FicWad

A BEAUTIFUL LIE

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Skyla looked at him as he left the room. She did the only thing she knew how to do: she ran away to Shannon's beach house. She sneaked down the stairs and opened the front door as quietly as she could so no one could hear her leave. She quickly darted down the road and began running toward the river park. After about ten minutes of running, she sat down behind a tree to catch her breath; when she got back up she kept running until she got to the beach house and unlocked the door. She almost ran into Shannon, who was standing behind the door with a raised golf club.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked her.

“I don't really know. I guess it was the whole thing that happened back there... I wanted to be away from there for a bit.” Skyla flopped down on the nearest couch and hugged a pillow. Shannon walked over to her and hugged her.

“You need to be away, yes. But are you questioning your feelings for Jared, too?” he asked her. He remembered every time they spent the night together, someone almost always interrupted them before anything sexual happened.

Skyla thought about it. “I need some time alone. Okay?”

Shannon watched her retreat to her bedroom, then shook his head. Don't think about it! She's just gonna say the same thing! He waited a minute and then followed her upstairs anyway. “Skyla?”

“Yeah?”

“What was Jared wanting to do that made you come back here?” he asked her. Skyla spun around in shock. How did he know? Skyla asked herself.

“He, um, he wanted me to do, um, things I wasn't quite comfortable with doing two nights in a row after having my arms and stomach cut?” Skyla told him. He can probably see right through that, she told herself angrily. She felt Shannon's arms wrap her in a hug, and he squeezed her gently. Skyla felt more at home in Shannon's arms than she did in Jared's bed.

“Listen, go back to him just one more time. The moment you wake up tomorrow, come back here.” Shannon began to give her the key to his Jeep, then stopped. “You already have a key to my Jeep, don't you?”

“Yeah.” Skyla hugged him back with a smile.

“Where is it?”

“I think...” Skyla looked in her sneaker and found two keys–one for the beach house and another for Shannon's Jeep. “Right here!”

Shannon chuckled. “Go on. I'll be up when you get here.”

As Skyla climbed into the Jeep, she had to think up a quick excuse for why she was at the beach house. Training for a marathon back home? That should work.

She didn't even get to pull out before she saw Jared pull up in a BMW and get out. He stormed past her and into the beach house, leaving her to quickly follow him into the house and break up the soon-to-be fight between Jared and Shannon.

“Why is she here?” Jared demanded of Shannon.

“I don't know, she just showed up here out of the blue. But we didn't do anything, I can promise you that,” Shannon said coldly.

“Where's Skyla? I'll ask her that myself,” Jared said.

“We didn't do anything!” Skyla said. “I'm tired of this. I'm going back home!” She stalked out the door leading to the beach and began running across the sand to a spot underneath a pier far from where she was. She decided to stop and rest for a few minutes before running any further.

“Skyla!” Jared's voice called. She looked in the direction she heard his voice come from and cut her break short, trying to get as far away from them as possible. She made it all the way to the river park and hid in the bushes there. “Skyla! Where are you?”

Skyla felt like something was weighing her heart down. She had to stop herself from calling out to him. Suddenly something grabbed Skyla from behind, and she yelped. When she turned around, she saw it was just a stupid tree branch that had grabbed her. She turned back around, lost her balance on the small cliff overlooking the river and the rocks, and fell in. But not before a hand reached out to grab hers and missed it by a few inches.

“Skyla!” someone called out to her again. She looked at the person who the voice belonged to: Shannon, and he had come down to help her out of the cold water. He escorted her up the rocks to where Jared was waiting and watched as Jared gave Skyla a hug.

“Ready to go?” he overheard Jared ask her. Skyla nodded and looked back at Shannon. He could have sworn he saw her wink at him, but maybe he was just seeing things.

Jared opened the passenger's side door of the BMW and waited for Skyla to get in. She walked over to the car and got in, looking back at Shannon's depressed face.

I'll call him later, before I leave to come back here, she told herself. If he's going to put up with me then he deserves a little wake-up call.

As Jared was driving down the road, he started talking to Skyla. “Shannon told me everything.”

“Really? About what?”

“Yeah. It's okay. And if you want to go back home for a bit, then you can.”

Skyla shuffled her feet for a minute. “I have to think it over before I do anything.”

Jared reached forward and turned the radio off. It was turned up low, so that it was just background noise, but he didn't want anything else making her nervous while they talked. “So how did Shannon know? Did you say anything to him?” he asked her quietly.

“No. I didn't,” she lied. She leaned against the seat and stared out the windshield; she didn't even notice they were back until she got out and stomped up to her room.

“I'm not done with you!” Jared called after her.

“Yes, you are!”

Before she could even shut the door, Jared ran up the stairs to her room. “I said I'm not done!” he told her. Skyla looked back at him.

“I don't care whether you're done or not, just leave me alone!” she told him. “I want to go home.”

“You aren't going anywhere.” Jared dragged her into his room and sat her down. “You said something to Shannon, didn't you? Didn't you?

“Yes, I did! Okay? Will you shut up and leave me alone?” she shouted out at him. Skyla quickly got up and ran back to her room, locking the door after she went inside. She sat down on her bed and began crying softly. She fell asleep after awhile, and when she woke up she noticed she had a few missed calls on her phone, all from Shannon. She called him back, waiting for him to answer his phone. What if he–

“Skyla! Why haven't you answered my calls?” he demanded of her.

“I was asleep,” she told him, rubbing her eyes.

“Listen, I got word about you and Jared. You're coming back here,” he told her.

“But it's three am!” she complained.

“And Jared is asleep. Now get ready!” Shannon told her. “Or are you going to fight with me, too?”

“I want to go home,” Skyla begged. “Please, I'm begging you, I'll do anything!”

“Skyla, I want you to stay with me for a bit. Please,” he asked her. “If you go back home I might never see you again!”

“Shannon, trust me, you'll see me again. Y'all are like my only best friends.” Skyla sighed. “Lemme pack my bag and you can come get me, but be quick and quiet about it!”

Skyla grabbed a backpack and began throwing random clothes in it; she tossed her chargers in it for her phone and her laptop and ran silently downstairs. She grabbed her purse and ran out the back door and up the steps to wait on Shannon.

“Skyla!” she heard someone whisper. She jumped and turned around, seeing Emma standing there with a brown paper bag in her hands. “Take this with you. And use it, please!”

“What is it?” Skyla asked her curiously, unrolling the top of the bag to peek inside. Emma's hand stopped her.

“Not here! It's a pregnancy test–I want you to take it. Vicki and I both do,” she said. “If you're pregnant, it'll explain everything. Please.”

“Okay, fine.” Skyla stuck the bag inside her purse and gave Emma a quick hug. “See you later, 'kay?”

“Bye.”

Skyla watched as Emma walked quietly back into the house, and Shannon pulled up quietly beside her. “Hey, come on,” he told her.

“Okay. Hey, have you talked to Emma or Vicki?” she asked him, chewing her fingernail.

“Yes,” Shannon admitted as he flushed.

“Oh my god–you're the one that told them to get the pregnancy test?!” she cried.

“Yes, yes, I wanted them to get you the pregnancy test,” Shannon said. “You're too sweet to be treated like this.” They pulled up to the beach house and took their conversation inside.

“Apparently I can't trust anyone around here,” she said.

“Just please take the test and I promise I'll get off your back,” Shannon told her.

“Fine.” Skyla grabbed the paper bag out of her purse and went into the bathroom. If there is a god, this is the time when I need you to show up and help me out here... Skyla waited twenty minutes before looking at the result of the pregnancy test; it was positive. She began hyperventilating, but grabbed the second test in the box and took it. The result on it was positive as well.

“Oh my god,” she whispered. She put the two used tests back in the box and tossed them in the trash can; She walked back out to see Shannon sitting on the couch waiting for her.

“What were the results?” he asked her.

“Positive. Both of them,” she said quietly.

Shannon gave her a hug. “We'll help you. Don't worry about it.”