I took it easy the next day, doing homework and watching a lot of TV, and trying not to move around too much in case it made me start spotting or go into pre-term labor like Nadia did. Besides being worried about the baby, I was also super sore. It took me a while to figure out why I hurt so much, but eventually, I realized it was because I'd fallen from a standing position on the hard tile floor, so of course I'd have bumps and bruises...even if I had no recollection of it. But the doctor said I shouldn't need to worry as long as it didn't happen again, so she gave me the go ahead to go back to school on Tuesday.

Things went better than they'd gone the first week, but I still had a lot of people staring at me as I walked down the halls.

I hadn't talked to Easton since Saturday night and Lexi had said nothing about him either, which made me think he hadn't told his family what he'd found out from me.

I felt super guilty about how he'd found out. He’d just been rejected by his mom, and then to find out he had fathered a child—and all of these happening in one night...

He was probably a mess.

I sat at a lunch table with him and Lexi, but he might as well have not been there because he was so distracted for the first twenty minutes, and then he started just kind of glaring at me.

"I'm going to head to class early," I said to everyone after receiving another uncomfortable glare from Easton.

"Is everything okay?" Lexi asked, looking at my half-eaten lunch.

"Yeah, I'm not very hungry today," I said.

"Do you want me to come with you?" She gave me a worried look.

I forced a smile onto my face, only eyeing Easton for a moment. "I'm fine. Just ready to get to class."

I emptied my tray into a garbage bin and escaped through the exit that went past the auditorium.

"Hey, Juliette."

I turned to find Easton jogging toward me.

I paused. He'd been so hot and cold that I had no idea what to expect from him this time.

He came to a stop in front of me. "I need to talk to you."

Oh no. What does he want?

"Okay," I relented.

He looked around for a moment before leading me into the hall by the band room that hardly anyone ever went in. He stopped me in a little alcove and then turned toward me.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" I asked, eager to get this over with.

He crossed his arms. "I've been thinking about things over the past couple of days and can't figure out why you tried to keep the baby a secret from me. Do you not think I'd be a good father? Were you scared of me?"

I stepped back, shocked that he'd assume those were my reasons. "Of course not."

"Then why didn't you tell me? When have I ever done something that would make you think you had to go behind my back and give my baby away?"

"Because I know you." I lifted my hands helplessly at my sides.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Do you want the truth?" I asked.

"Of course."

I leaned back against the brick wall. "I knew you'd want to do the honorable thing and keep the baby."

"And what's wrong with that? It's my baby. I should raise it."

I shook my head. "But that's not what I want to do. Do you think I want to be a mom at seventeen?"

"No." He crossed his arms. "But that's how life works. Things happen, and you have to adjust."

"This is exactly why I didn't want to tell you." Anger began to simmer in my veins. "I don't want to be pressured into doing something I'm not ready for."

He was quiet for a moment, and I could see the cogs working in his head as he pieced everything together.

I was nervous when he turned back to me. "Were you really going to give away my baby without telling me?" he asked.

I looked away, wiping a tear from my eye as the reality of this new situation came crashing over me. He was going to do just what I had feared. He was going to try to get me to keep the baby.

"I'm not ready to be a mom." My lips started to tremble. "I can't do it."

He just watched me for a while, not saying anything as I tried not to cry. I couldn't be a mom. Not a good one, anyway.

Instead of showing empathy for me, though, his voice was bitter. "You shouldn't have made the decision for me. I deserved to know."

I looked up at him through my teary eyes. "Well, you know now."

"Yes, I do."

We were silent for a while as I tried to stop my tears from falling. I couldn't go to class looking like this.

I glanced at Easton, wondering why he wasn't leaving.

He took a drink from the water bottle he'd brought with him. "So how much longer do you have?" He eyed my stomach.

"What do you mean?"

He peeked around the corner, up and down the hall as if checking to make sure no one was within hearing range. Then he turned back to me and lowered his voice. "When's the baby due?"

I swallowed. "May eighteenth."

He twisted the cap on his water bottle. "That's just a month before graduation."

I nodded. "Yup."

"Would you be more open to keeping the baby if we were together?" He looked at me through his lashes.

I shifted against the wall, feeling uncomfortable. I'd thought about that a few times as I'd daydreamed about us getting back together. I still cared for him and thought he was a great guy...possibly one of the best guys I knew when he wasn't worried about the consequences of having sex too young.

But getting together because you loved each other was one thing. Getting together because you were having a baby was an entirely different thing.

So I drew in a deep breath and said, "I don't think so. I would still only be seventeen, and I think this baby deserves to have parents who are married and committed to each other for the rest of their lives. I grew up without my dad and I don't want that for my baby."

"But I'm willing to be a dad," he said, irritation in his voice. "The problem is that you aren't willing to let me try." He ran a hand through his hair. "I just don't feel like adoption is the right thing to do when he can be with his biological parents. It’ll be hard, but I'm sure our families will help. My dad did a lot for Maddie and Grant. He can do it again. We can do this."

Okay, now I was getting frustrated. He had known for...what? Three days that the baby was his?

I'd had months to think about it and had done research into the different options ahead of me.

I narrowed my eyes. "Why were you so supportive of adoption before and now you're suddenly saying it's a bad thing?"

I mean, he'd been so sweet earlier, helping me look for prospective couples on Saturday afternoon. Now it was becoming this horrible thing in his eyes.

"Because it's my baby and not some foreign douchebag's. And that single fact changes everything."

Easton avoided me for the next few days. He found a different table to sit at during lunch, and whenever I went over to hang out with Lexi, he always found a reason to leave the room.

It was unavoidable to escape each other entirely, though, because the Stevens's house and our school weren't that big.

So I became a master at scanning the halls for Easton and taking different routes when the situation deemed necessary. This was why I stopped when I came to an intersection on Friday and looked both ways to make sure Easton wasn't within sight. The coast was clear, so I joined the throng on their way to the lunchroom. I was starving today, so instead of waiting to get in line with Lexi and Noah, I continued with the crowd toward the main lunch line.

And just because I couldn't ever be completely lucky, I ended up getting stuck standing behind a group of senior basketball players: Chance Clemont and his minions, who were known to play basketball hard during the week and party hard on the weekends.

Currently, they were ragging on each other and talking about their celebration plans for after tonight's home game—most of which involved hooking up with girls at the unchaperoned party Chance was throwing.

I tried to ignore them, looking at my phone as I waited for the line to inch forward. They'd gone through their list of cheerleaders who they thought would be fun to invite, when I heard my name.

"What do you think about inviting Juliette Cardini?" Chance asked, and when I peeked at him, I caught a quick smirk on his face.

"Juliette Cardini? Who's that?" Trey Pratt, the point guard, asked.

Chance said, "Oh, remember the hot forward on last year’s girl's JV team?"

"The one who got knocked up?" Trey asked, seemingly not aware that I was right behind him.

"I'm right here, guys," I said, hoping they'd stop talking about me once they realized Chance had only brought up my name because I was standing right there.

"Oh, I didn't notice you." Chance winked.

I wanted to punch that stupid smirk off his face. "Well, now that you know I'm here, you can stop talking about me."

Chance stepped closer, forcing me to retreat, my back against the wall.

He raised his eyebrows and dipped his head lower until he was invading my personal space bubble. "What do you say? Wanna come to my party and let us show you how things get done in the good ol' United States?"

"Get done?" I asked, wishing I wasn't trapped between him and the wall and that he'd just turn back around and bug someone else.

He shrugged. "Well, I just figured that since you slept with all the guys in Paris, you'd be up for something this weekend. I mean, it's not like you can get pregnant again."

My mouth dropped, shocked that he would say something like that, but nothing came out.

He stepped even closer, taking advantage of my inability to respond or move, and whispered in my ear, "You can't tell me you're not interested."

Finally, my body decided to work again, and I pushed him away. "Get away, Chance. I wouldn't even share an Uber with you."

Anger flashed in his eyes. "So just how many guys did you have to sleep with to get pregnant, Juliette? Five? Ten? Twenty?"

"Shut up." I crossed my arms, daring a glance around the room and noticing that we had drawn a crowd.

He raised his eyebrows. "What, you don't like people talking about what a slut you are? Why did you keep the baby, anyway? Were you in love with this foreign douche? If it was mine, I'd tell you to—"

Chance didn't finish his sentence because suddenly Easton was yanking him away.

"Leave her alone, Chance," Easton bellowed.

Chance's jaw flexed and he turned on Easton, getting right up in his face. "Why do you care what I say to her?"

"Because it's not right to talk to a girl like that."

"Ooh, Easton Stevens coming to stand up for his little sister's best friend. Always playing the hero," Chance said in a mocking tone. Then his expression became more serious. "We all know you wouldn't touch her with a ten-foot pole. Not now that she's infected with some other guy's baby. You have your purity rules and all."

Easton moved closer, and the look in his eyes had me scared about what he would do to Chance.

When he spoke, his voice was low and threatening. "Be careful what you say. You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Really? I know exactly what I'm talking about." Chance stepped toward Easton, towering over him.

"You need to leave Juliette alone. She's nothing like what you're saying."

Chance glanced over at me then back to Easton. "She certainly looks like she slept around Paris."

"I said to stop it." Now they were only inches apart. Easton’s jaw tightened.

"Why?" Chance challenged him.

"Because that's my baby you're talking about, Chance." He pushed Chance hard, forcing him back.

A hush fell over the crowd, and Chance's grin broadened as he caught his balance. "You're Juliette's baby-daddy?" He laughed. "Mr. I'm-Too-Righteous-To-Hook-Up was already getting it with his sister's friend? This is too good."

I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Easton had just admitted, in front of a huge crowd, that he was my baby's dad.

Before I could do anything, Easton did something I'd never seen him do before. He punched Chance in the face.

My whole body shook as I watched Chance wipe at his nose and Easton push his way through the crowd and head for the exit that led to the parking lot at the back of the school.

"Easton. Wait!" I called as I chased after him, my heart pounding in my ears.

He didn't turn around, so I went as fast as I could down the sidewalk to try to catch him as he stormed away.

He turned on his heel to face me. "Please stop running, Juliette. I don't want you to slip on the ice and hurt the baby."

I stumbled to a stop just before crashing into him. "Please talk to me," I said, out of breath.

"I don't think—" he said before we heard another voice behind us.

"Easton? Juliette?"

I turned to find Lexi with a shocked look on her face. I blinked my eyes shut, knowing what was coming.

"Is it true?" she asked sadly. "Are you the girl...?"

This was about the last way I wanted her to find out.

She would never trust me again.

My mind scrambled for some way to explain without looking like the worst friend in the world. But there was nothing, because I really was that bad of a friend. I had snuck around behind my friend’s back to date her brother. Lied to her for months. And then I'd told her that the baby was some other guy's.

She had trusted me, and I'd completely ruined it.

I sighed and held my hands up when nothing came to my tongue.

Easton stepped beside me and slipped his arm around my shoulder—like he was going to steady us both in the storm we'd created.

"It's true, Lexi." His voice was solemn. "The baby is mine."

Lexi shook her head, and I could see that she was struggling to keep her emotions under control. "How...?"

I stepped forward. "I wanted to tell you..."

She wiped at a tear beneath her glasses. "Why did you lie to me?" She shook her head again and crossed her arms over her chest as she shivered. "How could you both lie to my face for months?"

"I'm sorry," I said, lamely. "I didn't want to."

Noah came out the door, his expression worried as he looked from Lexi to Easton and me. Then Chance and his gang came out behind him, apparently ready to watch a possible showdown.

"We'll talk to them later," Easton's voice was in my ear as he eyed Chance. "Let's get out of here." And then he took my hand and pulled me toward his car.