Page 89 of A Ballad of Betrayal and Beauty

I drop to my haunches, grasping her hands between mine. “What’s wrong?”

She doesn’t look at me, and my brain trips over itself. Did her dad get out of prison? Did her mom come back? Is she leaving me again?

“Dusty, please,” I beg.

She blinks, tears falling over her dark lashes. “Key,” she whispers.

“I’m here,” I say. “What happened? Why are you crying?”

Finally, she turns, and there’s pure anguish behind her normally brilliant blue eyes. Her lips part for a moment, then she closes them. I watch impatiently as she collects herself.

“I—I just got back from the doctor,” she says. “I haven’t been feeling well, and . . .”

My stomach sinks. Is she sick? What if she has cancer? She’s been a touch paler recently. More tired. Not eating as much.

My lips are as dry as the dessert when I ask, “What did the doctor say?”

She looks up at the ceiling then, takes a deep breath and looks away. “I’m pregnant.”

There’s a buzzing in my ears. The ground I’m kneeling on seems to tip sideways, and I have to grasp onto the couch so I don’t fall over. “You’re . . . you’re what?”

She reaches next to her and produces a white envelope torn open at the top. Handing it to me, I remove the letter from inside and read, but the words and numbers jumble on the page and I can’t make sense of it.

“Dusty, I don’t know what this means.”

She sniffles loudly, then traces her finger down to the bottom. “See there? This means positive. I’m pregnant.”

That’s when the tears really start, as if she’s only just convinced herself of the truth by explaining it to me. She sobs and sobs, and I toss the letter aside to avoid the onslaught of tears destroying it. On instinct I scoot between her knees and pull her against me. She buries her face in the crook of my neck and grips my shirt—the fabric soaking through. And all I can do is try to comfort her. I stroke her hair and shush her, all the while my brain is spinning like a hurricane, unable to comprehend anything.

After a while, her sobs start to subside and my brain slows. Anger floods me. Not with her, but at myself. How stupid could I have been not to realize what we were doing could result in this? I remember that one time in health class when they talked to us about birth control. I should have known this would happen. I probably would have, if I’d waited until marriage like I was supposed to. Then I would’ve been old enough to know.

“Key,” Dusty finally whispers. “What am I going to do?

I frown. “You?”

She blinks up at me. “I?—”

“We’re in this together,” I tell her. “I’m not leaving you alone.”

She holds my gaze for a moment, then nods. “Okay, what arewegoing to do?”

I know I should be terrified and angry and sad, and I am, but I bury those things deep down because I don’t want to scare her. My biggest concern is taking care of her, like I always do. Her and . . . our baby.

“I’m going to take care of you. Both of you.”

She shakes her head. “No, they’ll never support it. Your parents hate me, and I have no one . . . They’ll force me to give up the baby, I know it. They’ll send me away or I’ll end up on the streets with nothing.”

I clench my jaw at the unfairness of it all, because I know she’s right.

“Then we’ll run away.”

She frowns. “What?”

“We’ll go. We’ll just get on a bus and never look back. We always planned to do it anyway, it’ll just be earlier than expected. We can go to California and we can get jobs to save money until the baby comes. We can find a place to live, we can even get married when we turn eighteen. I’ll take care of you, Dusty.”

She presses her lips together and looks away, shaking her head. “But what about music? And acting? What about our plan?” she asks. “There was so much we wanted to do, and now? It’s ruined. It’ll be so hard. Life will be impossible. And your parents . . . if they find out about the baby, they’ll never let you see me again.”

I shake my head. “To hell with my parents!”

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