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“Triplets?”
I nodded. “I went to the gynecologist for my first ultrasound just before you came over to the apartment on Wednesday. It was a bit of a shock to me, too. But Evan seemed ecstatic. He’s so excited about all of this.”
“I don’t understand,” Lily said. “He’s never mentioned that he wanted more children to me. I don’t know where all this is coming from.”
Evan should have communicated with her a long time ago. It would have made all this so much easier. But Evan was a man, and communication was not their strong suit.
“You’re right, though,” Lily said. “It did get weirder. You’re pregnant with what will be my brothers and sisters.”
I nodded, looking at my hands. “This is really hard for me, Lil,” I said. “I’ve missed having you to talk to about this. I know I should have said something sooner. Please, don’t stop talking to me. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. I really need my best friend.”
Lily closed her eyes and took a deep breath, blowing it out very slowly. “This is so much to take in.”
“I understand that,” I said. “And if you don’t want anything to do with it, I’ll understand that, too. I’d hate it, but I’ll understand.”
Lily shook her head. When she looked at me, her green eyes were bright like she wanted to cry, but her voice was steady when she spoke.
“You know I’ll always be there for you. Even if we fight, even if you do something stupid like get pregnant. With my father’s child.” She shivered. “This is going to take some getting used to.”
“I have to admit,” I said. “I’m terrified now. One baby was scary enough, and now, there are three? I don’t know how I?
??m going to get through this. I’m only eight weeks along. There are still seven months left, and this is only the beginning.”
Lily frowned. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What was the plan, here? Were you going to leave him with the children and then walk out of his life again?”
I shrugged. “That was the contract,” I said.
“The contract, huh?” Lily asked.
I nodded. The more I thought about it, the worse it sounded. It had been all about the money at first, but I hadn’t been pregnant then. Now that I’d seen my babies on the monitor, it was a whole different story. I didn’t know how I would be able to just walk away. Even if he did triple the amount, these were still my babies, too.
“Everything is different now,” I said. “When I signed it, I hadn’t known that I would feel about it the way I do now. But we have an agreement. I’m not going to make this harder than it needs to be. I won’t expect something from him that we didn’t agree on.”
Lily shook her head again. She seemed to be doing that a lot today. It was a lot to work through.
“I still don’t believe you could have agreed to something like this.”
“I hit rock bottom, Lil. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t get a job, bills were piling up, the prospect of so much money won me over.”
Lily blinked. “How much was he willing to pay?”
I cleared my throat and told her.
Her eyes widened. “What the hell? That’s enough money to buy a small country.”
I laughed, and it was a relief to let it out. The tension was so high, it felt good to break it.
“So, you see the appeal.”
Lily shook her head. “I don’t know if I would have carried someone’s baby for that money, but I see that you were desperate. I wish you would have come to me.”
I had been too proud to ask Lily for help. She had been so successful, when I had made a point of it to study further, and then that backfired on me.
“It’s just hard when I compare our lives,” I said.
Lily sighed. “I understand,” she said. “You still should have spoken to me. If not about your financial situation, at least about the fact that you were thinking of having someone else’s baby. I’m not even going to go into the fact that it was my dad.”
She was still very upset with Evan. I couldn’t blame her.
