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“Fine, I will, just go!”
I pulled out into the intersection as he told me everything. “Matt is with Lily right now. Apparently, something is going on with her, he said she’s having a really bad day or something? I don’t really know. The point is, he has to drive her home, and then he’ll be heading back to his place.”
“Matt is with Lily right now?” I repeated back to him. “And he has to drive her home because she’s having such a bad day?”
“Er—yes?”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I’m just telling you what Matt told me. He said that she was having a bad day, but that he was pretty sure it wasn’t an emergency or anything, she just needed someone to take her home, that’s all.”
“He waspretty sureit wasn’t an emergency?” I slammed on the breaks, much to the frustration of the cars behind me, and ignoring their honks and insults, I did an illegal u-turn and headed in the opposite direction of Matt’s house. “He’s pretty sure that it wasn’t an emergency, what does that even mean? Is she okay or is she not okay?”
“I don’t know!” he said. “He was being vague!”
“I can’t believe you were going to keep this from me.” I took a left at the next light. “What if she’s hurt? What if something happened to her?”
“He said she was fine! Where are we going?”
“Where do you think we’re going?” I said. “To her house, duh. I have to make sure she’s okay, otherwise, I’ll never be able to relax this weekend.”
“But Matt is there with her, he’s going to make sure she gets home safe. He wouldn’t leave her if she wasn’t okay. Seriously, David, why is this such a big deal?”
“Because I love her, damnit.”
The words fell out of my mouth before I could stop them, and then they were out there. They existed in the real world, which only made the feelings they represented that much stronger. It felt great. It felt amazing, to finally admit out loud what I had known for a long time to be true. I loved her so much. I had been in love with her probably since the night we met in Hawaii, but it took thinking that she could potentially be in trouble for me to find the courage to say it.
Now—I just had to say it to her.
Hold on, Lily. I’m coming.
I’ll be there as soon as I can, my love.
* * *
“Hey, wait! Wait!”
Adam yelled at me as I opened the car door before it came to a complete stop, but I was running on pure adrenalin at that point and didn’t listen to a word he said. Someone was coming out of Lily’s apartment building as I barreled up the stairs. “Hold the door,” I said. And they did, even though that was surely against building policy. I noticed as I rushed past that the person holding the door was the woman Lily had been at the bar with a month or so ago. I didn’t stick around to chat, however. Instead, I went inside and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
In the hallway, I saw that the door to Lily’s apartment was open, and I heard someone crying. I ran as fast as my feet would take me and found Matt standing in Lily’s living room, bent over and holding onto the love of my life, who was on the floor bawling her eyes out.
“I don’t know what happened!” he said when he saw me. “She was doing fine. We were talking, laughing, and then all of a sudden, we stepped inside her place, and she just dropped to the floor and lost it again.”
I moved my brother out of the way and took over. I wrapped my arms around Lily and pushed my forehead into hers. “Hey, Lily,” I said. “It’s me. It’s David. I’m here. I’m here. Everything is going to be okay.”
She wouldn’t look at me. She continued to cry.
“Shhh,” I said. “Shh, it’s okay. Lily, it’s okay. Everything is fine now. You’re safe, I’m here.” I gave Matt a look, and he understood that I needed some time alone with her. He walked out of the apartment, closing the door behind him. Now that we were alone, Lily seemed to let go of some of the tension in her body. She relaxed into me, and I pulled her close.
“Lily,” I said. “What’s going on? Talk to me. Tell me what I can do to help.”
Her body shook, and she started to breathe a little easier. It took a while for her to calm down enough to talk, but once she did, she seemed to be at a loss for words. “I—I didn’t mean to—I was doing fine but then I just—” She wiped away a few tears and then looked me right in the eye. “I’m sorry that you came all this way, it’s just—”
“Are you okay?” I asked. I needed to hear her say that she was okay.
“Yes,” she said after a few seconds. “But there’s something I have to tell you… David,” she spoke my name in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “I’m pregnant.”
Three things happened, all at once. My stomach dropped, my heart leaped out of my chest, and my tongue twisted around itself so that I couldn’t talk. I was filled with so many different emotions at the same time—happiness, dread, confusion, elation, and fear. But mostly, all I felt was joy. A smile cracked my face wide open and the moment she saw my expression, Lily smiled back.
