“What do I want?” She laughs humorlessly and rakes one hand through her tousled curls. With the other, she points furiously to the pregnancy test still clasped in my fist. “I want you to figure your own shit out and step up. You’re still hanging out with that McArthur bitch while I’m pregnant with your fucking child. I want you to be an adult and take responsibility for your own actions, you asshole.”
My blood runs cold at the mention of Kenzie. Pure terror grabs me by the spine at what this could all really mean. I thought Savannah was lying this whole time, but the test in my hand is as honest as you can get.
Plastic has no reason to lie.
“Kenzie is none of your business.” My hand curls into a fist around the test, so tight the plastic creaks and threatens to splinter in my grip. “Stay out of her life.”
Savannah tosses her head back on a caustic laugh, halfway between malicious and completely unhinged.
“I don’t give a fuck about your little girlfriend,” she says mockingly. “I care about myself. I’m not going to be a single mom, and I’m not going to let the father of my child run off and live happily ever after with someone else while everyone looks at me like trash. I deserve to be respected just as much as everyone else. You’re not going to turn your back on me and your child just because you don’t want to step up.”
I don’t make a habit of thinking about Savannah’s feelings, mostly because I don’t believe that monstershavefeelings, but something in her words rings a little too true to brush off. If I was in her shoes, I can imagine how alone and scared I’d feel.
She’s a horrible person, but she’s right. She’s still a person.
“I—fine.” I bite the words out, purposefully relaxing my hold on the test. I’m going to need it later to remind myself that this wasn’t just some awful dream. “Just give me some time to figure all this out.”
She snorts scathingly and rolls her eyes. The actions are much more like the Savannah Ward I know, but her shoulders are still shaking and there’s still a bright edge of fear in her eyes.
“You’ve got a week to talk to your parents and let me know what the plan is, or all of us are going to sit down and have a talk, family to family.”
Horror grabs hold on my spine at the thought of talking to my parents about this. The course of my life will change entirely in the span of one conversation.
“A week?” I blurt, terrified. “I can’t figure this?—”
“A week,” Savannah says, glaring at me. “I’m pregnant, in case you forgot. Time is of the essence here.”
She turns on her heel and storms off, just as furious as she was when she arrived. All I can do is stand and watch as she climbs back in her car before gunning it out of the driveway in a cloud of dust.
I look back down at the little pink and white test in my hand, my heart pounding in my chest.
A week. One week. How am I supposed to do anything in a week?
This will ruin everything. My family will never forgive me. They’re traditionalists when it comes to things like this. They’ll expect me to stand up and do right by Savannah and the baby, no matter the situation. I won’t have a choice.
More accurately, I already don’t have a choice.
How am I supposed to throw my whole life away for something I still can’t believe is real? My vision blurs every time I look at the test. Maybe I’ll wake up in a cold sweat next to Kenzie and shake the panic off.
But this is real, no matter how much I don’t want it to be.
That means my parents aren’t the only ones I have to talk to about this. Kenzie needs to know too. She deserves to know.
She’s been the only person I’ve wanted for longer than I can remember, but I have no idea how to keep her in this situation. My parents will expect me to marry Savannah and raise the baby, and I would never ask Kenzie to be the other woman. She deserves better than that. Even if she still has feelings for me after she knows, there’s nothing to be done about it.
I’ll have to say goodbye to everything I’ve ever loved to make up for one drunken mistake.
God, I want to fucking puke.
Chapter Ten
KENZIE
Life is going…fine.
I’ve gotten used to it being amazing, so for things to dip back to just beingokayis kind of a punch to the gut. Work is good, at least. It’s just Bo.
We went from seeing each other on lunch breaks and making dinner together to hardly talking. He hasn’t picked up my calls in nearly a week and is barely even texting me back. He keeps saying he’s just busy, but the last two days have been radio silence. I keep checking my phone, hoping for a call or text, but it’s just… silent.
