I’ve never been so relieved in my life to have Mom agree with me.
Dad looks between the two of us, his brow furrowed in frustration and confusion. After a long, tense moment, he leans back in his chair and releases a drawn out sigh. He shakes his head, running his hand through his thinning brown hair.
“Alright, then what do we do?”
He sounds like I feel—too worried about the what-ifs to dare hope the solution could be this simple. But if I’m not the only one trying, if I can get my parents to back me up on this, maybe we can find a silver lining here.
Maybe I can find a way out of this mess.
“Bo, do you know for a fact that Savannah is pregnant?” Mom asks.
I shrug, my hope faltering as I remember the day Savannah shoved that positive test into hand.
“I mean, she showed me a positive pregnancy test,” I say. “You can’t fake something like that.”
My mom levels me with a look that makes me feel about five inches tall, and she pinches the bridge of her nose as she shakes her head.
“That’s all the proof she showed you?” she asks.
“It’s a positive pregnancy test!” I cross my arms over my chest defensively as she shares a glance with my dad. “Am I supposed to ask her to piss on it in front of me so I can make sure?”
“Language,” Dad says sharply.
I shrink back, tucking my annoyance close to my chest.
“Yes, that’s all the proof she showed me,” I confirm, looking up at my mom. “I don’t remember the night before waking upin bed with her, and we woke up naked. I may not like it, but it makes sense.”
I’ve never felt more ashamed of myself than I do now, admitting to waking up naked with someone after blacking out to my own parents. My face flames with embarrassment, but I’d rather look like an immature idiot in front of my family than have them believe I betrayed their trust.
“I’m starting to think we need more than that,” Mom says. “Has she shown you any of the ultrasound pictures? Or hospital lab work saying that she’s pregnant?”
“She hasn’t gone to the doctor yet, as far as I know.” I shrug uncertainly. Ihavebeen ignoring her texts and calls, but I assume she’d mention it if she went to the doctor. That seems like something she’d hold over me to pressure me. “All I saw was the pregnancy test.”
My mom’s face crumples into a disbelieving frown at that, and I think that maybe I’ve been a little too stupid about this. I don’t know how the process goes for pregnant women at all, when they should see a doctor or when they start showing or anything else of the sort. The way she’s reacting makes me think I might have saved myself a whole world of trouble if I’d just thought to google the basics of pregnancy.
Now I feel like even more of a dumbass.
“Alright, well, give me some time to think all this over,” Mom says with an exhausted sigh. “I’ll talk to your sister and we’ll figure out a plan to get proof, either way.”
I want to cry and thank my mom and hug her about a million times, but I’m so shocked at the possibility of them being on my side that I can’t find words. If I don’t have to fight this fight alone, I don’t have to lose anything. My family won’t have to suffer through being associated with the Wards, and there won’t be anything keeping Kenzie and I apart.
Just the thought of having Kenzie in my life, at my side where she belongs, is enough to make tears well in my eyes.
“I’ll back off for now, Bo,” Dad promises after Mom sends a sharp look his way. “It’s no secret that I don’t want anything to do with those rats, and if there’s a chance that this is all a scam, I want to see proof of that. You best understand that if she’s telling the truth, my expectations won’t change. You’ll be a man about this, you hear?”
“I swear, Dad.” It’s easy to promise when I finally have some real hope to prove she’s lying. “I’ll prove it to you guys. All I’m doing is trying to tell the truth, I’m not running away from this.”
He stares at me, his gaze heavy and loaded with a million different questions and possibilities, but he doesn’t voice any of them. He just stands and nods at my mom before making his way back outside.
“Go talk to Kenzie, would you?” Mom says as soon as the door closes behind him. “Your dad needs time to think through this, and I need to talk to Oakley and figure out how to get proof out of Savannah, but that poor girl is tearing herself apart. Go make things right with her.”
“I—yeah,” I say. “Yes.”
There’s nothing else I can even think about doing right now. All that matters is getting my life back on track, making sure Kenzie knows that I’m not going to sit back and take this. I’m going to fight for her, forus, no matter what.
With my parents willing to believe me and Oakley willing to help me uncover the truth, there’s nothing that can stand in my way.
I’m free now, and all I care about is Kenzie.
