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Annie stood in the doorway. “Hey, Blaire.”
I was still under the covers. My hair up in a messy bun at the top of my head. My eyes red-rimmed. Four days into this depression, and I didn’t feel any better. Maybe only worse.
“Hey, Annie. Are you off work?”
“I am. Residency is crazy but worth it.” She stepped inside and sank into the foot of my bed. Jennifer, Piper, and Eve peeked their heads in as well. “We want you to know that we love you and are worried about you.”
I sat up on the bed and rubbed my eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to worry you.”
“You don’t have to apologize. I can’t imagine what you’re going through,” she said gently. Annie, who was always brash and loud, was being gentle with me. I must have looked even worse than I felt.
“You know you can tell us anything, right?”
I nodded. “I don’t know how to begin to talk about it.”
“And that’s okay. We were actually thinking…it just might be good to get you out of this bed.”
I groaned and flopped back. “I’m not ready to be a person.”
“You’ve barely eaten, and you haven’t left this room in four days.”
Piper stepped in. “We can all crash in here with ice cream if you’d rather.”
Jennifer took a seat opposite Annie. “We’re here for you, whatever you want.”
“I don’t want to be seen in public right now. I’m a mess. And I have this uncontrollable fear that someone is going to photograph me, and everything will be fucked up again.”
Piper rested her hands on my footboard. “You can’t let them control you like that. You are bright and vibrant and wonderful. A few paparazzi can’t scare you off. What happened was in the past. They shouldn’t have dug it up or however it came out, but it doesn’t define who you are now.”
“That’s right,” Annie agreed. “And I think Hollin would beat the shit out of any paparazzo who got within a dozen feet of the winery. So, you’d be safe there. He said he’d bring in more security tonight for you in case you wanted to get out of the house and just be a human being for a night with no expectations.”
“That’s…nice of him,” I whispered.
None of them said that it was because Campbell was his brother and he’d do anything for him. But I could feel it.
“I don’t know if I can pretend I’m okay though.”
“Maybe the best step would be the couch,” Jennifer suggested. “Forget going out. Just get out of this bed.”
I laughed at her enthusiasm and agreed, “All right. Couch it is.”
“Plan B activated,” Annie said. “Eve, ice cream.”
I shook my head. “You planned for this?”
“Of course. We love you,” Piper said.
“But first, shower,” Annie said.
A half hour later, after a shower and my long, dark hair was piled back into its messy bun, I was seated on the couch with my girls. Annie had chosen How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days for us to watch, and we were binge-eating the ice cream. Eve looked positively excited. I wondered if she had ever done something like this before. She kept looking around at us like we were some rare breed.
“Thanks for the ambush,” I finally said after I gave up on my ice cream and snuggled into the blankets.
“Anytime,” Piper said.
“Can we talk about what happened?” Annie asked.
I sighed. “I didn’t have an abortion.”
“It’s okay if you did,” Eve said softly.
Jennifer nodded. “We’d be here for you regardless.”
And so I told them all what had really happened. How everything had been leaked, the mobbing, the red carpet fiasco, and the reality of my miscarriage. They all looked back at me with various pitying looks, but I knew it was more than that from them. They loved me. I could see that.
“I hate that you went through that alone,” Piper said, pulling me in for a hug.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “I should have called Campbell again. I should have made him be there for me.”
Annie reached for my hand. “That is not your fault. None of this is. You were just kids.”
“I know. I know, but maybe this all would have been different if we’d been…I don’t know—rational.”
Eve laughed. “Yeah, all eighteen-year-olds are rational.”
“Pregnant eighteen-years-olds at that,” Jennifer said.
“You’re right. Okay. I know.” I held up my hands. “Just lots of fucked up.”
“It is,” Piper agreed.
Eve bit her lip and leaned forward. “Who knew about you and Campbell in high school to begin with? You said some Campbell Soup girl dug up your medical records, but before that. How did they even find out you’d been together?”
“Yeah, who would have snitched about you being the ‘I See the Real You’ girl?” Jennifer asked.
“Well, at the time, just my mom and stepdad. But they didn’t know he’d written that song about me. They could have guessed, but I don’t know why they would. They don’t seem to care about my life.”
