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“What am I going to do?” I moaned. It was impossible to see through my misery. To make any sort of plan for the future when all I could see was how Maxim had hurt me. How did I have his baby inside of me if he didn’t even care about me?
How had all of this happened?
“You have options, and I’m going to be there every step of the way,” Becca informed me. “You want to have this baby? Fine. We’re raising it together. You don’t want to have this baby? Still fine. I’ll make an appointment for you. You want to choose adoption? I’m still with you. I’ll go to your Lamaze classes and everyone will think we’re an awesome couple and we’ll do absolutely nothing to convince them otherwise.”
“Is it wrong that I want this?” I asked, cradling my stomach. Now that I knew I had life inside of me, there was a kind of protective wonder that I hadn’t expected to experience. God help me, I loved Maxim. And I loved that we had created something like this together. I just couldn’t quite get over how badly he had hurt me in the process.
“Nothing’s wrong about that,” Becca said. “Well, correction. The only thing wrong was how big of a dick Max was. But besides that, if you want this baby, I already told you I’m in.”
“How would that even work, though? This is crazy.”
“Life is crazy. Having babies is crazy. But people do it every day, Ruth. If that’s what you want, then that’s all the reason you need in the world.”
“You’re a good motivational speaker, Becca,” I told her as I hugged her. “Are you sure you want to go into music?”
“I can do both,” she said easily. “Now, come on. I’m going to order as much food as we want from as many places as possible. I’m calling it the make-up Thanksgiving feast where we say goodbye forever to the Volkovs of the world.”
“Don’t tell me you’re cutting ties with Lex over this.”
She shrugged. “It depends on what he does next.”
“You guys are great together. Seriously, think about it.” I peered at her. “Wait. Have you guys already … you know?”
“You’re pregnant and you can’t even ask me whether I had sex?” Becca demanded, turning bright red. “We have a lot of work to do before this baby gets here, Ruth. And the answer’s no, by the way. Not yet, anyway. And that a lady never tells.”
“You just told.”
“Yes, I’m not much of a lady.” Becca whipped out her phone. “Come on. What do you want? Pizza. Wings. Chinese. What else? Cookies, obviously. What am I forgetting in our goodbye feast?”
“Is it wrong to not want to say goodbye?” I whispered, but Becca still heard me. “I don’t know if I can. I really do love him.”
“Your feelings are valid,” Becca said. “I don’t like how Max acted tonight, but I support you in whatever way you feel. But could I give you some advice?”
“Please do. Anything. Tell me what I need to be doing.”
“You need to hold off on making any major decisions right now — beyond what we’re going to gorge ourselves on.” Becca leaned down to my belly. “Did you hear that, baby? Any requests? I live for stories about weird pregnancy cravings. Don’t let me down!”
I had to laugh at Becca’s antics, and she relaxed minutely. She was trying so hard for me that I knew I needed to try hard for her, too. I couldn’t scare her — or myself — with the depth of my grief. I’d deal with it, in time. But she was right — it was too soon to make any big decisions about anything.
After a dinner that I was a little embarrassed to have taken part in, empty wrappers and sauces and boxes scattered through our kitchen, I laughed miserably. “You know the worst thing? I have to give a presentation on the stupid internship next week. I still need to write it and pull all the slides together and everything.”
“Talk to your professor,” Becca urged. “I’m sure you can get an exemption.”
“I’m sure I’ll fail the entire semester,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t even get credit for this whole crap show. Could you imagine having to repeat that internship? I would be about to pop by the end of it.”
“If you decide to have the baby,” Becca reminded me. “You have options, Ruth. I need you to acknowledge that.”
“I know,” I said. “But it’s easier to focus on the presentation. Well, maybe not easier. It’s just the first thing I have to deal with.”
Minus all the calls and texts I was ignoring from Maxim. I was nowhere near ready to deal with all of that.
Much later, in bed, too full and sad to sleep, my phone buzzed again. I checked it, expecting to see Maxim’s number. When it was my dad’s contact that popped up on the screen instead, I answered.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, yourself,” he said. “Talk to me. Tell me how you’re doing.”
“Well, I’m pregnant and heartbroken,” I said, laughing a little too wildly. “Not really what you wanted for me, I know.”
