"Oh my gosh! I thought you were going to kill yourself or something!" Frank exclaims and runs up to hug me. Reluctantly, I wrap my arms back around him.
"I wasn't. I'm fine." I lie.
"You guys wanna watch a movie?" Frank asks, jumping like a small child. It looks like he's back to his old self. I smile and nod.
"LET'S WATCH A BARBIE MOVIE!" Claire yells.
"NOOOOO!!" Everyone screams and throws pillows at her, none of them actually hitting her. Claire puts her hands on her hips and stomps her foot.
"How rude," she pouts. Gerard sticks his tongue out at her.
"Whatchu gonna do bout it?" He asks. She throws a pillow at him, which hits his stomach.
"Ok, so, a movie," I say, trying to ignore the two fighting children.
"How about Sharknado?" Mikey asks.
"Didn't we watch that yesterday?" I ask. "Please, not again."
"Aww, but I love that movie!"
"NO MIKEY!" Everybody screams all at once. Now it's Mikey's turn to be ambushed with pillows. Why do we have so many damn pillows?
"Geez, sorry." Mikey says under the mountain of pillows, but it's muffled, so it sounds more like "mmph, moory."
The movie starts and I lay down across my friends like the last movie. Gerard placed his hands on my stomach, but this time I didn't flinch. His hands were warm, and soft.
"It's weird knowing there's a baby in here." He moved his hands around. "There's no bump yet."
"I'm only like, two months pregnant." I roll my head to see who's lap it's on. It's Ray. I smile, and he does too, brushing the hair off of my face.
"Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?" Mikey asks, and I shake my head. I want a little girl, but I'm sure Frank wants a boy.
"Like I said, I'm only two months pregnant, it's too early to know what gender my baby is."
"True." Mikey replies. Claire smiles at him, and leans over to whisper something in his ear. He nods excitedly, and she leans into his shoulder.
"So what would you name the baby if it was a girl?" Gerard asks.
"Glimmer," Frank says before I have to chance to answer.
"Frank. Are you trying to get our possible daughter to be a stripper? Because with a name like that," I say. "I was thinking something like Darcy if it's a girl and if it's a boy, Roman."
"Those sound like nice names." Gerard agrees. I smile proudly, and get up to sit on Claire's lap. She squints her eyes at me before gently pushing me off her lap. I squint my eyes back at her and push her off the couch.
"OW!" She exclaims from behind the couch. I laugh and all the boys shush me. I stay quiet for the rest of the movie. Well I try to, but it's not easy when you're having a war with your friend. By the time our movie is over, it's one am.
"Ok, everybody out and away, I'm going to bed." I announce. The group tiredly shuffles to their bunks, while I flop down on the couch.
"Wake up," Frank whispers in my ear and softly shakes me.
"Whyyyy," I groan and roll over.
"Because it's almost two pm that's why," He says.
"I don't care," I say and pull my blanket over my head.
"Gerard made coffee!" He says teasingly. That makes me shoot up off of the couch. Too fast though. I get really dizzy and fall back onto the couch, holding my head.
"Are you ok, Caroline?" Frank asks worried.
"Yeah, I'm fine, just a little dizzy from sitting up too fast, that's all." I say with a dismissive wave for the effect of me being fine.
"Are you sure it's not morning sickness?" Frank places a hand on my shoulder.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Before Frank can respond, I rush to the bathroom and puke.
"Uh-huh, sure you are," Frank says.
"Frank, it's just morning sickness. I'm fine." He rubs my back, and leaves. I finish in the bathroom, and go out to the kitchen.
"Yes Caroline, 'morning sickness' at two pm," Frank says and I sigh. That midget is impossible.
"So what are we doing today?" I ask Gerard.
"Me, Frank, and Mikey are doing an interview for some magazine, I forgot which one. Is that bad? Yeah that's bad," Gerard says, causing me to roll my eyes.
"What about Ray?" I ask.
"Who else is gonna keep you guys," Ray gestures to me and Claire, "company while they're gone?" Ray asks.
"But we're big girls. We use the potty, not diapers. We can look after ourselves," Claire says jokingly.
"Whatever. I'm staying here," Ray says.
"Fine, but you have to give me a piggyback ride." I explain. Ray sighs, and turns for me to hop on his back. I jump on, and he runs around the kitchen while his fro whips in my face.
"So what are we gonna do?" Ray asks Claire and I.
"Let's go to Chuck E. Cheese!" Claire suggests.
"Um, okay," Ray says and grabs his wallet and keys. We all get into his car and drive to Chuck E. Cheese. We buy 150 tokens and split them equally. Claire rushes to the skee ball and Ray finds the Guitar Hero. I walk around for a while, playing various games. After all our tokens have been spent, an hour later, we meet at a small table.
"I'm hungry," I say and look longingly at the signs advertising the pizza they sell. Ray hands me a five dollar bill and I run to the line. I order a small pepperoni pizza which is ready pretty quickly. I eat almost half of the pizza, but Claire and Ray take some too. We wipe the grease from our faces before taking our mountain of tickets to the ticket counter.
We feed the tickets into the machine, our total coming out to be 1,295 tickets. We walk over to the prize counter, already knowing that all the prizes are junk. Claire takes the slip with the total number of tickets on it and looks around. She goes up to a kid who doesn't look like he's having much luck with the game he's playing. She hands him the slip and smiles.
"Ok, good act of the day complete," She says. "Let's go now?" I nod and so does Ray. We all leave the bright colored building and pile into Ray's car again.
"Where to now?" Ray asks.
"Let's just go hang out. The guys should be back soon." Claire suggests. Ray starts to drive back towards the bus.
-
"We're back!" Frank calls as he enters the bus. The rest of the band pile in, and they all sit on the couch, next to us.
"Hi. How was the interview?" I question.
"It was cool, but they kept asking about you and Claire." Mikey answers.
"What did you tell them?" Claire questions worriedly.
"That you were my girlfriend and Caroline is a close friend." Wow. I'm just a friend. I'm nothing special. Just someone who tags along, add more to the work load. And I'm pregnant too, that is a lot of work. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut, and hide in Claire's bunk.
I get up and leave the living area without a word, and sit in Claire's bunk. I pull out my phone, and log into Twitter, but I can't read much with my eyes so blurry from tears.
After deciding to Twitter-stalk Frank, I scroll through his tweets, but one stands out to me. It reads 'about to talk to the most beautiful girl in the world!'. It was posted just a few seconds ago. He's probably calling Nelly.
"Caroline?" Frank pokes his head into the bunk.
"What? I thought you were supposed to be calling Nelly."
"Where did you get that idea?" I hold up my phone, and show him his tweet. "Caroline, I meant you."
"Frank, we both know I'm not beautiful. I'm just an extra load of weight to carry around. You have a gorgeous girlfriend, go talk to her."
"Caroline, you are the prettiest girl I have ever had the pleasure to look at. Remember when I told you that you were a challenge? I was super hungover and frustrated. That whole time you were gone I was drunk. I hadn't heard anything from you, I figured you hated me and never wanted to see me again. Nelly was there when I was drunk. She brought me home from a bar after I got so drunk I could barely see. Things escalated from there, and she got pregnant. She is going to have that baby, and you're going to have yours. I am going to be a father to two beautiful children, and I will love them just as much as I love you." Wait, he still loves me? What?
"Frank, I-"
"I know, you hate me. But I never stopped loving you. I've always loved you and everything about you. I love your curly brown hair, your bright green eyes, and your little brown freckles. I love you so much, but you don't love me." Frank starts tearing up, and so do I.
"Frank don't you EVER say that I don't love you! My heart shattered when Gerard told me you were dating Nelly. That hurt me so much that I had to hurt myself to forget my emotional pain. I love you so much Frank." Tears cascade down my face, landing in my lap. It felt good to get that off my chest.
"Caroline I'm-" I cut him off by placing my lips on his. He kisses back, and soon we're in a heated make out session.
"Frank! What the hell?" Gerard storms in the room.
"What?" Frank looks extremely annoyed.
"You broke her heart, so much that she thought she had to hurt herself! And now you're kissing her?"
"Why does it bother you?" Frank spits out.
"Because I care about her! You're toying with her emotions! Shes going to need therapy after this tour, if we keep acting the way we are!"
"Don't I get a say in this?" I ask.
"No!" Both boys scream. Frank takes a step towards Gerard, and Gerard gives him a death glare. I stand to try to separate them, but Gerard pushes me back into the bunk. On the way down, I hit my head on the metal bar above the bunk. My vision starts to fade, as I hear punches being thrown.