The sound of banging has my eyes springing wide open.
I take a quick glance around and realize I’m in my living room. I must’ve fallen asleep on the couch after dumping my butt here after work. I yawn and blink a few times. I’m alert enough to realize that someone’s trying to turn a key in the front door. My heart beat picks up speed in my chest as hope and fear battle for domination.
Is he here?
I sit up, which causes my Kindle to fall from where it was perched on my chest into my lap. I throw it on the opposite couch. Getting up, I wipe around my mouth because well, drool happens to the best of us. I swipe my hair back off my face and right my work skirt and blouse. I neglected to change, and now, my outfit is crinkled beyond repair. I shake my head; creased clothing is the least of my freaking worries right now. I force myself to walk to the door even though every inch of me is itching to run as a thousand questions burn through my head.
Why did you go? Where the hell did you go? Why the fuck would you do this?
I could light up a city with the amount of excitement and anxiety coursing through my veins. It doesn’t matter. As long as he’s back, questions and answers can come later.
I take a deep breath and swing the door open. My emotions are too haywire to bother using the peephole, which was a mistake. Perhaps if I had, then I’d be better prepared for the visitor on the other side and the crushing disappointment that I apparently don’t do a good enough job of hiding.
“Oh, good. I can never remember which damn key it is, and you’ve got some exp … what the hell? Are you expecting a delivery or something?” She glances behind her then returns her blue eyes to me as she searches my face.
Millie and her mother moved onto my street just before the start of fourth grade. We bonded that summer over our mutual love of bike shorts, spearmint gum, and building castle forts out of trees. We’ve been inseparable ever since.
“Liv?”
I let out a sigh that seems to make the crushing weight in my chest only drag my shoulders down farther. I step back, letting her in before closing the door and making my way back to what’s now become my safe haven. My couch. “Well, hello to you too, grumpy ass. Why the hell haven’t you been answering my calls?” she says sarcastically, following me and throwing herself sideways onto the opposite armchair.
Tears gather in my eyes. A-freaking-gain. God, I should buy shares in tissues at this rate.
“Olive?”
I can’t do this.
I can’t even keep it together enough to say hello, which is why I haven’t been answering her calls. Because my whole world has been turned on its ass in a matter of days. I keep thinking it’s a bad dream. A sick fucking joke. That everything will turn out the way it was meant to. I shake my head and laugh dryly at myself. Hot tears start to escape and slowly make their way down my cheeks. Millie must think I’m going crazy, and I sure as hell feel that way. She’s up and next to me in an instant. As her hand touches my back, I can practically feel her worry seeping through the thin material of my shirt. I look up at her face and say what my soul can’t bear to hear, not even from my own lips. But maybe, just maybe with her here, it’ll be easier.
“He’s gone, Mil. He just … left.” I rasp out with a halfhearted shrug.
Her head rears back. “What? Zeke?”
I nod as she shakes her head in obvious bewilderment.
“He wouldn’t.” She frowns. “I don’t understand, Liv.”
“You’re not the only one. I feel like I’m going insane,” I choke out on a wail. Oh, dear God, I’m wailing. If I thought this would help the unbearable pain gripping my heart and spreading through my entire being with each day that passes, I was wrong. Dead wrong. I start crying harder than I think I ever have before.
Millie pulls me toward her, wrapping both arms around me as my body starts shaking from the force of my sobs. I’m lost in a sea of anguish and disbelief. I have no idea how much time passes as we stay like that, and I empty about six years’ worth of love and memories into her hair. But what are best friends good for if you can’t snot all over their beloved hair during one of the worst times of your life? Nothing, is what. And it’s because I know I’ve got a great one—one who’ll stand by me and help me try to sort out this mess called my life—that I try to get my shit together. I take a deep breath and sink back into the couch. Millie grabs about ten tissues in rapid succession before passing them over to me and waiting patiently as I wipe my face and blow my nose.
She sighs. “Liv, I can’t believe this. It just seems so out of character for him. He loves you. He makes that obvious. He’s always loved you.”
I sniffle and swipe at my face some more, not responding. Because what she says is true; well, at least I thought it was. Zeke and I have been together for just over six years; ever since he finally asked me out in our senior year. Had been together. Because now he’s gone. The reminder never fails to tear something vital open inside me. I guess his idea of forever was different from mine.
“Liv, seriously. This is nuts. Why the fuck would he just up and leave you?”
I drag a hand through my hair and answer the only way I can. With the only answer available. An answer I’ll never be able to wrap my head or heart around. The heartbreaking truth claws its way up my throat as I draw in a deep breath and let it all out on a ragged exhale. “Because I’m fucking pregnant, Millie.”