Chapter Thirteen
Scarlett
I gave Lily two days to calm down. I would have given her more, but I was starting to panic about our friendship. I needed to sort it out with her. Lily was my best friend, often my only real friend.
When I stopped in front of her apartment, I was nervous. What if she decided to reject me the way she’d rejected Evan? What if she wouldn’t even let me into the apartment? I knew that she was angry, and she had every right to be. But I needed to sort this out with her. I needed my friend.
I walked to her front door, took a deep breath, and knocked. My stomach twisted tighter, and for a moment, I thought I might throw up again. But this was just nerves. Not morning sickness.
Lily opened the door a moment later. When she saw me, she hesitated. I saw her consider if she should shut me out.
“You’re not going to leave this alone, are you?” she asked
I shook my head. “Please, Lil, I just want to talk.”
Lily sighed. “Okay, then.” She stepped to the side and let me into her apartment. This was already more than I had hoped for.
“So, what do you want to talk about?” Lily asked.
“You know what,” I said.
“Oh, the fact that you slept with my dad and betrayed me.”
I let out a deep breath. “Come on, Lil, don’t be like this.”
“How do you want me to be? You lied to me. And it wasn’t just any lie. It was a really big thing. Pregnant? And my dad is the father? How could you do this to me?”
“You’re right,” I said. “There is no excuse. I should have spoken to you.”
“You’re damn right you should have,” Lily said. She was hostile. She didn’t even let me speak.
“Just hear me out,” I begged. “I know this seems weird.”
“You think?” Lily asked, and she chuckled sarcastically.
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.
“Look, this all started with an ad on Craigslist. Someone needed a surrogate mother, and I needed the money. You know how desperate I was.”
Lily frowned at me, but she didn’t interrupt.
“So, when I got there, it was your dad.”
“What do you mean, it was my dad?” Lily asked.
I sighed. This was going to be huge. “He was the one that wanted to hire a surrogate mother.”
Lily shook her head. “This is impossible,” she said. “Why would he want more children?”
“That’s something I can’t answer,” I said.
Lily kept shaking her head. She was having trouble believing this. I didn’t blame her.
“He wanted to talk to you about it the other night,” I said.
Lily nodded. “I didn’t want to see his face. I wouldn’t let him in.”
“Totally understandable.”
Lily sighed. “I don’t know what to do. I feel betrayed. And so angry. I don’t want to ever speak to either of you again. But… He’s my dad. I can’t just push him away. And you? You’re my best friend. How am I supposed to push both of you away and not feel a big hole in my life?”
She sank down onto the couch next to me. We sat in silence for a moment.
“I know, Lil,” I said. “I am so sorry. For everything. I should have spoken to you about it from start, but I felt like it was Evan’s secret to tell. And I understand why he didn’t speak to you.”
Lily shook her head again. It was like she was trying to rearrange her thoughts manually. She looked at me, and her green eyes were piercing. They reminded me so much of Evan’s eyes.
“Do you love him?”
Her question hit me like a truck. Did I love him? Love had never been part of the equation. It wasn’t what he was paying me for. But now that I thought about it, I did feel more for him than I was willing to let myself admit.
“I guess, I do. Yeah, I do love him. But it’s not that simple.”
“Why not?” Lily asked.
“Because he’s paying me a lot of money to have this baby,” I said. “Love was never part of the deal. I’m not going to make it difficult for him by telling him how I feel.”
I couldn’t know what Lily was thinking. Her face was unreadable, and she didn’t say much.
“All of this is so weird,” she said.
I nodded. It was weird. I was telling my best friend I was pregnant with her dad’s child. Children. I hadn’t told her that part yet. I was taken aback by her question of whether I loved Evan. I hadn’t thought about it until now. In the end, it didn’t matter.
“This is about to get weirder,” I said.
Lily eyed me.
“I’m not only pregnant, but I’m having triplets.”
I watched the information sink in. Lily blinked at me.
“Triplets?”
I nodded. “I went to the gynecologist for my first ultrasound just before you came over to the apartment on Wednesday. It was a bit of a shock to me, too. But Evan seemed ecstatic. He’s so excited about all of this.”
“I don’t understand,” Lily said. “He’s never mentioned that he wanted more children to me. I don’t know where all this is coming from.”
Evan should have communicated with her a long time ago. It would have made all this so much easier. But Evan was a man, and communication was not their strong suit.
“You’re right, though,” Lily said. “It did get weirder. You’re pregnant with what will be my brothers and sisters.”
I nodded, looking at my hands. “This is really hard for me, Lil,” I said. “I’ve missed having you to talk to about this. I know I should have said something sooner. Please, don’t stop talking to me. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. I really need my best friend.”
Lily closed her eyes and took a deep breath, blowing it out very slowly. “This is so much to take in.”
“I understand that,” I said. “And if you don’t want anything to do with it, I’ll understand that, too. I’d hate it, but I’ll understand.”
Lily shook her head. When she looked at me, her green eyes were bright like she wanted to cry, but her voice was steady when she spoke.
“You know I’ll always be there for you. Even if we fight, even if you do something stupid like get pregnant. With my father’s child.” She shivered. “This is going to take some getting used to.”
“I have to admit,” I said. “I’m terrified now. One baby was scary enough, and now, there are three? I don’t know how I’m going to get through this. I’m only eight weeks along. There are still seven months left, and this is only the beginning.”
Lily frowned. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What was the plan, here? Were you going to leave him with the children and then walk out of his life again?”
I shrugged. “That was the contract,” I said.
“The contract, huh?” Lily asked.
I nodded. The more I thought about it, the worse it sounded. It had been all about the money at first, but I hadn’t been pregnant then. Now that I’d seen my babies on the monitor, it was a whole different story. I didn’t know how I would be able to just walk away. Even if he did triple the amount, these were still my babies, too.
“Everything is different now,” I said. “When I signed it, I hadn’t known that I would feel about it the way I do now. But we have an agreement. I’m not going to make this harder than it needs to be. I won’t expect something from him that we didn’t agree on.”
Lily shook her head again. She seemed to be doing that a lot today. It was a lot to work through.
“I still don’t believe you could have agreed to something like this.”
“I hit rock bottom, Lil. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t get a job, bills were piling up, the prospect of so much money won me over.”
Lily blinked. “How much was he willing to pay?”
I cleared my throat and told her.
Her eyes widened. “What the hell? That’s enough money to buy a small country.”
I laughed, and it was a relief to let it out. The tension was so high, it felt good to break it.
“So, you see the appeal.”
Lily shook her head. “I don’t know if I would have carried someone’s baby for that money, but I see that you were desperate. I wish you would have come to me.”
I had been too proud to ask Lily for help. She had been so successful, when I had made a point of it to study further, and then that backfired on me.
“It’s just hard when I compare our lives,” I said.
Lily sighed. “I understand,” she said. “You still should have spoken to me. If not about your financial situation, at least about the fact that you were thinking of having someone else’s baby. I’m not even going to go into the fact that it was my dad.”
She was still very upset with Evan. I couldn’t blame her.
“Will you talk to him?” I asked.
Lily shook her head. “Why should I? He hasn’t bothered telling me anything. Not that he wanted more children, not that he was thinking of getting a surrogate mother instead of a wife, not that he had gone through with it with my best friend. He doesn’t deserve me speaking to him.”
It upset me that Lily did not want to speak to Evan. I guessed it was understandable. I knew that it would break his heart, but we had brought this upon ourselves. At least, Lily and I were okay. God knew I would need my friend in the months to come.
Lily and I spent more time together, talking about everything. When I finally left, we were okay again. At least, half of the mess was cleared up. Lily and I were in a good place again. I was glad I had my friend by my side to help go through all this. With Lily and Evan rooting for me, I felt like I had the support I needed to get through the most difficult thing I had ever done.
I made my way to Evan’s house. I needed to speak to him about how it went with Lily. He had been worried that we’d lost her. He would be glad that at least her and I had sorted things out.
“So, she’s not going to speak to me?” he asked after I told him everything.
I shook my head. “She still upset,” I said. “You can’t blame her.”
“No, I can’t,” Evan said. “But that doesn’t stop me from being upset about it, too. She’s my daughter. I can’t stand that she does not want to see me.”
I couldn’t imagine how hard it had to be for him.
Evan put his hand on my knee. “At least, the two of you are friends again,” he said.
It was sweet of him to see the silver lining, even though his side was not taken care of yet. Evan leaned toward me, and I didn’t move away. He pressed his lips against mine, and it was the first time that he kissed me without any sexual pretext. I kissed him back. When I had told Lilly that I loved him, I had been honest. I knew that this was not going to work out, but I couldn’t help feeling how I did, and Evan kissing me, just for the sake of kissing me, meant so much more than he would ever know.