Moving On

Two

"When did you guys start, you know, being boyfriend-girlfriend?" I ask them as we make our way through the sea of people in monochrome. Everybody's preparing to head to the cemetery, and it's completely chaotic here in the Taylor household.

"I'm not sure..." Jess ponders, and then she turns to Calum. "Do you know when?"

Calum lets out a hearty laugh. "I think it was two weeks after you left," he says. "You always forget this," he jokingly scolds Jess.

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry..." Jess says in reply. She says something else to him which has become inaudible to me and I looked at them in awe, thinking that just a few years ago, they couldn't get through a day without fighting off each other and yet now... They're together. And they're happy.

I'm starting to believe that the best relationships are the ones that everyone least expects.

"Okay, I'm going to leave you two so you can catch up with stuff," Jess speaks ups. "I'll get the car ready," she announces, kisses Calum, and leaves.

Calum turns to me like he and Jess rehearsed what just happened.

"Carly gave birth," he says immediately. Wow. That was some catching up.

"Yeah, I know. It's been a year," I try my best to sound shocked and somewhat excited. Calum nods slowly. "Wow, this is really happening," I say. "Luke's a daddy."

"Don't hide what you really feel about all of this, Sandra," he sternly says. "You know that I know you well. You can't hide those kinds of things from me."

"Hey, I'm not hiding any-" I began to protest, but he cut me off.

"Don't deny either. You're never going to pull that off with me," he says. "But don't worry, we don't approve of Carly either. There's something seriously wrong about that girl, we just can't just our finger on it. Even Ashton doesn't know, and he's the most intuitive person in the band."

Wow. If Ashton couldn't figure it out, then we won't ever figure it out. He's like born with a special ability to find things out. "That sucks," was all I could say.

"Yeah."

"But didn't Luke mention that Liz was to conduct a DNA test right after the baby's born?" I say, suddenly remembering what Luke said to me when we were set up by Calum and Jess during their concert back in Ohio. The talk that started another problem...

"Yeah, we know. It happened about a month ago. The results came in yesterday."

"And?"

"Positive," he simply says. He said one word-one word-and it took only that to send my entire world into darkness again. The moment that word escaped from his lips, my heart skipped a beat. I can deny to everyone else that I have no feelings left for Luke, but I can't lie to myself. I can't lie to my heart. And my heart felt like it's just been shot. Repeatedly.

"Oh," I say, barley a whisper. "Wow," I say for the third time today. My insides and twisting and churning and I can't breathe and I my heart can't take the pain anymore is what I don't say, but I want to say. Even though it's Calum, I can't say it. I can't admit it.

"That sucks even more," he says. "But don't worry," he rubs my shoulder. "It's not over yet. We can still figure something out. I'm not stopping. We're not stopping. There's something definitely wrong."

"Can I see him?" I ignore everything Calum just said. It was rude, yes, but I don't want to prolong this conversation. I feel like I'm going to throw up soon, and I want this conversation to be over before I let anything out of my stomach.