Page 65 of The Save

I gave it a minute—just long enough for the chaos to spike again—then slipped out after her and wound my way to her bedroom past the kitchen.

The door was cracked. I knocked softly, waited a moment, then pushed it open.

Shar sat on the bed, legs curled beneath her, facing the window. One hand was pressed over her mouth. Her shoulders shook.

“Shar?” I rushed to her, sitting on the bed and wrapping my arm around her shoulders.

She didn’t turn. Didn’t speak. Just reached to her side and held something out without looking. It took a second for my eyes to focus, but when my brain processed what I was looking at, I gasped.

A pregnancy test. With two pink lines staring up at me.

Chapter

Twenty-Two

Crystal,Shar, and I tucked ourselves into our upstairs bedroom while the boys celebrated below us. Crystal shut the door and flipped the lock as Shar settled on my bed cross-legged and snatched a pillow to hug. Her face was blotchy, her eyes red-rimmed, but her breathing had settled.

Crystal perched beside her and I sat at the edge of the bed. “So . . . your due date would be when?”

Sharla sniffed. “Probably November sometime? I don’t remember exactly when my last period ended.”

I counted out the months from June. Rob would be back in September, so that was good.

Shar twisted the corner of the pillow between her fingers. “I was going to tell Rob when we got back. I had this plan. I knew I was late. I took a test before we left and the line was super faint, but I still bought this little Douglas baby hat and was going to give it to him after I checked again but—” Her voice cracked.

Crystal leaned her head on Shar’s shoulder. “Nothing has changed, babe.”

Shar shook her head. “It has. You saw his face. He has this opportunity—once in a lifetime. And even though it’s only three months, if he does well, there will be more?—”

“But you can go with him,” I countered.

“Not unless I want to drop out of school! And with a baby?” Her eyes filled again, but she blinked fast, pressing her fingers against her temple. “He won’t be able to focus. I can’t take that from him.”

I blew out a breath. She had a point. “Okay. Let’s game this out. Look at the options.”

Crystal nodded. “Yes, please.”

I chewed my lower lip, thinking. “Option one—the obvious one—you keep the baby, and Rob still goes. You stay in school. You figure it out here.”

Shar’s jaw tightened. “Alone.”

“Not alone,” I said firmly. “You have us. Rob’s family.” I wasn’t going to mention hers since she hadn’t fully ironed things out with them yet, and I didn’t blame her. “You’d have support. But it would be hard.”

She nodded slowly, not arguing.

“Option two,” I continued, “you have the baby, but you go with him. You take a semester off. Maybe defer some classes. You’d be there for the start of everything with him.”

Shar’s eyes flicked to the wall, considering.

“But that changes your path,” Crystal added gently. “Graduation and everything. It puts that on hold.”

Shar blew out a breath. “And we’d probably have to pay for our own housing. I'd be pregnant in a new place, trying to figure out healthcare in another province.”

I nodded. “Yeah. So then there's option three. You don’t keep the baby. There’s adoption or . . . “

The room fell silent.

Shar blinked hard, looking down at her lap. “No. Neither of those are options.”

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