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“Except you didn’t think you fucked me,” I growl.
“I’d been sleeping with the other guy for about a month and then that night happened and…I don’t know! I was confused! Then I thought maybe we did?”
“Forget my relationship with Leighton that this almost ruined. You almost ruined my life! Even if you thought we did have sex, I deserved to know about everything else. You tried to play me for a fucking fool!”
“I know! I know. And I’m so sorry, Everett.” She cries.
“Is there any chance this baby is mine?”
“Yeah, there’s a chance…we may have tried that night? I don’t…I don’t know. It’s all so blurry!”
“But knowing all of these facts three months ago would have been really fucking helpful.” I shake my head, thinking about everything I’ve been through the last semester. “Why are you just telling me this now? I mean what were you going to do in nine months if we waited till the baby was born? You couldn’t have thought that I would have suggested we just be some big damn happy family.”
“I guess I was thinking…hoping, you’d get attached to me or the baby and you’d want to stick around and help or just be there.”
“So you were trying to manipulate me. Not trap me because that would require a court to make me do something which would require proof of paternity.”
“No! I just…” I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m telling you now because I watched you in there. I’ve been watching you for the past month. You’re so unhappy.” Her face falls. “I did that to you and I’m sorry. But I don’t want to bring a baby into a world where I’m causing this kind of pain. I don’t want my baby to have a mother like that.”
“Well, it will.”
She winces at the harshness of my statement. “I’m telling you now.”
“Because you’re caught! Because in two days the paper is going to say Everett Cartwright 99.9% not a match for Alli Jeffries’ baby! Why are you making it seem like this is some moment of clarity and you’re doing the right thing?!”
“I am trying to do the right thing!” She argues and I can hear the desperation in her voice to try and get me to see that.
“When we get these test results, pending that I am not the father, I will probably never speak to you again. I’m not going to press charges for whatever bullshit you and your friends potentially did to me. I just want you out of my life.”
“Fair,” she says sadly.
“I don’t wish bad things on you Alli, and I hate that the other potential father doesn’t want to be involved. I don’t wish that for you. But this is the worst thing anyone’s ever done to me and I won’t be forgiving you all that easy.”
“I know.” I look away from her, this enlightening conversation weighing down on my shoulders. “I am sorry, Everett.” When I turn to her, her eyes look sincere, but I don’t know if it’s all an act. The phrase way too little and far too late flashes through my mind, but despite my anger, I just want it to be over. I don’t want to argue with her anymore.
“I know you are, and I’m sorry that I hurt you, in any capacity.”
It doesn’t excuse what she did, but I am sorry. I don’t want her baby to be born into a world where it has to witness men hurting its mother. I want better for this new life that maybe I didn’t help create but have thought about quite a bit the past two months.
I want better for all of us.
Leighton is sitting on my bed next to me as I hold the envelope in my hands. When I got home two days ago and broke down and told Leighton everything, I practically had to pin her down and sate her with orgasms to calm her. She was ready to burn the sorority house to the ground, and I can’t say I wouldn’t have handed her the matches.
She rubs her nose on my shoulder, and I turn to look at her. She holds her wrist up as she snakes her hand up my shirt and rubs the tattoo on my side. I nod in response to her message. After we’d made love for hours, we’d had a long talk about a lot of things. In light of this new information, it did seem like the chances that I was the father were slim, but we wanted to wait until we had everything in black and white. I’d informed my parents, leaving out the part about being drugged because I knew that was the fastest way to get both of my parents out here. Though I wanted to keep it from Leigh, I couldn’t, and I know it’s taking every ounce of restraint she has not to tear Alli a new one and go to someone high up in the Panhellenic Council to report what happened. Maybe nothing would come about without proof, but the seed would be planted and at very least an investigation would be conducted for any kind of paraphernalia in the house.
Leighton’s wearing one of my lacrosse sweatshirts and she rubs the sleeve against her lip. “Don’t be nervous,” I tell her.
“I’m not. No matter what, I’m not going anywhere,” she tells me and it makes me think we really were meant to be together forever. If we could get through the past two months, we would get through anything. My eyes flit to her left hand, picturing the ring I’ve already picked out sitting proudly on her finger.
Her eyes follow my gaze to her hand and then looks at me. “One day,” she whispers. I grab her left hand and rub her ring finger before pressing a kiss to the knuckle, and she smiles before grabbing my face. “I love you,” she whispers.
I press my lips to hers before turning to the envelope again. I tear it open, revealing the one sheet of paper folded into thirds neatly. I open it up, steeling myself for the results and I hear her gasp the second I read over the words.
Not. A. Match.
I read over the words over and over and over, making sure I’m not hallucinating or my mind isn’t making me believe what I want to see and not what’s actually there.
“Oh my God!” Leighton is off the bed and jumping up and down. I look up just in time to see her flying at me, wrapping her body around mine and kissing me passionately. “That means I’ll get to be the mother of all your babies.”
