September 19th 2013; 10:34am

"Shay!" I heard Rain yell my name and I froze.

Why? Oh why hadn't I left my calculus cla.s.s earlier? I could have avoided this all together.

"You don't mean that," a tiny voice said in my head as I slowly turned around to face Rain. Angel stood next to her, with a brow raised questioningly, as to why I had currently been on the run out of school.

"Hey guys," I said nervously, patting down the wig that was on my head. Angel rolled her eyes, stomped over to me and yanked my arm, before pulling me along. Rain said nothing, just followed the two of us into an empty room; Angel closed the door, and sat me in one of the plastic chairs in the cla.s.sroom.

"So," Rain said, casually swinging her arms by her side and moving closer to me. I drummed my fingers on the table and avoided eye contact.

"So" I muttered, more to myself really, than them and examined my nails

"Come on, people," Angel scoffed, losing her cool "we've been friends for almost three years, both of you for five. Are we scarce on things to talk about?"

I sighed and glanced at Angel, who had settled herself exasperatedly in one of the plastic chairs a few rows away from where I sat.

"Look, we know you aren't ready to talk about her yet," Rain started and I sucked in a breath, watching her as she picked her next words carefully "but it doesn't mean we can't talk about anything else."

"We just don't want to be shut out of your life," Angel said with a shrug, as she watched me carefully. I looked between my two friends, not exactly sure what to say to that.

There was silence for a moment before Angel placed her feet on the table and ran her hands through her hair.

"So I have the latest scoop on what's happening in school," she said, causing me to smile. Rain shook her head with a smile and nodded for Angel to go on.

"I heard Diana got knocked up this summer."

I stared at Angel in shock and she nodded pitifully, not for Diana but for the girl whose boyfriend probably got her pregnant.

"Who's the baby daddy?" Rain asked, also interested in the gist. It wasn't like I hadn't expected something like this to happen; with all the boys she slept with, it was inevitable. The point was, she was still in high school, so I thought she would have been a lot more careful.

So much for that.

"It's Justin's but who knows?" she shrugged and I shook my head, clearly not surprised.

Justin had always been destined to get someone pregnant, and Diana was his booty call.

"I'm just surprised it didn't happen sooner," Rain said with a small laugh, shaking her head in dismay "Justin's really in it now."

"He denied it," Angel scoffed, clearly not sorry in the least for the two of them "It happened like, two days after school started."

"I just thought Diana stopped coming because she was ill or something."

"It's been three weeks Rain," Angel said as she rolled her eyes "no one stays ill that long."

"So she just dropped out?" I asked, glancing at Angel "I haven't seen her at all this year."

"I don't know but she's missed three weeks," Angel shrugged, clearly uninterested in Diana's newly complicated life as though she was itching to tell the juicy bits of the story "no one can make up three weeks."

"I can," Rain said matter-of-factly and Angel sneered.

"You're a nerd," Angel rolled her eyes "of course you can."

Rain flipped her off and I laughed, the both of them going along with it.

The way they were both glancing at me, I was sure they were just happy to see me smiling again; which was why I loved my friends and I missed them a lot.

Even if I couldn't say it in so many words, the fact remained.

"I'm just getting to the juicy bits" Angel said exasperatedly, silencing both me and Rain.

"Of course you are," Rain said but Angel just ignored her and glanced at me.

"Diana confronted Justin about it … in front of the entire school!"

"Where was I then?" Rain asked Angel skeptically as if she could not believe she had missed such an event.

"I don't know," Angel shrugged, uninterested in Rain's interruption "at the library or something" she looked at me and continued.

"It was amazing."

"Show some remorse Angel, for heaven's sake, the girl is pregnant" Rain said, shaking her head at Angel's enthusiasm.

"Um, so?" Angel asked, wondering what the h.e.l.l Rain was on about "she brought all of it on herself! Why not help her bask in the gift of life she has been given?"

Rain scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"Anyway, she walks up to Justin in the cafeteria, right?" Angel said, continuing her story, her eyes s.h.i.+ning with excitement "her belly is the size of a freaking basketball."

"Wait, she was already showing?" I asked as it was my turn to be shocked. Angel nodded and ran her hands through her hair again.

"He probably knocked her up during summer break."

"I thought that they were apart for the summer."

"Not."

"It might not be his."

"Oh I seriously doubt that," Angel said as if she knew something we didn't

"Well? Explain!!" Rain said, clearly more interested than she had been a moment ago.

"Gladly," Angel flipped her hair causing me to smile "they spent the summer together in Casablanca, at his family reunion."

I stared in shock.

"They dated for a while this summer."

"Justin doesn't do dating," Rain said, her mouth parted in shock.

Angel shrugged her expression stating that she was completely confused as well.

"Hey, don't look at me. I don't understand the man," she said.

I couldn't still get over Justin spending more than just a night with any girl… even his booty call.

"They dated?" I asked, still making sure I had heard right.

"Ask Alex," Angel said with a shrug "his family was there too and he was just as shocked as we are."

"What did Alex say about seeing them together?"

"Justin was going through a phase or something."

"So why would Justin deny that the baby was his?"

"He clearly can't handle the responsibility of any kind," I said with a shrug, glancing over at Rain.

"But then again, it really might not be his," Angel said, as though she had just remembered something "he even denied sleeping with her this summer."

"I give up trying to make sense out of all of this," Rain said, throwing her hands up.

"Make that the two of us. How could he have spent the entire summer with Diana and they didn't sleep together?" I said, folding my arms against my chest.

"Yeah well, Justin is a man wh.o.r.e so your confusion is understandable," Angel shrugged.

Rain and I were silent for a moment, trying to wrap our heads around everything we had just heard and Angel basking in the shocker she had just shared...

"How did you find out about all of this?" Rain voiced my thoughts.

I glanced at Angel.

"Look who you're talking to," Angel smirked, pus.h.i.+ng her bangs to the side with a triumphant expression "I have my ways."

Rain and I laughed for a short while and then it was silent again.

"Alex keeps asking about you," Rain said suddenly, glancing at me. I looked at her reluctantly.

"He wants to know if you still love him"

Did I?

Avian crossed my mind.

"She's too involved with her new boy toy to figure out her emotions right now" Angel said with a smirk and I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest defensively.

"I am not!"

"Um, yeah, you are," Angel said with a chuckle "he's always with you these days. Avian is his name, methinks."

Rain laughed.

"We have bio together and Darwin paired us up."

"Excuses," Angel muttered and Rain laughed even louder, causing me to sigh in defeat.

"You're impossible."

"But you still love me."

And I did. As I stared at my friends before me, cracking lame jokes and laughing at my expense, I realized that I couldn't lose them too.

And I didn't want to.