Beauty where there's pain

Chapter 11

The two weeks went by slowly and Jade was going stir crazy. The entire time, she constantly thought about how bizarre her pregnancy has been. She experienced no symptoms for the first two months of her pregnancy, and a jealous mean girl tried to hurt her baby. She knew one thing for sure, she was going to have the most insane stories ever to share with her daughter when she was born.

Marcus was pretty much completely finished with the nursery at his house, he was just missing the crib and his nana's rocking chair. He and Jade were not sharing the baby's name until she was born so he couldn't hang up sign he made to go above the dresser until she was finally born.

Marcus went to Jade's house often to keep her company as she waited for the two weeks to be over. The pair of them decided that they were going to file a restraining order against Ginny and as soon as they were 18 they were going to move as far away from her as possible.

By the time the two weeks were over, it was the first week of December, which meant that Jade was going to be 16 very soon. She chose not to do anything to celebrate her birthday that year, even though her mom wanted her to. "You've been dreaming about your sweet sixteen since you were six years old. Remember that movie you and Kenzie used to watch all the time while you were playing with your Barbies?" Her mom asked. "Sixteen wishes mom, and I really don't want or need a party this year." She told her. "At least invite a few people over for dinner." She told her. "Alright mom I will." She replied.

Jade never got around to actually inviting anyone over that week, so on her actual birthday, she was scrambling to find people who would come. Kenzie obviously was going to come over, and Jade was able to invite Bracia, but the two guests wouldn't be enough for her mother. She ended up inviting a few girls she knew when she was on the cheer team, Max, Marcus, Norah and Abby, who all accepted the invite.

The evening was pretty lowkey, everyone ate pizza and did karaoke. The next day at school, the group talked about the fun they had at the party and shared the pictures they took of each other.

Jade felt amazing after the party, she got to hang out with her friends and truly put the last few months of drama behind them. It was like a breath of fresh air.

Ginny lurked in the shadows. After finding out what she did to Jade at the musical, nobody wanted any form of association with her. In AP English class, Jade caught her glaring coldly at her from her new seat in the back of the classroom. "Just ignore her." Max told Jade.

After school, Jade got to go back to her first work shift since the incident. Joe assured her that she didn't have to worry about Ginny being there. For the first time since she's had the job, she felt really happy about going to work. She was friends with a few co-workers, and one girl named Zoey, who was also a teen parents, was always giving her baby clothes and toys. "You can never get enough baby stuff." Zoey told her. "Thank you so much!" Jade said.

"Max. Oh My God." Marcus said when he saw his sister enter the nursery. He was adding details to the nursery walls and Max came into the nursery with three huge bags of baby clothes. "What? She's my niece!" Max said while going the the closet and beginning to hang the clothes up in order of color. "Marcus I swear if you mess up this organization, I will push you down ten flights of stairs." Max said as she continued to sort through each outfit. "Those are so many outfits. How much did you spend on all that?" Marcus asked. "That's irrelevant. What's important is making sure my  niece is absolutely spoiled." Max stated. Marcus rolled his eyes. Max and his parents were rarely seen coming home without something for the baby, and don't get Marcus wrong, he was so grateful for them but he had no idea how he was going to keep up with everything.

He didn't even know about half of the baby things that Max bought, and he was confused, why did one baby need so many headbands? He felt it was best to just not question it.

Jade finally felt well enough to get the rest of the nursery at her house finished. She decided to do a princess themed nursery, and every corner of the room was pink. The crib was ordered but hadn't arrived yet, but she had the rest of the furniture set up. The closet was full of frilly baby clothes in every size and color imaginable. The dresser also had plenty of outfits inside of it. The baby wouldn't be sleeping in the nursery until she was three months old so Jade also had a pink and white bassinet that went beside her bed. She still had to finish washing and disinfecting bottles, pacifiers, and baby clothes but she felt like she accomplished a lot so far.

"I know you won't tell me what you're naming her, but I can definitely guess." Max said to her brother as she hung up a faux fur yellow baby coat. "You can, but even if you guess her name correctly I'm not going to tell you." Marcus told her. "But I'll be able to see it in your face." Max told him. He rolled his eyes. "Ava?" Max asked him. He just shrugged and turned away from her. She sighed and continued to hang up clothes.