You'll Be Okay

Chapter 34

"It's a boy," said Kayley and gave me a serious look. "You have to act surprised when we tell everyone else. They should be here soon."

I could barely contain a squeal of excitement. "I knew it! Tyler owes me ten."

Now in late April and eighteen weeks along, Kayley and Jarred had found out the gender of their baby and decided to surprise all of our friends at the café one evening. It took a while for her to work up the courage to tell her mother and while the conversation was a hard one, Elena had agreed to support her daughter.

"That's not all." Kayley, unable to hold it in anymore, burst out; "Lex, I got into UCLA!"

My jaw dropped. "Wait - what?"

She burst into happy tears, throwing herself across the table to fling her arms around me. I gaped stupidly for a moment.

A million thoughts raced through my head and one of them was that we were going to be separated for the first time in our lives. If I was accepted into Yale, then Kayley and her son would be a five-hour flight away. It wasn't a reality that was going to be easy to accept but nothing could compare to the joy of my best friend getting into her dream school.

"I fucking knew it," I muttered into her yellow cashmere sweater. "Oh my God, I knew it! I'm so proud of you. Are you deferring?"

She sniffled before pulling away. "Yeah, 2021 first semester. Anything from Yale?"

I shook my head. "Nothing."

"They'll be stupid not to accept you," said Kayley fiercely. She was going to say something else but caught sight of new arrivals over my shoulder. "Oh, look! The boys are here."

"The devil works hard but my agent works harder." Tyler bragged as he plopped down next to me, Dennis on his other side as Jarred and Reid sat across us. "I have three auditions lined up in LA during the first week of June. So I'm leaving five days after graduation."

"You've said it only a million times," Jarred rolled his eyes. "Hey, but maybe you can drop by our place every now and then. You won't mind, will you, Kayley?"

Kayley smiled through her teeth. "Of course not."

Tyler looked pleased, sliding my croissants over to himself and dug in. "Good. After all, every starving artist needs a place to crash when their millionaire parents cut them off."

Jarred and Kayley shared a worried look which Tyler didn't notice as Jarred changed the subject. "So... I didn't get into computer science at Stanford or Caltech and UCSB is too far from Kayley. But I like USC and I reckon that's the move."

"Go for it, JD." Dennis fist-bumped him, grinning. "My uncle is a professor at USC so I'll fly in to visit every now and then."

"Sounds like a plan," Jarred grinned back, blue eyes lighting up as everything started to come together. "Wow - this is all actually happening. That's insane."

"Can we talk about me, please?" Tyler rolled his eyes. "So, Dennis is going to Harvard, but whatever. More importantly-"

Kayley clapped a hand over her mouth, cutting Tyler off. "Oh my God!"

"It's really not a big deal," Dennis replied with a modest, embarrassed smile. "You know, Reid got into basically all of the Ivies."

"Even Yale?" Kayley perked up immediately, turning to me.

"All of them," Jarred confirmed enthusiastically. "Twenty hours of training per week and a perfect 4.0, Reid. I don't know how you did it - you too, Sinclair."

"His point being that I'm the disappointment of the group," said Tyler sadly.

Kayley leaned forward with intrigue. "So, Reid, what are the chances you'll be at Yale?"