From now on – chapter three
"I can't believe you would do something like this" Chase said ignoring Mouth's previous request and looked straight towards Owen.
"Can I punch him?" Mouth continued to ask
"What are you talking about?" Owen said over the top of Mouth to his close friend
"I never thought that you would ever do anything like this" Chase continued
"Can I please punch him?" Mouth pleaded
"I don't have a clue what you are talking about" Owen said with a confused look on his face
"Can I punch him?" Mouth said turning to Chase with the look of an impatient child in the supermarket who wanted some candy.
"Sure Mouth punch him" Chase said making Mouth smile with glee before correcting his stance and attempting to throw a punch, Owen ducked and Mouth punched air before Owen picked him up and hoisted him up on his shoulder before heading into the apartment with him, Mouth had a look of shock and terror on his face assuming that Owen was taking him inside to fight back. Chase followed behind not sure where Owen was taking Mouth; Owen took Mouth out to the balcony put him down and shut the door before locking it and walking inside, standing in front of Chase.
"Okay now we have some peace, Chase can you please tell me what is going on?" he said looking at his friends irritated face and ignoring the knocking on the glass door behind them.
"Rachel is what's going on" he responded with venom in his response
"What about her?" he asked not sure of what Chase knew and what he didn't know
"She is having your baby and you have just abandoned her" he said wishing that he was taller than Owen so he could actually stand up to him properly.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa abandoning implies that I had promised her something and gone back on it, I told her from the beginning that I couldn't and wouldn't be involved with this child"
"This child? Is that really what you are calling it? This child is YOUR child Owen and not only is it your child but it is your son" he said getting on his lecturing tone.
"And what is the mighty mouth so upset about?" Owen asked ignoring Chase's statement and indicating to the small man that had stopped knocking and was now standing with his arms crossed sending a dirty look into the house.
"Owen you just don't respect or understand others emotions and feelings, Mouth is upset because you first of all slept with his girlfriend and now you have impregnated his and my friend and have abandoned her"
"Look Chase I don't need this from you okay, it really is none of your business and I am not one hundred per cent what you want me to do about all this?"
"I want you to stop being such an ass, but hey it's none of my business with what you do with your life" he said before shoving past him, he was surprised that he actually could but he supposed it was because Owen wasn't expecting it and had no reason to Chase had never shoved him before, Chase walked to the glass door and unlocked it and Owen who continued to stand still heard Mouth say "Seriously Dude did we win?" before they walked back in as Chase directed Mouth to walk straight past Owen but Mouth couldn't help himself as he went to walk out the door he turned around "Don't mess with the Mouth" he said angrily before slamming the door, Owen was a bit taken back and stood completely silent hearing his friend say "Feel Better?" to who he assumed was Mouth as they walked out of what Owen thought possibly could be Chase walking out of his life forever considering that altercation.
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"So who is that one?" Rachel asked pointing to the picture on the far left of the photo album as she looked up at Brooke; they sat on the balcony with their feet up looking through photo albums
"That is Leo, he is Peyton and Lucas' middle child" she said lifting up her wine glass to her lips and taking a big sip before sitting it back down as she looked of the photo of the one year old sitting on her lap at the zoo next to the monkey cage as the little boy pointed up towards the sky.
"Now are we sure that he is Lucas', I mean I have seen their daughter and she looks exactly like them, this kid has black hair, where did that come from?"
"Yes we are sure that it is Lucas' believe me we checked, Little Leo gets his mane from his grandma"
"And who is this?" she said pointing to the little girl with Brooke in the picture, they both had their tongues out with their hair in two little buns on the tops of their heads
"That's Loopy Lydia Scott, Nathan and Haley's girl" she said smiling at the picture in front of her
"Was she at the café today?" Rachel asked
"Mhmmmm" Brooke said flipping the page to the next one and locked eyes with the picture of her kissing Jude, and her eyes began to well, she wiped away a tear as Rachel looked at her
"What are you crying about now?" Rachel asked, ten minutes beforehand she had cried about the toy the boys left on the floor, or when they hung up the phone from grandma's house, she looked down to where Brooke had been looking and sighed knowing exactly why Brooke was crying "You know what I have reason to cry, I am full of hormones and facing single motherhood, you should be rejoicing in the fact that you don't have to change nappies for a week"
"They are Three, they don't wear nappies anymore. You should probably know that"
"Ooh advanced children, whatever, No need to cry. It's a need to get incredibly drunk"
"I can't drink in front of the poor pregnant and sober woman" Brooke said as the tears cleared up
"I would be if you were pregnant" she said looking back to Brooke
"Forget it" Brooke said picking up her wine glass and shrugging off the irony.
Rachel took the hint and flipped to the next page, a page dedicated to the recent addition; Ellie Scott, there was a picture of Brooke holding her, then one of Julian holding her with the boys leaning over him to inspect the little girl, next to it sat one with all four girls; Sawyer, Brooke, Peyton and Ellie, lying on the floor in a circle with their heads connecting, but the last one was the one that caught Rachel's attention, it was a full body picture of Peyton standing next to a crib with the small baby resting near her shoulder
"Wow, she lost the baby weight quickly, that restores some faith after my mother told me that my body would never be the same again and that she could have been a model if it wasn't for me the day I told her that I was pregnant"
"I hate to tell you this but Peyton and Lucas used a surrogate" she said as Rachel looked on at her curiously " Peyton nearly died having Sawyer" Brooke gulped realising that that probably wasn't the best story to tell to a pregnant woman who was going to have her baby incredibly soon.
"Well now that has first of all squashed my hopes of a normal body and scared me just a little bit" she said with a hint of a smile as she turned to Brooke before looking back down at the photo album and then laughed "I love that picture" she said looking down as Brooke came over to see which photo she was talking about, she indicated to the last one on the page of Brooke's three boys on the beach, shirtless and flexing their muscles.
"Yeah I have it on a canvas on our bedroom wall" she smiled
"You look hot in that one" she indicated towards the one of Brooke jumping into the pool holding each of the boy's hands. "You did make pretty cute kids, even if all kids are by definition always annoying and sticky"
"You're going to have to get used to that" she said looking down at the picture of the previous Halloween, where Davis dressed up as a cowboy and Jude dressed up as a lion, Davis had caught Jude in his lasso.
"Yeah I guess I am going to have to" she said putting her hand on her own stomach and flipping to the next page and looked down at pages dedicated to Brooke's last birthday, there was photos with all her friends and family, she was taken in by a photo of Haley, Brooke and Peyton posing in front of the camera all laughing at something happening to the right and Rachel instantly wanted to be there, be in the space of close friends for a mutual close friends birthday party, to celebrate. She wanted to be in that moment of time with Brooke, she had to stop herself from thinking it for if she kept thinking this way she was going to burst into tears, so she looked back down at the photo album at a photo of Brooke on Nathan's shoulder clearly smiling while screaming, and then to the photos of all the couples followed and she just couldn't help it, tears began to form and Brooke recognised it before quickly flipping the page for Brooke.
"I know that you don't want to talk about it but I am your friend and you have nothing to be ashamed of, who is the father of your baby?" Rachel sighed not knowing what to do next, what to even say next, so she decided to bite the bullet and just do it
"It's Owens baby, I am having Owen's baby" she said and as it left her lips it was like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, Brooke just looked at her for a moment
"Owen as in…?" she asked not sure how to proceed with this
"Yes, we met about well nine months ago and we connected because you know we had both been junkies and he had saved my life, it was only once"
Brooke threw back the rest of her wine into her mouth and down her throat before composing herself and looking at Rachel "Okay" she said with a smile and staring back at the photo album finding the one of Skills and Julian rapping, Julian was wearing his baseball cap backwards and looking at the camera with a goofy grin.
"So you don't even mind?" Rachel asked looking on expecting more of a reaction than that to the revelation that she had just put on her lap.
"Of course I mind, Owen the idiot has left you alone and pregnant, that pisses me off, but you sleeping with Owen doesn't bother me, not at all, considering I never slept with him anyway. Just as long as you don't have sex or try to have sex with Julian cause then that will be all my boyfriends" she said not realising how harsh of a tone that statement had come out in "Sorry"
"I know it is none of my business, but why did you and Owen break up?" she asked flipping the pages and glancing at the pictures, Brooke sure had a big collection of them, she smiled at the one of Brooke and Mouth sitting intensely talking to each other and then another one of Haley and Brooke making funny faces at the camera with Face masks and hair curlers in with the title 'embracing the elderly' and then another one of a shirtless Mouth with all the girls surrounding making surprised faces as they touched his barely excitant abs.
"He didn't want kids and I did" she said and Rachel let out a laugh which made Brooke turn full of concern to her
"Well nothing has changed then" she said continuing to laugh hysterically before she said something untranslatable that Brooke somehow understood as she joined in on the hysterical roof laughing, someone surely would call the psychiatric ward if they kept this up.
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Rachel was sitting in bed in her comfiest summer pyjamas and her bed socks, yes she was a classy woman, she put the baby book name down next to her and picked up her phone, pressing eight on the speed dial "Hi it's Owen you know the drill"
"Owen it's me Rachel but you probably know that and that is probably why you are not answering this right now, I just told Brooke that you were the father of my baby and you know what we did, we laughed at how pathetic it was that you still had your same phobia of growing up and having kids, One day you are going to realise that you want to start a family and I hope on that day you realise that you cannot call me and cannot see or know the son that you abandoned, so there" she said before hanging up the phone and sighing a breath of relief, that outburst had some what helped her too. Rachel picked the baby book back up, smiled and continued to read it when Brooke entered the room with a massive smile on her face.
"HI" she said full of excitement
"What is so exciting?" Rachel asked looking up from the name book
"I have come to the conclusion" she said jumping on the bed next to her and lying on the empty side "That I am going to throw you a baby shower"
"No"
"It will be at Karen's and it will be small and elegant"
"No"
"You will get heaps of presents" Brooke finished off knowing it was the thing that she herself couldn't resist.
"I will think about it" Rachel responded looking back down at the book as she began to call out names while Brooke linked arms with her and listened on.
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"….and I hope on that day you realise that you cannot call me and cannot see or know the son that you abandoned, so there" said the message playing back to him, he hadn't turned on this particular phone in at least seven months and the messages had piled up, he listened intently as the messages went on and on about this baby that he hadn't even wanted, but still cause havoc on his life. The last one he got to made him burst into tears and press replay at least one hundred times that very night "Hi Owen it's Rachel, I know you don't want to know but in the hopes of changing your mind I am going to tell you anyway, Today I went to the doctor and I heard our babies heartbeat and it was glorious and magnificent and extraordinary but also terribly heartbreaking, and somehow in that examination room I fell in love. Don't freak out I don't mean you I mean this baby growing inside of me and I am in complete and total awe. So the doctor sent me home with the tape and I thought you might like to hear our babies heartbeat….." she said before a silence, he waited for a second before a strong heartbeat came through his phone speakers, it continued for about three minutes "Isn't it absolutely amazing? Okay I will leave you alone now"
To be continued!