I enjoyed my day off yesterday. Maternity leave won't be the worst thing.Jeanette and Adrian are sitting on the floor of my room. I'm laying on my bed. "What are people saying?" I ask."No one knows what to say.""What about Ashley and Blake."Adrian rolls his eyes. "They don't care. They somehow twisted it into your fault. And everyone is blind enough to follow.""Of course." "Leave me alone." I groan at Adrian the next day. It's 9 in the morning and he's trying to get me to come to school. Why isn't he in school? I sit up. "Why would I go? I'm on maternity leave.""I know but it's not the same without you. Can you just come? I have no one to sit with at lunch."I give him a mock smile. "Sweet. Goodbye."I go to lay back down but he stops me. He grabs my hand and pulls me up."Just come on.""Why would I go? No one cares if i'm there or not.""I DO!" he snaps at me. I look at him. He looks desperate. I'll regret this."Fine." I say under my breath.He smiles and kisses me on the cheek then leaves the room for me to get dressed. I put on sweatpants and a very large sweater. Man, I look huge. We pull up to school and he can't stop smiling."What is your problem?" I ask tired of the games."You'll see." we wait for 5 minutes in the car. He said might as well go in between classes. After the minutes are up, he takes me by my hand and helps me walk. I keep my hand on my stomach. I've started to feel little pains and lot more kicking. Must come during 8 months. Nothing major. I asked my doctor. It's not contractions or anything.As soon as we walk through the door, my jaw drops. An immediate smile comes to my face and Adrian gives me a half hug. He grabs me by the shoulders and leads me through the halls. The smile continues to grow.Everyone, girls AND boys have large stomach's. Everywhere I turn, I see the fake pregnant belly."What's all this?" I finally ask Adrian."Janice came up with the idea. Pregnancy Day." just then Janice shows up. I try to hug her but our stomach's collide. I laugh and ask her what happened."I was sitting in class after the assembly. No one could focus. Not even the teacher. Everyone was talking about you. People were like 'you never know what to say to that.' and 'I feel so bad for her.' stuff like that. So I started thinking that we should do something. hat night, I was watching Full House and Rebecca made Uncle Jesse wear a fake pregnant stomach so he could experience the pregnancy. Well the pain and struggle. It was obviously a sign that this is what I'm supposed to do. All Thursday I was in the office trying to make this happen all in one day. I sent Adrian to make sure he got you here."That is probably one of the sweetest things someone's done for me.As I walk through the halls, bunch of people come up to me and apologize. People I don't even know hug me. How could I have assumed the whole school hated me?When I'm at my locker getting my homework, Ashley, Blake, Alex, Jenna... they all come up to me.I cautiously stand slightly behind Adrian. He got the day off to help me around school."What do you guys want?" Adrian asks with hate in his words. He's never liked Ashley. Neither did Shaun or Jeanette. They hated when I hung out with her. I can see why. But before all this, she was a nice girl. She would cry to me about her boyfriend, take me on trips with her vice versa. It's like as soon as I showed up with a pregnant stomach, I was some new girl. She didn't see Hailey, her best friend. She saw a pathetic new girl that would become her target.She looks worried so I step away from Adrian. "You really got raped?"I nod. Just when you think she's changed a smirk appears on her face. She tilts her head examining me with a smile on her face. "I don't believe it. Cute excuse though."Blake goes to say something but I hold my hand up. I shake my head and start to walk away. There's no use in fighting with her. Her and her followers will always prevail. Before I get three steps away from them, I hear people call my name. I turn around to see Sophie and Adam rushing over... with their stomach's huge. In the least, I'm shocked.They each give me a hug. "I'm so sorry this happened to you Hailey. Especially now I know how hard it is. That's not even including eating, sleeping, showering.... anything. I can't imagine how hard it really is. My back iskilling me." Sophie says.I smile. "Maybe one day you will."Ashley turns to them. "What are you wearing?""We're participating in pregnancy day." Adam says proudly."Why?" Blake asks."Because it's important to our friend." he replies."She's not our friend." Blake snaps. He glares at me.I can't believe Sophie and Adam are standing up against them. I always thought they were just quiet. Like me. Just one of Ashley's followers that didn't agree but stayed silent. They left the group. They left the group as soon as they put those fake stomach's on."What are you gonna do? Kick us out? I'm fine with that. Ashley, You. Are. Evil." Sophie says then takes my arm."Some people never change." Adam says taking my other arm. Adrian walks beside us and he can't stop smiling.Adam's right. Some people never do change. Ashley will remain evil, at least for high school. She might mature but as of now, she hasn't changed. But Adam and Sophie have. Even myself. It's ok to break away from the group.I would rather be a "misfit" than a popular any day. I'm passenger in Adrian's car. He starts it up and drives us home. I groan. "Why here? Can we go somewhere?""Nope." he says turning the corner onto or street. He has that same smile from before on."What?" I ask. Of course he says nothing and I keep asking. Between the four of us, well now three, whenever there is too many questions being asked, bored, don't want to talk about it, we call a change. No matter how bad you want to know, you can't keep asking so you have to change either way until said person is ready to explain, if ever ready. So when Adrian calls it, you can imagine how upset I was. "Subject change!"I sigh. "In retrospect, pregnancy day is kinda stupid." He shrugs. The car comes to a stop in the driveway. "But as silly as it was, it really touched my heart. I was so wrong about our school. There really are good people there." Adrian kisses my forehead. He helps me out the car.He slowly leads me up the steps and tells me to close my eyes. Ahh back to subject change. He's ready to explain!I walk into the door and open my eyes once I hear "surprise!"I open my eyes to find a baby shower.
