I’ve never been what anyone would describe as a girlie girl. I didn’t play with baby dolls growing up. I didn’t like to play house and be the mommy. I’ve never been one for spending hours and hours on my hair and makeup, just for a few hours out with some friends. And you’d be more likely to find me streaking buck naked across a football field than in the color pink. I hate it. No, no, I loathe it—all its bright cheeriness and false assurances. Girls who wear pink are happy. Girls who wear pink have mothers who love them. Not mothers who dress them up in frilly outfits, forcing them to sit and smile, while they parade an endless stream of men before them, hoping this one will finally be the one who sticks.

Too bad none of them ever did.

But I digress.

The point is, despite my years and years of animosity toward this dreadful color, I’ve never been quite so helpless to its power as I am in this moment.

I pick up the white stick from the bathroom counter, giving it another violent shake, as if that will somehow make all of this disappear.

But my eyes are met by the same two little pink lines that developed almost as soon as I was done peeing on the damn thing. It’s like it couldn’t wait to tell me that what I had thought was the biggest mistake of the year was actually the most colossal indiscretion of my entire existence.

What the fuck am I going to do?

My mind immediately goes to the man who’s responsible for putting me in this predicament.

Well, he’s not completely at fault. I mean, I was there, too.

But it feels good to be pissed at him. Makes me feel like a little less of a failure. So, for now, I’m blaming him.

A therapist would have a field day with me, eh?

After my dizzy spell at the bookstore yesterday, I immediately went to the local drugstore and scooped their entire supply of pregnancy tests into my basket. It wasn’t until I turned to head to the cash register and saw Patti sitting there that I knew I couldn’t do this. Even though I was ninety-nine percent sure what the result of the test would be, there was no way I could face the people in this town if they knew.

Maple Lake is a small town. No, strike that. Maple Lake is a tiny town. There’s not a single person here I don’t know.

And the same goes for Patti.

If I walked up to her with a pregnancy test in my hand, there was no doubt in my mind that every single person in town would know about it within minutes of me walking out the door.

I dropped the basket of tests, jogged out to my car as fast as I could, and drove the twenty minutes to the next town over. Even then, I pulled my hood up over my head and wore my sunglasses inside, walking around the store with my head down until I was sure nobody in my immediate vicinity could see the section of the store I was in.

You’d think I was a fugitive or something, desperate to escape the clutches of the authorities. Not just trying to avoid the judgmental stares of the old biddies who were my neighbors.

I rushed home, anxious to take the first test and find out my fate. But, after reading the directions and seeing that the tests were more accurate first thing in the morning, I decided to hold off. I didn’t want to leave any room for error.

Now, as I stare at the test on the counter—and the four others in the trash beside the toilet—there’s no escaping the truth.

I’m pregnant.

I’m going to have a baby.

I’m going to have Brandon Jeffers’s baby.

A sudden panic rushes over me, and I can’t hold back the tears that spring to my eyes. Pressing the back of my hand against my mouth to stifle my cries, I slide down to the bathroom floor, my other hand pushing into my hair as I fall apart.

You’re just like her. Despite all your efforts, you’re just. Like. Her.

The tears fall harder as I realize everything I’ve worked for is lost. Everything I thought my life would be is gone. It’s all over. Everything is ruined.

I’ve become my mother.

My mother wasn’t a bad mother per se. Not in the typical way at least. She wasn’t abusive. I always had food in my belly and a roof over my head.

But my childhood years weren’t happy ones.

My mother had gotten pregnant with me at seventeen. My father—and I use that term loosely—was four years older and handsome as hell. My mother was smitten the moment she saw him. She did everything she could to get his attention, and when she finally did, she ended up with me.

She thought she’d hit the jackpot when she saw the same two pink lines on her test that I’m currently agonizing over. She rushed to my father’s apartment, test in hand, certain that he’d drop to one knee, and they’d live happily ever after with their perfect baby.

Yeah…not so much.

The next day, my mom went back to his place after school to find it empty. He’d split in the middle of the night, not leaving behind a single trace or way to contact him.

And, since that day, my mom has never stopped searching for the man who would change her life.

Man after man after man came into my life throughout the years, and not one of them stuck around for longer than a few weeks.

I could always tell when my mother had met a new guy. She’d come home from whichever bar she’d been at, stars in her eyes and a song in her voice, twirling around the room as she told me that our lives were about to change forever.

The first few times, I believed her. I was so excited about the prospect of having a daddy that I couldn’t see my mother for what she was.

A sad, sorry excuse for a woman who had no way of supporting herself and her child.

Basically…a prostitute.

Whoever her current fling was paid our rent. Whoever she was currently fucking made sure there was dinner on the table. But none of them wanted her. They just wanted the easy lay, the escape from their boring wives and mundane lives, the few hours a week of feeling like they were still desirable despite the belly they’d developed and the receding of their hairlines.

I make no secret of my resentment for my mother.

Instead of pulling herself together and getting a job, showing her daughter how strong a woman could be, she chased men all her life, waiting for the one who would keep her. The day she left town was the best day of my life. It was the day I was finally free.

I wipe my tears, looking down at the clean linoleum floor beneath me.

My floor. In my apartment.

That I lease all on my own. And that I pay the rent for each month without taking a single handout from anybody.

I push myself up off the floor and lean over the sink, splashing some cold water on my face. I meet my gaze in the mirror. My eyes are puffy and red-rimmed, my cheeks splotchy, and my hair is sticking up from where my hand tugged at it. But, looking past all that, I like what I see.

Because I am nothing like her.

I will never be her.

Because I don’t have it in me to quit. I’m too damn strong. I’ve worked too damn hard.

Reaching a hand down, I press it against my still-flat belly. It’s weird now, knowing a life is growing inside there. I’ve never been responsible for anybody but myself. But, as I cradle my stomach, a sudden warmth floods my chest, radiating out and washing over my entire body.

I can do this. I can have this baby. I can give him or her a good life.

And I can do it while I still pursue my dreams.

I haven’t lost anything.

No, I’ve gained so much more.

And I’m going to show everyone I can do this on my own.

I’m not going to be like my mother. I don’t need a man to support me while I raise a baby.

And I’m sure as hell not going to run to a sports superstar and tell him he knocked me up. The last thing I want is to be splashed across the tabloids as a gold digger. And that’s exactly what would happen. Brandon doesn’t want a baby. He’s too busy with his career and playboy lifestyle to raise a kid.

No, I don’t need his help or his money. I don’t need anybody but my family—Charlie, Lexi, Ian, and a few others in town who took me in and got me on the straight and narrow after my mother moved us here my freshman year.

It was a mistake to respond to his text last night. I’d almost spilled everything as soon as I saw his message. I’d felt so fragile, so afraid of what this morning would bring. I’d almost told him I thought I was pregnant. Now, I’m glad I didn’t. There is no reason for him to know. There is no reason to put myself through the sting of his rejection and cynicism. I’m not about to endure months of tests just to prove the baby is his, so he’ll send me a check every month.

Fuck him and fuck his money. I don’t need either one.

My mind made up, I run a brush through my hair to untangle the knots before heading to my bedroom to get dressed. I was supposed to be at the bookstore a half hour ago. Charlie is going to be worried.

I place my hand over my belly, smiling down at the life I now know is there.

We’re going to be just fine, Little Bean. Just you wait and see.