Who Knew?

1

On July fourth my best friend Sawyer convinced, or rather forced, me to go to Ashton Kings' annual Fourth of July party. Anyone who knows me knows about my social anxiety and that I try my very best to avoid any situations that could become awkward for me. Everyone except Sawyer seems to take this into consideration when making plans. Maybe he knows it and just chooses to push me out of my minuscule comfort zone, but you would think after fifteen years of friendship he would know better than to try that. Sawyer had been begging me since middle school to come to this party with him because it was known to be great. It was the one time of the year where everyone got along and just had fun together. I've heard plenty about Ashton's three-story lake house, gigantic pool, and the different restaurants that catered the party each year and it did sound amazing. The only problem was the other people, but I guess I could try to get over that for at least a few hours, at least for Sawyer, right?

Sawyer pulled up in my driveway at about twelve that day, even though the party didn't start until six. As many times as I had reminded him that I was capable of walking to his house across the street, he insisted on picking me up. I knew he was there by the familiar beep of his car when he locked it and the sound of him and my mother greeting each other in the kitchen.

"I can't believe you're getting Scarlett to go to that party," I faintly heard my mother say. "Before you go, have some of these cookies I made!" My mother adored him. Then there were the usual sounds of Sawyer eating, telling my mother thank you, "wow, these are great Mrs. Natalie," and his feet banging up the stairs.

Without knocking Sawyer burst into my room with a handful of cookies, one hanging out of his mouth, and plopped down on my bed beside me. Soon after his shoes were thrown onto the floor and my TV had been changed to something that looked extremely boring. I pushed my laptop to the side and got up to grab some of my cuter outfits from my closet. I held up a navy blue dress and blue and white striped shorts with a matching red top in front of him.

"Which one of these should I wear?" I scooted in front of the TV as I said this and he gave me an angry look that quickly faded away.

"Definitely wear the blue dress. It will bring out your eyes and show off your legs." He said playfully. I rolled my eyes at him and walked back to my closet to put back the rejected outfit before going to the bathroom to change into my blue dress.

When I came back I saw Sawyer standing in front of my mirror fixing his hair and smiling at himself. I couldn't help but laugh; it was kind of cute.

Jumping back with a flushed face he said, "Oh, sorry. Um, that dress looks nice on you. And we match." He was wearing a navy blue shirt and light khaki shorts. Sawyer quickly became his normal silly self again, but I couldn't forget the embarrassed look on his face. I smiled at him and went back to finish getting ready while he watched TV. Every once in a while he would call out my name or come in the bathroom so he could tell me something, usually something pointless.

An hour before the party started I heard someone come into our house. Who could that be? I looked out of my window and saw a familiar yellow Porsche parked in the driveway.

I sighed and walked back over to Sawyer. "Lance is here," I said with disgust. I sat down on the edge of my bed next to Sawyer and listened to what was happening downstairs. I heard my mother greeting him, laughing, and kissing him. Repulsive. As soon as I'd had enough and turned my attention back to Sawyer, there was a knock on my door.

"Honey, you and Sawyer come down here for a minute," my mother said.

"Oh my goodness, what do you think this is about." I said to Sawyer.

He shrugged and said, "I don't know. I hope he brought food. I'm starving." I laughed and pushed him out of the door.

"You've been eating since you got here!"

"I can't help it. I'm a growing teenage guy that needs food."

We were both laughing when we walked downstairs and saw my mother and Lance sitting on the couch. They were both smiling and holding hands. I started to get a little worried. Lance nodded and smiled at both of us then motioned for us to sit across from them on the other couch. Then my mother looked at Lance and smiled before speaking.

"I'm pregnant!" I felt like the world had frozen. My mother was smiling and looking back and forth between the three of us while I stared at the ground in shock. I couldn't think of a response or even how to react. I just froze. Not only am I a sixteen year old about to get a baby sibling, this baby is the child of Lance, my mother's horrible boyfriend of only three months. Sawyer broke the silence, but I could tell he felt extremely uncomfortable.

"That's...great," he said with a very unenthusiastic tone. When no one else responded to his remark he spoke again, "So, how long have you known about this?"

"I found out last night, but I wanted Lance to be here when I told you two. Isn't this so exciting?! I can't believe this!" My mother was always one to be overly excited about everything. She was an optimist, while I on the other hand am more of a pessimist.

Lance finally spoke. "It is exciting sweetheart." I couldn't tell if he really meant it.

"Yeah, it's great." I said with no emotion. Why is she excited about this? She's already almost fifty how is she going to raise a baby? "Are we done now? Sawyer and I need to go if we're going to make it to the party on time." I didn't do a great job of hiding the annoyance in my voice, but at this moment I didn't really care.

My mother's smile dropped a little. "Oh, okay. Well have a good time. Be careful. I love you." She got up and gave me a hug.

"We will. I love you too. We'll see you later. Bye Lance." Lance waved and I ran up stairs to grab my shoes and purse.

I ran outside and got in Sawyer's car. He was right behind me and he sped over to get in the driver's seat. Concern was all over his face and I was trying my best to keep it together, but it was difficult.

"Hey, are you okay?" he said sounding worried. "Do you want to talk about it? We can stop and get ice cream since we're early. I'll pay." Sawyer smiled at me and I tried my best to smile back. "It'll be okay," he told me. And I believed him.

"Let's just forget about this and have fun. And yes I would love some ice cream." I smiled at him and he gave me a huge smile back.

"There's that Scarlett smile! Let's go get some ice cream and have fun at our first real high school party!" Sawyer and I have other friends, although they're not the type of friends we want to spend time with outside of school. They're the kind of people who only like to go places and aren't happy just staying in and watching a movie. I prefer to stay home and hangout instead of being around people.

After we got our ice cream we were only about 15 minutes away from Ashton's house and I started to get anxious. This always happens when I go places with other people and I hate it.

"So what do people even do at parties?" I asked while putting ice cream in my mouth.

"I don't know," Sawyer said. Then he thought for a moment. "Well, in movies they always drink and act crazy and go swimming and sneak off into bedrooms and throw up on couches. You know, normal teenage things." He looked over and grinned at me and we both laughed at the thought of us being normal teenagers.

"Well maybe we can be normal teenagers for this one night." I suggested.

He looked at me a little wearily and said, "I don't know about that. Normal teenagers are pretty stupid and I enjoy living."

"We could be normal in a non-dangerous way."

"We'll see."

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Author's Note:

Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed the first part of this book I'm writing! Let me know what you think so I can add more! Questions, comments, concerns, anything.

This is actually not the entire chapter one but I decided to split it up for wattpad.

Let me know if you want to read on!

Love, ivy