Chapter Eight

"Jake must be going nuts," commented Nathan as we lay in bed on a Saturday morning.

"Yeah. Peyton too," I added.

"Yeah."

"Isn't it weird how we're all going to be teenage parents before nineteen? What is with that?" I asked. Was it a coincidence, or what?

"Jake already is one."

"Yeah. It must be killing him. I mean, what do people think of a guy who got two girls pregnant in high school?"

"Not a lot-but one was his wife."

"Nate…" I began. Propping myself up on my elbow and turning to face him.

"Hales?"

"What are we going to do? About me. I mean, about us? How are we going to deal with a kid?" I asked nervously. It was disconcerting, how at ease he was with the entire situation.

"Well. In six months, you'll have a baby," he said, obviously not understanding.

"Nathan seriously! I mean what if I want to work? What if we have more kids soon because we want them to be close in age? What if you want to go to school, or if I do?" I asked, bordering on panic.

"Okay. If you want to work, we'll hire a nanny or do daycare. If you want more kids soon, I do too. If I want to go to school, I'll commute to Charlotte or we'll move. This is going to be okay," he said reassuringly.

"How do you know that? Do you even care about the future?" I asked, sitting upright.

"Haley of course I care, I just know we'll be fine. You don't have to panic," he said. I realized slowly that my pregnancy was making me act insane.

"Yeah. It's not good for the baby, right?" I asked, flopping back onto the bed.

"Or you. So how are you feeling?" he asked.

"Sick. But done my first trimester, so I think that that will stop soon. And I was online and apparently I'll start to show soon, and have to wear maternity clothes," I said. Peyton and I had already gone shopping for maternity clothing but I wasn't exactly looking forward to it.

"Can I see?" he requested. I laughed.

"It's nothing-just my stomach," I said.

"Please?"

Agreeably I pulled up my shirt. Gently he placed his hand on it and smiled. Love for him washed over me.

"You know how much I love you, right Hales?" he said, tearing his eyes away and looking into mine.

"I'll always love you," I promised. And I'd always stay with him-I was ready for it now.

"Good. I wonder if it'll be a boy or a girl?" he said.

"I think it's a boy," I said.

"Oh, really? I was thinking girl," he said.

"Huh. Well you're wrong," I said, jumping out of the bed to avoid the hands that came to tickle me.

The room was bathed in the mid morning sun. I stumbled over to the coffee machine and lazily put in a filter and filled it with water and flicked it on. Glancing over my shoulder, I quickly reached for the bag of coffee beans on the middle shelf above my head.

Behind me I heard running footsteps and saw a hand reach ahead of mine and pull the bag out of reach.

"Nathan!" I said in annoyance, turning around to face him and crossing my arms. Laughing, he placed the bag on top of the fridge.

"No, you know what the doctor said. If it's born with three heads you'll regret this cup of coffee," he said staunchly.

"I won't. When is three worse than one? And anyway, how do you know what I was going to do? Do you secretly have ESP?" I asked.

"First of all, one head is all we require. Second of all, you do this at least once every couple of days and every day you do it the same way. Hide it better if you want your coffee," he said, tossing me a bag of decaf that I barely managed to catch in my outstretched fingers.

As we sat down to our breakfast, the door knocked. It took me a moment to register the sound-Peyton, Jake, and even Tim entered without knocking. Deb, maybe? I walked to the door and opened it, gasping. Long, straight blonde hair, blue eyes, a clear oval face. The tiniest sweater I'd ever seen. I barely had time to think this before I was engulfed in an embrace.

"Haley!" said the phantom, who surely couldn't be real.

"Taylor?" I asked in surprise. It came to me first how much I loved her and that she was my sister before I remembered how she'd meddled in my marriage and had helped it fall apart.

"Oh, I've missed you," she said, pulling away. I noticed a magazine in her hand, but she didn't have a bag with her.

"I've missed you too," I admitted. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm not staying, I promise. I was just reading this and came to find out if you were okay," she said, handing me the tabloid and flipping to a page.

A picture, taken several months before of Chris and I walking down a New York street was under the title-"James and Keller in Secret Vacation." In another corner was a picture of him and Peyton and Brooke and I at the mall, with me as the recipient of his forced hug. Then there was me with Peyton at the mall-buying maternity clothing. I quickly realized what the article was suggesting, though they did not say it out right. Nathan came up behind me. I could not see his anger, but felt it nonetheless.

"Asshole," he said bitterly.

"What of this is true?" asked Taylor.

"I'm pregnant, Nathan is the father, Chris followed me here after I came back with my friends," I said distractedly.

"Congratulations. What are you going to do?" she asked, sounded concerned as opposed to curious.

"What can I do?"

"Strike back!" This time it was Nathan who spoke. I glanced back at Taylor, expecting incredulous eyes looking back at me. But she was looking at Nathan in understanding.

"Yeah. I sort of have a plan," she admitted. I rolled my eyes.

"Please. The last time you had a plan we ended up grounded," I said.

"Haley-bub, you were nine. And this has nothing to do with silly string, I promise. I figure I owe you guys a favour," she said. Nathan scoffed."

"You owe us about a hundred," he said. She wilted slightly under his intense glare.

"I do. And I'm sorry, honestly," she said. I sighed.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about humiliation. I'm talking about backfiring, about him looking like a player and about me looking like a slut," she said. Oddly enough, this did not appear to bother her.

"Are you talking about what I think you're talking about it's a bad idea," I said. I turned to Nathan, who looked bewildered.

"Come on Haley. The only one who stands to get hurt is me, and I won't. You get to publicly have a husband again, have him your babies father and then maybe these people will finally leave you alone," she said. Her sincerity surprised me-had she actually changed.

"I'm not going to let you do this for me," I said.

"Okay, what are you guys talking about?" asked Nathan.

With slight hesitation, Taylor opened her mouth and told him everything.

Author's note: Sorry that this took so long to get up.