Just Like Heaven Read online

  “Hey,” Demi said as she slid in to the table opposite Arthur, noticing how he glanced nervously at her stomach as she did so.

  “I’m not showing yet if that’s what you are worried about!” she snapped angrily.

  “No, course not, and I’m not worried…” Arthur said, blushing.

  “So…” Demi felt impatient, eager to leave as soon as he had delivered the soul crushing news that they were to part. Despite her anger over his absence, seeing him in the flesh reminded her of just how much she had missed him and how much she loved him.

  “I’ve missed you,” Arthur stated simply, also feeling in awe of their connection as they sat across from one another; as if she had laid a giant magnet between them, urging them together. Demi noticed as his fingers ran up and down his tattoo as he looked at her.

  “I’ve missed you too,” Demi said in spite of herself. She wanted to be mad at him, she wanted to scream and shout but now that she was here, that anger was dissipating. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “What do you think?” Arthur said looking towards her stomach and then quickly averting his eyes, fearing that people would see and gossip would leak out and somehow find its way to his father’s ears.

  “Surely we should be thinking about it together.”

  “Yeah, but it blindsided me. I needed to get my head straight.”

  “And now?” Demi felt nervous as she asked the question, her hands almost shaking as they rested in her lap.

  “I want to support you, whatever you decide to do.”

  “But what do you want me to do?” Demi asked.

  Up until that point, Arthur had been so sure that he would just take a back seat on the whole thing and go with whatever Demi wanted. He had lost so much sleep to his worries, pacing back and forth upon the basketball court, hoping some solution would present itself to him but it never did.

  The problem was that he loved Demi more than anything. She was who he wanted to be the mother of his children it was just a case of bad timing. He was due to leave in just a few short weeks, to begin a new chapter in his life. This wasn’t the time to start a family. Yet sitting across from Demi, seeing how tired and vulnerable she looked, Arthur felt his heart bleed for her. He loved her. He loved her more than anything, nothing else mattered. Together they could conquer anything, he just knew it.

  “I’ve been such a jerk. I should have called you,” he admitted.

  “Yes, you should have.”

  “But I’m here now, and I want to be here for you and our baby.” He reached out and held her hands which were trembling ever so slightly.

  “So… you’re not breaking up with me?” Demi asked quietly.

  “Of course not, I love you. The timing isn’t ideal, but this is our baby, together we will make it work.”

  The window for Demi to choose not to keep her baby was just about to close. She had prepared herself for the possibility that Arthur insist she not keep the baby, which she was prepared for if not sure she could do. But here he was declaring his love for her and promising to stand by her and the baby. She knew in that moment that this baby growing within her would be a part of their lives and her entire future suddenly changed, even if at the point she didn’t know it.

  “So what happens now?” Demi asked unsurely.

  “I tell my Dad,’ Arthur said, feeling frightened even saying the words out loud. His father would be angry, disappointed and above all, unsupportive, but Arthur was ready for that. His mother would cry and accuse him of being reckless; the only person who would be happy about the baby would be Jared because Jared loved babies. Often he wandered over to the maternity ward just to look at them all new in their cots, their little pink hands and feet writhing about.

  “Nobody knows what life has in store for them,” he’d say to his older brother as they stood looking through the glass.

  “There’s something magical about that.”

  “Yeah, there is,” Arthur would agree, placing a protective hand across his little brother’s shoulders.

  “And I guess that as a baby I looked like all the other babies, like there was nothing wrong with me,” Jared said sadly, pressing a palm up to the glass and envying the clean slate which all the new babies had.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you, Jared. You’re just sick.” Jared shook his brother off and walked away, his head down, made heavy by all the life he felt he’d lost to his sickness.

  ####

  Arthur drove Demi home but didn’t want to part from her, not yet. Maybe it was the pregnancy but her skin appeared to be glowing. And he’d missed her so much. He yearned to hold her in his arms and just forget everything.

  “Is your Dad home?” he asked with a mischievous glint in his eye as he nodded towards her house.

  “He’s out at work,” she answered coyly. “But I’m not inviting you in.”

  “Why not, you’re already pregnant, what’s the worst that could happen?”

  He had a point. And Demi’s hormones were out of control lately. One moment she was weeping over a television commercial, the next she was so horny she thought she might explode if she didn’t have some alone time with Arthur soon. Impassioned she threw herself across the car at Arthur and they began kissing passionately, his hands exploring her over her clothes as if they were strangers.

  “Come inside,” she said breathlessly as they briefly pulled apart.

  Demi led Arthur by the hand in to her empty house and up in to her bedroom where he pinned her down on to the bed and kissed her before they hungrily tore each other’s clothes off.

  There, on the bed where she’d dreamt of finding true love, they became one once more. But this time it was more heated than before, as though they were liberated in the knowledge that there was no risk attached as their union had already resulted in pregnancy.

  Holding Demi close, Arthur didn’t want the moment to end. Her legs entwined around him and he lost himself to the sheer ecstasy of the moment. So lost in their passion that they didn’t hear the door slam downstairs and footsteps begin ascending the staircase before it was too late.

  Demi’s Dad opened her bedroom door and looked in on a sight which no father should ever have to face. However, her remained calm and merely shut the door and headed back downstairs, wishing he could somehow erase the past five minutes from his memory.

  “Shit,” Demi sighed, pulling away from Arthur who hung his head shamefully.

  “I thought you said he was out at work all day.”

  “I thought he was. He must have come home to check on me during his lunch break.”

  “Does he know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dammit,” Arthur grimaced in frustration. “He must think I’m such a douche bag.”

  “Probably.”

  “Well what now? I can’t go down there and face him!”

  “You can go out the window,” Demi suggested.

  “I’m supposed to come in through the window, not go out of it!” Arthur smirked.

  “It’s either the window or the world’s most awkward conversation with my Dad,” Demi said.

  “Fine,” Arthur began pulling his jeans on, his face still burning with shame at being caught in the act. It had happened before but then he’d felt proud rather than ashamed.

  “Speaking of awkward conversations with fathers, are you going to speak to your Dad today then?” Demi asked gently, fearing if she tried to force Arthur to do it he would turn on her again and there would be another week without contact and she didn’t want to go through that again, not when these last week’s together were so precious.

  “Yeah, I’ll talk to him today,” Arthur promised.

  “I bet he’ll be disappointed about you not going to Duke,” Demi said sadly. “I know my Dad won’t be happy that I’m not going to college.”

  “Duke?” It hadn’t crossed Arthur’s mind that in agreeing to support Demi and the baby
he would be forfeiting his college education. He wasn’t sure it was something he was willing to do but knew better than to tell her that.

  “Oh yeah, Duke, he’ll be pissed about that,” Arthur said, suddenly filled with fear about just how his father would take the news that his teenage son was going to be a father himself.

  “Well let me know how it goes,” Demi said and Arthur planted a tender kiss upon her lips before awkwardly lifting himself out of her bedroom window.

  Taking a deep breath Demi prepared herself for her own awkward conversation with her own father who was sat in the kitchen waiting for her.

  ####

  “Arthur you seem distracted,” Conrad Cooper noted as his son awkwardly hovered near him as he polished his car.

  “I’m fine, Dad.” Arthur said as he nervously wrung his hands together.

  “Then why didn’t you answer my question?”

  “Question?”

  “Honestly, you’ve the attention span of a gnat sometimes,” his father sighed despairingly.

  “I just asked how things were going with preparing for Duke. Won’t be long now before you leave.”

  “Duke. Yes, of course. Will be great.”

  Conrad Cooper sensed that his son wasn’t anywhere near as happy as he was pretending to be which bothered him, as his son stood on the precipice of an incredibly promising future and should be elated.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked but Arthur merely shook his head dismissively. “If you are worried about Jared then don’t be. He’s in good hands with me and your mother, besides, the doctors say he is responding well to his treatment and getting stronger by the day,” the latter part was a complete fabrication but he felt it was necessary.

  “I’m not worried about Jared,” Arthur said before realizing how it sounded. “I mean, obviously I’m worried about Jared, but that’s not what’s bothering me.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Dad, I might not even go to Duke,” Arthur admitted, not even daring to meet his father’s astonished gaze.

  “Why ever not?” Conrad Cooper asked in disbelief.

  “Because…” Arthur took a deep breath, fearing how what he was about to say would be received, but like with the removal of a band aid, he thought the swift approach would lessen the inevitable pain which would follow;

  “Because Demi is pregnant.”

  ####

  Demi’s Dad was sat at the kitchen table gazing sadly out of the window and didn’t even look up as she entered the room.

  “Won’t he even say goodbye now?” he asked as he spotted Arthur’s sprinting down the driveway.

  “You’re already pregnant; surely there is no need to sneak about.” He sounded sad as he spoke, like a child who had just learnt that there was no Santa Claus. The magic in the world was gone; people lived and people died. It was cruel, hard and joyless.

  “Dad-” Demi wanted to say something to make it all better but had no idea what to say.

  “You’re a big girl now; I should have seen that before this mess showed it to me.”

  “Daddy,” Demi felt her eyes welling up, she didn’t like the way her Dad was talking, as though he was disconnected from her, that she was a stranger to him.

  “You’re not my little girl anymore,” her Dad sighed and looked up at her, his eyes red from crying.

  “I’ve tried to protect you from the world, but clearly I’ve failed.”

  “Daddy you haven’t failed!” Demi cried, running to sit across from him and hold his hands which fell limply into hers.

  “What happened was an accident, but it’s nothing to do with you. You did an amazing job raising me!”

  “Do you think your mother would think so if she were here to see this?” her Dad asked, his voice cold.

  “Please don’t say that!” Demi was crying now, pained at the memory of her mother and the truth that she would be so devastatingly disappointed to see her daughter pregnant as a teenager, her dreams for her future scattered to the wind, forever to be unfulfilled.

  “Nothing will change! I’ll still become a nurse, I promise! I’ll go to school here and work twice as hard as anyone else!”

  “And who will mind the baby?”

  “Arthur will! Daddy he’s going to stand by me, he said so! He loves me and I love him, everything will be alright!”

  “No,” her Dad shook his head and looked at her with sad, wise eyes. His experience told him what would happen, how this situation would play out, and it was his daughter who would be paying the price for her accident, no one else.

  “He won’t stay here with you; you need to be prepared for that.”

  “No, he’s told me he will stay!”

  “Do you think Conrad Cooper will let his son sacrifice his entire future to stay here and raise a baby?” her Dad asked incredulously.

  “Arthur will leave, so will Hayley, so will all your friends, and you’ll be left alone with a baby to raise.”

  “You’re wrong!” Demi sobbed but a part of her feared that what he said would be true.

  “I hope I’m wrong,” her Dad said, his voice quiet. “But what if I’m not?”

  Demi pondered on it all for a moment, tears falling down her cheeks as she did so. She sat with one hand placed absently over her stomach, already instinctively protecting her unborn child.

  “Isn’t it worth it? Isn’t it worth staying here to have a child? Wasn’t I worth it?”

  “I was a lot older when I had you.” her Dad countered.

  “But you lost Mom and had to raise me on your own. Was it worth it? If you’d known you’d end up alone, would you still have wanted me?”

  “Yes, of course. You give my life meaning.”

  “As my baby will give my life meaning!”

  “When you do become a mother, you’ll realize how you want so much more than that for your child,” her Dad said sadly.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you.” Demi said shamefully.

  “No, I’m disappointed with myself.”

  “Please, don’t be.”

  “It was my job to protect you from guys like Arthur, and I failed.”

  “Dad, Arthur’s a good guy, he’s going to stay and raise my baby with me!”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Daddy, he will, he loves me! Just you wait and see!” Demi stormed out of the room, her emotions overwhelming her. She needed to see and kind and friendly face. She needed to see Hayley.

  ####

  “Pregnant?” Conrad Cooper almost choked on the word as he spat it out.

  “It wasn’t planned,” Arthur added quickly, feeling foolish in the light of his father’s disapproval.

  “You idiot.”

  “Yeah, I know, I’m an idiot.”

  Arthur watched his father pace alongside his car, his brow creased in concentration. He ran a hand through his thinning hair and tried to focus his thoughts.

  “So yeah, I thought I’d stay here and help Demi with the baby, as it’s the honorable thing to do,” Arthur said quickly, hating the tension which was filling the garage in which they stood.

  “There is no honor in raising a bastard,” Conrad said cruelly, his voice cold.

  “I’ll marry her then.”

  “Lord, no!” Conrad snapped.

  “Then what am I supposed to do?” Arthur asked, puzzled about what was expected of him.

  “You are supposed to go to Duke.”

  “But Demi is pregnant.”

  “Well that’s her problem.”

  “Mine too,” Arthur insisted but Conrad raised his hands to silence his son’s objections.

  “Arthur, you are a silver spoon in a drawer full of wooden ones. You don’t belong in Collinswood. This town has always been too small for you. I’ve known that since you were five years old. You need to go somewhere you can shine and achieve and live the life you were always destined to lead.”

  It was the first time Conrad had ever spoken so highly of his eldest son and Art
hur felt a lump form in his throat on hearing it.