Mariana's best friend | Jesus foster

Fourteen

As I was packing my clothes, stuffing them in my suitcase, my friends watched me from the hotel bed, watching me go back and forth. "You're not gonna tell us why we're leaving two days earlier?" Ellie asked softly, making me stop in my tracks.

I shrugged. "Do you guys want to stay?"

They all looked at each other before looking back at me. "I mean, we do have to go back since we already missed Monday and Tuesday, but," Lily sighed as she stood up, walking over to me. "What's wrong?"

"I don't wanna talk about it," I mumbled. Kinsley told me it was a good idea to come back to San Diego, to pick up the missing pieces from myself, but I honestly don't think I found them. Maybe I didn't need to pick up the missing pieces, maybe I needed to make new ones.

"Okay." Lily sighed, crossing her arms. "what times does our flight arrive?"

I zipped up my suitcase. "Tomorrow morning."

She nodded and she walked over to the hotel bed, kneeling down on her knees and taking out her suitcase from under the bed. "If you really don't wanna be here anymore, we'll leave. Besides, I can't miss any more school if I want to get into a good college." She unzipped it and stood up.

She looked at Ellie and Erick who both nodded and stood up, grabbing their own suitcases. Maybe my new friends were my missing pieces, but for certain, Mariana will always be the one I need to complete me, which is why before I left for the airport in the morning, Ellie drove me back to the Adams-Foster home for my goodbye, again.

I knocked on the front door and Emma opened the door. "What are you doing her–" I entered the house, ignoring her and walking up the stairs towards Mariana room. I knocked on the door before entering. She was on her bed with piles of work on her bed.

She looked up at me. "Oh, hey."

I gave her a side smile and bit inside my cheek. "I'm going back home today. In a couple of hours, actually."

She looked back down on her bed again. "Oh."

I sighed and sat on the edge of her bed. "I was doing research last night and I found out stress isn't good... for the baby," I placed my hand on my stomach. "And being here, knowing that there will be more drama–"

"Will cause you stress." Mariana completed, nodding her head in an understanding way. "It's okay, I understand." She sighed, placing her piles of homework to the side. "I just hope you know that I'll be here for you through everything, even if we're far apart." She placed her hand over mine and I smiled.

"I just hope you won't keep Jesus in the dark about this. His baby." She said after a while.

I sighed, standing up. "I won't. When he's better, I'll tell him." I shook my head, crossing my arms. "I wonder how he'll feel knowing he got two girls pregnant around the same time." I rolled my eyes. "He hates me, he probably won't believe me when I tell him." I frowned.

"He doesn't hate you." Mariana looked up at me.

"He does." My phone buzzed in my pocket and I took it out to see a message from Ellie telling me to hurry or we'll be late. I turned off my phone. "I didn't think this weekend would turn out like this. Jesus literally ran down the stairs to see me the first day I got here and now here we are, me avoiding my problems because I got pregnant with his baby and he hates me." I turned and walked towards the door. "What a rollercoaster my life is."

Mariana rolled her eyes and stood up also. "Jesus doesn't hate you. Emma just... she's just a jealous bitch who wants to cause problems."

I gave her a small smile. "I have to go. Seeing you again was the only good thing to come out of this week." I gave her one last hug. "Next time, you visit me in New York." She laughed and nodded.

"I'll miss you."

=

Walking back down the road I once used to hate, I felt relief wash over me. Walking through the door that was once unfamiliar to me, I felt the sense of safety. San Diego is now just a simple memory to me, along with everyone in it and New York is now my home. I softly placed my luggage against the gray walls, taking off my jacket and hanging it in the closet. I sauntered to the modern kitchen, exhaling and meeting the back of Kinsley.

She was swiftly moving around the kitchen with ease. Opening cabinets while keeping her eyes down at a cookbook that was in her left hand. She grabbed a wooden spoon and dipped it in a silver pot, moving it around in a circular motion before taking it out. The wooden spoon was drenched in a deep red sauce and transparent steam flowed out from the pot.

"Smells good," I said after a while making her yelp, swiftly turning around in her heels, her hand placed right against her chest where her heart was.

"Evelyn, you scared me!" She took a deep breath to calm down her nerves. "What are you doing back so soon?" She placed down her wooden spoon, wiping her hands on a napkin before making her way towards me. "I didn't even hear you come in." She wrapped her arms around my body and her warmth made my calm down a bit.

I shrugged my shoulders and wrapped my arms also around her. "Um, the trip didn't go as planned."

She pulled away, leaving her hands resting on my shoulders. "What happened? Are you alright?" We ended up in the living room. I was letting all my feelings out about how the last week had gone down. Skipping the unnecessary parts. I told her about how excited the twins were to see me, about Mariana freaking out seeing Nick when we were at Bayfest, the fight between Nick and Jesus which only resulted in Jesus being taken to the hospital with seizures which also resulted in Jesus having TBI when Nick threw a punch at him hitting him in the forehead where a nail gun had hit him before. As my eyes started getting glossy and I was choking up on my words, Kinsley placed a hand on my shoulder. "He's gonna be okay, sweetie. He'll get better."

Though I was really sad about what happened with Jesus and I did get teary-eyed when I talked about it, that wasn't why I was crying right now. "There's something else that I left out," I said after I calmed down. Kinsley gave my shoulder a squeeze and I was really scared to tell her. "Please, just please don't hate me when I tell you," I said as I stared straight ahead.

I was staring at my bedroom door. It was closed but I already imagined how it looked inside. My clothes were probably scattered on my bed from before when I was excitedly packing my clothes to head back to San Diego, not having a single clue about what was to go down.

Would that still be my room after I told her my mistake?

"At Bayfest," I started off. "Before the whole fight went down," I took a deep breath, averting my eyes from my bedroom door and towards the carpet floor. "Jesus and I were eating when he told me his feelings about me." From the corner of my eye, I saw Kinsley nodding, listening to my every word. "We shared mutual feelings and one thing lead to another." I slowly looked up at her. "I made a mistake," I whispered. I watched as realization hit in her eyes. I looked back down. "I'm pregnant." I felt as her hand slowly slid off my shoulder. I chuckled as I wiped my eyes. "He hates me because he thinks I used him, he doesn't know about me being pregnant and the worse thing is, he got another girl pregnant around the same time as me. It just happened to be his ex who also hates me."

As I was thinking about it while Kinsley stayed quiet, Emma was probably already pregnant when Jesus told me his feelings. He just didn't know. "Everything is so fucked up!" More tears freely flowed down my face. I stood up. "I understand if you wanna call social services to take me back." I turned towards her and she still didn't answer. She just looked up at me. I felt my heart break even more as she avoided eye contact.

I shouldn't have gotten attached to New York so quickly.

As I started walking to the bedroom to pack my bags, Kinsley warm hand grabbed my wrist, pulling me back. "No, I'm not gonna call social services." She sighed and she grabbed her bag. "I wanted to do this in a special way but," she mumbled as she dug through her bag before grabbing onto a folder, pulling out and handing it to me. I softly grabbed it and she urged me on to open it. When I opened it, more tears flowed in my eyes.

"I was gonna do this whole big surprise, but I'm giving it to you now so you know I'm never calling your social worker. Nothing you do is gonna make me regret making this choice."

It was adoption papers.

=

[Edited on 2/23/2019]