Secretly Married (English)

Chapter 28

When Phoebe came to, she saw Kent with his head down sitting on the other edge of the bed. She prodded him, but he wouldn't look up. Her stomach started grumbling.

What happened a few hours ago started coming back to her—she blacked out. She looked at the wall clock. They missed a day of school because it was already a few minutes past lunch time. She prodded Kent awake repeatedly before he opened his eyes.

"Hmm, you're awake. How are you feeling?"

"I'm"—Phoebe heard her stomach grumble— "hungry. What happened?"

"You passed out."

"What? Why didn't you take me to the hospital?"

"Relax, that's just normal."

"How is it normal?"

"Don't you know?"

"What, Kent?"

"You're pregnant, Phoebe."

Phoebe stared at him in shock. She could not believe what she was hearing. On the one hand, she felt giddy and immediately imagined a cute baby in Kent's arms. And then she realized that she had just turned eighteen.

She had no idea how to react. "Hey!"

"Kent . . . ," Phoebe began tentatively.

"I'm kidding!"

Phoebe let out a sigh then proceeded to hit Kent.

"How can you joke about something like that?"
Kent laughed as he fended off Phoebe's weak arms. He took her wrists with both his hands and said,

"Why, don't you want to have children with me?" Phoebe stopped attempting to hit him and looked down. "Well . . . um . . . Kent, we're still young, but of course, I would love to . . . just not like this." "Like what?"

"Like this, when we're surrounded by all these issues."

Kent nodded.

"What happened to me though? Why did I pass out?"

"Well, did you skip meals again?"

Phoebe thought about this for a while. She didn't have dinner earlier, and at lunchtime, she barely touched her food because she was thinking about what Harley did.

"I may have . . ."

Kent hit the bed and pointed his index finger at her. "Well, there you go. Come on, get up. Let's eat."

Phoebe stayed put though. "Kent, what will you do ifever . . . you know . . . ?"

Kent considered this question for a split second. "Well, I won't have a choice, will I? I'll have to tell the people we're married. Regardless of what the contract says."

"Okay . . ."

"Now, get up, lazy ass. Let's fatten you up."

Phoebe received a call from Jhone later that day while Kent was out for another shoot. She told her friend about what Kent had said about her talking with Philip.

"So I can't talk with him again."

"What? That's crazy! This is your chance to get back at Elisa!"

"How exactly is talking with Philip a way to get back at that witch?"

"Well, Philip can make a statement regarding what happened . . ."

"And who would believe him?"

There was silence on the other line for a few seconds—a rare feat, considering how a phone call from Jhone typically never had dead air.

"Well . . . um . . . fine. I haven't properly thought this through! But he can help us, I know!"

"Well, if you've thought this through, get back to me."

"Fine, fine. Aren't you going to ask about school?"

"You don't know me at all, do you? Of course not!"

The two friends laughed, and they went on with their conversation, dissecting everything Kent said and giggling in between.

Harley looked at his phone and saw an unregis- tered number calling. Wary about the call, he picked it up on the fifth ring.

"Hello?"

"Is this Harley?"

"Yes. Who's this?"

"This is going to sound weird . . . but this is Jhone."

"Oh, Isabelle's best friend. Yes, what's up?" Jhone took a few seconds to speak up again.

Harley thought the call got cut, but it wasn't. "Hello? Are you still there?"

There was nervous giggling on the other end. Jhone then cleared her throat. "Well, um, yes, I'm Phoe—I mean, Isabelle's best friend. I have something to tell you."

"What is it?" Harley's heartbeat grew faster, as if he was anticipating that Jhone would tell him that Isabelle had secret feelings for him.

"Well, um, we know who's responsible for those photos of you and Phoebe together."

Though the new information disappointed him, it still somehow held interest. "You do?"

"Yes, but the thing is, Phoebe's not supposed to talk with him. But I really think that Phoebe should at least get some revenge—and you too!"

"Him?"

Jhone told him about Philip and how he'd taken the photos and uploaded the news article upon Elisa's instructions.

"Does Kent know?"

"I don't think so . . . just that he's warned Phoebe against talking with him . . ."

"You know what, Jhone—let's take this matter into our own hands. For Isabelle."

The next few days after the passing-out incident, Phoebe felt like she was on cloud nine. Sure, people were still staring at her and Kent whenever they held hands in school, and she could hear their whispers whenever Kent bought lunch for the two of them in the cafeteria. But really, she couldn't care less. While Kent still had his bad moods, he was mostly sweet. He just wasn't as demonstrative as Phoebe wished, but the little things he did, like bringing her ice cream after he came home from a shoot or knocking on her door in the morning before school, meant the world to her. It was almost as if these things were made better by the fact that he did them without making them seem like grand gestures, like they were normal things you do for the one you love.

Phoebe caught herself grinning like an idiot in class whenever she remembered the way his hand felt on the small of her back when they were walking together to his car or the way he looked at her before kissing her on the forehead and saying goodbye.

Her head was so up in the clouds that she didn't notice her friend and Harley talking with each other more than usual.

Kent was going over the shooting schedule with his manager when he saw the schedule for next month which was two weeks away.

"This—this is still pushing through?" he asked her.

"Yep, I guess you and Elisa are becoming more bankable by the minute. That's why the producers okayed it."

Kent couldn't believe it. How was he supposed to break this news to Phoebe now that what they had was going so well?

*later*