Chapter 31
Hanna
I woke up the next morning feeling sick. I didn’t think it was morning sickness because everything I’d read online told me that wasn’t supposed to kick in for another week. Yesterday had been absolutely insane, and Kason was supposed to have found out differently than that. I couldn’t believe Marcus had actually raised his fists to him and my dad wouldn’t even talk to me after the encounter. I thought, on some level, my father would be happy. At least Kason was a family friend and not some stranger.
But the look on Kason’s face…
I ran to the bathroom and started heaving into the toilet. Yesterday’s events slowly started to dawn on me, and all I did was feel sicker. Kason hadn’t believed me when I’d told him I hadn’t done it on purpose, and that had killed a part of me I knew I was never going to get back. Marcus wanted nothing to do with me and my father couldn’t even look in my direction. My mother wouldn’t shut up about baby stuff, and I knew she was grating on everyone’s nerves. Kason didn’t answer any of my calls or text messages, in which I pleaded with him to meet me somewhere.
Anywhere.
I had to get out of this house, and I had to do it soon.
I had honestly thought I was going to be much more excited about all of this. After all, this had been the deal in the beginning: get pregnant with the world’s most perfect man, then cast him aside so I could live my life. I knew my mother would be happy about me being pregnant, but I’d never stopped to think about how to field my father and my brother. I had just assumed they would be on board if it wasn’t Kason, which was why I’d thrown the idea out the door when Kason and I had agreed to keep using protection.
I was such a naïve little idiot.
I’d gotten what I’d wanted all along, and now it just felt like I was lonelier and more lost than before. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore, and all I could do was sit by the toilet in my bathroom and sob.
I finally found the energy to clean myself up and change my clothes. I took a long shower and tried to clear my mind. After I dried myself and got dressed, I went downstairs. Marcus was nowhere to be found, and my mother was out with the car. I found my father sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee that was getting cold. He was just staring off in the distance with a scowl on his face. I knew I’d made him angry, but I was hoping he would talk to me.
I needed someone to talk to me.
“Hey, Daddy,” I said. He stayed silent and didn’t even turn his head toward me, so I took the liberty of sitting down beside him. He kept his eyes trained on the horizon while the sun slowly rose in the sky. I decided to start with some small talk.
“Did you sleep well?” I asked.
And again, I didn’t get an answer.
“How’s the coffee? Do you need anymore?”
“How could you do this, Hanna?” he said weakly.
“Do…do what?” I asked.
“Let a man like Kason take advantage of you like this?”
“Daddy, Kason didn’t take advantage of me. I was the one who came onto him.”
“Hanna,” he whispered.
“Daddy, please.” I reached for his hand, but all he did was pull it away.
“It was my fault all this started. Kason didn’t want to open this can of worms, but I was dead set on it. I swear to you, this isn’t his fault. This is all mine.”
“Hanna, hush that nonsense.”
“I was the one who wanted to—”
“Hanna, please.” He sighed.
“Kason didn’t do this on purp—”
“I said enough!” he roared. He whipped his angry gaze toward me, and I scrambled back from his chair. I held his stare and saw all the pain and hurt that was whizzing behind his eyes. Somehow, in all of this, I had managed to tear my father down to a stump of a man, and it made me sick to my stomach. I felt myself heave and I ran back into the house. When I leaned over the sink, all my father did was turn his gaze back out to the horizon. He didn’t come hold my hair out of my face or rub my back. When I heaved for the second time, I felt a small, cold, delicate hand on the back of my neck.
“Oh, sweetheart. You’re gonna be a sick one during this first trimester.” My mother sighed. “But I promise I’ll be here to get you through every single step!”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Oh, this is going to be so wonderful! I’m going to be a grandmother. I went out and did a little shopping today, but I figured we could go out and get you some cute maternity clothes! You’re going to blow up like a balloon and need things to wear in a few months!”
I tried to catch my breath after heaving into the sink. All I wanted was for my mother to shut up. I had to get out of here, and I had to do it fast. With me being pregnant, this type of stress and atmosphere wasn’t good for the baby growing inside me. That much I knew, and I knew exactly where to go.
I knew exactly who would listen and who would be supportive, just like she had said.
“Mom? Can you call…Stacey…for me?” I choked out.
“Oh, are you sure you want to burden her with this? She’s been through quite a bit. She might not be as happy with you as you think,” she said.
I pushed my mother out of the way after rinsing my mouth out. I ran upstairs and grabbed my phone and a clip for my hair before I slipped on my slippers. Then I grabbed a jacket and headed for my car. I couldn’t take my brother’s absence and I couldn’t take my father’s disappointment. I couldn’t take Kason not returning my calls and I couldn’t take my mother’s cheeriness. I just needed my best friend.
I needed someone in my corner.
“Hey, Hanna!” Stacey said in answer.
“Can you come over?” I choked out. “Please?”
“Hanna? What’s wrong? Are you all right?”
“Stacey, please,” I whispered.
“I’ll be over. Unlock the door.”
Tears flew down my cheeks and pooled onto my neck while I stumbled out onto the porch. I’d heard my father come in earlier, and he just bypassed me altogether and went upstairs, so I knew Stacey and I could sit out there and talk. I felt like I was going to be sick again. I doubled over in the chair and buried my face in my hands when my chest got to my knees.
“What the hell have I done?” I whispered to myself.
“Hanna!” Stacey shrieked from the driveway. She ran to the porch and wrapped her arms around me, and all at once, I began to sob into her arms.
“Hanna. What the hell is happening?” she asked, her voice low.
“I didn’t mean to. Stacey, I swear I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to forget my pills and I didn’t mean to do this, and now Marcus is gone and my mom won’t shut up and my dad won’t talk to me and I can’t stop vomiting and I don’t know what to do.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Stacey said. “Let’s get you calmed down.”
She kissed the top of my head before she flopped down into the chair next to me. She patted my head until I stopped crying, and after I was done soaking her shoulder in tears, I pulled my head up and caught her confused stare.
“Hanna…?”
“I didn’t mean to get pregnant, I swear,” I whispered.
“Oh, no,” she murmured.
“I swear to you. Kason and I talked about it and he talked me out of it. I was taking my pills and everything!”
“Wait a second… Kason’s the father?” Stacey shrieked. “Your brother’s best friend, Kason.”
“Stacey, I told you we were fooling around together, sleeping together and all that jazz, remember?” I said. “Help me. What in the world am I supposed to do?”
Stacey looked shocked, and I wasn’t sure why. Her eyes danced between mine and her body slightly shifted away. I whimpered at the loss of her touch and silently begged her to come back.
“Stacey, please,” I whispered.
“You and Kason were having unprotected sex? And you didn’t tell me?”
“Stacey, I told you Kason and I were fooling around,” I said.
“Fooling around is one thing, but him slinging you over a couch every day without protection is something else entirely!”
Why in the world was she so mad? I’d told her about this!
“Stacey, we were protected. Until I forgot a few of my pills. I told you—”
“How in the world could you not tell me you were doing this unprotected? Hanna, I’m your best friend. I could’ve talked you out of this!”
“I don’t understand why you’re so upset. You told me that if I wanted to get pregnant, you would support me. So, I’m pregnant!”
“What?”
“Have you not been listening to me at all?!” I shrieked.
“You mean you took a test and everything?” she asked.
“Yes!”
“And you know Kason’s the father?”
“Who the hell else would it be?”
“Well, I know Kason tried to talk you out of it, so I figured you might have found someone else who was going to give you what you wanted,” Stacey said.
“Are you serious?”
“I didn’t know you and Kason were that serious” she said.
“Stacey, I’m pregnant.” I enunciated each word carefully.
“I know! I heard you the first two times!” she exclaimed.
“Then why aren’t you being supportive like you said you would?!” I shouted.
“Because I just lost my third child and here you are crying over the one thing I’d rejoice about in my life! You’re pissed because you got yourself into this situation by lying and deceiving and not weighing everything in sight before making this decision, and here I am, weighing absolutely everything and losing every single child I get pregnant with!”
“I didn’t do this on purpose!” I exclaimed.
“And that makes it better?! Every single time I’ve gotten pregnant, it’s been on purpose, Hanna! Don’t you understand the beautiful thing you’ve been dealt? Why the hell are you crying about it? Of course people are mad at you! You got pregnant by your brother’s best friend without telling anyone you two were even screwing around like that! You’re not married, you’ve got no plan, you’ve got no outlet, and you’ve got no way of financially supporting this child! Of course people around you are upset!”
“Stacey, you said you’d be supportive…”
“And I just lost my third child, Hanna. Does that not mean shit to you?” Stacey asked.
What the fuck was happening? What in the absolute fuck was happening right now?
“But it’s not just that. When you told me you and Kason were fooling around and just casually doing stuff, I didn’t realize it was this serious. I didn’t realize you were so fucking into this that you’d connived your way into getting pregnant. You told me he had talked you out of this!”
“And he had!” I sobbed.
“Damn…and a part of me thought you were just kidding. I mean, you’ve been known to pull some stunts to get attention and shit, and part of me just thought you were lying about Kason in general!”
I sat there in absolute shock. My best friend thought I was an attention whore? She thought I was making all this shit up just to get someone’s attention? What the hell had been misinterpreted so badly that she thought she had a reason to hate me, too?
“I can’t handle this,” Stacey whispered. She got up from her chair and rounded behind me to go inside. All I could do was sit there and stare at the horizon. I felt empty inside. Empty and alone and abandoned. No one believed me when I said it was truly an accident, and my best friend simply thought I was selfish for getting pregnant. I sat there in the harsh summer sun and stared off at the horizon, and it finally dawned on me.
This was why my father had been sitting out on the porch this morning. He had been sitting here because he didn’t know what else to do.
I let the tears fall freely down my neck while my pregnant body bathed in the hot summer sun.