Over the past four months, Jade made her dislike for doctors blatantly obvious. This time, though, she was excited to go.
"Hello, Jade and Beck," Dr. Yu greeted as she entered the exam room. "Are you excited for this visit? It's a big one."
The blue-eyed girl raised her eyebrows and shrugged, feigning indifference.
Dr. Yu went through the motions of measuring the baby before finally answering the prying question.
"Congratulations, Jade. You're having a very healthy little girl."
Back at the RV, Jade sat on the couch wearing only a sports bra on the upper half of her body. Her hair hung in natural curls and sweatpants clothed her lonny legs.
Beck sat to her right, reading through the script of the newest play: "Broken Hearts on Broadway." This play was about a girl who tries out for the lead on Broadway, but ends up just being the understudy to a miraculously healthy diva. Beck was the heroic male lead, Robbie the lead's understudy (a character who looks up to Beck's role), Cat the protagonist, and Jade the diva antagonist.
Jade already knew her lines by this point, since she had been learning them during health class rather than listening to the teacher drawl on about the "horrors" of teenage pregnancy.
Luckily for the blue-eyed girl, when she wore loose-fitting shirts nobody could see her showing yet and the band she had bought hid the awkwardly fitting pants.
"Jade," Beck eventually spoke as he closed the libretto, "why don't you wear a shirt around the RV?"
She honestly didn't know. "It's comfortable, I guess. And I know you won't judge me."
The boy wasn't sure how to reply. Eventually, he decided on a response. "Will you at least put a shirt on in case my mother comes in?"
"Only if it's your red plaid flannel."
Beck laughed. "Deal." He watched as she stood up from the couch, walked over to the closet, and pulled out her favorite of his shirts.
Since she had reached the second trimester, Jade had been feeling much better and she started eating more. She ate so much, in fact, that every other night they would stock the fridge and her incessant snacking would empty it before their next visit to the grocery store.
With a smile, Beck watched Jade return to her seat by his side and cuddle up against him. Snuggling together warmly, Jade eventually dozed off to a restful sleep. This one wasn't pregnancy fatigue; it was merely a lack of sleep in the previous several nights due to constant worrying about the possibilities of the baby being sick.
Now, though, she snored softly and Beck carried her over to his bed, where he laid her down and covered her with a fuzzy blanket. Jade was so peaceful when she slept.
On the night of the play performance, Jade looked at her costume, surprisingly pleased with it. It was a big, red, flamboyant silk ball gown with a hoop skirt that detracted from the appearance of her baby bump. Ruffles could sometimes do wonderful things.
On stage, Jade performed with gusto, her icy blue eyes glittering in the stage lights.
This play was a mini-musical to simultaneously appease the requirement of Tori and Andre's songwriting class, so of course Cat and Jade had a battling vocal piece at one point, at which they began climbing the set stairs to show superiority. The piece was exhausting with all its movement and singing and dancing. Eventually, Jade grew light-headed but kept performing anyway.
To end the piece, back at the front of the stage, Jade hit a high note full-blast and fell to the ground as her dizziness and the growing blackness around her peripheral vision overwhelmed her.
Still in character, Beck strutted forward and scooped his hands under his girlfriend's back, lifting her cradle-style. "My poor Josephine," he fake-sobbed, carrying her off-stage.
Cat looked shocked and began to run off-stage when Robbie came running in and grabbed her by the arms with an improv'ed line intended to cause a scene skip from six to eight. "Sophie, you did it! You out-performed Josephine!"
The actors impromptu-skipped the lines that they were incapable of using since 'Josephine' wasn't around. 'Sophie' and 'Evan' continued their lines from scene eight rather than seven, which was intended to be a lengthy soliloquy by Josephine.
Backstage, Beck muted his mic and knelt on the floor beside the futon where Jade lay. She had begun to regain consciousness, but she was still to dizzy to sit up and she took small sips of water through a straw.
"What happened?" Sikowitz asked as he came running back to join the teenagers.
"Stage lights got to me, I guess," Jade lied. She knew exactly what was wrong: providing blood for two hearts to pump.
"That's not like you," Sikowitz pried. "Didn't you eat before coming?"
Beck chuckled. "Not enough, evidently."
Burf, who was manning the curtains, leaned his head into the room with Beck, Jade, and Sikowitz. "Jade, we're on the final scene. We need you to come on and look sad as Cat hits the last note."
Jade glared at the boy. "I know what to do." She stood and stalked over to the wings before finally entering and looking shocked as 'Sophie' sang the final note that was originally intended to be 'Josephine's.'
The curtains closed and Jade joined the lineup for curtain call. The four leads took their bow together and Jade winced as the combination of bending and the dress squeezed her baby belly.
In the dressing room, Jade had the most awful time undoing the zipper to remove the dress. Cat eventually bounced in and over to the noirette.
"Jade! Do you need help?"
"Yeah," she admitted. "I'm stuck in the dress."
"My brother got stuck in a dress once," the redhead giggled. "He looked silly in a dress."
Jade would have asked why he had worn a dress, but then again he had worn her bra last time she slept over and she really didn't want any more insight on the weird Valentine boy.
"Your zipper is wonky," Cat muttered, fussing with the clothing.
Jade walked over to her regular clothes and produced a pair of scissors. "Cut the zipper seam and set me free."
Cat did as she was told, cutting the tiny red threads and helping Jade climb out of the dress before watching it fall gracefully to the floor in billows of shiny redness.
By the time Cat looked up, Jade had already made her way back to her clothing and was facing perpendicular to her while pulling on a shirt. Her belly was clearly outlined on the green wall behind her.
"Jade, what's up with your stomach?"
The blue-eyed girl bit the inside of her cheek and her hands flew instinctively to cover the belly. "A little bloated."
Cat shook her head. "Don't lie to me, Jadey," she teared up. "You don't wear tight clothing anymore. You were sick all last month. You pee every hour. Are you..."
Jade ran over and clamped a hand over her friend's mouth. "Yes," she whispered harshly. "Yes, I'm having a baby. But you can't tell anyone."