I had attended the party instead of hiding in my room like Carly had suggested. I had proven that Nick hadn’t won and that I had nothing to hide. Somehow, I thought it would make me feel more victorious or that it would make me able to deal with it better.

It didn’t. I had hated every minute of it. I had run into Nick at the bar, walked away as I had told myself I would, and I had felt like crying since the moment I’d done it.

The whole night, I had avoided Nick so he wouldn’t think I was a stalker. I had shown him that my interest in him had been real, that our relationship had been a coincidence. I wasn’t sure he believed me.

On Monday morning, I accompanied Carly on her errands. She had to do a grocery run, return an item that didn’t fit well, and look for a pair of trainers for Brad who ran through them in no time at all during his football season.

“I don’t know what to think about Friday,” I said when we were in the car. “I had hoped it would all be better after, but it doesn’t feel better at all.”

Carly shook her head. “He was an idiot for assuming you were stalking him at all. He’s not all that, yet. If he were famous the way the others are, it would be different, but he’s so arrogant to think like that.”

“I did know him from high school, so I guess it’s not completely impossible. But I hate that he sees me like that.”

“I don’t think you should worry,” Carly said. “He couldn’t keep his eyes off you on Friday.”

“What?” I asked, looking at Carly who pulled up her one shoulder, glancing sidelong at me.

“I know you weren’t looking at him at all to make your point, but he was staring at you all night. I don’t think he thinks you’re a stalker anymore.”

I didn’t know if it was a good thing. It was a good thing if it was an isolated fact, but after everything that had happened, I felt that it wasn’t enough. If it was true at all.

The whole thing was ridiculous. Childish, even. I was irritated with how much of my time it had taken, how down I felt all the time when Nick hadn’t been a part of my life for very long at all. It was time I let it go and move on.

It sounded so much easier than it was.

I was ready to head back to Fort Collins on Thursday. I had to get out of this town. I wanted to go back to the life I knew, the people I could trust and put it all behind me.

One day, I would look back at it all and laugh. I wanted that day to come.

When I looked back at the holiday I’d had, it hadn’t been all bad. I’d had a great time with Carly, getting to know Brad and all her friends, and she had shown me a life I hadn’t known. It had been great, and it had been enough.

We took care of the trainers and the groceries when Carly decided to call it a day. She would exchange the item another time. On the way back, I brought up the topic that had hung over my head since the start of the holidays, the reason I had come.

“Since you left, it’s not the same anymore,” I said. “I’m dreading going back a little, actually. I don’t want to sit in my classes.”

Carly glanced at me before turning her eyes back to the road. “I miss you, too, friend,” she said.

I sighed. “Don’t you want to come back with me? We can do it the way we used to. We can bunk together and do nerdy midnight study sessions and go out the night before an exam because we listened in class. Do you remember that?”

Carly laughed. “Of course, I remember. But I can’t go back,” she said.

“Why not?” I asked.

Carly looked in the rearview mirror for a second before answering me.

“I know you miss me. This past couple of weeks together have been amazing. I didn’t realize exactly how much I missed you until I got to spend time with you. But I can’t leave Brad behind. He’s not just my past, Hailey. He’s my future. I love him more than anything.”

I nodded. “I understand. Worth a shot, right?”

Carly smiled. “Absolutely.”

“I’ll miss you so much more now that we had some time together again,” I said.

“I was thinking that. But it doesn’t have to be that way, you know. You can always transfer and come here too. Then we’ll be together.”

I thought about it. “And what about everything else I’ll be leaving behind?” I asked.

Carly nodded. “I understand that. But think about it. I have this for you.”

She kept her eyes on the road while leaning over and fishing in her handbag. She handed me a wad of folded pages.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Online classes. You can do your MBA the way I did.”

I unfolded the papers and stared at them. Now that I had it in my hand, it was so much more real.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said.

Carly shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her, either way. “You have a bit of time to think about it still. Sleep on it. Stick those under your pillow.” She winked at me, and I chuckled. “You know it’s what you should be doing,” she added with a smile.

“What bothers me the most about this isn’t leaving everyone behind,” I said. “That part will be hard, but what really gets me is that if I stayed, Nick would think I’m really a stalker.”

When I said it, the words cut me deeper than I’d thought they would. I hadn’t realized I’d been thinking it until I said it out loud, and now that I had, it hurt like a bitch. I knew what he thought of me, but saying it only made it that much worse. I realized how much it hurt that Nick thought that of me after we had spent so much time together after I had thought he’d gotten to know the person I was on the inside.

I had always known he would be a womanizer, if he hadn’t been one at school already, but not once had I felt he was only using me when we’d spent time together after we’d slept together. How was it that he could decide who I was when I thought he had gotten to know me?

“Hailey,” Carly said in a soft voice. “A lot of people move to Miami. It doesn’t mean anything. Nick is full of shit.”

She was right, but it still hurt. All of it. I didn’t know if I had what it took to be around here and run the risk of running into Nick, of him thinking I was still here for him.

Carly and I arrived home, and I helped her unpack groceries. We talked about mundane things, nothing that mattered, and the conversation was light and comfortable. But it wasn’t distracting enough, and even though I had told myself I wouldn’t waste another moment thinking about Nick, my mind wandered back to him again and again.

When we were done, Carly had to take care of calls, and I walked to my room to read a little or do something else to pass the time before supper. When I lay on the bed, I felt sick. I was never nauseous unless I had food poisoning. Strange.

I picked up my phone and typed, “why am I nauseous” into Google. I knew it was stupid to Google my symptoms and find answers online when they weren’t accurate in the first place, but I couldn’t help it. I always did.

One of the first answers that popped up was that I was pregnant.

I brushed off the thought. There was no way I could be pregnant. Nick and I had practiced safe sex. Safer than anything else I had ever done. I couldn’t even imagine the complications if I was pregnant with his child. He would probably see it as the ultimate stalker way, an attempt to force him to stay in my life.

Although, it would be hard to explain the condom away.

No, I wasn’t pregnant. I couldn’t be. I could feel sick from anything. Like yesterday morning, when I’d woken up crabby and made vanilla tea in the kitchen only to get sick of the smell.

Or nauseous from pregnancy. But that couldn’t be. I wasn’t pregnant. And if I was, I couldn’t possibly keep the baby. I had college to finish, and the baby daddy hated me.

But there were online classes, and a lot of women raised children alone these days. I was an idiot for entertaining the idea at all. I was being dramatic. It was probably something in the air or the weather or the food here or the stress or anything else of a myriad of reasons why I could be feeling sick.

I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes. What I needed was a nap, a recharge. I would feel better once I woke up again.

When I closed my eyes, I dreamed of Nick. His body was fantastic, and his eyes sparkled when he looked at me like he wanted to say something. But his eyes slid down my body and rested on my stomach. When I looked down, I realized I had a belly.

“That’s not mine,” Nick said firmly.

“I wasn’t going to say it is, in case you say I’m stalking when I’m asking for child support.”

Nick shook his head. “I’m out,” he said and left me alone with a baby that I had no idea what the hell to do with.

I jerked upright. I had fallen asleep. I put my hand on my lower stomach. It was flat. I breathed out I relief and collapsed back on the pillows. I didn’t want to go to sleep again in case the same thing happened, in case I dreamed of the worst thing happening again and again.

I walked to the mirror and looked at myself. “Get it together, Hailey,” I whispered.  “This is nothing more than high school drama.”

In a few days, it would all be over, and then none of what had happened would matter. I would be a woman who had lost her virginity on holiday and had a great time doing it, and that would be that.

I wasn’t pregnant.