Chapter XXXIX

"That was your last chance at a formal education. You put one foot out of line, and you won't have a roof over your head."

That's the first and last thing Adam's father tells him on the drive home. That's his first hint that it's worse than he realized. The second is when he asks if he can go see Abby and his dad simply shoots him a look and says, "I'll be finding you a job. The rest of the time is yours. All I care at this point is you attempt to act as a respectable adult would and follow the law. Other than that, I've washed my hands of you." Adam turns to leave and Alistair clears his throat and adds, "And if you make the heinous mistake of breaking the law, be it by getting caught by the police or my finding a hint of illegal activity or substances in this home, you'll find yourself as a ward of the county."

"Adam," is the first thing Abby shouts to him when she sees him walking up the road to hers, before running up and giving him one of her war-wife hugs (he has to admit, Gabe's description of her hugs may have been uncalled for, but was spot-on). Then she steps back and rubs her hand across the top of his head. "Jesus, I wonder if you were this lumpy-headed as a baby or you just developed that way. I mean..."

"Come on," Adam says. "Make a dumb joke. The fucking e-mails were one thing, but if we're actually nice to each other in person, I'll be sick."

"...I was actually just trying remember the name of the supervillain you look like."

"Stop flirtin', No Cups. Shit's rough enough at home; last thing we need is you getting yourself dumped by the only boy who'll ever fancy you."

Abby wrinkles her nose. "One, it wasn't going to be anyone sexy and bald, like Bane; it was gonna be Juggernaut from Deadpool 2. Two, at least three other guys have hit on me now, although one was only vaguely in passing. And three, don't worry," Abby says. "You'll always be a dumbass. You already gave me material."

"Good," Adam says, smiling. "And Otis is still the only guy who'll ever fancy you without it being because they're a sex pest. Speaking of which, there's a third guy who I have to beat the shit out of?"

"Uh, I meant...Otis is number three," Abby says slowly, choosing to save the thankfully less persistent Simon's life. "Duh, A-dumb!"

"...Alright, then," Adam says. "Keep your secrets. You'll slip up eventually."

"Uh, speaking of secrets...we have got to talk about what you told me. Now."

"What do you mean," Adam says, his voice going steely. "We don't have anything to talk about."

"Come inside," Abby says, arms folded across her chest. "I made chocolate chip cookies."

"Abby, I don't..."

"...Have a choice," she finishes. "Glad you see it my way."

Soon enough, she and Adam are sat on her bed, with a warm plate of cookies in front of them as he glares at one of her Zolita posters and asks, "Are you sure you're not a bit bent yourself?"

"No," Abby says. "One of those things you can never be quite sure of, I reckon. Then again, I believe I'm not going to tackle that in this particular universe. Although I suspect the universe where I'm WLW is awesome."

"No, it's not, because what girls would date you," asks Adam. "Anyway, what dumb shit are you avoiding asking me?"

"I'm not avoiding anything," Abby protests. "You're the one who doesn't want to talk. I thought I'd be conversational. But let's get down to it...what the hell were you thinking hooking up with Eric?"

"What do you mean, what the hell," Adam asks. "I thought you'd be thrilled you have me cracked, and diagnosed me as bent. I thought you'd write up a whole gay report for Sex Kid."

"No, Adam, you asked me not to tell anyone," she says. "I couldn't betray you like that. ...Did you want him to know?"

"No," Adam says. "Because then Tromboner would know I told, and think I give a shit about him, which I don't. And Cockbiter would know, and then the whole school'd know, because I can't count on her doing me any favors after I told everyone we shagged in year ten."

Abby lets out an exasperated sigh and growls. "You can be such a piece of shit, you know?" She looks into Adam's eyes, noticing they look slightly wet at that. "But you already know that." She takes a deep breath. "So, you don't 'give a shit' about Eric. Because what happened isn't a big deal to you. But even on the off chance he feels equally unfazed by the whole thing, you've done so much awful shit to him, that honestly, I don't think it should have happened. You've never apologized to him. You can't even call him by his proper name. And now you've used him, when I'm not entirely sure you have the right to do so. So, Adam, do me a favor. Don't go seeking him out. Just leave him alone. And we're golden. No one ever has to know. Just...do your soul searching on your own time, and don't use people you've grievously fucked over in the past to do so. Can we agree on that?"

Adam looks at Abby. "...It might have meant something to me. Maybe. So what if it did?"

Abby flops backward onto the bed and takes a bite of her cookie. "Just stay away from Eric, alright? I don't think things are meant to happen there."

"You don't know everything," Adam mutters. "Maybe I'll just do what I want. How about that, No Cups?" He takes an aggressive bite of his own cookie, which leaves chocolate all over his face.

"Don't, Adam. For your own sake, if not Eric's. It's not fair to anybody," Abby says.

"Fine," he says. "Just stop nagging me, alright?"

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"So, uh, what's that you're working on, Aims," Abby asks, sitting down at the Gibbs' kitchen table.

Once again, like many other visits lately, Abby's walked in to see Aimee "practicing her baking," and once again, she has to suppress the urge to roll up her sleeves and help. After all, she fancies she knows her way around a kitchen well, if only because that was one major aspect of Nan's "life skills" teachings every summer (she also knows how to change car tires despite never having had a driving lesson). Aimee, on the other hand, already wasn't great with measurements and yet would use an unmarked cup, which definitely made for an interesting batch of brownies last week, or worse, use a recipe with American measurements...and degrees Fahrenheit. Still, Aimee had requested she stop "doing the hard work" for her as she was determined to learn on her own, which Abby found to be pretty admirable considering her own whining back when Nan had initially put her to work years ago.

"It's a cake," Aimee says, "for Maeve's birthday."

"Aw, Aims, don't," says Abby. "She doesn't want to celebrate her birthday."

"That's what she says," Aimee says. "But that's just because she doesn't know how fun birthdays can be, with how her mum isn't around much and all."

"Aimee, it's not that her mom isn't around, it's that's she's a drug addict. Her mom has a disease, like a chemical dependency. It's a bit different than how our moms are."

"My mum's always nice on my birthday," Aimee goes on. "And Maeve deserves..."

"...the world," Abby finishes. "I think we can all agree Maeve deserves the freaking world. But if birthdays are off limits, they're off limits."

"...You know, you never told me when your birthday is," Aimee notes, her voice suddenly gaining startling clarity.

"That's on a need-to-know basis," Abby says. "All you need to know is a lot of people don't do birthdays."

"Why don't you," asks Aimee. "Is it because you're the only American who doesn't drive and that means you couldn't have a sweet sixteen?"

Abby sighs in relief, glad Aimee's sudden rise in IQ points was brief. "Sure, that's it," she says.

"Oh, I know," Aimee says, dropping the spoon into the mixing bowl. "We could do driving tests together! We can study, 'cos I'm gonna need so much help with the written. Then when I take my test, you can cheer me, and then I'll cheer you on, and we can get our licence pictures taken together and..." She gasps. "Oh my God, do you think we can be in each other's pictures like in Romy and Michele?"

"I don't think so," Abby says. "Driver's licence photos are meant to be ugly, and we're both fairly cute separately, so there's no way they'd be very understanding of a doubly cute picture."

"Ooh, you're probably right. That'd be unfair, too, if we had one good picture instead of two blah ones," agrees Aimee. She stares down at the mixing bowl and groans in frustration. "Ugh! I wish there was a way to make this go faster!"

Abby's eyes travel over to the whisk laid out on the counter with every baking appliance on the market. "Here, try this," Abby says, getting up and handing the whisk to Aimee. "Then, later, for icing, you can use the hand mixer."

"Stop, Abby," Aimee says. "Spoilers!"

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Abby's drop-ins through the window definitely always had a rhythm to them. Sometime between ten and midnight, whenever Otis indicated Jean and Jakob had gone into their bedroom. The sound of one or two grunts and then leaves falling off the tree, followed by the creak of the precarious branch Abby used as a pathway to the window, and then, finally, the thud of shoes onto the floor, or occasionally, her landing shoulder first to the ground. So when Otis hears the clang of a ladder around eight, and then doesn't hear anything for the next three hours, he's weirded out, but figured Jakob is being annoyingly helpful by clearing the drainpipes and he didn't hear him climb up over the music on his radio. When he hears a sudden rattle on the ladder at eleven, he panics a bit, admittedly, grabbing the abandoned field hockey stick that had been in his closet since his parents first moved in. But when he looks out the window, he sees Abby grinning up at him. "Good idea with the ladder," she says, climbing through the window. "How'd you pull that off without your mom questioning it?"

"I...uh, I don't know," Otis admits. "I didn't set it up."

"Oh," Abby says. "Then remind me to thank your mom later."

"I don't know that she did it," Otis says. "It's just...there. Jakob probably left it."

"...That's good, too, right," Abby asks. "I mean, that's cool of him. Like the doorlatch. Right?"

"It's fine. I don't know why you keep asking me," Otis says. "Obviously it's fine. It's also completely patronizing, not to mention a desperate attempt at winning me over and making me think he wants to be my dad, but it's fine."

He sighs, and looks over at Abby, still nervously standing in front of the window. "...I mean it. It might be a bit annoying, but so was worrying every night was going to be the night you fell and broke your legs or worse, your spine."

"On the upside, you'd be able to give the tree a badass name, like the 'Widower-maker.' Or 'Love's Lost Tree,' if you wanted to be more romantic and accurate," Abby says with a sardonic smile, finally crossing the room and climbing onto the bed. "Anyway," she says. "I have a new song I have to play you."

"If it's off the 100 gecs remix album, we're breaking up."

"It's the exact opposite of that," Abby says. "Sort of. It is a remix, and it sort of falls under the pop-punk umbrella, but it's acoustic. And it did make me think of you, but I promise, none of the lyrics mention piss babies."

Abby pulls out her phone, and puts on the acoustic version of "Garden" by Meet Me @ the Altar. After the first chorus, she grins up at Otis and says, "See? It's a lot better than 'Money Machine'. Besides, I need new comfort music. Plus we're in the market for a song, or at least a very excellent playlist, and I figured just in case things go south, I should pick a unique remix so when said song comes on the radio in fifteen years, I won't pull over into a drive-through lane and sob."

"Why wouldn't you just go park somewhere," Otis asks.

"Because I'll obviously be back in America at that point, we barely have one-lane streets, I'll be very distressed, and, worst of all, I'll be in a country that lets people like me behind the wheel. Also, I can get a cake pop or a Crunch Wrap Supreme or a Big Mac or whatever to cheer myself. Or maybe just a soft drink, since I'll be thirty-one by then, and at that point, I'll already be a crazy woman who's having a random breakdown over her high school boyfriend, and I might as well not give myself food to choke on during a crying jag, because I'm sure that's a very embarrassing way to die."

"Why wouldn't you at least stay in England for your nan," Otis asks. "If we break up, would you really go back to L.A.?"

"No," Abby says, "but for dramatic purposes in convincing you to be resourceful while we pick out our song, I had to let you know what the E ending was so you'd take things seriously. Also, side notes, but thanks for the leet gaming know-how, because before you, all I knew was that some endings in the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books were super crappy."

"Here's an example: we are going to have an E ending if you ever use the word "leet" again."

"Ooh, someone's feeling sassy today, huh?" Abby teases, poking Otis in the ribs until he squeals and pulls her into his chest. And for just that weekend, everything is fine.