And that was something I could work with.
Week 12
Chapter Eighteen
Zadie
Laughter and music hit me the second I walked through the front door. Chantel and Caleb were just around the corner in the living room, and from the sound of it, having the time of their lives.
I hesitated, my hand still on the doorknob.
This was my home. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself. But the thought of facing Caleb after everything that had happened made my chest tight and my feet heavy.
The way he’d walked out still burned. He’d kissed me until I couldn’t breathe, and then I’d told him I was pregnant, and he’d left. No argument. No discussion. Just the front door closing and silence that had swallowed me whole.
The toilet bowl and I had become very well acquainted after that.
He’d been a ghost for days. Coming and going when I wasn’t around, his door closed when I was. We lived twelve feet apart, but I didn’t see his face for a week.
When he’d finally resurfaced, he’d done it at the Halloween party. With another girl pressed to his side. Like our kiss had meant nothing. Like I was nothing.
Never mind. I wasn’t going to let him ruin this.
I’d been wearing an unstoppable smile for the last few hours. The kind that made strangers smile back. Not pregnancy glow, exactly. Something better.
The envelope was folded neatly in my jacket pocket. Everything negative. Everything clear. Black and white confirmation that my terrible choices hadn’t hurt the tiny creature growing inside me.
My baby was safe. That put me over the moon.
I held onto that feeling as I stepped into the living room and found the furniture shoved against the walls. Chantel and Caleb were in the center of the room—a skateboard under Chantel’s feet. Her eyes were squeezed shut as she wobbled on the board, her hands clamped around Caleb’s forearm like he was the only thing keeping her upright.
He probably was.
“Just breathe,” he said, his voice a low rumble that hit me deep. “You’ve got to relax, or you really will fall.”
“Merde, how do you do this? You jump around on this thing and do all those crazy tricks. You make it look so easy.” Chantel’s laugh had a panicked edge to it.
I stood at the edge of the room, watching them together— my best friend and the man I had no claim to but wanted anyway. It stirred something I wasn’t ready to examine.
“You here for a lesson too?” Caleb’s eyes lifted to mine.
My stomach flipped. He was looking at me the way he always did. Like I was the only thing in the room worth seeing. Like Halloween hadn’t happened.
Like he hadn’t walked out.
“Wha—” Chantel looked up too fast.
The board shot out from under her, launched across the hardwood, and cracked against the top of my skull before I could do anything but curl inward and cover my stomach.
“Zadie.” Caleb was already beside me, his hands running over my shoulder, my face, my head. “Shit. Are you okay?”
My skull throbbed, but all I could focus on was him touching me. The dilemma of wanting him closer and knowing I should pull away.
Because I never wanted him to stop. Not ever.
“Let me look.” Chantel shouldered him aside in full doctor mode, and I nearly cried at the loss of his hands. Or maybe it was from her fingers pressing into the knot already swelling on my scalp. “How’s your vision?”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” I tried to wave her off.
