“I can’t believe it,” Cassidy grinned at me as I lugged my last suitcase down the stairs. “You’re actually leaving. You’re not going to be here or Neverland anymore. My dream has finally come true!”

Another great reason for going to military school would be to get away from this bitch and her mother. It had been what I had wanted ever since Claudia had married my father.

“Yes, I’m leaving, but just remember, Cassidy…” I started menacingly, taking a step closer to her afterwards. “I’ll always be in your nightmares.”

She squeaked, jumping back away from me and glaring. I merely shrugged, now continuing to drag my suitcase toward the door, knowing my dad would be outside helping me pack everything into the car.

“Come on, Cassidy,” Claudia now started snootily, and it almost made me roll my eyes at her. “Cut Olivia some slack. These are her last moments in this house. We should celebrate, shouldn’t we? We’ve actually gotten rid of the girl after trying for so long!”

As mother and daughter cackled together, I let my suitcase smash to the ground. This caused both of them to stop and squeal in surprise as I turned toward them. They looked so scared, and it almost made me laugh at how pathetic they really were.

“Have a nice time while I’m gone,” I said to them, and they still looked terrified. “Hopefully you two will still be around when I come back so I can use some of the tricks I’ll learn in military school on you.”

And I picked my suitcase back up and left at that. I’d let their imaginations take on the rest of it, because that would have been so much better than anything I could have ever said.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Ivy?” my father asked as I handed him one of my suitcases to put in the trunk. “It's not too late for you to go back to Neverland Academy.”

“No, this is what I want,” I assured him as I handed him another bag. “I don't want to go back to that school ever again. It's not good for me.”

My father sighed, taking my bag from me and putting it in the trunk of the car. I looked down at my phone, my heart clenching when I saw the time. It was Saturday, and it was eleven o'clock in the morning. I had no idea if Eli and Courtney had gotten married yet, but I didn't even want to know.

“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” he now sighed, but still didn’t stop as I continued to hand him bags. “You made a lot of friends while you were at Neverland Academy, so many that it was actually surprising to see. Before you went to that school, you only had Simon, Terra, and Henry. This school was a great opportunity for you. You even found yourself a couple of boyfriends.”

I said nothing, only shoving another bag into his grasp. I didn’t need my father talking to me about something like this. There wasn’t anything anyone could say that would make me change my mind. I had made this decision and I was sticking with it.

When a brown van suddenly came screeching to a stop behind me and beside our car, I seemed to be the only one to react to it. My father acted as if nothing was wrong as the door to the van slid open and I was suddenly being grabbed and pulled inside.

Before I could even react, I heard the tires screech and we were off. I was going to scream, but then I saw who was in the van.

“Remind me to thank Mr. Morgan later for letting us borrow Ivy,” Chloe smiled over at her boyfriend, who grinned back at her.

Tyler was sitting across the van from me, and Jack was the one that was driving. All four of them were dressed elegantly, so I knew what where we were going.

“No way,” I snapped, crawling away from them and toward the door. I reached for the handle, wanting to jump out, but I was tackled to the floor of the van before I could.

“No, no, no!” Chris cried out once he was sitting on top of me. “We can't have you jumping out of the van and dying, dear Ivy. That just wouldn't be good.”

I whacked him in the back with my knee as he continued to sit on top of me. “Well, I'm going to die of suffocation if you don't get off me!”

Chloe pushed her boyfriend off of me before pulling something out of the bag she was holding.

“You know,” I shouted, not knowing what the hell they were all doing, “it’s really weird for a girl to be kidnapped by her friends for no apparent reason!”

“We’re not kidnapping you for no reason,” Chris grinned, and I almost let out a groan. “We’re not about to let you go to military school because we’d miss you too much!”

I had nothing to say to this. It wasn’t that I wasn’t going to miss them… It was just that I was not going to miss all the drama that had been surrounding me ever since I had joined Neverland Academy.

“Why are you even kidnapping me in a car like this?” I had to ask, shooting a glare at Chris when he opened his mouth to tell me that this wasn’t kidnapping. “You guys scared me half to death! If you had pulled me into a limo, I’m pretty sure I would know who it was.”

Tyler shrugged. “We didn’t want to make it too obvious.”

“I can see that!”

“Change into this,” Chloe now ordered, pushing a dress into my grasp. “Chris, Tyler, and I will look away. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal if Jack sees, even though he’s driving, since he’s already seen you naked.”

My face turned bright red. “Chloe!”

She giggled. “Come on, we all know it’s true.”

I didn’t deny it, because everyone in the car knew that it was true. That didn’t mean that it made it any less awkward for me, since I didn’t think Jack cared at all.

“Let me out,” I ordered, turning toward the door and grabbing for the handle. Before I could open the door, Chloe practically tackled me back onto the floor of the van just like her boyfriend had.

“Don’t make me change you myself!” she shouted, sitting right on top of me and not about to get off. “You are going to this wedding, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us from taking you there! You have to stop Eli from marrying Courtney!”

It felt like my head was going to explode. “There’s nothing I can do to stop the two of them from getting married!”

Chloe rolled her eyes at me. “Are you insane? You have to stop him!”

“But I can’t!” I shouted now, not even meaning to be as loud as I was. “I can’t stop the two of them from getting married! Courtney is pregnant with Eli’s baby, and there isn’t anything I can do to change that. You guys are acting like this isn’t a problem, and it’s because you guys don’t even know what real problems are! You all are rich; you have money that could get rid of your problems for you! I don’t have anything like that! I’ve had problems nonstop ever since I joined your stupid school, so why can’t you just let me go to a place where I’ll stop getting hurt? That’s all I want!”

“Did you ever think about what we wanted?” Jack snapped at me now, and it definitely stopped me from continuing my rant. “You’ve been going on and on lately about how you feel and how you always get hurt, but have you ever thought about how any of us feel?”

I only stared at him, unable to find my voice. He was right, I knew he was, but I just couldn’t tell him that. I just wanted to go home.

“We understand that you feel upset about what’s been happening, Ivy,” Jack continued now, and I still said nothing to stop him from continuing on. “But you’re not the only one suffering. Did you ever wonder what Courtney might feel like, being pregnant at sixteen? And what about Eli? It’s obvious to anyone that he wants to be with you, not her. I’m almost one hundred percent sure he’s suffering a lot more than any of us are.”

I looked down at the dress in my lap, not believing I was actually considering going to this stupid wedding. There was nothing I could do to stop it, no matter what I tried to do.

I had been so selfish over everything that had been happening. I didn’t care about what anyone else felt; I only cared about me. I never even thought about how Eli might have felt about everything that was going on, and I definitely never thought about what Courtney might have been feeling…

“No one look at me while I change,” I grumbled, and Chloe’s smiled turned so big that I thought her lips were going to crack. Everyone in the van turned away from me, and I quickly changed out of my jeans and T-shirt and slipped into the fancy dress.

“The wedding is going to start soon,” Jack informed me as he took a right turn once I was finished changing. “So Chloe, you better hurry up with her hair and makeup.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m going as fast as I can,” she snapped at her cousin, taking my chin in her hand and forcing me to look at her. As quickly as she could, she swiped eye shadow over my eyelids. I sure hoped I’d come out looking alright…

“Aren’t any of you in it?” I couldn’t help but ask, looking around at the three Lost Boys in the van with me. “I mean, you three are Eli’s best friends… I would think he’d want the three of you in his wedding.”

“Eli’s parents didn’t want any of his friends in the wedding with him, for some reason,” Tyler shrugged, and I looked over to see Jack’s grip on the steering wheel tighten. “And Jack’s not exactly Eli’s favorite person right now, so I highly doubt he’d even want him in the wedding anyway.”

I said nothing to this, since I was the reason they were even fighting. There was no point in commenting on it.

When we finally got to the church, Chloe was done making me over and my stomach was churning. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to the wedding of the boy I was in love with and the girl he got pregnant.

“I can’t believe you’re making me wear heels,” I hissed at Chloe once I stepped out of the van and my feet felt like they were going to explode. “I’d rather go completely barefoot than wear these stupid things.”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Well, we couldn’t have you clunking around in those boots of yours, could we? They don’t go with your dress anyway.”

I bit the inside of my lip and stopped complaining. The last thing I wanted was to stand out, since I wasn’t even allowed in the church anyway, so I was just going to have to deal with it. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that Chloe’s feet were smaller than mine…

When I walked into the church, I was surprised to see how many people were there. There were a lot of people from school, and a lot of Courtney and Eli’s family as well. All I was hoping for was that no one would notice me and kick me out.

I was surprised to see Simon there, but I wasn’t so surprised after I saw that he was with May and Emma. I was happy to see him and May, but I was still iffy around Emma. I didn’t know if anything could ever be normal around Emma and me after everything that had happened, but I was going to have to try.

“Oh, crap,” I heard Tyler mutter under his breath, and I thought that it was because he had seen Emma just like I had. But then I looked into the direction he was looking toward to see Terra, her arms wrapped around Jimmy as they both stood beside Henry.

“What the heck?” I always screamed, which I was sure Tyler would have loved to do right now. “What are they doing here?”

“Well,” Chloe started, and I knew I wasn’t going to like this. “Chris and I thought it’d be nice if you saw your friends again, so we invited them along.”

Tyler’s entire face was white, and Chris noticed. “Hey, Tyler, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he assured quickly, now turning away from us as fast as he could. “I just need something to drink. I’ll see you guys later.”

He darted off, and I let out a sigh. That boy had to tell everyone his secret before it was too late. I honestly didn’t know how long Henry would be okay with keeping their relationship a secret, and I knew that it was unfair for him.

When Jack and Chris were called over to help with something, I said nothing to stop them as I took a step closer to Chloe. I still couldn’t believe I was actually here. I was supposed to be on my way to military school right now, not in a church waiting for two teenagers to get married.

“What the hell are my dad and Claudia doing here?” I suddenly whispered harshly to Chloe, grabbing onto her arm and yanking her out of the way so Claudia wouldn’t see us.

Chloe shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “Well, Cassidy is one of Courtney’s best friends and she’s in the wedding. They probably came because of her.”

How great. Not only was I pretty much crashing a wedding, but my family was going to be here for it. I already knew this wasn’t going to go well.

“Well, what am I even supposed to do?” I asked, not comfortable in the dress and heels they had forced me into. “I have no type of plan or anything, and I highly doubt any of you guys do either because you probably didn't think you were going to get this far.”

“Uh...” Chloe blinked, laughing nervously because she knew I was right. “I was kind of hoping you'd know what to do.”

“You’re the one that kidnapped me,” I snapped, and she quickly shushed me when people looked over at us. I bit the inside of my lip, stopping myself from saying anything else. The last thing I wanted was for people to notice me, because I was definitely the last person Courtney wanted to see here.

Chloe still looked unsure. “How about you talk to Eli or something? You could talk him out of all of this.”

I made a face at her. She knew that there was nothing I could do to stop this wedding, no matter how hard I tried. If I had my way, none of this would have been happening, but there was nothing I could do. Courtney was pregnant. That was all I could think about.

“I can’t talk to Eli,” I sighed, crossing my arms over my stomach uncomfortably now. “Nothing good will come out of it. The last time I talked to him, we just ended up fighting. If I talked to him now, we’d just fight again and it would make everything so much worse.”

Chloe frowned at me now. “I guess you’re right…”

When her face lit up, I was actually kind of scared of what she was going to say next.

“What?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“If you can’t talk to Eli,” she started with a grin, and I knew that this was not something I wanted to here, “why don’t you just talk to Courtney instead?”

I burst out laughing, her joke way too much for me. She really wanted me to talk to Courtney, of all people? Courtney hated me more than anyone else! The last person she’d want to talk to was me, so I knew that there was no point in even trying to talk to her. There was nothing I could do.

“Come on,” Chloe sighed, her arms crossing over her chest now. “Think about it, Ivy. You can’t talk to Eli, but you can talk to Courtney. Maybe if you tell her how much you really love Eli, she’ll back off. Even a bitch like her can see that you love him way more than she ever could.”

She did have a point, but I still wasn’t sure. Talking to Courtney would be dangerous, because she could easily have kicked me out if she didn’t like what I was saying, and there was a huge possibility of that happening.

“Fine,” I gave in, not even knowing what I was doing now. “I’ll talk to her. It’s the only thing I can do.”

Chloe smiled at me, eagerly pointing out Courtney’s dressing room to me. I let out a sigh, straightening out my dress before heading toward it.

But before I could get there, someone stepped in front of me and stopped me from moving any farther.

“Is there a particular reason why you’re moving toward Courtney’s dressing room?” Jack asked me, an amused look on his face as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I know she’s the last person you want to see, and vice versa. So what’s going on?”

I only stared at the ground at first, not knowing what I was supposed to say. “Well… I’m going to talk to Courtney.”

Jack looked like he could have laughed just like I had a few minutes before. “You’re going to talk to Courtney? Are you insane? If she wasn’t pregnant, I’m sure she’d attack you if she saw you here. Actually, I think she’d still attack you even if she is pregnant.”

I glared up at him. “Thanks for the support, Jack.”

The amused look on his face turned apologetic as I tried to walk by him. He grabbed onto my arm before I could walk away, and I waited for him to say something before pulling my arm out of his grasp.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he sighed, now letting go of my arm and letting me turn back toward him. “I know how important all of this is to you. I mean, you love Eli, and you don’t want to see his life be ruined by all of this. You also probably feel like your life is pretty much ruined in a way, too. I shouldn’t be making fun of you for something that’s actually really important.”

“I know why you did it,” I shrugged, glancing at the floor before looking back up into his brown eyes. “You said so yourself that you’re still in love with me. It’s really hard to let things go. That’s why you still love Emma, too. That’s why it took me so long to get over you.”

Jack chuckled, shoving his hands into his pockets. “So you’re over me, huh?”

I frowned at him. “I think so.”

He nodded now, as if trying to take it all in. I only stood there, watching him, and I remembered how things used to be between us, before everything with Eli and Courtney, or even Emma. I remembered how much I loved him and how I thought I was going to marry him someday. Jack truly was a great guy, but not the one for me. He deserved to be happy, but so did I. And both of us weren’t truly happy when we were together.

“You need to go talk to Courtney,” he now smiled sadly at me, pushing me in the direction of the dressing room now. “Stop this wedding, Ivy. You deserve to be happy with the guy you truly love. You just deserve to be happy.”

I felt tears sting at the corner of my eyes, but I ignored them as I said, “And so do you, Jack. I really do hope that you find the girl for you someday, even if it isn’t Emma. She’ll be a really lucky girl.”

Jack smiled back at me. “Just like Eli’s a really lucky guy.”

I smiled at him one last time before turning away from my first love. I hurried toward Courtney’s dressing room, not wanting to be stopped by anyone else. The ceremony was supposed to start soon, and I had to talk to her before it all began. But when I got right outside her door, I stopped, trying to think of what I was supposed to say to her.

What was I supposed to say to a pregnant girl that was about to get married to the guy I was in love with?

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The next chapter is the last one, and then it's the epiloge! :'(

This is really sad for me. I really love this story. It's been over a year since I started writing it, and I can't believe it's actually ending. It's kind of heartbreaking for me...

And I'm really sorry this chapter was so late. :( I've been seriously stressed out and busy lately. I didn't go to school today because I'm sick, so I was able to work on it a little more today than any other day. 

Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN! :)