"Why would I cry?"
"Cause you’re a crier . . ."
"I am not . . ." Keryn interrupted. "Why would I cry?"
"She just fell off the pier, and they got together again, sweet dances on the dance floor. You’re crying."
"I am not." Keryn demanded and blinked her stingy eyes. "Change the subject."
Taylor snickered and twisted the phone cord around his hand. "I can’t believe it’s been a month since i’ve seen you." He sighed and laid back on the sofa as the Dawson’s Creek credits rolled.
"Tell me about it, I don’t think we’re ever going to see each other again," Keryn let out an exaggerated sigh.
"Oh, cheer up." Taylor smiled and switched the television off. "We’ll see each other in a matter of months."
"A matter of months? Oh geez . . ." Keryn giggled and tapped her fingers to the Charmed theme song as beams from the television lit up the living room.
"Have you thought any more about University?" Taylor asked. He knew the subject was touchy, and waited for a snap back from her about how she was under too much pressure to decide.
"I don’t know Taylor," she breathed in hard, as if her lungs had ceased to work. "What should I do?" Keryn stared intently at the Oral Roberts University and University of California catalogues on the table.
"Have you thought about anything you want to major in, or any Uni’s you want to go to?"
Keryn bit her lip and stared at the catalogue again. She didn’t tell Taylor about her thoughts over the past few months. She didn’t know whether to leave Kayla and her friends in California, and she didn’t know whether to return to her friends in Tulsa. Or, even take the semesters off. The bright ORU emblem sparkled as if it were calling her name . . . But the UCLA banners shone like nothing else.
"Taylor, I haven’t even looked around," the white lie slipped.
"Well, just wait until you finish your exams and decide then. You’ve got heaps of time, you know?"
"I know." Keryn looked up toward the clock. "Tay, I have to go now. I have exams all day tomorrow, starting early."
"You’ll bliss right through it. Sweet dreams."
"Seeya Tay," she could hear him smiling into the phone.
"Goodnight."
The phone clicked on both ends. Keryn leaned back and stared towards the ceiling.
"Keryn . . . What the . . .? Keryn finally hung the phone up?" Kayla made an entrance and started to talk to the wall.
"Shut up Kayl, what are you up to?" Keryn broke out of her trance and watched her friend fall back onto the couch.
"Nothing much, just finding something to do. I’m getting seriously bored with this place."
"Tell me about it, my live is so puzzling at the moment. I think I might have a nervous breakdown next week."
"You know, it sounds like a plan. I’ll join you if you don’t mind." Kayla grinned.
"Have you thought any more about Uni?"
Keryn groaned and sent her forehead racing into her hands.
"Would you people please stop talking about my future?"
"Sorry Keryn, I think it’s just something you’ll have to consider."
"It’s considered, Kayla, I just don’t want to talk about it."
"You can’t keep walking away from the decisions you have to make."
"You don’t think I know that?"
"Does Taylor even know you’re considering staying on at UCLA . . . Or, have you just lead him to believe that you’re going to ORU or The University of Tulsa?"
"Kayla, I can’t take this, you’re supposed to be offering me some kind of support."
Keryn let out a frustrated breathe and looked at her friend.
"I’m sorry, Keryn. But, if you don’t start considering applications, it’s going to be you that’s going to miss out . . . I’m serious."
"I’m serious too Kayla, I can deal with this on my own."
Kayla pulled herself from the couch. "Well, just think about it. I’m here."
"Thanks," Keryn half smiled and switched the television off. "Thanks."
A slightly muffled whispering sound could be heard from the other side of the bedroom.
"Would you guys shut up?!"
Taylor became alert and looked across the darkened room.
"Don’t listen then, Zac."
"How can I put up with this? If you refuse to include me, then you could at least do it out of my earshot."
Isaac pulled himself up onto his elbows. "We are including you," he lifted his eyebrow and looked at the darkened shadow he could see of his brother.
"Really looks like it," Zac groaned and dug his head into the pillow.
"Come over here then, and sit with us, we’ll soon fill you in."
Zac pondered the situation . . . it was either going to be sleep or his brothers’ mindless chatter.
"Whatever." Zac muttered and went over to their side of the room.
"We were just discussing . . . what were we talking about, Tay?"
Taylor rolled his eyes and shoved a pillow into his brother’s face.
"You really care about my problems. You can’t even remember them!"
"Oh, that’s right," Ike guided his attention back to Zac. "We were just discussing Keryn moving back to Tulsa."
Zac’s sleepy eyes flickered in surprise. "She said that?"
Taylor smoothed his hands over his crossed up legs and looked at his brothers. "Not in so many words."
"Well, what did she say?" Zac asked.
"She’s going to start looking at Universities."
"And from this you’ve come to the resolution that she’s moving back here?" Zac lifted his hand to his chin in thought.
"Well, where else would she go?" Taylor asked Zac.
"Tay, there’s like fifty or is it fifty one states in this country - don’t count on the possibility that she’s coming here."
Isaac shot Zac a look and they both watched Taylor.
"You think?" Taylor hadn’t really considered the possibility that Keryn may not come back.
"Well," Zac was thinking fast. "I think I might be wrong. When we discussed it, ah . . . a while ago, she seemed pretty persistent on coming back here."
"You think?" Taylor could only conjure up the two words at the moment.
"Yes," Ike decided to put his bit in. "Kayla assumes she’s coming back here. She lives here - why wouldn’t she?"
"So - you think?" Taylor looked at the carpet in front of him.
"Yes!" Ike and Zac said at the same time.
"Okay guys," Taylor hushed his brothers. "Keep it down."
"Well, i’m going back to bed." Zac stretched from his position on the carpet. "See you guys in the morning."
"Hang on, Zac."
Zac swung around and looked down at Taylor. "Wha?"
"Before I came home from Los Angeles, did you notice anything overly weird about Margo?"
"More than a little," Zac started moving his arms in the air. "I mean ‘hello?!’ - that girl’s psychotic!"
"Zac, I wouldn’t go that far. It’s just that, well,"
Taylor paused and thought for a moment. "She called the other day. Even after we talked about not being anything between us"
"That’s what she was like with me until you got back. Although, Mack has been saying a girl calls for me every so often and then hangs up the phone. It’s weird."
"You’re telling me. I’m starting to get worried about her."
"Hey now, I wouldn’t if I were you. You’re just complaining about everything with Keryn and now you’re thinking about Margo again. Don’t go there Taylor." Ike spoke up.
"Well, I’ll just leave her alone then. I just don’t get her."
"I wouldn’t worry about it - she’s done the same thing to John next door and Michael I think."
A confused look sprung onto Taylor’s face. "What?"
"I don’t know," Zac said. "I just don’t know."
For Margo the nights were sleepless. She lay, staring at nothing, sick with fear. She was pregnant. Her repeated efforts to get rid of it had failed. She was going to have to tell someone soon. She just didn’t know who. She didn’t know who was the father. She was so confused. The only person she knew would help here in this time was the one boy she knew wasn’t the father. Taylor. For the 14th time that evening she dialed his number.
"Hello?" a confused voice answered.
"Hi Ike, It’s Margo. I know its late but I need to talk to Taylor."
"Now? Cant it wait for some other time?"
"No, I need to speak to him now."
Ike passed the phone to Taylor who sat mortified on the bed next to him.
"Hello Margo."
Upon hearing his voice she burst into tears.
"Margo, please don’t make this hard for me, we broke up we both have to move on…"
Zac and Ike watched as Taylor’s face consorted out of disbelief as he listened to Margo.
"A child?"
Ike and Zac almost fell onto the floor. A child? What the hell did that mean. Immediately all sorts of awful ideas grew in their minds. Their eyes narrowed as they stared at their brother. Someone had to call Keryn and Kayla. It was Zac who crept out into the hall to get his cellular. Taylor watched Zac go and though nothing of it. Ike sat regarding him with new found wariness.
"Hello?"
"Kayla? It’s Zac."
"Jesus Zac…what a time to call…what’s up?"
"We just got a phone call."
"From who?"
"Margo, she’s pregnant."
As Taylor hung up the phone with Margo the damage was already done. The story had passed to LA.
"Ike... quit looking at me like that!"
Ike began to form the ‘big brother’ speech in his mind.
"Tay how could you do that? Not only to her but to us, we’re a team if you slip we all slip. What are we going to do now? How will you tell Mum... how will the media deal with this? How about Keryn how do you think she will deal with this. I cant believe it, how could you be so stupid. So stupid. Taylor what are we going to do. Jesus sometimes I wish you thought before you acted."
"IKE! Chill out... whats wrong…what have I done?"
"What have you done? What a question? You got Margo pregnant!"
Tay stifled a laugh.
"Me? God no Ike. But she is pregnant, but not by me."
Ike turned white. He raced after Zac.
Taylor sat confused. What was going on? His mind shifted back to Margo, she was pregnant. Didn’t know who to talk to. She didn’t even know who the father was. No wonder she had been acting strange lately. She had no one to turn to so she chose Taylor. Taylor shuddered in realization of what support he was going to have to show to someone he could now barely stand in the same room with. In short he was disgusted by her but at the same time filled with sorrow.
Zac and Ike raced back into the room at the same time.
"It’s not your baby?” demanded Zac as he puffed.
"No... of course not."
"Oh God what have I done?" asked Zac.
"What have you done? Zac? Tell me."
"He rang LA." Ike quietly admitted.
"He what?" exclaimed Taylor in disbelief as his eyes widened, "to tell them what?" it dawned on him, "Oh My God... you didn’t."
Zac shrugged, clearly breaking up inside.
Taylor grabbed the phone and punched in the girls number…it was engaged. He tried again. Same tone.
"Fuck, they’ve got the phone off the hook."
Kayla gingerly placed the phone on the hook then took it off again. She then walked back into the kitchen where she and Keryn were fixing a late snack.
"Who was that on the phone."
"Zac."
"And what’s news, didn’t he want to talk to me?"
"Nah, I told him you were busy and that would pass on the message."
"Message? Is something wrong, Kayla tell me."
Kayla slipped her hand onto the back of her friend and pushed her out to the lounge. Once settled she broke the news.
Keryn was in tears.
"When? Kayla when?"
"I’m not sure, Zac didn’t say."
Keryn buried her head in her hands and shuddered. Everything had been going so well.
"Keryn, I don’t know what to say, I am so shocked."
"I don’t know either…Kayla he told me I was his first. He lied to me."
The tears started to flow again and Kayla was quick to put a protective arm around her friend.
"Kezza, I’m sure he still loves you. This wont change anything."
"But it already has. It already has."
As she said it she was already carrying herself to her room. She emerged seconds later clutching a brochure.
"That settles it Kayla, I’m going home."
She turned over the brochure so Kayla could glimpse the title. University of Sydney.
"Are you sure?"
"Am I sure? Yes of course I’m sure. It is the one place I know has my courses and now that, that this has happened I have a chance to go. I get an extra long holiday and you will join me in Australia in a few years tops. It’s logical."
Kayla sat stunned.
"Kezza don’t you think this is all a bit rash. Give it some time."
"No, I want to go. I’ll ring tomorrow an accept. And then I’ll ring the airport. My exams finish the day after tomorrow. I don’t care for the end of year functions. At the moment, I’m not even bothered about my results."
"What about Taylor?"
"What about him?"
"What’s he going to think….yes he may have made a mistake but this is a bit harsh. Keryn he still loves you."
"Well maybe Kayla I don’t love him anymore."