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My dad was deadly silent. With every clue his eyes landed on, the red stain of his skin darkened. By the time his eyes returned to me, his face was a mottled puce. But all he said was, “Are you okay, baby?”
“I’m–” I looked up at the ceiling, tears crowding my vision. I didn’t know how I felt. I’d been manhandled by a client. I’d gotten sick. I’d watched Aiden be led off with his hands bracketed behind him like a criminal when his only crime was defending me. And now, in the dead middle of the night, I was watching my dad find out that I was having an affair with his best friend.
It was a lot.
“I’m okay,” I managed. “I just–I want to see Aiden. I want to know that he’s okay.”
If this had been a cartoon, steam would have come out of my dad’s ears. Since there was nothing funny about this situation, he only nodded stiffly and said, “Wait here. I’ll see what I can do.”
My mom waited with me. She didn’t ask a single question, just pulled a chair up beside the bed and watched some episode of some season of some version ofReal Housewives, our hands loosely entwined on the edge of the bed. I knew it had to be hard for her. Even through the cotton wool, I felt sorry for that. This wasn’t how I ever planned for them to find out. Aiden and I were supposed to tell them together. We were supposed to rehearse it. We were supposed to look and sound like exactly what we were–two consenting adults who were in love with each other. Sure, the circumstances were unusual, but it wasn’tthatstrange.
This was strange though. I felt the strangeness of it with every silent moment that passed. I felt like a child swimming in grown up’s clothing. Aiden was in jail. My parents had found out in the most sordid way possible. And God, would this nausea ever leave mealone?
“Mom,” I said suddenly, sometime around dawn. “I’m going to be sick.”
I barely made it past her to the toilet.
My mom followed me in, patting me gently on the back as she passed. I heard her turn on the sink, and a few moments later, she applied a cool wet washcloth to the back of my neck. It dripped down, pattering on the tile floor. I made a pillow of my arms on the toilet seat and laid my head down on them, so miserable I wanted to cry again. The cotton was slowly unwrapping itself, and the heavy emotions of the night were seeping through.
“Honey,” my mom whispered, kneeling down beside me. Her gray eyes were full of an emotion I couldn’t put a name to. Worry, empathy, kindness, a mixture of all three. “Honey, have you been getting sick like this a lot?”
I nodded into my arms.
“Has it been in the morning mostly?”
I shook my head. The sickness was indiscriminate. It could hit anytime. Why would she–oh. My head shot up so fast I almost knocked into hers. “I’m not pregnant.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m–Ican’tbe pregnant. We’re always careful.”
She didn’t say anything, but her face said clearly,but were you?
And, unwillingly, my mind forced me to answer honestly. Yes, I was on birth control, but I didn’t take the pill at the exact same time every morning. And there had definitely been mornings I forgot about it altogether and took it that evening. I closed my eyes and tried to remember when I’d last had my period, but my memory was a humming blank. I couldn’t remember a single time that Aiden and I had been thwarted by that time of the month.
I made a sound somewhere between a whimper and a moan. Instantly, my mom was on her knees beside me. She pulled me away from the toilet basin and wrapped her arms around me. I sank into her embrace.
“I don’t even think he wants kids,” I groaned. I thought about what had happened with Shara. The Disney Plus subscription. My joke about kids that fell flat.
“It’ll be okay,” she whispered into my hair.
I tried to believe her.
CHAPTER32
AIDEN
The next week passed in a hellish blur. It was a series of worst-case scenarios, all linked together on one endless chain of torment.
First, Jack bailing me out of jail, his jaw set and his eyes burning. I knew without having to ask that he knew. He didn’t say a damn thing about it though. He just nodded tersely at me as I walked toward him, holding the envelope they’d sealed my phone and wallet into. Then he turned on his heel, pushed through the precinct’s front door, and was gone by the time I got out to the sidewalk.
I took a cab back to the hotel and wasn’t surprised to find that Layla had completely erased herself from the hotel room. There wasn’t a spare earring back to prove she’d ever been there. I looked around and felt the pit in my stomach deepen.
The next link on the chain was the story that broke by that afternoon. It was centered around Blake, which made sense because he was the one with the most name recognition. What blew my fucking mind though was how sympathetically he was portrayed. I hadn’t been defending my girlfriend from him when he dragged her into an empty room, I’dattackedhim when I found them alone together. I guess it worked with the puzzle pieces I gave them. In addition to the snarl on my face that the cameras caught when my arm was cocked back and my eyes were squinted against the sudden influx of light, I’d also given them a priceless mugshot. In it, I don’t look like any version of myself I’ve seen in the mirror lately. I look like my teenage self. A sullen scowl, dazed eyes, an expression carved from granite.
My mom called because of course the neighborhood gossips had gotten wind of it and reported the news to her immediately. I had to reassure her that it was a misunderstanding, that I wasn’t going back to my old ways. I’d never do that. Look at what I’d built. Look at who I was now. I wasdifferent.
Until I wasn’t.
