Page 57 of Acceptance
“Hailey—”
“Is she keeping the baby?”
Why didn’t I think to ask that right away? Maybe this was all for nothing. Maybe she’s—
“Yes.”
Closing her eyes, she can’t stop the tears anymore. “I have to go. I’ll call you. I promise.”
She runs to her car and sits, taking a few deep breaths before driving towards her house. How could this happen?
I know how this fucking happened. His dad’s going to kill him.
Griffin’s Beach
Gavin
Laying on his bed, Gavin stares at the ceiling fan spinning above him. Hailey left twelve hours ago, and she hasn’t reached out to him since.
“It’s probably going to take longer than half a day to process, idiot,” Gavin says to himself. “It’s not like it’s life-changing or anything. I just got her back. Why can’t the world fucking work out just this once?”
Gracie just gave birth to a son, and now he’s having a baby with a woman he doesn’t know if he really even likes. Not with her clothes on, at least. Which makes him the biggest jackass in the world.
Dad’s going to kill me.
The front door opens, and Gavin leaps off the bed, his feet unable to move fast enough as he runs to find Hailey standing in the entryway.
She didn’t run away. She said she’d call, but she showed up.“Hey.”
“Hey,” Hailey says.
Her face is pale, and her eyes are bloodshot and swollen. Crying. Again. And this time, it’s because of him. He hates that he’s done this to her. Was it too much to ask to be happy for more than a week and a half?
“How are you holding up?” Gavin asks, his face pinching as he realizes how stupid the words sound.
“Not great,” she admits with a forced smile. “I can’t get something out of my head.”
“What’s that?”
Her eyes gloss over as she locks them with his. “This was supposed to be you and me, not you and the waitress.”
She wants to have my baby?“It was?”
“We were the ones who should be planning a future and having a baby together. Maybe two. Down the road, of course, but it was supposed to be us.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Sniffling, she rolls her shoulders. “I was going to call, but I thought we should probably do this in person. It’s not a phone conversation.”
His heart pounds in his ears, and he feels sick. “Hailey—”
“I talked to Lex about this. As much as I wanted her to tell me what to do, she didn’t. She let me come to the conclusion on my own, but she did say something.”
“What… what was that?” Gavin chokes out.
“Ky’s going to kill you.”
He snorts against his will. Nothing about this is funny. “Yeah, I know.”
