Page 83 of Sweet Little Lies
And really, can I hold it against Lance for the way he responded? He’s barely sober four months, is still dealing with the consequences of the past and now the end of his college basketball career. What did I expect?
Lifting my shirt, I run my fingers gently over my stomach. Of course, I don’t feel anything in there yet. No kicks or headbutts against the flat of my belly. But I feel it in my heart and my soul.
If the worst case scenario happens and Lance honestly doesn’t want anything to do with our baby, then I guess I’ll be a single mom. It’s not unheard of. And I know that my family, after getting over the initial shock that their twenty-year old daughter is a single pregnant woman, they’ll forgive me and support me and my baby. It’s just how our family works.
I’m crying crocodile tears when the phone rings.
“Hola?” I answer, trying to hide the raspy sound of my voice.
“Micaela, is that you?” Ainsley asks.
“Yeah, it’s me. Hi, what’s going on?”
“Well, I was checking on you because you’re supposed to be over here with us tonight.”
I sit up so fast I get dizzy. “Oh crap. I’m sorry, Ains. I completely spaced it.”
It’s girl’s night tonight. She wanted to include her sister, Anika, who is only seventeen so we were just going to go out to dinner and then play some games at her house tonight. I check the clock and notice it’s six thirty. I’m thirty minutes late.
“Are you okay, sweetie? What’s wrong? I can hear it in your voice. Did something happen with Lance?”
And then I break like a levy in a dam, spilling over like a raging river.
She listens to me through sobs and tears, which clog up my throat and make me sound like a frog underwater.
I tell her everything. All that was said and done since they last saw me at the game.
And when I’m finally done choking back tears and blabbering on in a nonsensical manner, Ainsley confronts me in the logical and level-headed way she normally comes at things.
“Do you remember when Cade and I split up? How I was so stubborn and wouldn’t talk to him? And during that time he’d come to the realization that he loved me and wanted to make it work? Do you remember that I wouldn’t give him the chance to tell me he’d changed?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Well, you need to give Lance some time to figure this thing out. I’m sure it was a knee-jerk reaction, peppered with the agony and pain he was in physically, as well as the mental state he was in at the time. He’s gone through a hell of a lot of shit in the last year. I think you need to give him a chance to explain and to talk it out. Don’t shut him out entirely. Leave that door open, at least for now.”
“You’re right. I know you are. And I will. But not tonight.”
She laughs. “Well, duh. Because tonight, your ass is over here with us. I’ll drink the champagne and you and Ani can sip the Ginger Ale. Now get your tookus over here, woman.”
