Chapter 14
“I’m pregnant,” she repeats.
The words don’t make sense at first. My brain hears them, but they don’t… fit. They float between us, unreal, like some kind of dream. No, nightmare.
Pregnant.
Diana is pregnant.
I stare at her, my hands still on her face, thumbs trembling against her cheeks. I don’t even realize I’m pulling away until she lets out this pained whimper.
God, the way she’s looking at me right now makes it even worse, like she’s afraid I might lose it.
“I—” My voice cracks. “What?”
Her eyes drop to her lap, and she twists a piece of her dress in her fist.
“I found out today,” she whispers.
Is the world spinning? Every dream I’ve had about us, every fantasy, every stupid, desperate hope is torn away in an instant.
“How?” I manage. “How did this— Di, how?” She winces, but I’m not done. “I didn’t know you were… with anybody.”
My throat tightens, and tears fill my own eyes faster than I can think to try to hold them in. “I thought— you weren’t, Di, I thought it was only us.”
She reaches for me, standing from the swing. “Lily…”
“No.” I take a step back. “Who? When? How could this even, I didn’t know you were fucking anyone but—”
I can’t even finish, I choke on the last stupid word.
Me.
She was fucking someone else.
Everything I thought we were doing together for the first time, that I thought was…
She was doing it with some guy.
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Please don’t say it like that.”
I scoff, making her look up at me with those glassy eyes, bottom lip trembling. And shit, it still makes me want to comfort her.
“Who was it? Just tell me who.”
She swallows hard and looks down at her dirty flats. “Scott.”
Of course.
That idiot who could never know her the way I do, who could never love her more than he loves himself.
He’s the father of her child. He’s going to take her away from me for good.
My stomach twists so violently, I think I might throw up right there in the garden. “Lil,” she whispers, reaching for me.
I jerk away.
“Lily, please—”
“When did this even happen? When did you… with him?”
“Do you remember when you helped me pick out an outfit for my date?”
“Oh my God.” My laugh is mean. It’s ugly. But of course I remember that day. I remember what happened next, too.
“Don’t tell me you, you threw yourself at me, you begged me to touch you—” Diana’s face collapses, and my stomach twists with nausea. “And before that,” my voice shakes with barely contained disgust, “you were with him?”
“Lily—”
“You fucked him.” The words feel like poison in my mouth. “And then you fucked me like you hadn’t been with that asshole the night before?”
“I didn’t know!” she blurts, stepping toward me. “I didn’t know then, I swear, I didn’t know I was—”
“I don’t care that you were pregnant!” I snap. “I care that you were all over me, begging for me to touch you when you had just—”
My voice breaks.
I can’t even say it again.
Tears are streaming down my face, and I know I must look fucking crazy to anybody walking down the street, but I don’t even care. I don’t care if anyone knows.
I’ll shout it to the entire town.
“Lily,” she chokes out, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry?” I repeat, so fucking hurt it doesn’t even sound like my voice. “You think I care about ‘sorry’? Diana, you made me feel like what we were doing meant something, and all along—” I shake my head, wiping my face with my palm. “You were sleeping with him.”
She reaches for me again, and this time, I let her grasp my arms. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. It was one time, I swear, it was one stupid time and I regretted it the second it happened, I regretted it so much, it wasn’t like it is with you and—”
“But you still did it,” I say, colder than I’ve ever been with her. Even when I hated her.
She crowds into my space. “I didn’t want him, I wanted you.”
I stare at her, her puffy, devastated face. I want to believe her. God, I want to. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear her say.
But it doesn’t feel like it matters anymore.
“You’re pregnant, Diana,” I force myself to say, taking her arms in my hands.
She nods miserably, like that word alone is enough to break her all over again.
As for me, I feel emptied out. Like Diana scooped everything warm and hopeful out of me and left this dark, all-consuming, nothingness.
“I know,” she whispers.
“None of this,” I gesture between us. “Whatever we were, means anything anymore.”
She makes a pained sound. “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.”
“You’re going to have his baby,” I say, because maybe if I say it enough, it’ll start to feel real. “You’re going to be with him.”
“No.” She shakes her head violently. “No, I don’t want…” She trails off like even she knows the truth.
She can try to argue, but when it comes down to it, that’s what’s going to happen. That’s how these things go.
She clenches her jaw, like she’s trying to force out words that mean too much. “My parents… they’re going to Scott’s. To talk to his family.”
“Why?” I know exactly where this is going.
She squeezes her eyes shut, another tear slipping down her cheek. “They think the right thing is for me to marry him.”
And there it is.
She shakes her head, a small, helpless movement. “They said… they said it’s what good families do. That it’s the only way to fix this. That no one will have to know.”
I scoff, crossing my arms. “Fix what? The fact that you’re having a baby with some asshole you don’t even love?”
Her face crumples. She covers her mouth with one hand like she’s trying not to fall apart.
“Lily,” she whispers. “I don’t want to marry him. I’m not ready to be a mom. I wanted to go to school, but I don’t want any of this. What am I supposed to do?”
I stare at her, terrified, crying, looking at me like I could possibly help her. All the anger, all the shock, all the heartbreak I feel…
I push it down.
Because this is real. She’s pregnant at eighteen years old, and her parents are arranging a marriage to someone who could never make her happy.
And I’m standing in this garden we brought back to life, staring at the girl I love more than anything, losing her in a way I never even imagined.
“Lily,” she says again, reaching out with a shaking hand, “Please don’t hate me.”
I should tell her I don’t. I should hold her while she cries, tell her everything is okay. That’s what I’ve always done. That’s what a good friend would do.
Apparently, I’m not a very good friend.
“Di… I don’t… I don’t know what you want me to do.”
“I want you to tell me you’re still my best friend.”
I look away, because if I look at her for a second longer, I’ll give in. “I need some time to think. I can’t pretend I’m okay with this.”
“I’m not okay with it either,” she says fiercely, like that changes anything.
“I can’t,” I say, backing away. “Not right now.”
She watches me leave, in the shadow of the oak tree, looking so scared and hurt, and it’s almost heartbreaking enough to make me change my mind.
Almost.
I don’t knock when I make it back to Pat’s. I don’t have it in me to do anything except open the door.
He looks up from the counter where he’s doing something with a can opener, freezing the second he sees me.
I know what I must look like and he has every right to be a dick about it after how I treated him.
He tried to warn me. Why didn’t I listen?
“Lil,” he says quietly, always gentle with me, and then he opens his arms.
I go to him, stumbling the last few steps until I’m pressed against his chest. He wraps his arms around me, one hand coming up to cup the back of my head, holding me steady.
The moment I’m in his embrace, whatever kept me going until I got here disappears.
I cry harder than I have in years.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs into my hair. No questions, or demands, or resentment from this morning. “You’re okay.”
I shake my head. I’m not okay at all. I never will be again.
Diana’s pregnant. Diana’s getting married. She’s gone, and I’ll never get the chance to tell her how I feel, she’ll never feel the same way.
He doesn’t push for answers, he keeps his chin resting on top of my head, rubbing slow, soothing circles on my back.
When my cries calm into shaking breaths, he pulls back enough to look at me. “You hungry?” he asks softly, reminding me that I haven’t eaten a thing today. “Or you wanna sit for a while?”
“Sit. I can’t eat anything right now.” He nods, guiding me to the couch I was fast asleep on as my world ended only hours ago.
I drop onto it, exhausted physically, emotionally, in every way a person can be, and Pat follows, pulling me into his embrace again.
He doesn’t even ask what happened.