Instead of going to make tea, I crept back upstairs after I heard my brothers and Hannah talking about me. My heart hurt. I know that people say that metaphorically, but I've always found that when I'm upset, my heart quite literally hurts. I feel a burning sensation in my chest, and it takes my breath away. Sometimes it spreads down my arms and if it's really bad, it spreads to my legs too and I feel like I'm paralysed with pain. I hadn't felt this way since much earlier in the summer and I'd thought I had it under control. But hearing my brothers talk about me like that… well it was really hurtful. Especially hearing what Adam had said. I didn't want to be considered 'hard work'. I didn't want my brothers to have to put in extra hours somewhere or find an extra source of income to have to pay for me to go back and talk to Julia, although the thought of talking to her right now sounded very appealing. I knew how much pressure the family were under at the moment, with Destiny and Starr. They didn't also need to be worrying about me.

I had to make to sure I didn't have another nightmare that evening.

I went back to my room and lay on my bed for a while, on top of my comforter because I was hot. I breathed through the pain, like Julia had taught me to do. But now I wasn't tired at all; I was too wired. I knew I needed to sleep though. And make sure I didn't have another nightmare that night.

I combed through all the options in my mind. Making tea was out, as was watching TV downstairs. I supposed I could read, and that would send me to sleep, but it wouldn't curb a potential nightmare. Then, and I don't know how or why I thought of this, I remembered the time that Hannah had started having really bad allergies late last year. She was so badly affected that the doctor had prescribed her allergy pills. They'd controlled the allergy, but they'd also completely knocked her out to the point where she was like a zombie. She'd stopped taking them because of that, and then, after a process of elimination, she discovered that it was dust that was the culprit for her misery. She'd gone into overdrive after that, cleaning and dusting and vacuuming and freezing everything in sight. But she might, I reasoned, still have those pills. After all, why would she throw them out?

I knew my brothers were still outside- I would have been able to hear them come indoors from my room- but I was still quick as I made my way to the bathroom. We have a drawer in one of the cabinets in there where all the medicine gets shoved- it's a real mish mash of stuff for a whole medley of ailments. It took me a couple of minutes to sift through everything, but I did find the bottle which had a prescription label on the front that said 'Mrs Hannah McFadden'. Those had to be it, I reasoned. I didn't know of anything else that Hannah had had medication for recently. I quickly shook one of the pills out of the bottle and swallowed it with a handful of water from the tap. Then I replaced the cap and put the bottle back in the drawer. As I opened the bathroom door, the sound of Starr stirring drifted up the stairs. I knew Brian at least would be in to see to her and I couldn't be bothered talking to him or waving to him, even briefly, so I high tailed it back to my room. Then, I lay back down on my bed and prayed for restful sleep to overcome me.

/

It took me a few minutes to register when I woke up the next morning that I'd slept through the night without having a nightmare. I felt seriously exhausted though, and a little bit dizzy and sick, but I didn't even care. The pill had worked!

The rest of the family were already at the table when I sat down, even Daniel, who was telling everyone about his weekend. I helped myself to some toast and butter and started eating, listening to Daniel. I envied Daniel for the freedom he had. He was doing something he loved regularly and had to answer to no one. That was definitely my goal in time.

"How did you sleep, Heidi?" Adam asked me quietly, when the conversation had moved on into people talking in twos and threes.

I gave him what I hoped was a bright smile.

"Good! No nightmares at all."

"That's good," Adam said. But he didn't look as happy as I thought he would. "You still look really tired though."

"I guess I just slept deeply and haven't woken up yet; I think I'll have a cup of coffee," I said, getting up to go and pull a coffee mug down from the cabinet.

That caught the attention of others at the table.

"I thought you didn't like coffee," Evan said.

"Yea," said Guthrie, "You said it was disgusting."

"Can't a girl change her mind?" I snapped, feeling supremely irritated. Could I not do anything without someone passing comment?

"Of course you can. Don't listen to them, Heidi," Hannah said, smiling at me. I could tell she was trying to relieve tension and do that thing where she sided with me against the boys.

I fully expected Adam or Brian to tell me off for being snappy, but they started talking about other things. I poured myself a large cup of coffee and then added a liberal amount of milk and sugar. When I took the first sip, I realised that I still hated it, but I made myself drink the whole thing - a) because I didn't want to lose face in front of annoying Evan and Guthrie this morning and b) because I did feel genuinely exhausted and needed a boost. I wasn't particularly looking forward to the day ahead.

/

By the time I got to school, I fully realised why Adam and Brian were so addicted to coffee. I felt like a new person- clear headed, maybe even a bit wired. I managed to avoid the girls until the start of lunch when Robin and Mia approached my locker and asked me if I was coming to eat lunch at our normal table.

I most definitely wasn't going to eat lunch with them if Frankie and the other creeps were going to be there. Even if they weren't, I wasn't wild about eating lunch with the girls. Still, if I didn't, I'd have to go to the library again and eat on my own, which I didn't want to do either.

"Who's going to be there?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Robin asked, looking confused.

"Is it going to just be us girls, or are the guys going to eat with us too?"

Robin shrugged. "I don't know. If they come, they come. Why? What's the big deal?"

I hesitated… unsure of how to answer. I'd be perfectly happy to tell her fully how disgusting I thought those guys were because of what they'd done, but Olivia had asked me to tell people at school that the rumours weren't true.

"Because they lied about Olivia. About sleeping with her," I said.

Mia smirked. She does that sometimes and I find it really off-putting to be honest.

"I don't think so," she said.

"It's true," I said. "I went round to her house on Friday and she told me."

"Then why isn't she at school?" Robin asked.

"Would you want to come to school with those rumours about you?" I asked her. "Especially if they're untrue!"

For the first time Robin looked unsure. Mia didn't though. She was still smirking. I imagined myself slapping the smirk straight off her face. I'd do it too, if I could get away with it.

Mia nudged Robin and the two of them exchanged a look. "I don't think the guys are lying," Mia said, crossing her arms.

"Well I do," I said, stubbornly. "And I don't get why you'd believe those mega creeps over Olivia. She's supposed to be your friend! Why wouldn't you be on her side?"

Again, I could tell my words had got to Robin.

"I'm on the side of truth," Mia said, piously.

Urgh! She was intolerable.

"Well," I said, slamming my locker door shut and narrowly missing Mia's fingers by a narrow margin, "So am I. And I believe Olivia. And if you don't, then I don't want to eat lunch with you. I don't even want to talk to you!"

My voice had been rising and it had caught the attention of some kids nearby who were looking on in interest. Before they could retort, I marched away, and headed for the bathroom. I was close to crying more because of frustration and the injustice of it all. But I wouldn't cry in front of them.

/

I had a little cry in the bathroom, but I soon pulled myself together. I went to the library and read for the rest of lunch break but didn't eat my lunch. I wasn't hungry. After school, it was the first meet of the debate club. I didn't want to go; I wasn't in the mood, but then I reasoned with myself that this would be good for applying to colleges when the time came, and it was one step more in helping me to get as far away from here as possible.

There were around 11 of us in total, mostly juniors and seniors, but there was also a freshman and a couple of kids from my grade too, Gracie Taylor and Wanda Harrison, who I'd seen about and even had a couple of classes with, but never hung out with socially. They seemed nice though. The teacher, Mr Lodge said that over the year, we were going to hone our argument skills and enter some competitions. He split us into two teams and we played all sorts of games where we had to use various skills to debate various topics. None of them were serious though- some of them were pretty funny, like for example debating which fruit- strawberries or blueberries- were better. Mr Lodge said we'd get on to more serious topics in time.

The next 90 minutes were the perfect distraction to my day. I ended up having a lot of fun and laughing a lot. It felt so good to laugh. I realised how little I'd done that lately.

When the club finished, I rushed outside to be able to catch the late school bus home. I was making my way to the bus stop when there was the sound of a car horn beeping right behind me. It sort of gave me a scare to be honest because I wasn't expecting it. I turned around, feeling irritated. But when I saw who was driving, all my feelings of irritation disappeared.

I moved out the way of Josh's car and he pulled up beside me and wound down the window and greeted me with his wonderful smile.

"Hi Heidi, how goes it?"

"I'm good," I said, trying to keep the intense excitement I felt at seeing him out my voice. "How are you?"

"Not bad; I can't complain. How come you're at school late? You on a sports team or something?"

"I joined debate club," I said.

"Oh yea!" said Josh, "I remember you said you were going to do that. How was it?"

"Fun!" I said, giving him a very brief run down of what we did.

Josh grinned at me.

"You're cute when you're passionate about something," he said.

I suppose I could have taken his statement as patronising, but I was so thrilled that he was flirting with me. I mean, that was definitely flirting. You don't say someone's cute and not mean to flirt… right? It was astounding that with the number of brothers I had, and I still felt like I knew nothing about the ways of boys- romantically I mean.

I could feel myself blushing.

"Is someone picking you up?" Josh asked me.

"I was going to get the bus home," I said, eyeing the last kids getting on the bus not far ahead. If I didn't hurry, I would miss it.

"I can give you a ride home if you want?" Josh said, almost immediately.

Oh my god. Yes, I wanted!

"Sure," I said, "I mean that would be great."

I quickly got into the passenger side of Josh's car and he pulled away. On the way to the ranch, Josh I talked about our first week back at school. Josh said that starting a new school in his senior year hadn't been as bad as he'd feared, and that everyone had been relatively friendly.

"I guess it helps that Frankie's my cousin," he said.

At the mention of Frankie's name, I felt my whole body stiffen. I knew that Josh must have heard the rumors about Olivia, but I didn't want to talk about them with him. Especially as Frankie as his cousin.

"Yea," I said, and then to change the subject, I said, "How was the game on Saturday?"

"It was pretty fun," he said. "But it would have been more fun if you were there."

I looked over at him. I was certain he was flirting with me now.

I wanted to ask about Cassidy, but I didn't want him to think I'd noticed her. Or give her any acknowledgment at all. So I said, "I wanted to go too."

"Are you still going to be grounded this weekend?" Josh asked me.

"I don't know," I said, honestly. "I mean Adam told me I was grounded for 2 weeks and Sunday would make it exactly two weeks, so I guess so. Maybe he'll let me off this weekend, but I doubt it."

"He a real stickler for the rules, huh?" Josh said.

"Yea," I sighed. "He's pretty hard-line about certain things."

"What about your sister in law, Hannah is it? Could she not change his mind?"

"I guess she could, if she really set her mind to it," I said. "But she wouldn't try about things like this. I mean if she thinks something's unfair or thinks Adam's being unreasonable, she'll speak up, but mostly, she won't interfere when it comes to me or Guthrie."

"I guess that means I'll need to wait until next week to take you out again," Josh said. "Maybe we could go bowling?"

Bowling isn't my favourite thing to do, but I don't hate it. I'm actually relatively good at it as well. Plus, I reckoned that doing just about anything with Josh would be ideal.

"Yea, sure. I'd like that," I said. "But be warned that I'll grind you into the dust with my pin striking abilities."

"Oh yea?"

"Yep."

Josh grinned. "I'd like to see that."

I knew I'd have to get permission first, but nothing on this earth was going to hold me back from going on another date with Josh.

/

Adam, Hannah, Brian and Crane all asked me how school had been that day and because overall, it had had more bright spots than dark ones, I was able to say convincingly that it had been okay. I decided to wait until after the weekend, and after I wasn't grounded anymore to ask Adam if Josh could take me out. I planned to be on my best behavior so that he'd be pleased with me. I helped Hannah prepare supper, even though I didn't have to, and then I did some other chores around the house without her even having to ask. I found myself on dish duty with Guthrie that evening once again and we talked about our days at school. I didn't mind being on dishes with Guthrie. Usually everyone would empty out the kitchen and we could talk alone, in peace.

"I didn't see you with your friends at lunch today. Or last week come to think of it," he said.

"I'm avoiding them," I admitted, taking another plate from the dish rack to dry. "I don't like them so much at the moment."

Guthrie looked at me, interested. "Oh yea? How come?"

"They're not being supportive about Olivia."

I said this sort of defiantly, almost like I was daring Guthrie to challenge me on this. We hadn't talked about the situation much ever since he suggested that the rumors could be true.

All he said was, "Where you been eating lunch then?"

"In the library, mostly."

Guthrie took another stack of dishes and plonked them in the sink to soak. He looked at me directly then.

"But you are eating though, right?"

"Yes, Guthrie. I don't need you hassling me about eating as well," I said, shaking my head in frustration. I hadn't eaten that day, but that was one day, and it didn't count.

Guthrie held his yellow rubber gloved hands up as though surrendering, sending suds flying everywhere.

"Okay, okay. I just worry about you is all."

"You don't need to," I said. "I'm fine."

"You know you can eat with me and my friends at lunch, don't you? Anytime you want? Every day if you want to," Guthrie said.

I wasn't particularly close to Guthrie's friends, but I liked them. Mainly it was a group of guys in our grade he hung out with, but I'd seen a couple of girls hang around with them too.

I smiled at Guthrie. "I know. Thanks, Guth."

"I'm glad you're not hanging around with that group anymore," Guthrie said, scrubbing at a stubborn spot of grease on one of the dishes.

"Oh yea?" I asked, surprised. "Why?"

"Well I like Olivia. But the others are kind of bitchy, Heidi. I don't think they're particularly nice people. And you're better than that."

I tried to digest what Guthrie had said. He looked at me out the side of his eye. I could tell he was trying to suss out if he had upset me.

"How long have you felt like that?" I asked.

"A while. Most of last school year."

Guthrie isn't someone to keep his mouth about what he thinks, so to have kept that to himself all this time really surprised me.

"Why didn't you say anything last year?"

"You were kind of really mean last year. You know, before the summer and everything."

"Not to you!" I protested.

"No, but you were exploding at everything and anything anyone said."

I could have been hurt by what Guthrie said. But to be honest, he was speaking the truth.

"Plus, Adam and Hannah told me not to. They said you had a right to make your own friends and that it's all part of growing up."

"Wow… okay," I said. I wasn't sure how to feel about what I'd just heard. I'd need to give it further thought.

I didn't have the time then because Evan and Daniel came into the kitchen searching for cake.

/

I called Olivia that night, but there was no answer again. I left a message on the machine. I just wanted to check how she was doing, but also to see if she knew when she'd be coming back to school. Olivia's got a history of bowing out of school for various reasons. If that were me, though, I thought, I wouldn't want to come back. Ever. Especially if I didn't know if I'd had sex, or what had happened to me. And everyone talking about me like that. The thought of Olivia maybe not coming back to school, and the burden of keeping what I knew to myself set my anxiety off again when I went to bed that evening. I didn't want to be 'hard work', or to have another nightmare and wake up the whole house, so I took another one of Hannah's allergy pills. They had, I reasoned to myself, done the job the previous evening, so I saw no harm in it. In the morning, I felt like I was submerged under water, but it was nothing a cup of coffee or two couldn't sort out.

Rather than eat with Guthrie's friends at lunchtime at school, I chose to go to the library again. I wasn't hungry again, and I knew that if I ate with Guthrie, I'd have to actually eat.

Apart from Ford who was still away at college, the supper table that evening was full. Even Molly was there! It was noisy and spirited at the table, with different conversations happening at the same time and dishes of food being handed back and forth. I wasn't so hungry, but I took a decent amount because I knew someone would comment if I didn't.

I was mid conversation with Daniel and Crane when Brian pushed his chair back slightly, cleared his throat and then tapped the side of his beer can with his knife. It made a kind of tinny sound and no one paid attention. Then he put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.

All of us fell silent. Starr, nestled in the crook of one of Brian's arms looked up at him, like she was shocked, or surprised at the sudden noise. For a moment, it looked like she was going to cry, but she only stuck her thumb in her mouth and began to suck.

"Uh, I thought everyone would like to know that we got the results of the paternity test today. For Starr."

There was an immediate hush in the room- it was quiet before, but it seemed like everyone was holding their breath again.

"And?" Evan demanded.

But I already knew. There's no way Brian would have silenced the table to give us 'bad news'. Or what I would have considered bad news anyway.

"And it turns out that I am Starr's father. She's a McFadden."

"Yes! I knew it!" I yelled, springing up out of my chair so quickly that it fell over backwards. I rushed round the table to where Brian was and threw myself into the side of him that wasn't holding Starr, hugging him tightly. I think I nearly knocked him off balance, because I heard Adam say, "Careful, Heidi," though it sounded like he was laughing.

Brian hugged me back with one arm and he let me take Starr from him so I could hold her. There was a general hubbub now while everyone got up to hug Brian, or stroke Starr's cheek or kiss her. For my part, I stared down adoringly at her. It felt like knowing that she was really a McFadden had unleashed a torrent of emotion inside me. I felt so much love for her that I could burst. It hurt my teeth even.

I kissed her forehead down looked into her beautiful blue eyes.

"Welcome officially to the family, little Starr."

Okay, I know I have been terrible at updating. I'm finding writing really difficult at the moment. Not so much writing, but motivation. So I've committed to writing 500 words per day, which is totally doable. And I'm putting it out there publicly to hold myself accountable. So, fingers crossed, I should be able to update either story once a week. Hope everyone is doing okay. Thanks for reading and reviewing.