Playing With Fire

“Mikenna?” My voice was shaking.

“Hi, Kara,” she said, “Nick,” She nodded in Nick’s direction.

Nick became rigid beside me, as did Joe.

Mikenna was surrounded by the rest of the Jonas family – Denise and Paul were standing next to her. Frankie was in Kevin’s lap on the leather couch. Mikenna had changed so much. Her straight, long brown hair had been dyed and cut into a blonde pixie cut. Her once stunning blue eyes had become dark green – contact lenses, I guessed. She was so different from the Mikenna I used to know. I wanted to hug her and relinquish our friendship so much, but her eyes were cold.

It was a strange thing to think about, but she scared me.

“Kara, can we talk?” she asked me, folding her arms.

I nodded slowly, curious as to what she had to say.

“C’mon, boys,” Mrs. Jonas said to her sons, “Let’s give them some time,”

The Jonas family escaped from the living room, except Nick who stayed behind.

“Nick, it’s okay. Go,” I told him, “I’ll meet you in the basement,”

He hesitated, looking from Mikenna to me. “Okay,” he finally said, squeezing my hand and then leaving the room.

“I always knew you guys would end up together,” Mikenna said. I turned to her and shook my head.

“Why are you here, Mikenna?”

She sighed and took a seat on the couch. “I missed you,” she replied.

“Bullshit. You shunned me from everything when you found out,”

“People make mistakes, Kara,”

I scoffed and sat down opposite of her on the other couch.

“When I found out you were staying with the Jonases, I had to come see you,” Mikenna said, “What the hell are you doing here, Kara?”

I glared at her. “Excuse me?”

“Why are you here? With them? You have a home. You have a mother and a brother, who both love you,”

“Shows how much you know, Mikenna. My brother doesn’t give a crap about me. He never did. You of all people know that. And my mother left me. Did you know that? She just packed up her stuff and left,” I said, letting as much acid as possible drip in my voice.

“I did know that, actually,”

I scowled at her.

“Kara, you don’t belong here,” she said, hesitating.

“Mikenna, what are you trying to say? Just spit it out, for Christ’s sake!”

She paused. “You need help,” This time her voice was strong.

“Please, enlighten me, Mikenna,” I spat at her.

I looked into her imitation eyes, trying to figure out the real reason why she was here. She wasn’t doing it out of love or friendship – she, like my mother, had walked out on me completely. She had stabbed me in the back. Hard. So why was she there? Why had she suddenly decided to come find me?

“You can stop lying now, Kara. You’re not fooling anyone,”

I felt my heart sink inside my chest.

“You tried to cover it up with rape?” Mikenna continued, “Shame on you, Kara,”

“What are you talking about?” I whispered, barely audible.

“You did it with him, got knocked up, and lied about it,”

I began to hyperventilate, my chest moving up and down rapidly. I couldn’t breathe. They thought I was lying. They thought it was a cover-up story. They didn’t believe me. The room began to spin.

“How could you…” I whispered, “How could you think that?”

“It’s only obvious, Kara. You were always with him. Best friends, huh? Yeah, right,” she spat.
I wanted to slap her. I began to cry.

I brought myself to my feet. “I think you need to leave now, Mikenna,” I managed to say.

“I’m trying to help you, Kara. Don’t stay here,” She threw an index card on the coffee table. “Call that number when you’re ready to admit the truth,” She spat another glare in my direction and turned on her heel to walk out. I heard the door open and close shut.
I broke down crying.

She had been one of my best friends. I used to tell her everything. But she became one of them – one of those people who couldn’t look past the bump in my abdomen. She betrayed me. My head was whirling out of control.

“Kara?” I heard Nick looking for me. He walked into the room and immediately sat down, pulling me near him to heal me.

I leaned into him and then reached my arm out to the coffee table to grab the index card. It read “Shady Grove Psychiatric Hospital” and had a phone number printed in the corner. My eyes rimmed with new tears as I crumbled it in my hand and let it fall to the ground.

“What did she say to you?” Nick asked me, moving his hand up and down my back.

“She said… It was a lie,” I whispered between my sobs, “That I lied. That it never happened,”

“What?” he responded, shocked.

“It happened, Nick. It really happened,” I cried, “It hurt too much not to be real!” My voice raised into a scream.

“I know, Kara, I know,” he said, voice cracking.

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With the entire Jonas family down in the basement, Nick and I decided to go upstairs to his bedroom to hang out. He hadn’t slept in there for a month and it was ridiculously clean – Nick was the tidiest one in the family. It had blue paint coated on the walls and almost every visible surface was covered with CD’s of artists and genres of every kind.

I sat on his twin-sized bed against the pillows and he wrapped his arm around me. I was listening to my favorite song – his steady, tranquil heartbeat.

“Ow,” I squirmed slightly as Layla kicked uncharacteristically hard.

“You okay?” Nick asked me.

“Yeah, it’s just Layla,” I replied, “Three months to go,” I sighed.

“Wow,”

“I know. It’s crazy,”

“When’s the due date?” he asked.

“September 23rd,” I answered, “A week after your sixteenth,” I smiled.

“Don’t remind me,”

I laughed. “I’m only older than you by two months,”

“And a day,”

I laughed harder and took his hand. “I love you, Nick,”

“I love you, too,” He kissed the side of my head.

“I might as well tell you in advance, so that you won’t kill me when you find out later,” he continued. I got worried. He looked into my eyes with a serious look on his face.

“They’re throwing you a baby shower,” he finished, smiling.

I hit his shoulder. “I hate it when you do that,” I said.

He chuckled. “Do what?”

“You make it sound like something terrible and then it’s not,”

“You’d rather it be something terrible?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

I laughed. “No, of course not. I’m just saying… I get worried.”

He smiled again and pulled me close, sighing. “Sorry, babe,” he said.

“A baby shower?” I asked him.

“Mhmm,”

“Who’ll be there?”

“Just us, don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t let that bitch Mikenna anywhere near here,” Nick never swore, even when he was beyond furious. But I knew that what Mikenna had said hit him close to home.

I laughed without humor. “It’s so sad,” I began, “Less than a year ago, we were best friends with her,”

Nick rubbed my arm softly. “Well, people change, Kara,” he said.

“Thank you,” I whispered to him.

He was taken aback. “For what?” he asked.

I sat up to look at his face. “Not changing,”

He smiled at me and leaned closer to my face. “You’re welcome,” he whispered before pressing his lips to mine.

“When’s the baby shower?” I asked Nick as he left a trail of kisses down my neck.

“Mmm, I’m not sure…” he said, “Either tomorrow or the day after,” He began running his fingers through my hair.

“Oh,”

“Just act surprised. I wasn’t supposed to tell you,” He pulled away, inches from my face. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and sighed.

“What?” I asked him, smiling.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said simply.

I blushed, looking down. I let my forehead touch his shoulder and he wrapped his arms around me, hugging me close.