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“And you stay away from her, Raymond!” Ember screamed as I put her in my Jeep. “You stay the fuck away from her!”
19
Ember
It’d been a week since I witnessed my closest and dearest friend smash her Mustang into a tractor, then flipped multiple times in her blue beauty, and landed in a snowy ditch. I’d never seen anything like it and never wanted to experience such horrifying terror again.
Birdie had survived. Her injuries were minor, mostly cuts and bruises. She’d been so lucky. But you wouldn’t know it looking at her.
Her heart had died that day. Raymond destroyed her, and I feared she would never be the same.
I watched her from the chair in her bedroom. Despite her minor injuries, she spent four days in the hospital on a seventy-two-hour psychiatric hold. The sheriff had believed she had tried to end her life because she hadn’t swerved and plowed into the tractor.
Her mom and dad had raised hell, defending Birdie. She’d lost control of the car, but the sheriff wouldn’t budge.
Nobody believed Birdie would try to take her life. The notion was absurd.
No matter what Raymond had done to her, she’d go on living her life and showing him what he’d given up. She’d live a long and amazing life just to spite him…with a broken heart.
“How much longer?” Birdie asked me.
I checked the timer on my phone. “One minute.”
I’d come over to take the pregnancy test we’d been shopping for before Birdie’s life imploded. Dante had been incredibly sweet and told me I could take it privately with Birdie, but not to tell him the results. He wanted me to take a second test with him.
Nothing seemed to bring Birdie out of the dark place she’d fallen into. Not surprising, since the man she’d loved since she was a teenager got another woman pregnant and basically told her to get over him.
He was such an asshole. I hated Raymond.
“Do you feel pregnant?”
I smiled at my bestie. Talking about me having a baby was the only topic that seemed to bring Birdie joy. Everything else made her close up.
“Don’t think so.” I shrugged just as the timer bell rang. “Never been preggers before.”
“Well, even if you’re not, you will be. Dante is determined to put his baby in your belly.”
I giggled and jumped to my feet. “Tell me about it. He’s relentless… And I love it!”
“Don’t peek. Just bring the test over here so we can look together.” She was lying in bed. Not because she needed to, but because she was depressed and wouldn’t leave her bedroom. She was avoiding Raymond; I was sure of it.
I picked up the stick off the bathroom counter and carried it out.
“This is it.” She did a little clap.
“Ready?”
She bobbed her head.
I blew out a sharp breath and moved the test in front of us. We both peered at the results window and stared in silence.
“I’m sorry, babe.” Birdie tugged me to sit on the bed beside her, and she hugged me. “It’s gonna happen, and when it does, it will for sure be Dante’s baby.”
“Honestly, I’m okay. Relieved even.”
Birdie reared back. “Really?”
“Yup. Really. I think it’s because I have hope for the future now that Dante and I are together. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. Strangely, I haven’t had any pain.”
