Chapter Thirty-One
Taylor
The next morning, Emma is perched on the kitchen counter like a bored cat, scrolling on her phone and eating dry cereal straight from the box. She looks up with renewed curiosity when Todd and I shuffle out of his room, my hair a Medusa tangle, his jersey stretched over my hips.
I half-expect her to say something snarky, but instead she says, “You want coffee?”
“God, yes,” I croak, which makes Todd laugh until he realizes Emma’s watching and he tries to play it cool.
He places his hand at the small of my back. “I’ll see you at my game later?”
“Yeah, I should be there.”
He lingers for a second, and I almost expect him to kiss me goodbye, but then he awkwardly waves, grabs his keys, and walks out the door.
Emma crunches a piece of cereal between her teeth. “So you do the walk of shame now?”
“What?” The back of my neck heats up. “It’s not—we’re not—”
“Taylor, I know what the walk of shame is.” She gestures to my snarled hair. “And this is definitely it.”
“We’re just friends.”
“Friends with benefits.”
I sigh. “Friends who are . . . practicing.”
“Pfft, as if Todd needs to practice.” She looks me up and down. “You on the other hand—”
“All right—that’s enough sisterly bonding,” I say, turning away with my cup of coffee.
“Aw, come on.” She hops off the counter and follows me. “I’m not gonna be getting any for a while, so let me live vicariously through you.”
I roll my eyes. “There’s really nothing to talk about.”
She rounds her eyes, sitting next to me on the couch. “Please?”
I shake my head and turn on the TV, intent on ignoring her.
“I’m not exactly sure who the father is,” she suddenly whispers.
I look at her slowly and notice her eyes are glistening with unshed tears.
“It’s embarrassing, right? I mean, that’s something I should know, right?”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because isn’t that how this works? I tell you something, you tell me something, and we give each other advice?”
“Okay . . .” I turn off the TV. “Well, who do you think it is?”
She leans back, stretching her legs out on the coffee table. “Well, there was that guy you caught me with right after Christmas break.”
I nod, remembering. “The one with the weed?”
“Yeah, that was Tony. I don’t know if you remember him from school—he graduated the year after you. We’ve been together for a couple of months, or I should say, we were together.”
“You mean you’re not anymore?”
“We were until, like, a month ago when he ditched me at a party, saying he hooked up with someone else . . . someone older.”
I can hear the hurt in her voice, making it clear that being tossed aside has hit her hard. “So how’d you get home, then?”
“This guy Jacob offered me a ride. You know him—he’s in your class and on the basketball team.”
I know who Jacob is—he’s a point guard, and I’ve talked to him occasionally, but Todd doesn’t like him, which means I really don’t either. “So he took you home?” I ask, suspecting that’s not the whole story.
“Well, he did afterward . . .”
“Emma!”
“Hey!” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Don’t judge me. I was upset, and he was actually quite sweet.”
I bite my lip, struggling to process everything—not just the fact that she’s unsure who’s fathered her child but also that she’s confiding in me. We rarely have long conversations—most of the time, we end up in fights.
“I slept with Todd Sunday night,” I say suddenly, breaking the silence.
“When you say slept, you mean . . .”
I nod, swallowing my lips.
She gasps. “Seriously? Was it amazing?”
I squint at her. “Why would it be amazing?”
“Because you guys are so in love . . .” Her eyebrows meet in the middle of her forehead. “I always thought it’d be even better when you’re with someone you love.”
“So you don’t love Tony or Jacob?”
She shakes her head. “Of course not . . . sex is just scratching an itch, especially with Tony. He’s really good in bed. And Jacob? I don’t really know him—we haven’t even talked since that night—but anyway, come on, you can’t drop a bomb like that and not give details.”
“There’s honestly not much to tell.” I reach for my forgotten cup of coffee. “He suggested we practice since he hasn’t been seeing anybody and I’ve, you know, never seen anyone.”
“Because you guys are in love!”
“No, we’re just friends—nothing’s changed.”
She scoffs. “Oh, that’s crap, and you know it.”
“So you can have sex with multiple guys, and it means nothing, but I have sex with Todd, and it means we’re in love?”
“Yeah, because you’re not the casual-sex type of person.”
“Says who?”
“Your entire personality!”
I want to argue, but the truth is, she’s right.
I have never been the casual anything type.
I don’t collect hobbies, I build obsessions.
I don’t play baseball—I live in the cages until my hands blister and my shoulders ache.
I don’t watch movies, I memorize entire screenplays and quote them for years.
If I love something, or someone, I let it own me.
The idea that I could just casually sleep with Todd, get up, and pour myself a cup of coffee like none of it means anything is so at odds with my spirit that it’s almost comical.
But I also can’t imagine being in love with Todd. He’s been my constant since I was seven, the first person who ever saw me as a force of nature instead of a freakshow. He’s the only person who knows the best and the worst of me.
“I think this is where we’re supposed to offer each other advice,” Emma says when I don’t respond, as if reading from a manual. “You need to tell Todd that you’re not ready for an official relationship and that he needs to give you time to get used to the idea of you guys being more than friends.”
“Did you not listen to anything I just said?” I ask, not wanting to let on that she’s gotten in my head. “I don’t want to be anything more than friends with Todd!”
“And I still say that’s a lie.”
I fold my lips into my mouth. “You’re reading way too much into this.”
“Nope,” Emma says, popping the p.
I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”
Emma smiles, thinking she’s won the argument. “You’re supposed to tell me what to do now.”
“Well, you definitely need to get a DNA test done.”
“Don’t I have to wait until the baby is born to do that?”
“Not always—would knowing who the father is help you in making a decision about the pregnancy?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe . . .” She rakes her nails through her hair.
“Part of me wants it to be Tony’s because I want him back.
I might not be in love with him, but I like him a lot, and I think, maybe if he’s the father, we’d get back together and be happy.
But then the logical part of me knows he’d probably be a lousy father who isn’t going to change just because he has a kid. ”
“What about Jacob?”
“I don’t know if he’d even want to be involved—he was just supposed to be a one-night stand.”
“Have you talked to either of them?”
“Tony’s ignoring my calls.”
“And Jacob?”
“I’m ignoring his.”
“You really should talk to him, especially if he’s trying to talk to you.”
“But I don’t know what to say.”
“It doesn’t have to be poetic—you just need to tell him what’s happening, where you both stand, and see if he’d be willing to do a DNA test.”
“Can you be there with me when I talk to him?” she asks, and for the first time in a long while, I notice how young she truly is.
Sure, I know her age, but she never seems to look it, always dressing to appear older.
Now I realize what the makeup and clothes conceal—she tries to project confidence, but underneath, she feels anything but.
“Of course,” I say, pulling her in for a tight hug. “We’re going to get through this—I’ll be there for you every step of the way.”