26. Annie
Chapter 26
Annie
I felt hollow.
Two weeks without contacting them felt like torturing myself. Every night, I lay there in my bed, staring at my phone, ignoring text after text after text from Elliot, tempted to call Cole or Xavi or Colton. Every night, I’d fallen asleep in their clothes, in Cole’s pajama bottoms and Colton’s shirt and Xavi’s zip-up. Every night, I’d wanted to cave, but I couldn’t figure out what I was doing. I couldn’t find it in me to choose from impossible choices.
They’d lost the game in Denver. I’d watched from my couch, had seen Xavi get a five-minute penalty for instigating a full-blown fistfight on the ice, had cried when the camera zoomed in on him taking a hit to the jaw, his visor dislodged and giving too much of a clear shot.
Hell, I’d practically cried every night. But that night was bad. I hadn’t watched any of the other games after that, I couldn’t bring myself to, but I’d checked the scores — loss in Denver, loss in Denver, win in Atlanta, win in Atlanta.
A part of me wished I could wipe them from my mind. At least then, maybe I’d be able to sleep and actually feel like it was helping me.
But as I lay there with my knees tucked up to my chest in my bed at four in the afternoon, I picked up the phone for the first time in weeks — I just wish I’d have had the strength to do it for one of the guys instead.
“Hey,” I said, the word a little dead, a little dull.
“Well someone sounds far less chipper than they did the last time we talked,” Zoe said cautiously, her breath huffing as if she was walking.
“I sound incredibly chipper.” I didn’t.
“Wow, depressed and lying? What’s gotten into you?” she mused, and I rolled my eyes, wishing she could see it through the call. “Are you at home?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“I’m coming over.”
“What?” My eyes bulged, a sudden jolt of adrenaline making me feel far, far more awake. “What do you mean?”
“I’m in Atlanta for a few days. You’d know that if you’d actually checked your texts, Ans.”
“Shit.”
“I’ll be over in, like, an hour.”
————
Zoe was already in my apartment when I shuffled out of my bedroom. She’d let herself in with the spare key I had completely forgotten I’d given to her two years ago, her floral suitcase half unzipped by the door, and two grocery bags on my kitchen counter in between the mess I’d left behind. Her dark, tight curls were up, her deep brown skin looked almost grey in the too-low light, and her athleisure get-up was almost obnoxious — but I couldn’t deny that it felt like a breath of fresh air to see her.
“You’re here,” I mumbled, my voice rough from my sad attempt at a nap which had just consisted of my staring at the ceiling for the last hour and trying not to cry.
She turned around, her lips going downturned the moment she saw me. “Annie. Babe. You look like a ghost got beat up.”
“I feel worse than that.”
Zoe crossed the room in an instant, wrapping her arms around me in a tight embrace that made my chest ache. I didn’t flinch, just stood there, letting her warmth bleed into my freezing body, taking the much-needed hug after not seeing her for months.
She pulled back, looked me over, and pursed her lips into a hard line. “You shouldn’t have ignored my texts.”
“I didn’t know what to say, Zo.”
She sighed dramatically. “You could’ve started with, ‘Hey! You’re coming home for a few days? I’m spiraling, please bring me a bagel.’”
I tried to smile. I wanted to.
She moved back to the kitchen and started unpacking the groceries like she was taking up residence here. Bananas, crackers, port wine cheese, eggs, the aforementioned bagels, cream cheese. I dropped onto the couch and pulled my knees up, Xavi’s zip-up’s sleeves bunched in my fists.
“You wanna tell me what’s going on or do I need to pry it out of you?” she asked, glancing at me over her shoulder.
I swallowed, my throat raw. “I went over to my dad’s two weeks ago.”
Zoe turned to face me, her hand frozen around a bottle of fancy ginger ale. “Well, that’s always a bad idea.”
“He found out about the road trip,” I sighed. “And about the guys.”
Zoe blinked and set the ginger ale down gently before shoving the fridge door closed, abandoning her mission altogether and walking over toward me. “Wait, wait, wait,” she said, her brows creasing as she plonked down on the couch beside me. “All of it?”
I nodded, pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead. “He knew their names, which I know isn’t crazy when they’re NHL but he knew exactly which guys from the Fire I was with. He checked flight logs to see where I’d traveled, every stop. I don’t even know how he fucking did that,” I said, scrubbing my forehead with the sleeve. “He knew I was sleeping with them. All three of them. And he told me I needed to stop, said he’d cut off my trust if I didn’t, almost called me a whore.”
Zoe’s eyes widened as she stared at me. “That’s psychotic.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “He means it, about the trust. Moved it to a different bank and everything. Gave me a card that he can cut off at any point.”
“Oh my god .” Her hand covered her mouth, her knee bouncing off the side of the couch. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to give in to him.”
I bit my lip.
“ Annie , no, you’re just showing him he still has power over you.”
“I can’t just lose my trust,” I said. “I can’t.”
“No, no . Your mom would rather you be happy than have that stupid trust, you know that. And I haven’t heard you anywhere near as happy as you were in LA in my entire life.” Her voice was calm, but her words were almost biting, a challenge to my thought process.
“You can’t just say that when you have two parents. Mom might want that for me, but I don’t want to have nothing left of her,” I choked. I shook my head, trying to find the words. “I haven’t seen the guys in almost two weeks. I haven’t been to work. I can’t fucking think, can’t pick up my guitar. I feel like I can’t breathe without thinking about them, but then every time I do let myself think about them, I just hear Dad’s voice telling me what a disgrace I am. I can’t win here?—”
My stomach churned out of nowhere, nausea surging unexpectedly, and I blinked, cutting myself off.
It surged again, and I knew I needed to move. I stood abruptly, my head dizzy from the sudden shift and lack of nutrient-rich food when I’d basically been living off McDonald’s chicken nuggets, and ran for the bathroom.
“Annie?”
Zoe followed me in, but I was already on my knees in front of the toilet, grasping the porcelain as if it were going to save me. The dry heaves were brutal, nothing really coming up, but my body tried anyway, my chest and arms shaking with the effort. Zoe sat beside me, rubbing my back and holding my hair like we were back in college and I’d had one too many shots of cheap tequila.
It felt like it took forever to pass, but when it finally did, I sat back against the bathtub, breathing heavy through my nose. “Stress,” I rasped, my voice cracking from how raw my throat felt.
But Zoe’s was far more cautious. “Annie.”
I didn’t look at her, already feeling the nausea starting to churn again. “What?”
She shuffled, her moving and opening my under-sink cabinet the only sound in the small bathroom, picking up little cardboard boxes of medicine and first aid supplies and makeup. “Don’t freak out,” she said hesitantly, pulling out the dreaded box that I didn’t need to look at to know exactly what it was. “Just take one for my peace of mind.”
I swallowed and stared dead on at the toilet. “Zoe, I’m not—I mean, my period is late, yes, but that’s probably just the stress of the last couple of weeks.”
I felt her eyes on me, the hanging silence.
“I’m not. I take the pill.”
“You’re terrible at taking pills on time,” she said softly. “You’re taking a test. Scratch that, you’re taking two. I’ll get a cup.”
She pushed up and stood, already pulling the door open and leaving the bathroom before I could try to protest, leaving me alone with the box of spare assorted tests from all the times I’d bought a set of two without remembering I had some at home. Bile pricked at the back of my throat, threatening to make me curl over the toilet again, but she was back a moment later with a disposable cup and a soft look on her face.
“Come on,” she sighed, holding out a hand for me. “You’ve got to pee in a cup now, girl.”
Minutes later, I sat on the edge of the tub, two sticks clutched in my palm and the bathroom door closed. Zoe waited on the other side, her back against the door, her steady breathing just barely loud enough that I could hear it. The digital screen on one of them flashed with the little hourglass symbol, and the other one still only had the control line, both of them taunting me.
“You okay?” Zoe asked, her voice tight.
“No. Has it been five minutes?”
“No.”
We waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The alarm tone went off on her smartwatch, and I swallowed, unclasping my grip on the tests and looking down.
Pregnant .
Everything went still. I stared at the single word and the double lines like they were holding knives to my throat.
“Annie?” Zoe asked hesitantly.
My fingers tightened around the tests. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
The only thing I could hear was the rush of blood in my ears, pulsing and drowning out everything else. My thoughts spiraled, questions of what the hell I was going to do now turning into questions of whose it even was . My chest tightened, my breaths too short, the panic starting to eat me alive.
I couldn’t tell them. I couldn’t . I couldn’t even imagine it — hey guys, I’m pregnant and I have no idea which one of you is the dad. The chaos of it would shatter any bit of whatever was salvageable here after disappearing for two weeks.
I could already hear the disappointment in Dad’s voice, could hear his words without him even saying them. Raise it with Elliot or work at the firm and do it alone.
No more music.
No more life.
No more me .