A/N: Welcome to the Wonderful World of My Soap Opera fic! This is supposed to be funny and light and fun, just btw. Enjoy :D
Chapter 1
I'm Abigail Gilligan. I'm nineteen and three and a half months pregnant. I live with my husband, Hoagie; my best friend, Kuki; and her boyfriend, Wally. We live off campus in a small apartment on the bad side of town. I'm not taking classes right now, but Kuki, Wally, and Hoagie are. Kuki is studying interior decoration and Wally and Hoagie are going to be a doctor and an engineer, respectively. I was planning on becoming an editor. I guess I still can someday, after this baby comes. I also like to write, which is why I decided I'd spend all this free time I have now writing our story so that you, the masses, can read it.
I was still asleep when Wally and Hoagie left for classes this morning. OK, pretty much every morning. Kuki and I had the apartment to ourselves for two hours every morning, 7 to 9. I usually slept through all of this. Kuki didn't, she has too much energy to sleep past 8 most days. This morning I woke up a little early than usual.
"Hey, girl," I said, glancing over in her direction. She always wore the strangest clothes. Kuki made her own outfits with iron-ons, beads, feathers, anything she could find for cheap. This morning she had chosen an electric blue- t with beads sewn on everywhere.
"Hiya! Why are you up so early, sleepyhead?" she asked with a smile.
"I don't know. I just got up; the shower woke me, usually it doesn't."
"Hm…that's funny, you sleep like the dead. I guess this is good though because you can hear Lourdes crying." Lourdes was the God awful name Kuki had picked for my baby. We didn't know the sex, but she had also decided my baby was a girl.
"Abby is not gonna name her baby Lourdes. Give it up, girlfriend." This had to be the thousandth time telling her this.
Kuki pursed her lips in a pout. "Well then, you and Hoagie better figure out what you are naming her!" She sang, skipping over to the table with her cereal.
"I'm not due for another 5 months. There's no rush."
Soon, Kuki headed off to class and I was stuck home alone, just like every other day. I turned on the TV to a cooking channel. I've known how to cook for years, but I watched the last 15 minutes of it anyway.
Hoagie usually comes home at 12 for lunch and to get his afternoon books. He brings some of his friends too and since I have absolutely nothing important to do, I make them food. Most days, I don't try to impress them. I've learned that for boys, food is food. But I was in the mood to make something good.
I started cooking around 11. I put spinach on 6 paper plates and then crumbled blue cheese on top of that. I added pecans and then peeled, and sliced, pears. I topped it off with vinaigrette. When I was done, I ate mine. Being pregnant makes me so hungry all the time. I put the salads on the table with placemats that Kuki had decorated. I heard the guys pounding up the stairs. I sat down on the couch with a magazine.
The door flew open and Hoagie, Wally, Nigel, Patton, and Ace ran in. They crowded around the table, eager to see what I had made for them.
"This looks good. Can I eat it?" Ace asked, his slight Spanish accent lacing the words. He was studying to be an engineer too and he and Hoagie were good friends.
"It is good! Nice, Abs!" Hoagie's salad was half-way gone. That boy was like a garbage disposal.
I didn't hear a word from any of them as they ate for five minutes. When they were done, they threw away their plates and headed over to where I was on the coach to watch TV. Hoagie sat down next to me. The coach fit about 5 people, but it was tight. Some sort of fight ensued, ending with Wally, Ace, and Patton getting spots on the couch. Nigel trudged over to the table to grab a chair.
"Dude. That guy with the gun was so freaky!" Patton commented.
"You saw a guy with a gun?" I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but we did live on the bad side of town.
"Yeah, outside the building," Wally replied. "I could've taken him if he had tried anything."
The boys laughed. "Sure you could, Beatles," Patton scoffed.
"You're asking for it, Drilovsky." Wally is usually a pretty good-humored guy, but there are two things he doesn't like: being called weak and short. He is no longer short, like when we were kids, but the guys sometimes like to mess with him. He has a short fuse and isn't exactly the brightest bulb in the bunch.
"Well. I'm glad you guys didn't get shot…" I mumbled.
"Please, Abs, he wouldn't have shot some random kids," Hoagie replied, staring at my chest. Alright, I'm going to tell you something. When you're pregnant, you get bigger boobs. This is one of those things I thought everyone knew. Apparently, Hoagie didn't.
"You're disgusting," I commented.
The guys broke out in laughter. "You're supposed to do it sneakily, mate," Wally laughed.
"Yeah, it's just like a quick glance," Ace added.
Hoagie raised an eyebrow at his friends. "You," he looked at each of them, "are not supposed to be glancing at all."
"Well, I mean, look at her dude," Patton responded.
"Would y'all just shut up?" I screamed. The door opened. Kuki was back from her classes for the day. Thank God. I got up from the couch and ran over to my Asian friend. "Girl, hey!"
Kuki glared at me and headed towards the bedroom she shared with Wally. Hoagie and Wally glanced at me over their shoulders, obviously telling me to solve this problem, so I followed her in. "What's up?" I asked.
She looked at me, her slanted eyes filling with tears. "I didn't get into the art show!" Kuki minored in art.
I sat down next to her on the bed and she rested her head on my shoulder. "That's alright, Kuki. You definitely have talent. You'll get it next time."
"Everybody else's work was so different from mine though, Abby. What does that mean?" Kuki's art was what you would call abstract, but I had to admit it was good, if you understood it. She lay back on the bed and flipped on the small TV. I heard some of the guys leave.
"Abby's gonna go sit with Hoagie for a bit, OK?" I asked.
She nodded and I passed by Wally on the way back to the couch. I guessed he was going to spend some time with Kuki. "Thanks, Abs," he said.
I smiled up at my blond, Australian friend. "No problem, kid."
"What was that about?" Hoagie asked from the kitchen where he was making himself a second lunch.
I shook my head at him. "She didn't make it in to the art show." I walked over to the mattress on the floor where Hoagie and I slept. We didn't have a bedroom. The joys of college life.
"Are you going back to sleep?" he asked, looking semi-concerned.
"Maybe, my back hurts," I answered. I closed my eyes.
When I woke up, there was no one home. Looking at the clock, I realized it was 7. Hoagie wasn't back from his afternoon classes until 8. Kuki and Wally had probably headed off the bar down the street. I laid on the mattress and eventually fell back asleep again. The second time I got up, I was greeted by the sound of blaring rap. "Oh, God, turn it off before Abby keels over!" I opened my eyes to find around 20 people in the room.
"Oh, hey, Abs," Hoagie said, walking towards the mattress.
"Looks it like," I replied. I walked over to the bathroom. Ace and some girl were making out so I headed to Wally and Kuki's room to use to other bathroom. The door was locked so I knocked, not wanting to interrupt anything.
"Hold on one teensy second!" Kuki's voice said. She opened the door wearing Wally's orange t-shirt. Wally was in boxers.
"Starting early?" I asked, letting myself into the master bathroom.
"You slept through half the party. Its midnight," Wally replied. He looked kind of mad at me for barging in. Well, he got the bedroom; I should be able to use the bathroom whenever I want.
"Midnight! No wonder Abby's so hungry!" I pulled on one of Kuki's crazy shirts and left them to get back to…whatever they'd been doing.
"Hoagie, you ate all the food!" I complained after digging through the fridge for a few minutes. He tossed me a bag of chips. I took them back to my mattress to eat, he followed me.
"Why would anyone want to listen to this music? It's not even really music!" I crunched a chip between my teeth.
"It's Patton's," Hoagie said as if that explained everything. And it basically did. Patton thought he was 'gangsta'. It wasn't really going for him.
"Say no more," I replied.
Hoagie put his arm around me. "Ya know, Kuki's been botherin' me about what we are naming this kid all the time. Maybe, we oughta pick one to shut her up?" I looked up at Hoagie's blue eyes.
"Eh, no rush. I'm looking forward to my last five baby- free months with the most beautiful girl at this party." He pulled at the end of my braid with a smile.
"Abigail!" Nigel called. Out of all our friends, Nigel was the most high-strung. I was surprised he would still be hanging around a party this late. Especially one with this much booze.
"Yeah?" I pushed myself up from my comfortable position.
"Patton spilled beer on the rug. And I'd clean it up myself, but I don't know where you keep that stuff," he explained guiltily.
I sighed and got up to grab the stain remover. Patton always got drunk and always spilled his beer. It was just one of those things. After cleaning it, I went back to my mattress to find not Hoagie, but two random people making out. I wandered around our small apartment, looking for Hoagie. The door to Wally and Kuki's room was open so I went in there. Wally came in; he had beer spilled down the front of his shirt. "Hey," he said. "Patton," he added, gesturing to the spill.
"Where's Kuki?" I asked.
"Trying to get some people out. There are people here that none of us recognize."
"Yeah, there're two kids getting it on in Abby's bed," I explained.
He pushed up his sleeves. "I'll take care of that for ya."
A few seconds after Wally left, Hoagie came in. "You'll want to stay in here, Abs," he said. "There're some really sketchy looking kids here. Kuki, Wally, Nigel, Ace, and I are trying to get them to leave; Patton's passed out on the couch. I think I should stay in here, though. I'll come get you later." He shut and locked the door. I curled up on Kuki and Wally's bed. This wasn't such a big deal, it had happened before.
When I woke up for the 3rd time that night, Hoagie was moving me over to our mattress. "Sorry, I tried not to wake you."
"Where are Kuki and Wally?" I asked. I didn't hear them or see them. The party had been cleared out.
"I don't know. They left, said they'd be back soon." Hoagie climbed onto the mattress beside me and I held his hand, falling asleep yet again.
