a.n.- thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! im sorry this update has taken so long. things are hectic here, and nanowrimo has ate my soul.
anyway, enjoy. i love you guys! review again?

Beauty and the Mess

Chapter Two

--

(Josh)

It was a distinct vibrating on my hip that shook me out of my thoughts, and off the couch where I sat watching Drake strum. My cell phone. Which means it must be… oh God it is. Walking downstairs, I flip open my phone and press it to my ear, begrudgingly listening to the pleading on the other end of the connection-- Ben. Kill me. Please.

“Josh, Please, baby don’t do this. Forgive me, I need you.”

I had heard that very same line a million times since I found him sucking face with my roommate Kaleb in the second floor lounge a week ago. I wasn’t in the mood to hear it again, and I am really getting sick of having to be a persistent ass.

“You lied Ben, You cheated. We’ve been over this. You know it’s over, I know it’s over, and as many times as I’ve said it, the Pope has probably gotten the message via pigeon by now. Now, I am at my parents’ house, trying to relax for the holidays, I would appreciate it if you would leave me the hell alone.”

I slammed the phone shut, angrily, trying to calm my breathing. There had been a part of me, a big part that believed that I loved Ben, and maybe some part of me did. I thoroughly enjoyed his hands, the way his white blonde hair shined in the sun, and his kisses--which did such wicked things to me—keeping me up at night when I should have been sleeping, or studying or anything else even remotely productive. My favorite thing about Ben though, was that he made me forget that my heart belonged to someone who didn’t want it. With Ben, I didn’t have time to really wonder who he was screwing.

I looked up suddenly, jarred from my thoughts by a peculiar squeak, id heard in this house several times before. Only, it had never been caused, in all the years id lived here, by the owner of the eyes that met mine. They were rich chocolate, just like her brother’s.

Megan is off her game.

--

(Megan)

Shit.

I have never done that before. Never. From the time I could walk down those stairs I made a point of not hitting the squeaky step. It was my game, the way I had so often snuck up and scared the living shit out of my brothers, of knowing so much about mom and Walter’s private matters, so why the hell am I hitting it now? Ill tell you why, Im a ticking time bomb, and my uterus is going to eat me, that’s why.

The boob gaped up at me from his place at the bottom of the stairs where he’d been attempting to yell in a quiet voice at someone on his cell phone. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but he just couldn’t find the button to unmute the volume. It was for the best, I didn’t want to hear it. As much as I hated to admit it though, I had to tell my family what was going on, I need their support. I closed the rest of the distance between Josh and I in two short bounds.

“Josh”, I asked, my voice low and weary, “Tell me Mom and Dad are here?”

“Yeah.. Yeah Megs. I think so.” His eyes narrowed, his head tilted. He was trying to figure me out. “Why?”

I ignored him, ignored the little accusing twinge in his voice, and opted instead to ask a different question altogether.

“Moooom. Walter. Draaake?” I yelled, hearing a strangers voice echoing off the walls around me, “Can you come down here for a second, I need to talk to you.”

Josh turned, taking a step and a half away from me, back upstairs to the room he and drake we’re packed in for the next couple of weeks. I stopped him with a hand on his wrist.

“Josh. Stay. You should hear this too.”

--

(Drake)

Megan’s fidgeting. She’s sitting across from us and fidgeting. What the hell is going on here? A million horrible things Megan could have done flash through my mind like lightening.

She created a new species of squirrel, a super squirrel who will eat humans on whim, no no.. that’s not it.. She’s gotten a hold of some anthrax and all of San Diego will die in seven seconds. Or.. Or maybe lobsters. That’s it. She’s breeding rare lobsters in her room. Oh.. Oh god.. She killed someone. Megan Killed someone with rare lobsters, and now she’s going to get us too.

I elbowed Josh, who was sitting next to me on the couch, in the ribs. He turned to look at me with wide eyes.

“Josh.” I whispered, “Josh. Do you think Megan can uh.. do murder?”

“The word is commit Drake, and Megan” He breathed leaning in close enough that his hair tickled my cheek, “Is capable of anything. But think about it, if she were going to get someone, who would be first?”

“uh..uh..u-us?”

“Exactly Brotha. I don’t know what she’s done, but if it were something like that, we wouldn’t be around to guess.”

“BOOBS!” Megan roared over our mumbled conversation. “SHUT UP! Im trying to say something here.” With Josh’s last statement fresh in my mind, I clamped my mouth shut tight.

No way was I going to be my sister’s first victim.

--

(Megan)

I sat on the floor across from the boys, with Mom and Walter perched on opposite arms of the couch. My eyes seemed to be glued to the carpet, or my shoes, or my chipped pink nails, anything that would keep them off the faces of my family. I don’t know how to do this. No, that’s an understatement. I can’t dothis. My mind was plotting a devious mutiny of my body, I was going to run. Which, ironically enough didn’t happen because my mouth beat my mind to the punch. I listened with horror as someone who definitely couldn’t have been me said the things that would ruin the real Megan Parkers life.

“Im Pregnant.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. If I cant see them, they cant see (or hurt) me right? Hah. Stupid theory. Oh they could see me alright, because as I opened my eyes again to my deadly silent audience, four pairs of peepers were boring holes through me. Mom blinked once, twice, three times. She looked as if she may pass out. Walter and Josh sat like goldfish, with their mouths wide and gasping for air that for Walter, would probably precede a heart attack, and Drake, oh God, Drake had hell fire burning in his eyes. He was pissed. He was murderous. He could kill.

“Ha ha abaaha. . G..good one Megs”

Oh Josh. I wish I was kidding. Who’s next? Mom? Walter? Drake?

“Megan Elisabeth Parker” Ahh lovely, Mom it is. “Are you serious? What, when? Who?”

I sighed, already tired of the questions. I didn’t want this anymore than they wanted it for me. Im a senior in high school for god’s sake, I was supposed to go to law school. I was supposed to rule the world. I was supposed to be anything but this. A…teenage mother. I toss the words around in my head trying to get a feel for them. I couldn’t. I couldn’t, and its no wonder I couldn’t get used too it. It’s not supposed to be this way, and yet here I sit regardless of how its supposed to be, with a mutant ball of cells transforming into a child within my uterus as we speak.

“Yes mom, Im sure. I took 3 tests. Im not sure exactly when, but its Landon’s. It has to be. He’s the only one.”

I didn’t look at her. I was scared to. But more than that, I was terrified to look up into the warm eyes I know we’re watching me. My mirror eyes. He must be seething. He must be hurt. He must be a million things right now. I just, wonder if he’s ashamed.

I realize I’ve done a lot of shitty things to him and Josh over the years, but the truth is, they are my brothers, and I love them. Part of the reason it had always been so easy for me to prank Drake is because underneath it all, we’re a lot alike. We’d been through a lot together. I remember the night that our dad left, like it was yesterday. I was four years old, and I couldn’t understand why daddy wasn’t taking us with him this time, or why he had so many bags, and didn’t kiss mom and me goodbye. I stood in the door frame for ten minutes, waiting for him to come back. I just knew he would. He would come back, and come running up the driveway, swoop me up into his strong arms and spin me around, apologizing for leaving like he did. He’d say he loved me, Mom and Drake, and things would be okay again.

But he never came back. He never said he was sorry, never said he loved me. He left and that was that.

Drake let me sleep with him for a week. He let me bring my teddy and my dolly and he never once complained, not even when I’d wake him in the middle of the night tossing and turning with nightmares.

Drake understood. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been easier on pranking him than I was with Josh. That’s why I couldn’t stand to look at him.

I knew we’d just lost connection.

--

(Josh)

Megan’s Pregnant. Megan is pregnant, and I think Drake has lapsed into a coma. I waved my hand’s in front of his face wildly.

“ come on buddy, snap out of it.”

It was no use. He didn’t move, just stared, dead eyed at Megan, only breathing shallowly when he had too.

And I thought Ben was my biggest problem.

--

(Drake)

I cant think. Don’t want to think. Don’t want to know.

So why is it exactly that after mom lectured for hours, called a womany doctor, promised punishment to Megan and left the room with Walter, who had done little more than stutter the entire time, did I stop her on her way up the stairs?

I must be loosing it.

“Im going to talk to Landon.” My voice sounded too scratchy and strained to be mine, it was cracked and broken like id spent a long day in the studio instead of lounging around in my old bedroom with Josh. I knew from years of experience I couldn’t trust it to keep working much longer, and I would have shut up, let her go, and dropped the subject, but Megan’s reaction to my words caught up with my brain before I could turn and leave.

Her face drained of all color, her eyes widened, she looked really freaked, and it made me suspicious.

“Drake no. He.. He cant know. It’s better for all of us that way.”

I opened my mouth, tempted to ask several pointed questions about this guy she had been dating, and how, other than the obvious this kid came along, but I caught her eye, and quickly shut my yap once more.

I knew that look. Even if I did ask, she was ready to lie.

Megan didn’t want me to know either.