Page 45 of A Match Made In Evan
Great.I can’t imagine a sixteen-year-old girl is going to enjoy having to deal with whatever mess a stray creature trapped in her room has made.
Hoping that it is only a cat or something easy to deal with, I take a fortifying breath and swing Mia’s bedroom door open…and then I freeze.
It’s not an animal. It’s Mia.
What the actual fuck?
Her pretty face red and blotchy, eyes swollen from crying, she hiccups mid-sob, just as startled to see me as I am to see her.
“W-what are you doing here?” she demands in a raspy, gravelly voice.
“Me?!” I sound equally as incredulous as I stare back at her. “What areyoudoing home?”
I dropped her off at school as usual at eight on the dot. I waved her off and watched her saunter up the manicured, windingpath surrounded by hedges of some fancy-pants plant just as I’ve done countless times since Jay and I started our fake-but-actually-real relationship.
Then, coming to the conclusion that she’s obviously playing hooky, I pat down my pockets, looking for my phone. Surely the school would have noticed and would have called Jay at the very least.
“I…um…I called the office and pretended I was Dad. Told them I was sick.” Her lips lift at the corners. “They bought my acting.” Her expression falls and then she starts sobbing again.
I have no idea what to do right now.
“Your impressions must be getting better,” I acknowledge, before realising that I am, for all intents and purposes, her stepdad and if James was here, he’d be having kittens over her actions. “But, uh, not good, Mimi.”
Yeah…my ‘stern parent’ voice needs work.
Her lower lip quivers. “Don’t tell Dad. Please. I—” She sniffles and chokes on another sob. “He’s going to hate me as it is.”
“Whoa.” I’m shaking my head and stepping further into the room on instinct, sitting down beside her on her bed and wrapping my arm around her shoulders as I add, “Jay could never —would never— hate you, Mia. Never. Not even if you killed someone.” I suck in a breath. “Please tell me you haven’t killed anyone, though.”
“No.” The word comes out sounding both pouty and amused, but it’s drowned by another garbled wail. She turns in my embrace and buries her face in the crook of my neck and mumbles words that I’msureI misinterpret.
Heart racing and arms tightening on reflex, I ask, “Can you repeat that?”
Mia inhales shakily, then says exactly what I was afraid she would. “I might be pregnant.” Then she breaks down, bawling loudly, and my brain struggles to come back online.
Okay, I think to myself,this is slightly worse than what happened with the potted plant.
Not that I’m responsible for…for…well,y’know.
Jesus, I’m thirty-five-year-old. I can say the ‘p’ word.
I just don’t want to.
Because Mia is only sixteen. She’s a baby herself. She’sJay’sbaby.
“Shh,” I soothe, rubbing her back and rocking her a bit like when she was little. “It’s going to be okay, Mimi, I promise.”
“You can’t promise that!” she wails.
“Yeah, I can. Because, no matter what, your dad loves you. I love you. And, hey, he was only two years older than you are now when he had to have this conversation with your grandparents and oh, God, that puts this into a whole different context…”
I actually feel a little bit sick thinking about it.
Jay wassoyoung. He must have been so scared, just like Mia is now. Scared, stressed, unsure…
“H-he’s going to be so m-mad.”
I squeeze her a bit tighter. “He’s not.”At least, he won’t let it show.“But, sweetheart, you…you saidmight. Do you know for sure? Like, have you taken a test, or…?”
