Page 24 of Outspoken

Jackie and I laugh.

“You arelovingthis baby,” I say to Paige.

She nods enthusiastically and then glances at her phone. She finally gives Zoey to Jackie so she can talk.

“I'm going to change this little one's diaper,” Jackie says, disappearing down the hallway.

Paige bounces on the cushion and taps away on her screen.

I laugh. “I have no idea. Babies have never been my thing. I guess they do if their diaper is full.”

Her eyes light up and she stands.

Her statement jolts me and my entire body tenses. Before she can skip down the hallway after Jackie, I say, “Wait. Why? Are you…pregnant?”

She touches her stomach and I'm ready to faint. Then she shakes her head.

The empty void I'm stranded in presses around me. “You, you did? I can't imagine Brody as a father. He's really wanting a baby?”

She shoves her braid into her mouth and chews.

I nod, trying to keep my voice upbeat so my depressed mood doesn't creep in. “You'd be an amazing mom, but what about the sensory issues? Being pregnant is nine months of feeling like crap and babies cry a lot—all the time.”

Her braid is so far into her mouth I worry she’ll swallow it. She glances down the hallway.

I relax, falling against the couch.Not now but in the future.Still feels like she and Brody are drifting away. “So you've said.”

She gives me a curious look.

I shrug. “Nothing against them. They're cute, but I've never felt the drive to become a mother. Making babies isn't for me.”And I'm too fucked up to be responsible for a little human.

My mind is swirling with all the changes happening around me, so I don't know what to say. I nod and watch my best friend fade down the hallway.

I never thought I'd see the day when Brody was considering fatherhood, or that Paige's life would move forward so fast my head spins.

My empty stomach gurgles and gnaws on itself. Everything I've known is changing too fast. Even me, in a way. For a decade, I've been the drunk party girl. The stoner girl. The cam girl who flashes her pussy and swallows drugs to avoid feeling anything except doped up and high.

Today marks the longest I've been sober since the car crash.

I'm trying harder now than ever. I've been sober for more than a year. I'm searching for self-love. I can't hold down anything except temp jobs, but I'm attempting school and managing some kind of paid work outside of selling my panties.

I'm actuallytryingand fighting for something. Happiness? A life purpose? I don’t know what I’m searching for.

Anything beyond this void.

Yet, with all of my efforts, I'm more lost than ever. I think about drinking and taking pillsevery day, multiple times a day.

This sobriety won't last—I know that in my bones. What if there's no version of me who can get through life sober?

Chapter Seven

Amber

MONDAY MORNING, AS I'M WALKING across campus on a nauseatingly sunny, bright day, my phone dings. Gulping down coffee, I check the notification. It's a DM on Instagram from a name I don't recognize:

Hey! What you up to? This is my friend's account. I know you blocked me but I guess I don't know why and I miss you. Did I do something to piss you off? Let's meet up.

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