Unpredictable

Chapter 2: Baby Daddy

Tanya made sure she sat next to Dylan, who was sitting next to me. Edward looked impressed that I'd gotten him to come so quickly ("Usually he doesn't leave Aurora for at least another half hour!") and all Ethan wanted to do was discuss the upcoming football game.

I learned a lot about the Evans family over dinner. For starters, Doug and Edward had secretly dated when they were in high school before breaking up, Doug to be out of the closet and free as he put it, Edward to marry Ethan's and Evie's mother. Ethan and Dylan also played football, which was how they had met (that, and they'd lived next door all their life). Dylan's parents were never home, apparently they were rich business moguls or something and always off on separate business trips. Doug and Edward were basically Dylan's parents, too.

Kaia was an eager little ball of excitement, her black hair in pigtails with pink ribbons and messily done makeup all over her face as she ate. She sat on my other side, very eager to have a big sister to attend her tea parties, because apparently Evie didn't count anymore.

"So, where are you from?" Dylan finally turned the conversation to me. Dammit. I had been trying to finish my food as quickly and silently as possible.

"Um, everywhere, I guess? I was born in Chicago." I returned my attention to the spinach pizza in front of me.

"Really? What's it like there?" Now Evie was pestering me. "Dads said I could go for my graduation present," she explained. "I'm a fashion freak."

"I don't really know. I haven't ever been back." I'd had a foster family for three months in Chicago, but then they got pregnant with their own baby and didn't want me anymore.

Tanya looked incredibly bored with the conversation, probably because she wasn't the one talking. "So, Dylan, I heard you were hoping to study abroad in college? Me too! Where do you think you'll go?" she pressed.

Dylan looked incredibly uncomfortable. Misery, meet company. "Yeah, but I don't see how that's going to happen now, with Aurora. I don't want to be so far away from her. Besides, I'm trying to get a scholarship anyway."

Tanya looked significantly depressed. "Are you sure?" she tried again. "What about Paris? It's the most romantic city in the world!" She scooted her chair closer to Dylan, who scooted further away.

"What about you, Sophie?" Edward asked me gently. God, when had such simple questions felt like a freaking interrogation? "What are your plans for college?"

"I hadn't really thought that far ahead." Not to mention, nobody had ever taken me to visit any colleges, and I kept moving around, so it wasn't like I could just apply for a community college and hope for the best. Nah, my future looked like being a waitress in a diner, and living in a grungy apartment.

"But you've applied to college, right?" Tanya asked, suddenly looking somewhat mischievous. I suddenly didn't like Evie's best friend at all. I got the feeling Evie's family didn't, either.

"No," I muttered.

"Didn't your families take you to visit them?" Tanya asked, feigning innocence. Please, she reeked of bitchness, and if she was a bitch, then I was inclined to think that Evie was a bitch too, despite her seemingly kind nature.

"No." I was tired of this conversation, and of Tanya. Did she live here or something? "May I be excused, please?"

"Of course," Doug, who had a much deeper voice than Edward, nodded. "Ethan, could you show her to her room?"

Ethan bobbed his head, and Dylan joined him as Evie chastised her best friend, clearly believing that she didn't know.

"Maybe dads can take you to visit some colleges, while you're here," suggested Ethan.

"I wouldn't want to trouble them," I said. Ethan seemed like a good person, and good people just didn't get that my future had already been decided, and it was minimum wage at a coffee shop.

"No, no, you wouldn't be troubling them at all!" exclaimed Ethan. "Ask them, come on, they'd be happy too!"

"I'll think about it," I said.

Ethan nodded as we arrived at what had clearly been the spare bedroom. My duffel bag was resting on the bed, and my backpack was near the nightstand.

"You don't have a lot of stuff," remarked Dylan.

"Never needed a whole lot," I retorted. "Aren't you going to go back downstairs?"

"As much as I would love to see Tanya being kicked out of the house again, you have to ask Ethan's parents about college," Dylan said. "I know you're not going to."

"Look, you guys are great, and all, but this foster home isn't any different than any of the others," I informed Dylan. "Sure they might be a little bit nicer, but the minute I turn eighteen and they stop getting money from the government, you think they're going to want to keep me around? You think they're going to want to keep around an ugly eighteen-year-old with way too much baggage and no money to her name?"

Dylan stared at me for a minute before muttering, "You're not ugly."

"You don't know me," I responded swiftly.

"Look. My parents gave up on me when I entered middle school and got my first detention. You think they still wanted me when I got some girl I didn't even know pregnant? I barely managed to persuade her to keep the baby," Dylan told me. "And the only thing my parents told me was that I got a house and a college fund. I'm saving the college fund for Rory, trying to get a football scholarship for myself. The only people that stuck by me through all my mistakes were Ethan's dads. My own parents didn't even know she was pregnant until they couldn't pay her off to get an abortion, because it was too late."

"That's great and all, but I was listening at dinner. You're Ethan's childhood best friend - "

"You think he was friends with me when I was smoking? Sneaking into frat parties, hotwiring motorcycles, anything to get my parents' attention? He hated me. But he still showed up when I called, drunk off my ass. He was still there for me when I got her pregnant."

"Just leave me alone, please," I sighed wearily. "You're different than me, okay?"

"How?"

"What?" I almost laughed at Dylan's question.

"How are my mistakes different than yours?"

"For starters, you weren't framed for your mistakes. You're a white male, so everybody's pre-programmed to believe you. And finally, even if you weren't friends with Ethan, you still had him as an emergency contact or whatever. I don't have anybody. So please, leave."

"You start high school tomorrow, right?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'll see you in class, Soph."