Two Old Friends

Chapter 15

"Lucius is an asshole," Adriana says.

"Yes, yes he is," I agree.

We both sigh at the old memory of Lucius and the drama that surrounded him in Adriana's life. I didn't mind Lucius for the most part. I found him irritating at times and incredibly arrogant, but I was grateful for him and what he did for me. Adriana, on the other hand, most obviously did not like Lucius. I don't think that she was completely angry with him for what he did to her, it was just that he actually did it to her. She didn't like that she was abandoned and she had an awful fear of being put down. I tried to avoid a fight with her and often just agreed with her when she had to rant about how awful Lucius was. But what I found most aggravating was that many years later, she continued the same rant. She holds grudges, just I do, but it is an annoying thing to listen to another person's.

~*~

"Lucius and Narcissa are getting married," I reported when Adriana came home. She raised her eyebrows.

"Are they really?"

"Yep. Lucius asked me to be his best man."

"Really?"

"Yep."

"That's fascinating. Is there anything else you'd like to report?" she asked while unloading her book bag.

"Lucius was very interested in where you and I stand."

"Why?"

"He says curiosity, but I don't believe him. I reckon he's having second thoughts."

"Well, if he asks, tell him I'm not doing that again."

"I shouldn't hope so," I said.

"Well, what did you tell him? About where you and I stand?"

"I told him that we were together. He asked me if Rosalyn called me Daddy, and I told him no. I told him that your child's name was Rosalyn Galena Rodriguez and that I doubted that you'd ever put a man's name to hers and that I wouldn't interfere with your choices concerning your daughter." She looked at me misty-eyed.

"Thank you," she said, her voice choked slightly. I shrugged.

"What else was I supposed to say?" She came to me and wrapped her arms around me and buried her face in my chest. I stood in slight shock, completely oblivious as to why she'd react like this. I awkwardly returned the embrace.

"You have no idea what that means to me," she sobbed.

"Are you crying?" I demanded. "Why are you crying?"

"I'm just so tired. I'm so tired of all this drama surrounding Lucius and Rosa and... I just want to curl up and go to sleep for a couple of years." She let her arms drop to her sides but kept her face on my chest.

"Well, in case you were wondering, Lucius invited the two of us to his wedding. And I did agree to be his best man..." She sighed heavily.

"I don't want to think about it right now."

"Mami!" came a cry at our feet when Rosalyn came galloping in.

"Hi baby," she said, still in my arms.

"Mami! Mami! Mami!"

"¿Que quieres?"

"Mami! Mami! Mami!" she started to beat my leg. I let go of Adriana who started laughing.

"Get that thing off of me," I said, stepping away. She bent over and picked up the monster. She wrapped her arms around Adriana's neck and rested her head on her shoulder. Adriana looked back at me and I was looking at Rosalyn's very blonde head.

"Do you want to go out for dinner tonight?" she asked me. I shrugged.

"Sure." She smiled faintly and stepped up to give me a kiss.

Not only did the sudden reminder of Lucius make Adriana tired, but nearly everything else made her tired, also. She blamed it on PMS, but she had not once asked me for any potions. She didn't get her homework done until the last minute and often had to postpone her classes until later hours so she could get enough sleep. She constantly ate and then would whine about getting fat.

"Severus, why do we have ice cream? I told you, I can't have ice cream! I'm going to be the size of a fucking balloon!" she told me, looking at a carton of ice cream in the ice box.

"I didn't buy it. Ask Birdie," I told her. I looked at the food list that I had written out a few days before when Birdie went shopping. I couldn't help but notice Adriana's scribble that clearly said 'ice cream'. I held up the list and looked at her.

"I think you told Birdie to get ice cream," I said. She strode to me and took it from my grasp, bristling.

"Well, throw it away! I have an addiction, Severus! Ever since I had Rosa, I've had an addiction to food!" I rolled my eyes.

"So what if you gain some weight, no one will notice." This was not a bright thing to say. She turned to me, wide eyed. She looked down and pulled up her shirt and looked at her stomach.

"Oh my god!" she whispered. "I'm gaining! I'm gaining my old weight back!" she started pulling her stomach out. "I'm fucking obese!"

"You are not obese."

"I need a girdle. I need to get a girdle, then that'll keep me from overeating... I need to get on a diet and..." This routine gave me an epiphany. She complained about PMS but it had been over a month and she hadn't asked me once for a potion. She complained about over eating and she'd been exhausted for no reason. I felt dread sinking in every inch of my body.

"Adriana, I think you ought to take a pregnancy test," I told her hollowly. She stared at me.

"You think I'm that fat?!" she demanded, as though I announced her death sentence.

"When was the last time you had your period?"

"I hardly think that's your business," she told me, curling her lip and looking me up and down.

"Adriana, put two and two together. You're tired, you've been eating. You've been obsessively buzzing around for no reason looking for something to do and collecting random things that you will never have any use for. You bought a frilly comforter and it's still in its wrapping 'just in case.' You rearranged Rosalyn's room for more room. If I'm right, then you're nesting. Take a pregnancy test." She stared at me as though I was losing it, and then it dawned upon her.

"It's been three months... Oh god, I think I might be pregnant..." She looked away and started biting her nails. She looked back at me. "What... what are we going to do?" I didn't way anything.

"We've got to start restocking on baby supplies... Rosa's outgrown most of her things, so we won't have to buy too much... Just another cot... Well, we can use the living room cot for the new one and get a pen for the living room for the two of them, put pillows and blankets in it if we need to put them in there to sleep..."

"Adriana, pause a minute. You realize we are twenty years old, right? Are we going to do nothing with our lives?"

"What do you suggest?" We fell silent. She stared at me. "No..." she whispered.

"I'm twenty years old, Adriana. You're twenty-one. Two children at the age of twenty? We can't do that, Adri. It takes enough patience to take care of Rosalyn -"

"You hardly take care of her, Severus."

"And it's hard enough to hold the patience to do what I do do for her."

"This is our child, you're talking about," she said, holding her abdomen.

"We don't even know if you really are pregnant, or not," I said.

"Well, we should get this out of the way so we don't have to have this conversation when we find out that I am," she said.

"Fine, let's get this argument out of the way. I do not make enough money to pay for another child. You are in school, you need all the money we can scrounge up for your education."

"That's what my parents' money is for."

"What money do you expect to use for this one? I have one job and that money is mostly going towards the house. You aren't working. Charmed baby supplies can last only so long. Do you want to wake up to find out that the cot that you magicked faded over night?"

"Are you going to kick me out if I keep this baby, too?" she asked me, looking at my shoulder. I paused.

"No," I said, trying to convince myself the same thing.

"So, no matter what you say will change the fact that I'm giving birth to this baby," she said simply. "You might as well stop arguing."

She had a point.

"Does what I have to say mean anything? I don't want a child, not now, anyway. I have never liked children, you of all people should know that. Do I really mater that little to you?"

"Don't pull that, Severus. It's not all about you anymore. It's about this new life, who are we to decide that it can't live?"

"We're people expected to raise it, that's who. It's not an enjoyable experience to be raised by people who don't want you, I know."

"But I care enough about it to avoid what your parents did," she countered. "If you wouldn't want to put a child through that then you ought to at the very least pretend to be happy." I rapped my knuckles against the counter in thought, trying to kill the time between us. I shook my head.

"Fuck it," I said. "Just... fuck it." I turned around and went to the living room.

"Fuck what?" she demanded, following me as I plopped back onto the couch. "Fuck what, Severus? Fuck me? Fuck you? Fuck the fucking situation? Fuck what?!"

"Just fuck it! I don't want to deal with this!"

"When do you want to fucking deal with it?" she yelled. "In six months when it comes out of my fucking vagina? Is that all I am to you? A fuck? I mean, who gives a fuck about what might come out of you and me in the sack!"

"That's what those birth control serums are for!"

"Pay attention to the warning label, even if it is in your book of potions, Severus. They don't always work!" I remained silent and stared at the fireplace. "Things don't always work out perfectly. I thought you were used to that theory by now."

"Take a test, Adriana. If it turns out positive, then we'll deal with it then."

"And if it turns out negative? Where does that leave us?"

"I don't know." She sniffled and finally let out the sob that she had been trying to keep back. She left the house.

The next day I woke up to Adriana handing me her results. I looked at it warily. Lo and behold, she was knocked up. I sighed and lied back down.

"I'm twenty years old..." I mumbled.