Ch. 25 - Munchkin Poop

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"Jonas, how could you be dating my nemesis?"

"Would you lower your voice? She's right in the other room!" Jonas whisper-screams.

Addison rolls my eyes. "I don't care if she hears me! I'm proud to say she's my enemy!"

"She's the love of my life!"

"You're more in love with a box of Cheerios than Brianna Holden!"

"You're the one in love with the male version of Ivy!"

"Okay, let's all just calm down," I say as the voice of reason, pulling on Jonas' shirt to sit him on the toilet seat.

Addison sighs in annoyance. "Ivy, this is so dumb. You can't honestly expect me to let this girl in my house and date my loser brother. She's clearly using him."

"You know nothing!" Jonas screams.

I hold up my hand to stop him from jumping up again. "What happened between you two?"

"Well," Addison starts, "this one time I was having a sleepover and Brianna snuck upstairs and slept in Elliott's bed. I stopped being friends with her after that and she has made my life a living hell ever since."

I widen my eyes and turn to Jonas. "That's who you're dating? The creepy Elliott stalker?"

"She's over Elliott and her petty fight with Addison. Our love is genuine," Jonas assures.

"Don't be so stupid, Jonas," Addison mutters. "Brianna is the Wicked Witch of Oregon. She has something planned."

"I'm leaving to be with my girlfriend now," Jonas declares and opens the bathroom door. "Have a nice day, ladies."

I sigh and lean against the counter. "Maybe Brianna has changed, Addison."

Addison shakes her head and walks out of the bathroom. In the kitchen, Jonas, Brianna, and Elliott sit at the table just as they had been before Addison barged in and ripped Jonas out of his seat and into the bathroom. Brianna is smiling at Elliott while Jonas tells her about this game-winning goal he made during soccer practice. Elliott is sitting with a strict posture, an uncomfortable look on his face as he eyes Brianna wearily.

"Hey, Elliott, can you help me upstairs?" I ask and point my thumb behind me.

"Yeah!" he responds a bit too eagerly, springing up from the chair, the legs scratching against the wooden floors.

"Do you need our help too?" Brianna asks, her smile on the verge of psychotic.

"No, I think the two of us can handle it," I say. "Thanks though. You two have fun."

Elliott and I head upstairs to my room. As soon as he feels as though we are far enough away, Elliott whisper-screams, "we have to do something about this!"

I laugh. "She's fourteen, Li. It's not like there's anything we can do. I don't see the harm in any of it."

"I see a lot of harm in this actually," he argues. "Aren't you the least bit worried she'll break Jonas' heart?"

"Well, are you?" I shoot back, throwing their rocky relationship in his face.

Elliott shakes his head. "Come on, Ivy. I don't like the girl. Addison doesn't like the girl. Do you even like the girl?"

"Look," I pause, "they're young. It won't last very long. Jonas has told me so many times that he won't be tied down by a woman until he's fifty-eight. We all just need to let this go through his system."

"Okay, did you subtly just call Brianna urine?"

I roll my eyes and sit down on my bed, pulling on Elliott's shirt sleeve to get him to sit with me. "We can waste our time talking about a fourteen-year-old girl who has a cute little crush on you-"

"It isn't cute-"

I cover his mouth with my hand, my other hand holding the collar of his t-shirt. "Or we can do something else."

The corners of his mouth turn up slightly. "Are you trying to seduce me, Red?" He moves on top of me in a playful manner, his hands holding his body up. "Because it's working."

I laugh and press my lips onto his, pulling him closer by tugging on his shirt. My stomach still gets butterflies each time he pulls away from the kiss just to look into my eyes, no words needed to be said. We're both happy.

"What the f-word?"

I shove Elliott off of me when the third-party-voice comes from the doorway . He falls to the ground with a thud, a small groan leaving his lips. My heart rate is erratic as I stand up from my bed. "Uh.. I-We were just.."

"What is he helping you with? Your kissing skills?" Brianna asks, her hands on her hips.

"Um.." I cross my arms over my chest. "What are you doing up here? Where's Jonas?"

"He's downstairs on the phone with that Jett kid." She sighs. "I came up here to help you."

"Oh sure you did," Elliott mumbles.

I whack his chest. "So, Brianna, sweetie, I'm going to need you to pretend like you didn't see anything."

"Wait. You guys are keeping this a secret from everyone?" she asks n amusement. "Oh! My day just got so good!"

I clench my jaw. "You can't tell anyone, Brianna. I might lose my job."

"Why would I care?"

"Because," I answer, looking around the room for something I could give her. "Because I'll let you have my phone case."

"I don't want a phone case," Brianna says with a flat voice.

I sigh and run a hand through my hair. "Uh... Because Elliott will give you a kiss if you don't say anything."

"Ivy!" Elliott gasps, giving me an incredulous look.

"I'm listening," Brianna muses.

"Yeah. If you don't say anything for the rest of the summer, Elliott will give you a kiss. But he'll only kiss you at the end of the summer. And it's just one kiss. On the cheek."

"No way. On the lips."

"No way!" Elliott mimics.

Brianna raises her eyebrows. "Jonas!" she screams. "Guess what!"

Elliott mutters something of a great profanity under his breath before taking a step closer to Brianna. "Alright, alright. Deal. Just keep your mouth shut."

She pinches her thumb and pointer finger together before sliding them across her lips.

Jonas comes bursting into my room just then, his breathing heavy. "What?" he screams in excitement. "I'm guessing what!"

"I forgot," Brianna says with a shrug.

Jonas frowns. "Oh, darn."

She nods and claps her hands together. "Well, I should go home now."

"But you just got here," Jonas whines.

"I'm sorry that I can't spend all my time with you, munchkin poop."

"Munchkin poop?" Elliott mouths, his eyebrows pulled together.

I fight back a laugh and hold it together to ask, "do you need a ride home, Brianna?"

"No. My manny will be here to pick me up any second now," she says.

"You have a manny?"

She nods. "Yeah. My mom hired him like two weeks ago. He's so hot."

"Hey!" Jonas whines.

Brianna looks at him briefly before rolling her eyes. There's a honk from the driveway. "He's here now."

"Ivy, you should meet him. I could so see you two dating. The nanny and the manny."

"She has a boyfriend, remember?" Elliott says a bit too defensively.

"Chill out, Liott," Jonas says before taking Brianna's hand in his and going downstairs.

I give Elliott a look.

"What? You do! I'm just stating the facts."

"You're making us look suspicious. I don't trust that Brianna girl to keep our secret a secret from-"

"Brianna Holden!"

I widen my eyes when I hear the familiar voice call her name from outside. Elliott looks just as shocked, his mouth falling open.

"You don't think that's..."

We both spring to the window, peering through the blinds to see who is walking up our driveway to greet his kid. Jake Acker.

"How is he everywhere?" Elliott asks in disbelief.

I laugh, unable to hold it in. Jake Acker is Brianna's manny. Elliott can't help but laugh with me, the whole situation too funny to us. I hold a finger over my lips to remind him that my window is open and they could possibly hear us. We calm down our laughter, watching as Jake and Brianna back out of the driveway in a large SUV.

"I hope she doesn't say anything to him," I say a little nervously, sitting on the floor.

Elliott smiles. "Why? Are you worried Jake will go tell Abraham you've been cheating on him?"

"Yes," I answer seriously. "Because Jake will tell Abraham who will tell Kirk who will tell Jase or Val or Angelina or Hardy who will tell Yogi. And Yogi works at this family's grocery store. You want to know who he'll tell?"

"This family," Elliott says with a nod. "I get it. Hey, I've been thinking and maybe it's not such a bad thing if they found out."

I raise my eyebrows. "What?"

"We only have a month left before you go away to college. My mom wouldn't fire you with less than a month left, if she found out. I doubt she even would. She has been super busy with her work recently and we haven't contacted her. What's the point of keeping it a secret?"

I shrug. "I guess you're right. I don't know though. I'm not one to take hypothetical risks like that."

"Well, isn't it time you did?"

After dinner, we all went outside to play soccer. I decided it was best to get them to do some physical activity at around this time so they're easier to put to sleep. Jonas picked his team: Elliott, Crystal, and Addison. I got Ethan and Rose. He said Bethany counted as a teammate on my team which made the game completely fair. I didn't fight him on it.

About halfway through the game, I heard a loud crash come from the guest house. It's followed by a plethora of swears.

"Uh, guys, why don't you go inside and start a movie?" I suggest.

"Yeah!" Elliott says. "Let's go. Come on, guys."

They head inside with worried faces, probably also hearing the noise from inside the guest house. Elliott stays outside and places a comforting hand on my arm.

"You go inside," I say. "I'm sure she just dropped something."

"Yeah," he agrees, though I can tell he's lying. "That's probably it."

I take a deep breath before stepping into the guest house. My eyes fall to where my mom sits on the kitchen floor, glass from a vodka glass shattered around her. I frown and move towards my mom, not being careful of the glass.

"What happened?" I ask, my hands cupping her face to check if she's okay. "Are you alright?"

"I don't know," she breathes. Black mascara lines her face, making her look like a mix between Carrie and a raccoon. "I don't know!"

Her breath reeks of alcohol. I swat my hand around the air to try to lessen the strength of the smell. "How much did you have to drink?"

"A lot."

I nod and look at the small cuts on her legs from the glass. Standing up, I check for a first aid kit. I find one and sit back down to clean my mom's cuts before patching them with bandaids. These wounds are light; they'll fade. They're nothing like the scars that lie within her heart.

"Tell me what happened, mom," I say.

"I was just doing some thinking," she slurs. "And my head started to hurt from all the thinking. So I started to drink."

I nod. "What were you thinking about?"

"Your father."

My heart pangs, the little emotion I have toward my dad coming up as I look at my mom broken on the floor.

"I hate what he did to us, Ivy," she says, her eyes watering again. "I hate him for leaving me. Was-am I not good enough? Why does everyone leave me?"

I shake my head, not knowing how to answer that. "Dad had a lot of problems, mom. He had problems that you couldn't fix."

"But I tried to fix them," she says, her voice cracking. "Just like you do with me. I don't want you to fix me."

"Mom, I-"

"Because you'll just end up like me."

I close my mouth, my eyes looking down at the tile floor. She caresses my cheek.

"You're so beautiful, Ivy," she whispers as if it's a secret she could never tell. "You're always there for me when I need you. I try not to need you because I don't want you to waste your life on me. Your dad took something from me that I'm scared I already took from you."

"What's that?" I ask, scared of her answer.

"Trust."

My eyes well up with tears that I didn't think would ever come out in front of my mother. But she did take that from me. So did my father. I don't trust people. I never did. I grew up alone, unable to give myself to someone else. Until I met Elliott.

"It's okay," I say in a mere whisper. "I got it back, mom."

Her eyes light up briefly. "It's the boy, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I say, a single tear falling down my cheek. "I'm falling in love with him."

She smiles, not saying anything else. I help her stand up where we move to the small family room area with a love-seat. My mom sits down on the couch, and I go to get her some water after ridding the kitchen of the shattered glass.

I don't know how long we sat there in silence. She drifted off to sleep for awhile before waking up only to sit in silence again. I stayed there to watch her, oddly wanting to be there with her. I've always loved my mom, but not in the way that little girls should love their mom. I loved her in a unique way, a struggling way. I guess it could be called our way.

"Mom, can I ask you a question?"

She nods.

"Why did you go to dad after you broke off your engagements? Why go back to him?"

Sighing, she readjusts her legs on the couch. "I don't know. He loved me once, when we had you. Maybe he was just using me those times I came to see him. I don't know. But I love your father, Ivy. And deep down I still hope that he loves me too."

"But he left us!" I argue. "How could you still love him?"

"It just doesn't go away," she says more calmly than I had been speaking. "There's something different when you catch the bad boy's attention, Ivy. There's something special. You're the one they picked, the one they changed their entire routine for. You're special."

I frown. "He never made me feel special though. Neither did you."

She nods, her eyes glued to the hardwood floors. "Yeah."

"It's not fair," I say, unable to stop myself from spilling my guts. "I never got a family. I never had parents who put me first. I didn't have any siblings. I was all alone."

"You chose to be alone," my mom says bravely.

I stand up from the couch in shock. "I didn't choose to be alone! I didn't choose any of this! I wanted a family, I wanted siblings, I wanted to be loved! That's all I've ever wanted, mom! Okay? That's all you could never give me."

She's quiet, which only fuels my anger.

"I feel closer to the Kennedy's than I have ever felt to you, to dad! And I've only known them for two months. Two months and they've shown me exactly what a family is. Exactly what you weren't!"

"Ivy."

"What, mom? What could you possibly have to say to me? That you're sorry? You never meant to leave me so alone?"

"You're not alone," she says simply.

I almost lose it. "You don't know these things! You haven't been in my life for the past thirteen years. Not since dad left you. You don't even know who I am! We're practically strangers."

"I know."

I stop, not expecting her to say this. "What?"

"I know. You're telling me everything I've known, everything I tried to drink away tonight." She stops. "But I have to tell you something and I don't want you to act irrationally."

"I'm not irrational," I say in quite an irrational tone.

She sighs. "I know why I recognize them."

"Who?" I ask, my mind trying to figure out where this is going."

"Those neighbors. Nora and...and J-Jehova."

"It's Jett," I correct.

"Same difference," she muses quickly.

"How do you know them?"

She takes a minute before responding, as if she's enjoying keeping me in this suspense."They're your father's children."

"What?" I ask, not sure that I heard her correctly.

"He slept with another woman before leaving me. He had an affair with her when you were just one."

I shake my head. "I-I don't believe you."

"They-they kept seeing each other for five years after that, all while I was still married to him. I was too in love with your father to do anything, just wanting him to one day decide that he loved me more than this other woman." She bites her lip, her voice wavering. "But then he left me for her."

"No," I say, my stomach in knots. "That's not true. It can't be."

"She's the woman he left me for. Those are the kids he left you for."

I pace around the small room in a panic, my mind going a million miles per minute. "You-how would you know?"

"Because those times I did go to your father after my failed relationships, I'd see photos of them. He carried them in his wallet, next to a photo of you."

I shake my head. "No. No, no, no. No. I-I don't have any siblings. You always told me I didn't have any siblings. You-you wouldn't keep that from me."

"I never knew how to explain the affair to you," she sighs. "I'm sorry."

"Do they know?" I ask. "Do Jett and Nora know we're siblings? Does dad still live with them? Is-is he their father? They-they said their parents traveled everywhere. Did they lie to me?"

"Ivy, you're acting irrational."

With that, I bolt out of the guest house and sprint across the street. I wipe under my eyes and knock aggressively against the Jenkins' front door. I knock and knock, my knuckles starting to ache. Why aren't they answering? I pound on the door with the palm of my hand, desperation hitting me hard.

Eventually, Jett opens the door. He's in pajama pants with Beyoncé's face all over them. "Hey, Ivy. Are you okay? It's really late."

"Did you know?" I ask. "Did you know this entire time? Is that why you moved across the street from where I was working? How did you even find me? Are you a bunch of creepy stalkers?"

Jett looks at me wide-eyed. "Uh... What-what are you talking about?"

"Dubai my ass!"

"I-I'm not sure what you're asking me to do, but I think I should go get Nora," he says slowly.

"Yeah! Get Nora!" I yell. "Get your aunt and your uncle too! Oh, wait, or is it my dad that you should be getting?"

Nora walks downstairs, rubbing her eyes with her fists. "Jett, what is going on?" She squints at me. "Ivy? Why are you here?"

"How are you doing, sis?" I ask in a biting tone. "Yeah, that's right. My mom told me you're my half-siblings. And I'm pretty sure you already knew that."

They're both silent.

"I've had a really shitty night, so if someone could just explain everything to me right now I'd appreciate it!" I scream.

"Okay, okay," Nora sighs. "We knew. We wanted to find you. Our dad, your dad, left us when Jett turned four. Near the beginning of the summer, my mom got a call from one of his friends that he passed away in a freak accident."

My stomach drops. "He died?"

Nora nods. "My mom took it really hard and went to stay with her parents. At our grandparents' house we found a box of our dad's letters to my mom. It's so secret-affair-esque. He talked about your mom and, well, you."

With all this information coming at me at once, I want to throw up. "So-so, you guys came to Oregon to find me?"

"Our aunt that it would be nice for us to meet you and let you know the tragedy that happened," Jett says. "She said we should ease into things before throwing it all on you. We were planning to tell you everything by the end of the summer."

I shake my head, still in disbelief. I have a sister and a brother. I have a family. My dad passed away. Shouldn't I feel something? Why don't I feel sad? I just feel empty. Does my mom even know? I feel sick just thinking about her reaction to finding out that the love

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