Chapter 29

Will

After I put Avery to bed, I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a beer, checking my phone to see if there was any more news on Ella’s father. She had called me the morning before, apologizing profusely but having to cancel on watching Avery. I had heard the anxiety in her voice, so I knew it didn’t have anything to do with me. When she told me her father had had a heart attack, my heart immediately went out to her. I knew how strained everything had been with him lately, and then for that to happen, I knew she was feeling all kinds of things. I offered to go be there with her if she needed, which seemed to strike a positive note with her, but she refused, saying her mom and sister were there and he was doing better than when he had been admitted. I’d been glad to hear it, and I had let her know I was there if she needed me.

I hadn’t heard anything from her since, so I was surprised when there was a knock on the front door. I put down the beer I had pulled out and stood up from the couch to walk across the wooden floor and open the door. Ella was standing on the other side, smiling kindly at me.

“Hey,” I said, pulling her into a hug. “How is everything? How is your dad?”

“He’s doing much better,” she said with a sigh. “Thank god it wasn’t a massive one. He was in good spirits, although he wants to come home and they won’t let him. They have to do tests to find out what caused it and monitor his progress.”

“And how about you?” I took her jacket and led her over to the couch, sitting down across from her. “How are you handling all of this?”

“That is actually why I came over,” she said. “My father having that heart attack really started to make me think about the future and everything that has been going on. My father and I had a heart to heart. He told me how much this has impacted him, and it made him realize that life is short and precious. He realized just how hard he had been on me for the last five years and apologized to me. He said he would never mention law school again. He finally told me that he supported my choices for my future and just wanted to know that I was happy. Nothing else mattered to him if I was making myself happy.”

“Wow, Ella, that’s so amazing,” I said, genuinely happy for her. “I know how much that has hurt you over the years. I know you felt strongly about your career choice and that you didn’t want to bend for anyone when it came to that. It’s tough when you want to make your parents proud but at the same time make yourself happy and content with life.”

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “And it really means even more now with everything that has happened.”

I sat there and looked at her, slightly confused by that comment. I wasn’t sure what she was referring to. Had she talked to her father about her and me? Was there more to this story than just her education choices? We hadn’t sat down and talked for so long that I realized I barely knew anything about Ella’s life outside the walls of this apartment. I wanted to comfort her, to ask questions, but I didn’t want to push what was happening. Making a move could cause her to clam up again, and that was the last thing I wanted. I still wanted the opportunity to smooth things out between us, and her coming here to share these things with me was a good sign that we were starting to move past all the hurt and she was beginning to regain her trust in our friendship. I knew that to even attempt to have a relationship, we needed to have a friendship to grow on.

Ella was quiet, sitting back on the couch and looking up at the ceiling. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, and her knuckles were beginning to turn white. She was obviously nervous about something, but I had no idea what. She had already confessed to me a while back that she was falling in love with me, so that couldn’t be what was making her so anxious.

“Ella,” I said, leaning forward and reaching for her hands. “What’s wrong?”

“I have something really important to tell you,” she said. She sounded as if she were about to cry. “But I’ll be honest. I’m absolutely terrified to do so.”

“You can tell me anything,” I said, concerned now.

“I know, and that alone tells me that you absolutely deserve to know,” she said. “I’m just afraid of how you will react. This is big, and not just nonsense big, but life-changing big. God, I feel like I’m going to throw up all over the place.”

My heart raced, and I stared at her, watching every expression and movement she made. I scanned her body, thinking maybe I had missed something. Maybe she was injured somehow. Maybe it was something about her and me, like she had met someone else or lied to me about having a boyfriend. There were about a million things running through my mind, and my anxiety was starting to shoot through the roof. I had been so distant and so standoffish for so long that maybe she was going to tell me that she didn’t see me as part of her future anymore. Maybe she had finally gotten to the point where she was tired of our back and forth relationship—not that I would completely blame her for that. From her body language, though, whatever it was had her all twisted and tied up in knots.

“Ella, calm down,” I said kindly. “You are really starting to worry me. Are you okay? Are you sick? Is there something going on with your health? Whatever it is, I’m here for you.”

“It’s funny that you would say that,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s really no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. I’m pregnant. I found out about two months ago, and I’m around three months along. I found out when I was in school, and I’ve kept it a secret because everything has been so completely insane in my life with school, my family, and everything you and I have been struggling with. To be honest, I was completely lost. I had no idea what to even do with the news. That’s why my senior year has been so stressful. I was juggling all the normal stuff and then added that on top. It’s been a little bit more than confusing to say the least. I knew, though, that I had to tell you, and after seeing my father that way, I knew the time to do so was now, not later.”

She sat there and stared at me, and I could see the nerves flowing through her, but I couldn’t respond. I was completely and totally in shock. I had no idea how to even process what she had just told me. My mind raced at a million miles an hour, and I let go of her hands and leaned back in my chair, staring off in the distance. There had been a ton of things going through my head, but her being pregnant was nowhere near one of them. On top of that, she had known she was pregnant this entire time. Thinking about it now, it all made sense. The fact that she had barely eaten her dinner that night, her on-again, off-again emotional rollercoaster, the fact that she looked different and had even felt different during sex. All of these things made perfect sense when they were added up.

“God.” She chuckled nervously. “Please say something, anything.”

“I, uh, I don’t know what to say,” I stuttered. “I mean, is it mine?”

I knew the words were the wrong ones as soon as they left my mouth, but they just spilled out like word vomit and there was no taking them back. Immediately, I looked up at her, sorry for what I had just asked. Why would she tell me this if the child wasn’t mine? But I had said it, and I had to go with it because an apology at this point wasn’t going to do any good. I could already see that from the anger written all over her face. Her clenched hands separated, and she put them on her knees, looking me in the eyes with complete outrage. I recoiled, knowing I was about to really get it from her.

“Why in the world would I be sitting here telling you this if it weren’t yours?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It was just the first thing that flew out of my mouth. I—”

“You what? You think I’m some kind of whore, running around sleeping with everyone?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Of course not. I just thought, maybe, I don’t know, that our time together had somehow broken you open to the world of sex in some way. I thought maybe it made you want to be more exploratory. You know, with other men. Maybe in Cambridge or something.”

I should have known that repeating anything Brian had said to me was a foolish idea. He wasn’t exactly the best person to quote when talking to a woman, but I was in panic mode, trying to calm the situation and at the same time process that Ella had just told me I was going to be a father again. It was completely mind-blowing, and she wasn’t giving me a chance to even grasp what was going on. She knew I was terrible with words, and she wasn’t taking into account that I had just been given some really huge news.

“Not that I should have to explain this to you,” she said, standing up, “but I haven’t slept with anyone since spring break last year other than you. So yes, the baby is yours, not some random guy on a crazy sexcapade. I really thought you might think more of me than that, but I guess I should have gone with my gut instinct. It was obviously a mistake to tell you, especially since all you see me as is a babysitter and a fuck toy.”

She turned and stomped through the house and out the front door, slamming it behind her. The echo of the slamming door reverberated through every part of my body, causing me to shudder. I should have gone after her, but I knew that would only make things worse, especially since I was still sitting there in complete and utter shock. How could I have missed that? How could I have not been prepared when she said she had big news to tell me? Talk about being sideswiped. She had completely knocked my feet right out from under me and then kicked me in the stomach while I was down. This was huge, and I didn’t have the first clue how to handle it.