"Why didn't you answer my calls when we got back from camp?" Ricky asked her.
Startled, Amy stared at him.
"Oh.." she said wringing her hands together.
"Nevermind." Ricky told her getting up from the couch. He realized he asked her at a wrong time.
Amy grabbed his arm stopping him from going any farther. She looked at him.
"Don't go," She told him.
"No, It's getting late anyway.. I'm sorry" he told her.
"Ricky sit down." She begged.
He looked at her and followed suit and sat back down. Amy looked down at her hands and recalled what happened after that one night at Band Camp.
X
* She was slowly creeping around in her cabin. It was way past two in the morning so she didn't want to wake and scare any of her other cabin mates. She was just climbing into her bed when she heard the top bunk mattress squeak. "Where were you?" Sarah, the girl on the top bunk asked. From across the room a shadow on the bottom bunk of the other bed moved and a flashlight clicked on. "You were out with Ricky Underwood weren't you?" asked another one of Amy's cabin mates, Taylor, holding the flashlight up to her face. With some light now on in the cabin Amy could clearly see that Sarah and Taylor were not sleeping at all, they looked wide awake. "With Ricky," Taylor told her, "We saw you with him through the window.' "Amy," Sarah began, "You shouldn't hang out with him." "Why?" Amy asked angrily. She was mad. Not only were they spying on her and Ricky through the window, now they were trying to tell her not to talk to him. "Oh yeah, a nice guy. Every girl here at Camp that has fallen under his spell would tell you that too." Sarah told her. "Yeah, he's a nice guy… until he gets what he wants from you." Taylor added. Amy stared blankly into the half darkness. She had felt on cloud nine before she got back to her cabin. "What do you mean.. Until he gets what he wants.." Amy asked "I mean that whenever he gets what he wanted from you, he's done. He'll find a new girl and forget about you." Taylor told her. Amy shook her head. "You don't know that." Amy said even more defensively. Ricky was not like this, he couldn't be. Not the sweet, caring, understanding Ricky she just spent her week with. Not the sweet Ricky she has just…. Amy, Sarah and Taylor jumped. Gail, the other girl sharing their cabin had apparently not been sleeping like they had thought. "What?" Amy asked puzzled. "I know that he's like that." She told Amy, sitting up in her bed. "We went out, last summer, here at camp. He was sweet, caring, everything a girl would want in a guy. Not to mention hot. We left camp and he's never acknowledged me after that. Not even in school. He walked right by me here too, like he's never seen me before." She said to Amy. "Don't be his next target Amy; don't let it happen to you." X
they're just jealous she thought to herself.
"..and Gail, she said you never talked to her ever again after camp." Amy told him.
Ricky finally found his voice.
"Gail?" he asked surprised.
Amy nodded wiping away tears with the back of her hand.
"Amy, I found out when I got back from camp that Gail had a boyfriend. I didn't want to deal with any of that so I let it go." He told her.
"What?" Amy asked gaping at him.
"I don't like dealing with other guys over girls. She never told you that part did she?" he said irritably.
Obviously Gail had known the real reason Ricky never talked to her after Camp, but she didn't have the nerve to tell Amy that.
"Amy I told you.. You were special to me. I told you I never felt the same way I felt with any other girl than when I was with you. I wasn't lying." he said looking her in the eyes.
Amy looked at him shaking her head.
"Yet there you were on the first day of school.. Arm around Adrian." She told him hastily.
Ricky looked at her flabbergasted.
"Yeah Amy, I did have my arm around Adrian. At least she answers my phone calls." He said heatedly back.
He had had enough of this argument. He got up off the couch again. This time, Amy got up with him. She pulled him so that he was facing her.
"Ricky," she blurted out, "I'm Sorry!" she said sobbing, "You want to know why I never answered your phone calls? Because I was scared of you."Ricky looked at her alarmed.
"Scared? What.. Did you find out about me? Think I was going to hit you-""No! no, Ricky. I was scared because I well, I never felt that way about someone too!" she cried. "Then I find out all these things about you and I was scared; scared you were going to do the same thing to me. I didn't know if I could take it like that.. so I ran from it, while I could. Only to find out I was pregnant knowing I couldn't run from you after all."They stared at each other. Ricky had finally gotten his answer, and Amy had finally gotten out what she had been meaning to say all these months. They kept their eyes on each other until they heard a cooing from across the living room. Aidan was squiggling in his car seat, awoken from all the noise.
"I.. I should probably take him up to bed." Amy said breaking the silence. She picked him up and carried him to the stairs. She turned around.
"We finished his nursery the other day," she told Ricky, "Why don't you come up and see it?"Ricky followed her up the stairs, still trying to put together what all they had just said to each was so focused on his thoughts that he was taken aback when he walked into the baby blue was a beautiful room. In the corner stood the crib Ricky's foster parents had bought for Aidan. Across from it was a matching dresser, complete with changing table. Amy put Aidan down on the table and started to undress him.
"Wow, It's really nice Amy." Ricky said, finally able to say something to her.
"Yeah, thanks." Amy replied.
Ricky walked around the room. He had been over to Amy's house many times to see Aidan and Amy but she insisted on keeping the nursery a surprise from him until it was finished. Ricky admired the music notes painted on the walls, and the miniature drum set sitting in the corner that he had bought Aidan two weeks after he was born. He couldn't wait to teach him how to play. He walked over to the bedside desk and picked up a baby book. Ricky had bought the same book when he learned that Amy was pregnant, it taught him a lot. As he put the book down, something else caught his eye. He felt his heart skip. There, in a frame right beside Aidan's crib was the picture of Amy, Ricky and Aidan that Anne had taken in the hospital the day after he was born. Amy caught Ricky glancing at the picture.
"Oh do you like that picture? I thought it was really good of the three of us." she said, "I have an extra if you want it."Ricky looked up from the picture.
"Really?" he asked, "Sure, I'd love one."Amy buttoned up Aidan's new onesie and laid him down in his crib. She kissed him on the head and pulled his blanket up.
"Come over to my room, I'll give it to you."Ricky brushed his hand against Aidan's cheek, whispered "Night Buddy" and followed Amy to her room. Amy was shuffling through some things on her desk before pulling out the picture and handing it to him. Ricky took it and admired it some more. It was perfect. Amy didn't look tired, she was glowing. Ricky looked happy and even proud. Then there was Aidan, dark haired Aidan who was looking up at his look alike daddy in Amy's arms. It was the family.
"Thanks" Ricky told Amy.
She smiled at him.
"Look about the whole phone call thing.." he began to say
"It's fine Ricky, forget it." Amy said.
He nodded, he was glad she didn't want to argue anymore, neither did he.
"Oh!" Amy said as she walked over to her TV. "Remember when Leo came into the hospital with the video camera?" she asked.
"Yeah," Ricky replied.
"He made it into a DVD. Want to watch it?"
"Yeah sure." He told her.
Amy turned on the TV and sat on her bed.
"Can you get the lights?" she asked as Ricky flipped off the lights.
He stood there staring at the TV.
"You can come sit down with me," she said laughing patting down a spot next to her on her bed.
He kicked his shoes off and lay beside her on her bed. It was weird, he thought, they had a baby together, but yet this was their first time even lying in a bed together. The DVD started. Leo was entering Amy's room. There Ricky was, holding Aidan. The camera zoomed in on Aidan's face. Ricky was astounded on how much he had grown already. He hardly remembered him being that small. He looked over at Amy and smiled.
"Crazy how big he's gotten." He told her.
"I know, isn't it?" she replied.
They watched as Ricky's foster parent's came in to visit. They watched at Grace, Jack and Adrian came to visit. They watched as most of Grant High came to visit. They watched and watched until they both couldn't keep their eyes open any longer.
