I walked into Lilly’s apartment. It felt so weird to think that now. This wasn’t going to be my home anymore. It had been only a few days since Max asked me to move in with him, and the days couldn’t go by any slower. I had gotten almost everything boxed away, including all of the books that I had just recently unpacked. I tossed my keys onto the kitchen table, just as the phone in my pocket rang. It was a California area code.

“Hello?” I answered warily. I always hated answering the phone if I didn’t know who was on the other end.

“Alexa?” The voice on the other end of the phone sounded way too chipper, but familiar, and I couldn’t place it.

“This is her. May I ask who’s calling?” I balanced my cell phone between my shoulder and my ear as I maneuvered around Lilly’s kitchen. I was supposed to be meeting her and Erica for a celebratory dinner, but I was back at the apartment first. Chase had let me go early as I had finished our newest client in two days, a whole week early.

“Alexa! This is Kristen!” I racked my brain for a Kristen, and the only one who came up was one of the girls I knew from college who Adam and I were friends with. “I know we haven’t seen each other since college, but I just got your announcement and wanted to congratulate you!”

Well, that answered who it was, but what I couldn’t figure out was what she was talking about.

“Hey, Kristen!” My brain was still running a mile a minute, but I had stopped at the island in the middle of the kitchen. “I’m sorry, but these last few weeks have been crazy. Could you remind me what announcement you are talking about?”

I started to thumb through the mail as I asked her. Bill, bill, coupons, another bill.

“I mean, I guess the sayings about pregnancy brain have to be true. You’ve never forgotten anything for as long as I’ve known you.” I was still flipping through the large stack of mail, but all thoughts stopped on the word “pregnancy.”

“What are you talking about, Kristen?” Why was she calling me? I moved through the mail faster, something inside me thought my answer was here. I reached the envelope and there it was. A sliver of hope ran through me that I would find the answer before she told me. A light lavender envelope with my name scrolled across it in bold letters came into sight. I opened it as Kristen continued to talk.

“I’m pretty sure I’m looking at your baby announcement right now.” She laughed at my questions, and my blood ran cold. Baby announcement? I tore open the envelope as Kristen read the contents out loud. “Congratulations to Mr. & Mrs. Cartwright on their new darling daughter, who is due on October 21, 2017.”

I let the announcement slip out of my hand, feeling numb and confused. I was most certainly not having a baby, but it seemed that Adam was. Their due date was in only four months. Adam and I had only been divorced for two. It all started to add up in my head now, how nonchalant he was about the divorce and everything that was happening, why he had thrown them having a family in my face. He had already known she was pregnant. I couldn’t be sure when he found out, but he had to have known when they got to Georgia. Why else would he string me along? I let out a sigh, trying to get my emotions under control.

I picked the paper back up, looking at it again, but this time I could barely see it behind my blurred vision. It dawned on me that we, or rather I, hadn’t told anyone we were divorced, except for immediate family, but why was there a “Mr. & Mrs.” on it? I froze, tuning out Kristen’s chatter in my ear. They didn’t. They did. It would be the only explanation. They were married now. But when? How long? The questions kept coming, and I hadn’t realized that the phone line had gone dead and I was alone in Lilly’s apartment. My breaths became ragged, coming in faster and more shallow. I had to calm down.

“Alexa!” My gaze shot towards the front door, where Lilly rushed in with Erica right behind her. “Don’t—” She stopped in her tracks when she saw me with the announcement in hand standing in the kitchen. “…check the mail…”

“Already did.” My answer came out simply. I threw the card on the ground, not caring where it landed.

“I just got a call from Eric about the announcement.” She ran to me and engulfed my whole body with hers. Eric was Lilly’s older brother and had been a friend of Adam’s since they met at the wedding. We hadn’t told him what had happened, because I didn’t want to ruin their friendship, no matter how much Lilly protested. “He apparently talked to Adam this morning and he told him about the baby.”

I stood there, now sandwiched between Lilly and Erica as they both tried to console me. I didn’t want to be consoled though. I was angry, sad, confused, and bitter, but having people try to calm me down was the last thing I needed. I needed answers, but I didn’t know if I wanted them.

I looked over to Lilly.

“Apparently, they got married a few weeks ago.” I closed my eyes, letting out a breath as Lilly answered the question I just couldn’t ask. “Eric said that Natalie informed Adam of the baby the day they landed in Georgia. She apparently made this grand gesture and proposed to him.”

I didn’t want to hear this at all. None of it. I felt so much more betrayed, especially since Adam had run after me to Max’s place. My mind just wouldn’t stop with the questions, and I forcefully pushed Lilly and Erica away, needing space. I walked towards my old room, looking at all of the boxes lined against the wall, just waiting for me to move in with Max. A tear slid down my face, and I tried to brush it off before the girls could see it.

“Alexa.” Lilly came up behind me, trying to wrap her arms around me, but I moved too fast for her. “Don’t do this. Don’t shut down again.”

I knew what she meant. When I lost my father, I tried to shut everyone out, but she always pushed through. When I lost the baby, I had done the same thing, but she hadn’t known what had happened. She knew nothing about why I was actually hurting. She didn’t know that I had been pregnant. In fact, no one knew except Adam and me. He didn’t want to jinx it until after the first trimester, but that was when the problems started, and shortly afterwards, that was when I had the miscarriage. By the time we had gotten to the hospital, I had lost too much blood.

The doctors tried everything to see what they could do to help, but in the end, there just wasn’t anything they could do. Apparently, it was hereditary. I didn’t pay much attention to the doctors, since Adam had been there for me. The hysterectomy was something that I never thought would come to me at the young age of twenty-four, but then again, you can never predict these things.

No one knew the amount of therapy I went through afterwards, by myself, with Adam, but nothing seemed to work. I worked myself into a hole, trying to read as many books as I could just to escape for a moment. It took almost a year to get me back on my feet, but it had changed my view of everything around me and had changed a lot of my friendships, except Lilly’s. She didn’t know what was happening, but she waited for me to get my shit together and was there right where I had left her.

I looked around the room, then back at Lilly and Erica. They filled the doorway, blocking my exit.

“I need to leave.” I knew where I wanted to go.

“Okay.” Lilly moved out of the way, and I knew then that she knew where I was going to go, too. It was the one place I ran every time something got bad, but come to think of it, when Adam had left me, I had run to Max, not my father. But this. This was different. I had dodged this topic with Max, but now with me moving in with him, how could I tell him? How could he want someone who couldn’t ever give him a family?

I didn’t grab the house keys when I left the building. I didn’t plan on being back for a while. I called for a cab, not wanting to have to chat with an Uber driver. I just wanted my peace. He took me straight to the airport and I hopped onto the first flight to Las Vegas. I needed to see my dad, and I needed to see him now.