Chapter 7: Awakening
The Duncan House
"Ivy?"
Emmett immediately got defensive, tilting his head with a grimace. "Are you serious right now? No thanks."
Juno paused and looked at Adam. "Is he for real?"
"Very," Adam said.
Emmett caught their expressions and snapped his fingers between their faces. "Hey, hey, hey! We were talking about me and Teddy. Don't change the subject!"
"Alright, enough."
Adam dropped the casual tone, thinking about exactly what kind of game Emmett was running here. His expression shifted. "Emmett. Ivy is Teddy's best friend. And Teddy is my sister."
"So?"
"So stop playing games with Teddy."
"I'm not playing games! I genuinely like her!"
Emmett said it with real urgency.
"Really?" Adam gave him a flat look. "Then go back upstairs and handle Spencer. Right now. If you do that, I'll believe you. Otherwise, drop it. We're friends, but Teddy is my sister."
"You're serious?"
Emmett looked wounded, clearly seeing that Adam wasn't moving on this. He shifted uncomfortably. "Fine. Fine, I'll go..."
His feet didn't move.
The honest truth was that if Emmett had the size to back it up, he'd have been on a sports team years ago. But he didn't, and Spencer was enormous, and going back up those stairs wasn't happening.
"...Okay," Emmett finally said with great dignity. "Teddy is my true feelings. But you're my brother. If it makes you uncomfortable, I'll let it go."
Adam and Juno both made the same unimpressed sound at the same time.
Emmett hung around for a little while longer, but with Juno there and the memory of the stairs still fresh, he eventually grabbed his jacket and headed out.
Adam and Juno kept studying for another hour or so until they heard the front door open and Bob and Amy's voices and laughter filtering down from upstairs. They started packing up.
Charlie, who had been quietly entertaining herself on the couch this whole time, suddenly got restless.
"Missing Mom?" Adam picked her up and gave her a little bounce.
"Mommy! Mommy!"
Charlie clapped and beamed with the kind of smile that made it genuinely difficult to be in a bad mood.
"She is so cute," Juno said, and actually meant it. "Way more easygoing than my little sister Liberty."
"You want to hold her?"
Adam glanced over.
"Yeah, sure."
Juno took Charlie carefully, looked her over for a moment, then smiled. "You know, sometimes I think — what would it even be like? Having a baby right now. Wouldn't that be kind of interesting?"
Adam immediately thought of the movie.
"No," he said. "It really wouldn't. Trust me. You're not ready to raise a kid, and the world is too big to get stuck here before you've seen any of it."
"I mean, you could always do an adoption," Juno said thoughtfully. "Find a good family who really wants one."
Adam stared at her.
She actually did exactly that in the movie. He had no idea how to explain why he found this so alarming.
"Giving birth is painful," he tried. "And you'd be dealing with the whole pregnancy — the weight gain, the exhaustion, the—"
"What on earth are you two talking about?"
Adam's mom Amy appeared at the top of the basement stairs, hand on the railing, with the expression of someone who had been standing there for considerably longer than she was admitting.
"Nothing," Adam said immediately.
He walked over, handed Charlie off to her, and smoothly redirected. "Mom, this is my classmate Juno. Juno, this is my mom Amy."
"Good evening, Mrs. Duncan," Juno said pleasantly.
"Good evening, Juno." Amy held Charlie, studied Juno for a moment with an expression Adam recognized and did not enjoy, and then smiled warmly. "You can call me Amy."
Adam pressed his hand to his forehead.
"It's getting late," Juno said, reading the room perfectly and reaching for her backpack. "I should head home."
"Yes, absolutely." Amy pulled her attention away from Juno just long enough to level a look at Adam. "Adam, walk Juno home. Make sure she gets there safely, then come straight back. Dad and I need to talk to you."
"Got it."
"Goodbye, Amy." Juno gave a small wave. "Bye, Charlie."
"Say bye to the nice girl, Charlie."
Amy took Charlie's little hand and waved it.
Outside, Adam walked his bike alongside Juno down the quiet street.
"Your mom definitely got the wrong idea," Juno said, and laughed.
"Yeah, I'll sort it out when I get back." Adam sighed. "That's going to be a fun conversation."
"Shouldn't be too hard for you though, right?"
Juno glanced over sideways.
"What do you mean?"
"You're experienced," she said simply.
Adam started to argue out of reflex, then stopped, thought about it, and laughed instead. "Fair point."
"You really are scared of me."
Juno said it quietly, almost to herself, and there was something in her voice that was less playful than usual.
"You're overthinking it," Adam said.
Juno went quiet after that, walking with her head slightly down, not saying anything. Adam felt the awkwardness but also figured that maybe silence was safer, so he left it alone.
"This is me."
Juno stopped in front of a house. "Thanks for walking me."
"Yeah. Get some rest."
"You too."
She looked up and gave him a full, bright smile. "See you tomorrow!"
"Yeah — wait, what?"
She'd already turned and was wheeling her bike up the driveway, laughing.
Adam stood there on the sidewalk.
She'd spent the last ten minutes quiet and almost withdrawn, like she was pulling back, and then landed on see you tomorrow like none of that had happened. He'd been completely played.
If she'd actually wanted to end things, why had she shown up at his house in the first place? She'd already known at school that day. She'd known the whole time.
Maybe she's just Juno, he thought. Not some complicated angle. Just Juno.
Something shifted slightly in his chest. He almost smiled.
Then he remembered his mother was waiting at home to interrogate him, and the almost-smile went away.
Late that night, Adam finally made it to bed after surviving Amy Duncan's full investigation. Even with his endurance stat sitting at 300 he felt genuinely worn out, which said something about the particular kind of exhaustion that came from talking to his mother. He was asleep almost immediately.
At midnight, something pulled him awake.
Ding.
Intelligence +0.005
Adam stared at the ceiling in the dark for a moment.
Then he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
End of Chapter 7
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