Write Me A Letter

55 | bump

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE | B U M P

"JEAN HAS A BABY BUMP!"

Paula jumped and down in excitement on Brie's bed, her blonde hair falling over her face as she swung her sparkly phone in her hands. It was hard to see Jean's blurred face on the screen with how much Paula was moving but even then, it was obvious that she was grinning. Brie smiled when she heard Jean's chuckle from the other line as she laughed along with them. It had been two months since they last saw Jean in person. For the most part, their interactions were limited to texts, phone calls, and occasionally, FaceTime. But out of all the calls, today was the most exciting.

Today, Jean was really happy.

"Quit moving around, Paula. You're making me dizzy," Jean laughed. She sounded so happy and Brie would go as far as saying that she sounded contented.

Paula quickly stilled and Brie rolled her eyes. "Oh my god! I'm so sorry. I was just so excited! Can I see it again?"

"Paula, can you stop bothering Jean? She shouldn't be stressed." Grabbing the phone from Paula, Brie waved and smiled when she saw Jean. Her friend looked radiant and her cheeks wore a natural blush and her skin was glowing. "Wow," Brie breathed out, eyes wide, "pregnancy is treating you well. You look so pretty, Jean."

"Thank you!" Jean gushed, squeezing her cheeks with her free hand. They were plumper compared to the last time Brie saw her, but it suited Jean so much. "I miss you guys a lot. Do you want to hang out? It's the weekend and I was hoping maybe we can hang with the others?"

It was subtle, but there was caution in the way Jean uttered the last words of her sentence. It sounded like a question that faded into an unsure whisper.

Brie exchanged a look with Paula who stepped away from the frame and ran a finger through her neck, a grimace on her face.

"Er," Brie started, scratching her head. "I think we can only invite Troy?"

"Oh?" The disappointment was obvious in Jean's voice, but she quickly masked it with a bright smile. "Are you guys still not talking to Xander, Ollie, and Simon?"

That wasn't entirely the case. She and Xander were civil, but she couldn't say the same for the other two. Simon avoided them like plague and Ollie pretended that they didn't exist. Every time she would see him at school, he'd pretend not to see her, and for the past two months that he had been doing that, Brie was starting to believe that maybe she really didn't exist in his paradigm any longer. But she couldn't really divulge all the sad details to Jean. As far as Jean was concerned, there was tension, but it wasn't that bad. The boys were still talking to her, regularly checking up on how the pregnancy was going and homeschooling but no one mentioned how things horribly ended. Or at least, explained the gory details of it.

Jean wanted everyone to be present after she gave birth. She had this dream of introducing her baby to all her friends. Brie was apprehensive about it, Paula repulsed the idea, but they couldn't tell her. Judging by Jean's cluelessness, even the boys didn't say anything negative about the idea as well.

Brie couldn't be the first person to kick the idea of a reunion to the curb. If only someone else was brave enough to say no first. But it had been a month since the idea was tossed into the air, and no one had explicitly shut it down yet. Maybe everyone wanted to make sure that Jean wouldn't be upset. At least they were all on the same ground when it came to that.