Page 22 of Pregnancy Scandal
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and something seemed to soften in his eyes. He stepped forward, and a lock of his hair fell over his eye.
He was about to say something, but his words retracted into the ether as things took another turn for the worse.
Footsteps sounded, and the kitchen door burst open. In came not just Mia but Vanessa too.
Both stopped short when they saw us. Their mouths fell open.
Gilly tensed next to me, and in that moment, I wished like hell a black hole would swallow me whole. Doomed didn’t even begin to describe the look that now filled his face.
* * *
He left after that, and as I heard the front door close, my heart sunk into the ocean.
I got dressed and went to the sitting room while Vanessa retreated to the kitchen to make cookies. Mia had come into the sitting room with me and sat next to me. She didn’t ask any questions, she didn’t make any comments or anything, she just sat opposite me and waited for me to be ready to talk.
The thing was, I didn’t know when that would be. There were so many things running through my mind. Too many.
I had an idea, acted on it, and somehow made everything a colossal mess. I’d slept with Gilly. I’d slept with Gilly, and I couldn’t remember anything.
I must have been in here for at least an hour now, and I couldn’t remember anything past the memory of kissing him. I thought it was a good idea to make sure I told him the kiss I was about to give him wasn’t the one a friend would give. Then we kissed and the fire from the kiss scorched me clean. Burning me inside out.
We kissed. He kissed me, and I kissed him. Seeing the tattoo of my name flashed through my mind, and then nothing. I couldn’t remember anything else.
Nothing… nothing at all. Like I was watching a film and someone switched off the TV just as it got to the climax. I couldn’t say the good part because that kiss was…
Kissing him was the stuff dreams were made of. It was the kind of kiss you dreamed of before your first kiss and hoped to have forever. And… if I could think that about him, then Taylor was right.
Taylor was absolutely right when she said I wouldn’t have asked Gilly to be the father of my child if some part of me didn’t see myself with him.
I brought my hands to my cheeks, and Mia reached for my arm, giving me a reassuring squeeze. I had to give her credit for sitting with me for a whole hour in silence.
“Talk to me, Abby… come on. We’ve been in here together all this time, and I’m watching you sitting there, suffering in silence,” she said, rubbing my shoulder.
I pulled in a sharp breath, and tears ran down my cheek. The tears I’d been holding back since Gilly left.
“I messed everything up, Mia. I really messed everything up. I can’t remember anything, or how it all happened, but I slept with Gilly. I can’t remember, but we must have.”
She bit the inside of her lip. “Abby, I know this must be hard for you, but I don’t think you should blame yourself.”
“Really, Mia? Come on. It’s not like we haven’t gotten drunk together before. And this time we sleep together? It has to be because of my foolish request days ago.” This really was the week from hell.
“Okay, so I’m gonna say yes… it had to be that, but, sweetie, you didn’t make him sleep with you. He decided to. That’sifyou actually slept together.”
If…
I wished I could be certain. I wished like fuck I could be certain. It was killing me that I didn’t know. How could I not know what happened? How could I not have any memory of a thing like that?
“Mia, I don’t know what to do. We woke up naked, and I felt like we did sleep together. My body felt like we did, so we must have. I just can’t remember it actually happening.”
She frowned. “What if it didn’t? There’s a chance it didn’t. What if you just woke up naked and… well, we just subtract the sex?”
“Then there’s still the part before that I actually remember. We kissed, a lot, and I wanted to kiss him.”
“Oh God, Abby, you know what this is… it’s called pent-up lust on another level. There’s a reason why people give you guys hassle about your relationship. It’s because we’ve all been able to see something you two have repressed forever.”
If this were even days ago, I would have shrugged that off, but now it felt like she was calling me out on the truth.
“Mia, I never thought he would see me like that.”
