Somewhere in Neverland

There’s a heavy weight on my shoulders that’s been dragging me down lately and I know there’s a simple solution to rid myself of it, but no matter how much convincing myself I do, I always come up with an excuse as to why I can’t do it.

“What’re you thinking about?” Alex asks, sitting down across from me with a plate full of food. I must look extremely zoned out because he wears an amused look.

“Same old, same old,” I shrug, picking up half of the sandwich he’s placed in between us. “Trying to figure out how I want to tell everybody.”

“Everybody as in your band and the boys?” He asks slowly, trying to figure out my train of thought.

I shake my head. “Everybody as in everybody. As in my dad and my sisters and Mama Savage and your parents and everybody, Alex.”

“Well shit,” He buries his face in his hands and lets out a small chuckle, shaking his head lightly. “Why don’t we just rip the Band-Aid off and get it out of the way quickly? Like, all at once?”

“Let’s be real, when are we gonna get everyone in one place at any given time?” I ask. “Realistically, that’s never going to happen.”

I take a bite of my sandwich and chew slowly, hoping it’ll give me some extra time to sort out a better plan. The boys will be easy enough; Jack and Zack are two of my closest friends and I know, beyond that tiny bit of doubt, that they’ll be happy for us. My band, on the other hand, I’m not sure about. There’s no doubt this pregnancy will fuck over Feral Amity’s rise in the music scene. I’m not going to be able to tour with them for a while after giving birth and I don’t know what they’ll think of me after we’ve worked so hard to get to where we are, dropping out and being like, “Well, I tried!”

“Thanksgiving,” Alex announces out of the blue. “Your family is coming out for Thanksgiving anyways, so why not just do it then?”

“That takes care of my dad and my sisters, but what about the Savages? They’re my family, too.”

“You and your extended family,” He hangs his head and laughs before meeting my eyes.

I cross my arms over my chest and narrow my eyes at him. “Just because you had a normal family doesn’t mean everybody is that fortunate.”

“I wasn’t making fun of you,” He reassures. “I’m just trying to think of a way to get everybody in the same place at the same time. Have you considered asking the Savages to come to Baltimore for Thanksgiving?”

“No, I didn’t even think of that. I honestly wasn’t thinking about how I was going to tell them. I was more so worried about my dad and your parents.”

Alex’s parents have known me since I was that awkward new girl in first grade. Granted, Alex was that awkward new boy with the funny English accent at that point, but our childhood naivety was something Isobel and Peter saw quite frequently. I can only imagine what they’re going to think when I show up after seven years and announce that I’m carrying Alex’s child.

“My parents are gonna be stoked, so don’t worry about them,” He grabs my hand and raises it to his lips, but must sense my reluctance to accept that it’ll be that easy. “You were nervous to tell Rian and Noelle and they both called godparents. They were fucking ecstatic and I’m 99.9% sure that’s how everyone is gonna react.”

“I don’t wanna think about it anymore. I just wanna get it off my chest so I can feel like I can breathe easy again.”

“I heard that! Now please eat because I won’t be having a malnourished child,” He pushes the plate so it’s sitting right in front of me and I groan at the mound of food he’s going to force me to eat.

“You suck,” I say with a mouthful of turkey sandwich and chips. “I feel disgusting.”

“You look beautiful,” He says sassily as he points to the remainder of the food and eyes me sternly.

I force down the rest of the food and hobble down the aisle with an uncomfortably full belly. Alex has opted for a nap, but I’m feeling awake enough to join Flyzik, Jack, Rian, Zack, Vinny, and Danny for a movie in the back lounge.

Flyzik doesn’t send me his usual glare when I plop myself down on the couch and put my feet in his lap and demand we watch something I’ll enjoy just as much as the guys will. I’m spreading a blanket out over my legs as Jack starts spewing movie titles at me and somehow we wind up watching Finding Nemo, despite their initial desires to watch Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story or Team America: World Police.

Even though I’d normally be extremely entertained by the movie, I can’t help but to allow my mind to wander. Not just to telling everybody, but to the bigger picture. We only have six more shows before this tour comes to an end. We only have seven more days together before the All Time Low boys go back to Baltimore, The Summer Set goes back to Arizona, and we go back to California. Alex and I haven’t exactly discussed what we’re going to do after the tour and it worries me that we’ll go back to our respective coasts and drift apart again, even though I know neither of us will allow that to happen.

“You all good?” Flyzik asks, shaking my foot a little bit. “You’re super zoned out right now.”

“Yeah, I’m just-” I place my hand on my forehead and try to choke back the word vomit that’s about to happen. “I’m pregnant.”

Nope, there it is. It came out despite my best efforts to keep it in. I look to Rian, who nods reassuringly as Jack’s head snaps in my direction with a confused look on his face. Flyzik eyes me skeptically while Danny and Vinny brush it off as a bad joke.

“Danger, what did you just say?” Jack asks slowly, his eyes going wide.

“Exactly what you think I just said.”

In a split second he’s on his feet, lunging towards me with his arms spread wide for an uncomfortably tight hug. “Are you fucking kidding me?” His voice booms as he bounces awkwardly out of excitement.

“No, but I can’t breathe!” I whine, doing my best to wriggle free of his grasp.

Danny, Vinny, Flyzik, and Zack all have smiles plastered to their faces and the lounge quickly fills with shrieks from the boys. Jack is doing some rowdy dance moves while before he bounds down the aisle and I hear Alex’s protests as he’s woken up from his nap.

A few moments later Jack returns with a grumpy Alex slung over his shoulder and he drops him on the floor next to Danny.

“I get godfather!” Jack announces as he points a stern finger to a confused Alex.

Alex eyes me as if to ask when I told them, but all I can do is shrug my shoulders because the boys bicker back and forth about who’s going to be the coolest uncle and who’ll teach our kid all the swear words.

“If you teach my kid how to swear, I’m going to kill you,” I warn, wagging my finger in Vinny’s face. “That’s me and Alex’s job. Let us fuck up our own kid because we don’t need any help in that department.”

“At least you know that,” Danny jokes. “Because you two are seriously fucked up.”

I stick my tongue out at him as he cracks up. “You’re so mature, Cara.”

--

The TV casts playful shadows on the dark walls of the quiet hotel room. After our show in Philly tonight, I opted to stay the night in the hotel with my bandmates over spending another night on the bus with Alex. It’s not that I didn’t want to be with him, but I felt I owed it to my band to spend more time with them. After all, they don’t know why I’ve been so distant lately. I haven’t found the nerve to tell them, so they probably just assume I’m trying to soak up as much time with Alex as I possibly can rather than me being weird because I’m keeping a giant secret from them all.

I’m sandwiched in between Theo, Samson, and Russell on one of the two double beds in the room. Theo and Russell passed out long ago, but Sam’s still in a state of semi-consciousness, cuddled into my side like we used to. Even though the boys get on my nerves 90% of the time, I’ve realized lately just how protective of them I really am. I know I say a lot of people are like my brothers, but these boys really are my baby brothers. There’s no one I’d like to punch in the mouth and tell to shut up more than Samson, but the innocent look on his sleepy face and the way he drapes his arm across my stomach as if he’s hugging me is enough to make me fawn over him as if he were a small child.

Still, I can’t help but remember the conversation I had with Alex earlier and even though everything in me tells me not to get out of bed right now, I know I have to. Carefully, I peel myself from Sam’s grip and climb over their bodies as I grab my phone from the nightstand and make my way to the bathroom.

I lock the door behind me and take a seat on the cold tile floor as the phone rings.

“Hello?” Mama Savage picks up as I rub my hands against my legs in an attempt to tame the goosebumps that have covered them.

“Hi Mama,” I say, letting my head fall back against the door.

I can almost see her smile as she realizes who it is. “Hi, Caroline. How have you been lately?”

“Good,” I answer. Rip the Band-Aid off. “I know it’s a longshot because it’s only a few days away, but my family’s flying out to Baltimore for Thanksgiving and I’d really like it if you could come.”

She sucks in a deep breath. “That’s really cutting it close,” She pauses. “But I was thinking about flying out and surprising you guys anyways, so surprise!”

“Mama! You know I hate surprises!”

She chuckles and I can only imagine the sick pleasure she’d have gotten when I nearly shit my pants if they wound up at a Baltimore concert. “That’s kind of the point.”

“So you’ll be there?”

“I’ll be there along with my three kiddos that you haven’t been stuck with for the past five weeks,” She says and my heart pounds because this is really happening. Alex and I are really going to announce to both of our families that we’re having a baby together. “I’ll see you in a few days, baby. Go to bed, it’s late there.”

“Thanks, Mama. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”