I’ll probably miss curfew at least a couple of more times before I move out of the house next fall to go to college, but I’ll try to honor this promise for a couple of months at least. Honestly though, I still don’t quite understand why my mom gets so bugged out about the curfew thing. Graham doesn’t have a curfew; Georgina doesn’t care at all what time he comes home. Granted, she just recently came back into her sons’ lives, but that’s not the point.

“I mean it, Sawyer,” She tells me, clearly hearing the non-seriousness in my voice.

“So do I,” I pipe, walking over to her and leaning down to hug her. “You’re the very best and I love you lots,” I say, kissing her cheek.

“Yeah, okay, if you say so,” My mother responds with a scoff, returning my hug.

“So, can I have my car keys back?” I query after I pull away. To make sure that I didn’t try to sneak out of the house once she’s asleep at night, my mother has taken my car keys from me every for the past two weeks after I’ve gotten home from school.

“Well, I mean, technically, it hasn’t been two weeks; it’s only been thirteen days,” She reminds me. “But since I’m just so nice and understanding, I guess you can,” She adds, reaching into her bedside table drawer and taking my keys out and tossing them to me.

“Again, you’re the very best,” I repeat before practically skipping out of my mother’s bedroom with a huge smile plastered across my face. “Love you, mean it!” I call over my shoulder as I skip down the hallway and then back upstairs to my bedroom.

When I get back to my bedroom, I close the door behind me and go over to my closet, pulling it open and searching for something to wear. I have so much I need to do today, but first, I need to go see Piper and make sure she’s alright. She sounded okay when I spoke to her earlier, but that’s the thing about Piper, she’s so good at downplaying her pain and making it seem like she’s alright.

From my closet, I take out a pair of a plain grey V-neck, a pair of vintage Leigh skinny jeans, and an adorable new sweater that Sienna bought me last week as an I’m-sorry-you’re-grounded present. The sweater is white, but it’s decorated in a style similar to the way the French flag is and in red letters across the front, it says: French Kissing in the USA. I get dressed in the clothes, slip on a pair of Authentic Stars and Stripes Vans (I must be feeling exceptionally patriotic today), and then pull my hair into a bun.

With my car keys in hand, I grab my phone from my bed, and then make my way out of my bedroom, down the hallway and then downstairs and out my front door. Thankfully, the snowy season has passed and the sun is finally showing itself again. Sure, it’ll snow from time-to-time, but now that it’s March, it won’t be quite as bad as it has been these past few months, which is great.

I walk over to my car and get in, pulling my seatbelt on and starting my car up before backing out of the driveway with a goofy grin on my face. It’s so nice to be able to drive without your mother following right behind you. I turn my radio up a little bit and hum to the Ed Sheeran song that’s currently playing as I merge onto the main road, heading to Piper’s house.

It only takes me about twenty minutes to get there and when I do, I park on the road in front of her house and get out of my car, walking up her driveway. I don’t see either of her parents’ cars in the driveway, which is great, because Piper’s parents are a little bit strange, so I try to avoid them whenever possible. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve lovely people, they just are somewhat… unconventional.

Piper’s mom is an ecologist, her dad is a geologist, and together they own a botanical garden and that’s where Piper works. They’re pretty permissive parents and probably aren’t the greatest parents, because they treat Piper more like she’s a friend than they do like she’s their daughter. Also, they only eat organic food and are the type of people who go to those rallies that promote the shutdown of fast food restaurants. So, yeah, they’re nice, but they’re also pretty strange.

When I get to Piper’s door, I’m about to knock, but just as I raise my hand to do so, the door swings open, and I jump in surprise.

“Hey Sawyer,” The guy, I recognize him from school, but I can’t remember his name, says when he sees me, walking out the door.

“Um, hi,” I awkwardly reply, going inside of the house and then closing it behind me. “Piper?” I call, walking through the living room.

“I’m in the kitchen,” Her voice carries. “I’m trying to drown my sorrows in Ben and Jerry’s and it isn’t working at all,” She tells me.

“What was that guy doing here?” I ask curiously, walking into the kitchen and sitting down across from her at the table.

“Owen,” She vaguely informs me. “I think his last name is Pennington. Or maybe it’s Johnson. Not quite sure,” Piper shrugs.

“You didn’t hook up with him or something, did you?” I wonder, realizing she that didn’t exactly answer my question.

“I do have some self-respect, Sawyer,” She laughs humorlessly. “No, he brought me this Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.”

“Okay then,” I reply, deciding not to pry. “Anyways, I came to see if you’re okay. So, are you?”

“I told you an hour ago when we were texting that I was fine; I’m fine,” Piper says, sighing.

“Are you sure?” I ask, raising my eyebrows in question. “I can call Aspen and tell her to be mean to Jason, if you want.”

“No, that’s okay,” Piper laughs, shaking her head. “Jason is just being a dick as always, but I’m okay; I promise,” She says.

“If you say so,” I sigh, realizing I’m not going to get anywhere—she’s so stubborn. “So, do you have any plans for Spring Break?”

“I think I’ll probably sit here in my kitchen and try to taste ever single Ben and Jerry’s flavor of ice cream ever,” She tells me.

“That is an awful plan.”

“Well, my heart hurts.”

“You know what could potentially make your heart stop hurting?” I query, coming up with a great plan.

“Getting a new boyfriend who isn’t emotionally detached and doesn’t have anger issues?” She guesses.       

“Well, yes, but not exactly,” I reply. “You can come to Cape Cod with Aspen and Beck and me and Graham!”

“You’re going to Cape Cod?” She asks, raising her eyebrows. “In the beginning of March?”

“Yes, because we’re too poor to go somewhere Spring Break-y like Florida or Colorado.”

“I think I’m going to pass,” Piper laughs, shaking her head. “Thanks for the invite though.”

“Are you sure?” I ask, hoping she’ll change her mind. “It’s gonna be a lot of fun,” I add in a singsong voice.

“I’m so sure,” Piper confirms. “You have fun though, with your brother and Aspen and your boyfriend.”

“Well, thanks to you, I drove over here for no reason, so I’m stealing your ice cream,” I say, reaching over and taking the container.

“My heart hurts and my best friend won’t let me enjoy my ice cream,” She sighs, shaking her head. “Could this day get any worse?”

As if on cue, I hear the front door open then and then there’s a high-pitched giggling and then a guy’s voice. I realize then that it’s Piper’s younger brother, Joe, and his girlfriend, whose name escapes me at the moment. Piper doesn’t like the girl, I don’t think, because they’re kinda always dry humping each other, which I’m sure must be hard to deal with while the Jason thing is going on.

“The answer is yes, yes it can,” Piper says, standing up from the table and going over to the refrigerator and taking another pint of ice cream out of the freezer. This is her way of dealing with pain—she eats. Not actual food though, just ice cream until she gets so sick that she throws it up. She’s not bulimic or anything, it’s just that you can only eat so much ice cream before your body starts rejecting it. It’s sad really, but you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped, I suppose. ‘I’m going to bed.”

“Call me if you need me,” I call after her as she walks out of the kitchen. “Also, call me if you change your mind about Cape Cod.”

“I will call you if I need you, but I won’t change my mind about Cape Cod,” Piper mumbles before disappearing out of sight then.

Wow, whatever she and Jason are fighting about must be really serious. Even when they fight, which is all the time, Piper is never this down. She’s pretty much the human equivalent of the sun and the only way she’d be acting like this is if something major happened. I’m tempted to call Jason and demand to know what he’s done, but I remember I’m not that great at being demanding, so I should probably leave that to Aspen.

I decide then that sitting in Piper’s kitchen and eating the rest of her ice cream would be kind of weird, especially if she’s not in here with me, but I don’t want to go up to her room, because it’s pretty clear that she wants to be alone. So I stand up from the table and go back through the living room, awkwardly waving at Joe and his girlfriend before slipping out of the front door.

When I get back inside of my car, I pull my phone out and call Graham’s phone as I start the car and then back out of the driveway.

“Hey jailbird,” Graham answers the phone on the second ring. I actually was expecting to get his voicemail, since it’s only 10 o’clock.

“Hi boyfriend,” I reply with a small laugh. He’s been calling me that (jailbird) ever since my mom grounded me. “Did I wake you up?”

“Nope,” He denies with a sigh. “I’ve been up since about 6 with Jackson. Cassidy decided that it’d be a great idea to get him one of those stupid bells, so that whenever he needs something, he can just ring it so that one of us can come and see what he wants.”

“That sounds like a horrible idea,” I laugh.

“Yeah, it sucks, mostly because I’ve been going up and downstairs all morning getting ice cream and cookies and brownies. I mean, he gets around pretty well on his crutches, but Cass has this weird maternal instinct, so she insists that I tend to his every need.”

“Well, at least he’s cute,” I chirp. “How long has he been out of the hospital? And when did Cassidy and Tucker get back?” I wonder.

This is why being grounded sucks—I’m so behind on everything.

“Cassidy and Tucker got back late last night and Jackson got to come home two days ago,” Graham tells me. “Ever since we left the hospital, he’s been bugging me non-stop about seeing you, so it would be pretty cool if you could come over sometime soon.”

“I can come over now, if you want me to,” I tell him, merging onto the main road and heading towards Graham’s neighborhood instead of mine. “My mom decided to give me back my freedom today instead of Sunday, so I’ll be at your house in ten minutes.”

“Good,” He says. “I never realized how much time you and I spent together until we couldn’t anymore,” Graham tells me. “I mean, really, these past two weeks have been the most boring weeks of my life. Do you want to know what I’ve done? I’ve baked about six dozen cookies with Sienna; that’s what I’ve done.”

“That sounds amazing,” I giggle, having forgotten yet again that the two of them are actually friends.

“It wasn’t amazing,” Graham assures me. “We had to call the fire department twice,” He informs me.

“Well, she has a chef,” I remind him with small laugh. “Why would you guys attempt to bake when there’s a chef that could do it?”

“Because according to Sienna, cookies taste better if you bake them yourself,” Graham explains. “Which is not true, by the way.”

“That sounds like something she would say,” I reply, making a mental note to call Sienna later today and invite her to Cape Cod. I think that she would like to come, because she hates being all alone in her huge house, no matter how many times she tells her parents she’s fine with it. She can even bring her boyfriend, Vince, if she wants to, and the six of us could do six of us could do the double date thing we were supposed to do so long ago, but never actually did. “Anyways, I just saw a police officer and the last thing I need is a ticket for driving and talking at the same time, so I will see you soon,” I say to Graham, not in the mood to deal with a cop. I’ve never gotten a ticket, but I know if I did, my mother would do something ridiculous like take my car back.

Before Graham has the chance to say anything in response, I hear the bell that apparently belongs to Jackson ring out in the background and Graham sighs and swears under his breath. Poor Graham. He says goodbye and I hang up, putting my phone down.

Ten minutes later, I pull up outside of Graham’s house and park in the driveway behind his car, which is parallel to Georgia’s Range Rover. I don’t see Tucker or Cassidy’s cars, but I guess they could be in the garage. Or maybe they just aren’t home. I hope so though, because I really want to ask how their honeymoon was.

I get out of my car then and make my way up to the front door ringing the doorbell when I get there. The door opens about a half a second later and there stands a much larger looking Cassidy with a tired, but happy look on her face. And when I say ‘much larger’, I mean her baby bump is growing, not that she’s just gotten drastically fatter or anything, obviously. It’s kind of annoying though, the fact that she looks better pregnant than I do normally.

“Sawyer!” She exclaims as if we’re best friends who haven’t seen each other in months.

“Cassidy!” I squeal, mimicking her and walking into the house, letting her pull me into a hug. “How are you? How’s the baby?” I ask.

“I’m good—actually, no, I’m great. And the baby is doing really well. Tucker and I just got back from an appointment with our OB/GYN actually and he says that our daughter is doing really great, so that’s exciting,” She rambles, leading me into the living room and sitting down on the couch. Graham isn’t in here, so I assume he’s probably upstairs, dealing with whatever it is Jackson needed him to do when he rang the bell. “Speaking of which, we were trying to pick a name early, but we’re stumped, so out of the following, tell me which three you think sound the best, okay?” And when I sit down on the couch with her and nod okay, she starts naming the names off. “So, first there’s Blair, and then we got Candice, and then Eliza, and then there’s Grace, and then there’s Janie (not Jane, because that’s too formal), and Natalie, and Savannah.”

“Those are nice names,” I say, because they are. “I guess my favorite three would probably be Natalie, Savannah, and Grace though.”

“Right?” Cassidy exclaims as if she’s just had an epiphany. “Those three are literally the names I gave to Tucker and do you know what he said? He said he doesn’t like Savannah because it makes him think of Georgia and he doesn’t like Georgia. And he said that he doesn’t like Grace because he doesn’t like celestial names, so names like Starr and Destiny and Faith, he doesn’t like,” She says. “I told him that’s ridiculous because Grace is such a cute name. Don’t you think that’s ridiculous?”

I open my mouth to agree and tell her that yes, that is ridiculous and that yes, Grace is such a cute name, but before I get the words out, I hear Graham’s voice. “Are you badgering my girlfriend, Cassidy?” He asks, walking into the room.

“I’m absolutely not badgering your girlfriend,” Cassidy tells him, shaking her head. “I’m trying to figure out what Tucker and I are going to name your niece—this is kind of a big deal, you know,” She says.

“You’re barely four months pregnant, Cass,” He reminds her. “The baby won’t be here until August; you guys have loads of time.”

“Yeah, but there’s so many names in the book,” She defends. “We gotta go through them all and decide what we do and don’t like.”

“Well, I still say you should just name the baby Emma,” Graham shrugs.

“But Emma’s so simplistic,” Cassidy tells him. “Like, do you know how many Emma’s I’ve met in my life? Too many, that’s how many.”

“Okay, Cassidy, whatever you say,” Graham chuckles. “Anyway—” He doesn’t get to get the rest of that sentence out though, because I hear the faint sound of a bell ringing from upstairs and Jackson calling Graham’s name. “I’m gonna take that bell and I’m gonna flush it down the toilet,” He says, obviously fed up with it. “I’ll be right back,” He assures me before heading back upstairs.

“That’s a terrible idea, Graham; don’t do that!” Cassidy calls after him. “You’ll screw up the plumbing!”

“Well, back to the name thing, I agree with you on both accounts,” I tell Cassidy.

“Thank you!” She says. “Tucker is so stubborn sometimes, I swear. He wants to name her Makenzie and I just hate that name. I mean, do you know how hard it’ll be for her to learn to write that in cursive? Or how many people will screw up in the spelling?”

“Those are actually really great points,” I tell her. Wow, I never even thought about that.

“That’s what I said. So, he doesn’t want Grace, I don’t want Makenzie, and he doesn’t like Savannah, which is the best name ever, pretty much. Am I rambling? I feel like I’m rambling. I’m sorry. I’m just so excited and stressed at the same time about this whole thing. I mean, in a literal five months I’m going to have a baby. Like, an actual human being that me and Tucker are going to be responsible for taking care of for eighteen whole years. Like, that’s actually terrifying.”

“That is terrifying,” I agree with her. Honestly, I don’t even know if I want kids because of how terrifying the whole experience seems. Not to mention how painful it sounds. Last year, I did the baby project and it was pretty much the worst week of my life, so I don’t know if I’ll ever be emotionally stable enough to deal with it for eighteen years. Then again though, kids don’t cry relentlessly for eighteen years straight. But even if I do have kids, it won’t be for at least like ten years though. “But you work at an elementary school with kids every day and you’re great with Jackson. Don’t stress out about it; you’re going to be a great mom and Tucker’s going to be a great dad. And I’ll be here too, so I can babysit sometimes. Not too often though, because I’m not patient enough for all of that crying.”

“Okay then,” She laughs, running her fingers through her blonde hair. “You’re right, Tucker and I are going to be kickass parents.”

“That’s the spirit!” I say in a chipper tone. “So, what about the honeymoon? How was it?”

“Oh my god, it was so amazing,” Cassidy gushes. “Literally, when we left Maldives yesterday, I started crying because it was just so amazing there. We stayed on Vaadhoo Island and it might have been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I mean, you know aside from getting married to Tucker, of course. But it honestly is just so pretty there. Like, there’s this phytoplankton stuff all over the beach, so at nighttime, the sand is blue. Well, it’s not actually blue, but the plankton makes it look like it is and it glows and it’s just so beautiful. Seriously, if it’s the last thing you do, you should visit there. As a matter of fact, you and Graham could go there on your honeymoon, because we all know you two are going to get married in five, ten years tops,” She tells me.

“Okay, Cass, if you say so,” I laugh. Really, this whole family is full of bluntness, from Jackson to Georgina and everyone in between.

“I just call it like I see it,” She tells me with a shrug. “So, yeah, Maldives was perfect. And before we went to Maldives, we went to London, which was great, but not as great as Maldives. We have pictures and honestly, we look like the biggest and most obnoxious tourists ever, but that’s okay because it was amazing. We went to The Buckingham Palace and the Windsor Castle and The London Eye and some place called Nando’s, which I pretty much died at because it’s pretty much the best restaurant ever.”

“Seriously?” I ask, raising my eyebrows in surprise. “For some reason, I always thought it was a candy shop,” I tell her truthfully.

“It’s definitely not a candy shop,” Cassidy laughs. “But there’s like three hundred of them in Australia, but when I lived there, I’d never gone to one and that is basically my biggest regret in life, because now if I want to go to Nando’s, I’ll have to drive all the way to Maryland. It just might be worth it though. Anyways though, before London, we went to Belize, which is kind of like Maldives 2.0, because it was just as amazing, only there are no blue sand beaches there. We did get to go to a wildlife sanctuary though and the Belize Barrier Reef and ancient Mayan site, which was a little bit creepy, but all in all, it all was really wonderful.”

And people say I’m a rambler. Cassidy is a rambler.

I’ve noticed that she only rambles about stuff that she’s really excited about though, so clearly she’s really excited about her honeymoon and having a baby and all of that stuff.

“Well, I’m glad you and Tucker had such a great time,” I tell her, hoping that Graham comes back soon. It’s not that I don’t like Cassidy, because I do, but I just don’t have much to talk to her about. “Where’s Tucker?” I ask, realizing what’s missing.

“He’s about to take Bono for a walk,” Cassidy tells me and then stands up. “Which means I need to go and get Noelle and put her leash on so we can go with them. We do this every day, take the dogs on walk, and then go to the dog park.”

“You guys are adorable,” I tell her.

“Only about half as adorable as you and Graham though,” She says, which is true because I mean, let’s be honest, Graham and I pretty much the cutest couple ever. “So, I’ll see you later, unless you’re not here when I get back, then it was nice seeing you again,” Cassidy says before skipping (literally) off towards the kitchen, where I suppose Noelle is. I’d imagine it’d be had to skip while four months pregnant, but I guess not.

“Sorry about that,” Graham says, coming back into the room a couple of seconds after Cassidy leaves. “Jackson is really milking this whole bell thing,” He informs me, sitting down beside me on the couch. “And sorry about Cass too; she gets really excited.”

“Yeah, I noticed that,” I laugh. “Where’s Jackson?” I wonder, standing up. “Can I see him?”

“You definitely can see him. I didn’t tell him you’re here, but he’ll be really happy to see you,” Graham tells me before standing up again and leading me up the stairs, to a room halfway down the hallway from his bedroom, which I suppose belongs to Jackson. “Hey, buddy, there’s someone here to see you,” Graham says to Jackson, pushing the door open and gesturing for me to walk in.

“Sawyer!” Jackson exclaims from where he’s lying in his bed, a huge grin spreading across his adorable little face.

“Jackson!” I echo, going over to his bed and sitting on the edge, leaning down to give him a hug. “How’s my favorite six-year-old?”

“How did you know I was six now?” Jackson asks curiously, still smiling his adorable, toothy smile.

“Graham told me,” I explain. “Happy belated birthday, by the way,” I add. “And I’m really sorry you had to spend it in the hospital.”

“That’s okay,” He shrugs, clearly not perturbed by it. “Graham got me a Power Rangers cake and brought it to the hospital, but then one of the nurses got mad at me because I ate too much and threw up on the floor. And my mommy got me one of those really cool kid cars that you can ride in your backyard. Graham snuck me out of the hospital though and he took me to Chuck E. Cheese and we played a lot of games and I beat him in all of them,” Jackson says. “You should have come! Why didn’t you come?”

“Well, that sounds like the best birthday ever, so I definitely would have come if I could,” I tell Jackson. “But I was grounded.”

“Grounded?” Jackson echoes. “Like, your mommy said you couldn’t go anywhere?”

“That’s right,” I nod solemnly. “My mommy said I couldn’t go anywhere,” I repeat.

“How come?” He asks, giving me a curious look.

“Well,” I say, trying to think of a good way to phrase it. “Basically, Graham got me in trouble,” I tell him, but obviously I’m kidding.

“Graham!” He exclaims, throwing something from his bedside table at Graham, who’s standing in the doorway. “You’re so mean!”

“Mean?” Graham says, scoffing at his brother’s words. “I’ve been waiting on you hand and foot since you got home, you know.”

“Oh yeah,” Jackson replies, as if he’d temporarily forgotten about that. “Well, you’re nice sometimes.”

“I’m nice all of the time,” He corrects him.

“No, because you got Sawyer in trouble.”

“Well, it was kind of my fault too, I guess,” I tell Jackson, coming to Graham’s defense.

“See?” Graham replies. “So, there you have it, I’m not mean at all,” He tells his brother.

“Okay, well, next year when I turn seven, you have to come to my party, Sawyer, okay?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I promise Jackson, even though I obviously don’t know if I can uphold that promise. Everything is going to be so different a year from now. I’ll be almost done with my senior year of high school, Graham will be almost done with his freshman year of college and we might not even still be together by then. It’s a sad though, but a pretty realistic one.

“You need to take your meds now,” Graham tells Jackson, walking over to his beside and handing him a pill capsule.

“I don’t want to take it,” Jackson huffs with a sad look on his face. “It makes my throat hurt,” He says to Graham.

“I know, buddy, but you have to take it, or you’re gonna get sick,” Graham tells him. “You got your spleen taken out and your spleen is what helps you fight infection, so if you don’t take your medication when the doctors said you need to, you’re gonna get sick.”

“But it’s gonna make me sleepy,” Jackson sighs. “I can’t go to sleep right now—Sawyer just got here!” He exclaims.

“It’s only going to knock you out for a couple of hours, probably,” Graham assures him.

“I promise I won’t leave until you wake up,” I tell him. I mean, I’m in no rush to get home.

“Okay, but I don’t like it,” Jackson says, grabbing a glass of water off his bedside table and taking a sip before swallowing the pill.

“One day you’ll thank me for everything I do for you, you know,” Graham tells Jackson.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” He says grumpily, lying down in his bed and pulling his cover up.

“Okay, well, Sawyer and I are going to be in my room.”

“Are you guys gonna be kissing?” He asks curiously.

“What do you know about kissing, Jackson?” Graham asks his brother with a laugh as I stand up from the bed, blushing feverishly.

“I’m six, Graham,” Jackson tells him in a dramatic tone of voice, rolling his eyes at his brother.

“Okay, buddy, well, I’ll come and check on you in a couple of hours,” He says before grabbing my hand and leading me out the room.

“I love that kid,” I sigh when we get into the hallway. “I love him so much.”

“I’m pretty sure he actually loves you more than he loves me,” He says.

“Well, I mean, I am pretty lovable.”

“Eh, you’re alright,” Graham says.

“Such a sweet boyfriend,” I sarcastically say to him as we walk into his bedroom and he closes the door behind us.

“Yeah, I know,” Graham agrees, plopping down on his bed and I sit down next him. “So, how was it being grounded?”

“It was the worst thirteen days of my life,” I tell him. “I contemplated jumping out of my two story window several times.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t; you’re too cute too die,” He says and my cheeks flush like they do each time he gives me any compliment.

“Okay, cheese ball,” I giggle, playfully rolling my eyes at him. “So, what do you have planned for Spring Break?” I ask.

“Nothing at all, aside from going on ice cream runs for my brother and listening to Cassidy talk about baby names.”

“Well, I think you should come to Cape Cod with me,” I tell him.

“Cape Cod?” He echoes, raising his eyebrows. “You’re spending Spring Break in Cape Cod?”

“I am, only if I have to go without you, it’s probably going to suck, so can you come with?”

“Are we talking about the same Cape Cod here?” Graham wonders. “The one here in Massachusetts?”

“Do you know of another Cape Cod?” I ask my smart aleck-y boyfriend.

“Well, no, I guess I don’t,” He replies. “But isn’t it going to be cold there? Like, the same temperature as it is here?” He asks me.

“Yeah, probably, but doesn’t spending a week in the cold with your girlfriend sound much better than staying home?” I ask him.

“It sounds a hell of a lot better,” Graham agrees. “Your mom’s actually letting you go though? As soon as she ungrounded you?”

“Well, she’s letting Beckett go,” I explain with a sigh. “And Beckett is taking Aspen, but my mom is going to Paris tomorrow and she doesn’t want me to have the house to myself for a week, so she said I could go,” I tell him. “But I don’t want to be a third wheel.”

“So, Beckett’s gonna be there?” He asks.

“Yeah, but he promised to not be as awful.”

“Then in that case, I’ll go,” Graham says. “When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow,” I tell him. “But don’t you have to ask your mom?”

“Not really,” He shakes his head. “My mom doesn’t really care about stuff like that. I think she doesn’t want to be too demanding.”

“And now I’m jealous of yet another one of your family members,” I sigh, shaking my head sadly. “So, yeah, we leave tomorrow.”

“Okay, I’ll be ready,” Graham says, looking over at me.

“How come you’re looking at me like that?” I ask him.

“Like what?” He wonders with a laugh.

“Like that,” I echo, pointing to his face.

“How am I looking at you?” Graham questions.

“You’re looking at me like you wanna kiss me.”

“I do wanna kiss you,” He bluntly states, but at this point, it no longer surprises me. “I haven’t kissed you in two weeks, you know.”

“How tragic,” I laugh, because he says two weeks like it is two years or something.

“Yeah, it’s very tragic, actually,” Graham informs me matter-of-factly. “Also, I haven’t had sex in two weeks, so that’s also tragic.”

“Well, I’m not going to have sex with you while your mother is somewhere in the house and your kid brother is a few feet down the hall and your pregnant sister-in-law could come back at any time now with Tucker, but I will make out with you,” I inform him.

“No complaints here,” Graham says and then he kisses me.

I don’t know if you’ve ever kissed anyone, but if you have, and you’ve gotten used to kissing that one person, and then you go a long time without kissing that person, and then you kiss that person again, you know how amazing it is. That being said, our kiss gets real intense real fast.

All of a sudden, I’m on my back and Graham is hovering over me, kissing me like my lips are air and he can’t breathe. Then my French Kissing in the USA sweater is tugged over my head and thrown across the room and one of Graham’s hands is gripped against my waist and the other is cupping the side of my face.

My hand placement isn’t anywhere near as chaste as his though and one of them is near the hem of his jeans and the other is under his shirt. We’re both really into it and he’s leaving a hickey on my neck and I don’t know about him, but I’m trying to stay as quiet as possible, because the last thing I want is for someone to walk in here and see us in such a compromising position.

But because I am obviously the unluckiest person in the world, I hear the door swing open a few minutes later and it’s all awkward.

“Sorry! I’m sorry. Oh my gosh, I’m sorry,” Georgina beings to apologize profusely and Graham and I jump apart like we’re magnets.  

Graham rolls off of me and I sit up, fixing my shirt so that my turquoise and black polka dotted bra isn’t visible. It’s just so awkward though and I seriously consider getting up and running out of Graham’s bedroom and throwing myself down the stairs with the hopes of dying. Graham awkwardly picks my sweater up from the floor and it’s really quiet in the room for a second.

“Um, w-what’s up, mom?” Graham asks and he sounds breathless but trying to disguise it, which makes it even that more evident.

“II was just coming to get your laundry,” She informs him, nodding over at his overflowing laundry hamper. “I’m about to wash.”

“Remember the other day when I told you that you don’t have to do my laundry?” Graham asks her with a small sigh.

“Well, yeah, but I don’t have anything else to do, so I might as well wash everyone’s clothes,” Georgina says to Graham.

“Okay, well, if you just insist,” He says, clearing his throat.

Georgina walks over to Graham’s closet then and picks his dirty clothes hamper up before turning on her heels and heading towards the door as if she can’t wait to get out of here. Honestly though, I don’t know why she’s embarrassed, I’m the one who just got caught making out with my boyfriend by his mom.

“It’s really nice to see you again, Sawyer,” Georgina says to me, offering me a friendly smile.

“U-um, yeah, y-you too, Georgina,” I awkwardly reply, stuttering a few times, which makes it worse.

“Well, that was awkward,” Graham mumbles once his mom is out of the room and probably out of earshot.

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

✿✿✿✿✿✿

“Okay, we basically have the cutest vacation home ever,” I say the following afternoon after taking a tour of the Cape Cod house.

It’s like a little cabin, only it’s a lot bigger and a lot more luxurious. There’s four bedrooms; two bathrooms; a spacious living room with a piano, a flat screen TV, and a bunch of really nice vintage furniture; a kitchen that’s completely decked out and if I knew how to cook anything aside from breakfast foods, it’d probably excite me a lot more.

Around back, there’s a Jacuzzi and I plan on spending 87% of my week in there because I love Jacuzzis and also I brought a few really cute bikinis and that’s obviously the only time I’ll be able to wear them. Hopefully doing so doesn’t kill me though, because it’s seriously cold here. It’s a few degrees warmer than Andover though, so that’s nice.

Also, the vacation home sits just a couple of hundreds of feet away from Chatham Lighthouse Beach. I mean, we probably won’t be going to the beach at all seeing as how it’s March and cold, but it’s still a pretty beautiful view. Beckett says that during the summer, our mom rents out the vacation home to people vacationing in Cape Cod, which explains why it looks so clean, despite the fact that we haven’t been here in forever.

“Yeah, I could seriously move here like, full-time,” Beckett says, immediately going to the kitchen, which we just now stocked up.

“Yeah, not really,” Aspen tells him, following him into the kitchen for food I guess. That or to make-out. I don’t think I wanna know.

“What do you think are the chances of me getting pneumonia if I were to go to the beach right now and get in?” Sienna asks me.

She was able to come (thankfully) and she brought Vince, which is good, because now she doesn’t have to feel like a fifth wheel.

Unfortunately though, Piper didn’t call me and say that she changed her mind like I’d hoped she would. I even called her last night to try to persuade her to come and then again this morning, to clarify once again that she’d made her final choice to not come. It’d have been a lot more fun to have Pipes and Jason here, but Beckett and Aspen, Sienna and Vince, and Graham and I will have a bunch of fun either way, I think.

“I’d say the chances are incredibly high,” I tell her truthfully. “It’s like, forty degrees here,” I remind her.

“Oh, well, life is meant for the living,” She shrugs. “I’m gonna get changed and go. Are you coming with me, Vince?” She asks him.

“Sure, but if I get sick because of this, you’re taking care of me,” Vince tells her before following her out of the living room to go get changed into their bathing suits. They actually are insane and they’re going to get sick and I can’t wait to say ‘I told you so.’

There’s a loud crash outside and I, being the somewhat nosy person I am, decide to go investigate. Except not really investigate because I don’t want to have to actually deal with anyone, so I just cross the living room and peer through a small, oval window.

I see a group of girls who look like they’re my age or maybe like a year older and they’re all taking stuff into the vacation home that’s next door to ours. One of them dropped a really heavy textbook though, which seems like a very strange thing to bring on Spring Break, but to each its own, I guess. I realize that I recognize a few of the girls, like four of them, and I realize that they’re from school, but they’re seniors, so I don’t know their names or anything.

“Hey, Beck?” I call, walking away from the window, feeling very paranoid.

“Yeah?” He calls back from the kitchen and I see Graham sit down on the couch and turn the flat screen on, searching for ESPN.

“Do you know who owns the house right next door to us?” I ask him.

“Um, yeah, mom told me,” Beckett says. “They have a really weird last name though. Like Valance and Viton or something like that.”

“Vivaldi?” I wonder, walking into the kitchen and hoping to God he says no and that I’m just being paranoid as usual.

“That’s it!” He confirms. “Yeah, Vivaldi. I knew it was something weird and foreign sounding.”

“Oh my gosh,” I say, starting to feel a little queasy. “My luck actually couldn’t be any worse.”

“Why, do you know a Vivaldi or something?” Beckett wonders, opening a box of Cheez-Its and starting to chow down on them.

“Unfortunately, I do,” I sigh, shaking my head and walking out of the room.

You know, I really shouldn’t even be surprised.

Graham doesn’t know though that his psychotic ex-girlfriend’s parents own the vacation home next door and that she’s here. At least, I’m assuming she’s here. I mean, I just saw a group of girls who I’m pretty sure were all seniors and I can’t imagine why they’d be at Carson’s parent’s vacation home if she wasn’t with them.

I decide then that I’ll just make sure they don’t run into each other. It’s not that I don’t trust Graham, because I do, but Carson is a vulture. A brain-dead, bottle bleached blonde vulture, and if I let her get close enough to Graham, I have no doubt that this trip will quickly turn into the worst Spring Break ever.

Author's Note: 

1. The song is Love Me Like You Do by Ellie Goulding (which is probably my favorite non-Taylor Swift song at the moment because holy crap it's amazing and super cute). The picture is a cover made by pandagirl22122 and that's who the chapter is dedicated to.

2. There's five chapters left, by the way, and they'll be full of a bunch of characters coming back. Can anyone guess who's coming back next chapter (aside from the obvious one). I'll give you a hint: it's a girl and she was only in one chapter and it was one of the earlier ones. 

3. This story almost six million reads and I will probably cry and then have a heart attack and then die when it does. So thanks a whole bunch to all of you lovely people who have stuck with me throughout this story and commented and voted and all that stuff- you're great and I love you lots.