Rebel

Chapter 34: Make Me Proud

"There's no fucking way you stood up to Tess!" Rachel shouted. I chuckled and held onto my belly. "Fuck yeah she did," Danny said proudly. "Mean ass Maw maw Tess?" Mel asked, making sure that she heard him right. "It's about fucking time someone put her in her place. I couldn't imagine growing up around someone like her," Jamie said, sounding relieved. Throughout the years, all of them had also felt her wrath, so they knew how big this milestone was for me and my mom.

Tess was a lot nicer over the course of the next few days. She spent time with Mom and I, preparing for Fauna's arrival and tying up some loose ends for graduation. Unfortunately, she would ask us time and time again about where Candace was and what was going on with her and we decided to keep our mouths shut. That was a conversation that she was going to have to have with Candace and Aunt Lil.

We'd found out that Candace was going to be able to graduate with us. It was probably only because Mount View was ready to get rid of her and just hand over her diploma like they did with a lot of the kids we went to school with. It was sad, but at least we could be happy that she had one of the many keys she would need to get somewhere in life. I had stopped worrying about what she was going to do and if she was going to get clean. She was the only one that had to live with those decisions and it was out of my hands. I didn't need that stress anymore.

For the first time in a long time, she reached out to Rachel to gather all of us up together at Reggie's. I didn't know what she had to say or what she wanted, but I decided that it wasn't going to phase me and pull me back into her bullshit. I had gotten off of her merry go round a long time ago and I felt ten times lighter ever since.

I sat with my swollen feet propped up in Danny's lap with everyone else on the porch. Flora was passed out. The beaming sun didn't bother her and on the inside, I was freaking out and terrified that she was going to get sun burnt. Reggie and Danny rambled on about having kids and how odd it felt to become responsible for another human being, especially when they didn't have to haul them around for nine months. Reggie was trying his best to scare Danny with what happened when Rachel went into labor and gave birth. "Syd already told me you acted like a little bitch!" he yelled, causing Derek to nearly fall over laughing.

Us girls were pretty quiet. We were always like this when Candace summoned us. I think we were all afraid to see how bad she had gotten since the last time we all saw her. It was painful to watch no matter how much I wanted to act like it didn't bother me anymore. I wanted to wash my hands of her, but my heart would never let me.

"And like the whole school knew Syd was pregnant way before she even started showing," Derek said, pulling my attention to their conversation. "I heard she was about to murder Kelsey Marcum. Did you really fuck her?" Reggie said jokingly as he turned toward Danny. We could all tell that he didn't appreciate the joke. "I'd saw my dick off first. She only said that shit because somebody had already told her that Syd was pregnant. Me and Syd left her birthday party together that night," he snapped. "We all knew she was pregnant the night of the party. Your girl's got some balls," Rachel said as she laughed boastfully. I couldn't help but laugh myself when the memory of that night drifted into my mind. "Well, who said something about it?" I asked, curious as to how the news got out in the first place. The only person I could even think about putting my business out in the streets just to be spiteful was Candace.

"It was me,"a familiar voice admitted. We all turned our heads to the driveway and I was right. "Well, it's too late to be mad about it now. The baby will be here before we know it," Danny said quickly. He had saw the expression on my face and wanted to diffuse the situation before it could escalate. I wasn't mad about it anymore. I wasn't going to give anyone my energy when I was slowly gearing myself up to push a baby out. Rachel, Mel, Jamie, and I locked our eyes on her.