It’s wild how much things can change in a year.
A year ago, I didn’t know who my dad was. I didn’t know I had a sister.
A year ago, I was breaking up with the boy I loved because I couldn’t bear to drag him down the shame spiral quickly descending on me.
A year ago, I felt like my life was ending.
A year later and I’m watching the love of my life cross a stage to receive his diploma, screaming myself hoarse and deafening everyone in my general vicinity.
In my defense, I’m not the only offender. Jackson’s sisters are giving me a run for my money. They’re all here, even Lottie who’s trying her best to keep up the sullen teenager act but I swear I see a sheen to her eyes that isn’t usually there as she watches her brother. And Lux, who most definitely shouldn’t be here considering she’s about to pop but God help the person who tries to stop Alexandra Winona Jackson from watching her brother graduate, eight-pound baby in her uterus or not.
Ben might be on the opposite end of the row, but I can still hear him loud and clear. He managed to sneak one of those party noisemaker things in here, and he’s been blowing it non-stop, much to the chagrin of… well, everyone. Amelia’s sobs are loud enough to burst an eardrum but I don’t even blame her. All the emotions I’m feeling, Mils has got to be feeling tenfold. I’ve just got my boyfriend up there, she’s got Nick and Cass to cheer on. I thought her eyeballs were going to burst with how hard she was crying when Cass did that weird hand signal thing they do to each other before his games, and she returned it with wobbly hands. James, Cass’ brother, had to clamp an arm around her shoulders to stop them from shaking with her sobs.
Everyone else—Kate, Sydney, Pen, the parents—is fluctuating between pretending they don’t know us and cheering on our friends.
My chest feels like it’s about to burst. My heart is so full it hurts. I’m so proud of him that I physically can’t fucking take it.
As he returns to his seat, proof that he made it in his hand, brown eyes lock on me. A smile splits his face as one eye winks shut. I pause my incessant whooping to stick my pinkies in my mouth and whistle as loud as possible, and he brightens, his hair falling in his face as he shakes his head in a laugh.
When—a veritable lifetime later—the ceremony finally ends, I hang back as everyone makes a beeline for the graduates, letting the girls congratulate their brother before I elbow my way in. I watch as they all borderline tackle Jackson, him staggering back a step as they attack him with hugs and kisses and excited congratulations.
I hold myself back all of five minutes before launching myself at the love of my fucking life.
Jackson catches me with a laugh, my legs flailing as he swings me around. “Congratulations,” I sniffle into his neck, clutching tight at the back of his shirt.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
He tries to put me down but I don’t let him go, not yet. “I’m so proud of you.”
Fingers tug on my hair gently, pulling my head back so I see his smile just before it descends on me. His lips caress mine softly, and I clutch him tightly, savoring him. I’m going to savor him all summer long because while I know I’ll be in Sun Valley next fall, I have no idea where he’ll be.
“Can you two detach for, like, two minutes so we can get a picture?”
Lux applauds sarcastically when Jackson reluctantly puts me down, scowling at his sister. Over her shoulder, Nick smirks at us, the camera Amelia’s been guarding with her life all day slung around his neck and poised in our direction.
I try to step away, assuming they’re angling for a family photo, but Jackson slings an arm around my waist and pulls me in, refusing to let me slink away. Tears that have been threatening to spill all day sting my eyes but I swallow them down. The girls fill in around us, Lux brushing against my other side, her fingers pinching my arm.
“Smile nice and big, okay?” she whispers in my ear, throwing her arm around my shoulders. “This one’s going on the window sill.”
Despite the fact the sweltering June heat has well and truly set in, I swear the guys’ house feels colder than usual. Maybe it’s just me being dramatic because this is quite possibly the last time we’ll all be in this house together but I’m positive there’s a weird chill in the air.
I’m not the only one who’s feeling it. Everyone is weirdly sombre, despite the fact we’re supposed to be celebrating. Amelia’s bottom lip has a constant wobble to it as she peers around the house that pretty much changed her life.
I know how she feels.
Everywhere I look, I’m assaulted by a different memory.
Downstairs is bad but upstairs is worse, and maybe, just maybe, when I slip into my new room, a few tears fall.
It’s well and truly my room at this point; there’s more of my stuff in here than Jackson’s. It makes me sniff a little harder, seeing our stuff together. My mug next to his on the desk cluttered with my textbooks and Jackson’s sketchbooks. My perfumes on the chest of drawers next to his cologne. My clothes spilling out of our closet, very much encroaching on what’s supposed to be his side.
I swipe hastily underneath my eyes when the door creaks open and Amelia creeps into the room. She pauses in the doorway, that damn wobbly bottom lip and tear-stained cheeks pulling at my heartstrings. “Cass’ room is so empty.”
I collapse on the bed and pat the spot beside me. “C’mere, crybaby.”
Red-rimmed, unnaturally green eyes roll, a fist jutting out to catch my shoulder. “Shut up. I’m allowed to be emotional.”
“You’re gonna cry yourself into severe dehydration.”
“Amen to that,” Ben chimes in as he shoulders his way into the room, Kate hot on his heels. The latter pats my head affectionately as she perches beside me, linking her hand with mine and tugging it onto her lap, her head falling on my shoulder. Ben eyes Amelia suspiciously as he chucks himself on the bed too. “Are you pregnant or something? You’re extra weepy lately.”
“No!” Amelia splutters, whacking the back of his calf. “God, please don’t joke like that around Nick. We’d never have sex again.”
Kate, Ben, and I all snort simultaneously. “Please, the day that man puts a baby in you is gonna be the best day of his life.”
“Have you seen him around Lux and the bump?” Kate reaches over to nudge our blushing red-headed friend. “I give him a year before he starts dropping hints.”
“A year?” I join in, lips pursed to hide my smile. “Six months, tops.”
Ben rolls onto his stomach, propping his chin in his hand and regarding Amelia mischievously. “I say she’s knocked up before the summer ends.”
“I hate all of you,” Amelia mutters, flopping onto her back before digging her nails into my thigh. “And you’re one to talk. Jackson’s gonna take one look at Baby Jackson and go full-dad mode.”
I huff a laugh; Baby Jackson isn’t even here yet and Big Jackson has already gone full-dad mode. Well, full-uncle mode.
Dad is a long, long way off. I’m twenty-one, for God’s sake, and I haven’t even graduated college. I’ve barely gotten my life back on track after what I’ve chosen to refer to as The Dark Months. And Jackson and I only just got back together.
When I tell my friends as much, Ben pats my shoulder in an almost pitying gesture. “Lu, sweetie, I hate to break it to you, but I think you’re gonna take one look at that man with a baby strapped to his chest and your ovaries are gonna start crying.”
I shove him so hard he almost falls off the bed because fuck him for vocalizing a very real fear of mine.
Don’t get me wrong, everything I just said rings true but fucking hell. He tried on a baby sling the other day and I actually had to leave the room.
My friends’ mocking laughter is interrupted by the mission trio filing into the room, crowding the bed too. “What’re we laughing at?”
Ben side-eyes me with a smirk. “Nothing.”
Jackson eyes me suspiciously as he stretches out behind me, dropping a kiss on my shoulder and winding an arm around my waist. Nick scoops up Amelia easily and settles her on his lap, kissing away the tears lingering on her cheeks, an action that apparently only makes her tears fall faster. Cass perches on the end of the bed, wrapping his hand around his sister’s ankle and squeezing.
And we just… sit. Quietly. Squashed together. Limbs tangled. The heavy knowledge that everything is about to change hanging over us.
“I feel like the band is breaking up.”
Kate flicks Ben on the forehead. “Don’t say that.”
“We’re still gonna see each other all the time,” Cass adds, directing his words at his sister, shaking her a little. “No one’s dying.”
“Well,” Ben starts, and I swear I hear the words before they even leave his mouth, “Nick might be. Old age is really creeping up on him.”
A pillow hits him in the face before he even has the chance to dodge it. He screams, literally screams, as Nick pins him underneath one strong leg and proceeds to dig his knuckles into his chest, rubbing hard. “Stop!” Ben wriggles beneath him, pulling on his leg hair. “You have brittle bones! You might break something!”
Wild laughter fills my bedroom as Ben shrieks and squirms, and we only laugh harder when Nick finally relents and our young friend sits up, hair all over the place and an adorably angry scowl pulling at his features. “Jesus, Grandpa. You could’ve broken a hip.”
A flick of Nick’s foot is all it takes to send Ben flying off the bed, the yelped sound that escapes him and the heavy thud of him hitting the floor setting us off again.
“Uh, guys!” A yell from downstairs interrupts our antics. Thunderous footsteps sound before Grace appears in the doorway, her eyes wide and downright terrified. It’s immediate, how the look on her face causes us all to sober up, Jackson springing to his feet and rushing to his sister. Grace swallows hard.
“I think Lux’s water just broke.”
