Page 7 of Unrivaled

I step into the classroom to the sound of my favorite guy’s little voice shouting, “Mommy!”

He runs for me, and I squat down, scooping Ben up into a big hug. “Hey, Benny Boo! How was your day?”

Throwing his arms around my neck, he squeezes me again, then he puts his hands on my cheeks and gives me a big smacking kiss on the nose.

Laughing, I give him a squeeze, my heart still racing and my eyes falling closed as I think how close I came to Ben’s father just a few minutes ago. The father who abandoned us years ago. Who would’ve thought that standing around and getting Jackson’s contact information to schedule time to rehearse our scene for theatre class would lead tothat.

Luckily, I didn’t actually talk to him. He didn’t seem to know me, his gaze flitting over my body before returning to my face, no flicker of recognition in his expression.

I can’t decide whether to be relieved or fucking furious about the fact that he didn’t even recognize me, the mother of his child.

But from the way he ignored my attempts to contact him and then took the coward’s way out by having his high school football coach tell my dad that he couldn’t possibly be my baby’s father and that he has no memory of ever meeting me, well …

If he had recognized me, the ensuing scene wouldn’t have been pretty.

After that—after my dad came home from meeting with the coach at Ridgeview who’d said that Grayson didn’t even remember meeting me—I vowed to never have any contact with Grayson Kilpatrick ever again.

It should’ve been easy. He was supposed to leave, go on to play football somewhere far away, and I was never supposed to have to hear his name again. Unless he became famous, of course. But, seriously, what are the chances of a kid from Spokane becoming the next famous quarterback? I mean, I guess someone has to, but it never struck me as likely.

But now …

Now he’s back in town, and his name has been on everyone’s lips the last few months as the football team did better in their first Division I season than anyone could’ve expected.

Why did he come back here? Why would he want to come back here?

Why didn’t I leave?

Well, the answer to that question is right here in my arms. We’re still living with my parents, and they help with childcare while I’m in school. They’re the reason I don’t have to split my time between work and school.

In two years I’ll finish my degree in accounting, get a good job with a solid paycheck, and we’ll move into a place, just Benny and me. But for now, our current arrangement works well.

Accounting wasn’t necessarily my first choice when I was originally planning to go to college—before I got pregnant. I was going to major in Finance and cheer and I’d hoped to one day cheer for a professional team while supporting myself with my degree.

But Ben changed everything. No more cheerleading. And I needed to pick a major that would lead directly and easily into a job.

When I finally accepted the reality that I was pregnant—which took peeing on a half dozen pregnancy tests to confirm what my missed period and puking every day for a week already told me—I was terrified to tell my parents. I didn’t know what to do, so I just pretended like everything was normal, like I wasn’t pregnant. I’d heard about how such a high percentage of pregnancies miscarry in the first trimester in health class, and maybe that would happen to me, and I could just … not have to do anything. The problem would take care of itself.

But it didn’t, of course. I’m not sure how long it took for my mom to catch on that my persistent nausea was morning sickness—probably not long, but she let me carry on in my delusion for at least a couple of weeks before confronting me about it. I’m sure she was waiting for me to come to her with the information, but when I didn’t, she finally took the reins and started the conversation herself, finding me in my room one night after dinner while I forced myself to get through my reading for Economics.

She sat on my bed and cleared her throat, gently asking how I was feeling and telling me she’d noticed that I’d been nauseous for two weeks and that she thought I should take a pregnancy test. In fact, she brought one with her, offering it to me.

That’s when I broke down and confessed that I’d already taken six and that they were all positive. She held me and stroked my hair while I sobbed out my fears, grateful that she offered nothing but support.

After the paternity test confirmed what I suspected—that Carter wasn’t the father—my dad wanted me to get an abortion, especially after the conversation with the coach at Ridgeview. But Mom said it was up to me, and that they’d support me no matter what I decided. I waffled for a while and let Mom make a doctor’s appointment for me. When they offered to let me hear the heartbeat, I nodded, and after that my decision was made. I wanted to keep my baby.

And true to their promise, Mom and Dad have supported me every step of the way. I finished the first semester of my senior year in-person, but switched to online when I started to show and had to quit cheerleading, news of my pregnancy spreading through the school. Everyone at school assumed Carter was the father, and he was nice enough to let the rumors go. Of course my parents hate Grayson as much as I do. Who can blame them? If anyone screwed over my kid like that, I’d be making sure I knew all the places to dump a body too.

Shaking off thoughts of Ben’s sperm donor, I turn to his teacher Miss Kate with a smile. “How was he today?”

She continues moving through the room, picking up the slips of paper the kids use to practice tracing their names, snapping caps all the way onto markers, and stacking chairs on top of the small tables. “We had a good day today, didn’t we, Ben?”

“Yes!” he shouts.

“Do you want to tell your mom what we did today?”

His hands back on my cheeks, Ben turns my face to his. “We learned the letter E! I drew it all by myself.” He points to a group of papers on the wall featuring vertical lines with varying numbers of horizontal lines coming off of them. “And we learned words that start wif E, like ephelant and excellent and egg!”

“Wow!” I exclaim, moving closer to the wall of papers so he can point out his purple E with five lines coming off it. “What an excellent E you’ve drawn.” I give him another squeeze. “I’m super proud of you. I’m gonna put you down now so I can sign you out, okay?”

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