I fell back into my chair with a heavy sigh, grateful Abigail had gone to her own apartment and left me alone. Things between us had been painfully awkward since I’d turned her down, and I didn’t know how to act around her.

The bigger part of it was I knew she was right about my relationship with Scarlett—if it even was a relationship. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Scarlett, but she was important to me, and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her, even though she was hurting me by still ignoring my calls.

I cursed under my breath. My strained relationship with Abigail only added to the stress of Scarlett not talking to me, not to mention work… I found myself exhausted most nights, and I was growing sick of it.

Something had to change, and soon. Which was why I took out my phone, only instead of making another attempt to speak to Scarlett, I called Chad.

I spoke with the other people in our group of friends, not just her, but I was ashamed to admit I didn’t make as much effort with everybody else. Now that Abigail and I were no longer talking, I needed someone else familiar to talk to, someone I trusted. Though it was late evening for me, it was still early in the morning for him, and I was glad when he picked up.

“Hey, Chad,” I said. “It’s been a while.”

There was a surprised noise on the other end. “It’s rare you call me, usually you just send a text, or we chat on Facebook or something.”

I smiled a little. Social media was a godsend. But the near smile died quickly as I frowned and remembered even that wasn’t enough to get Scarlett to talk to me.

“How’s everyone back home doing?” I asked, wincing a little at the small talk.

“They’re pretty okay. Sasha and Donny enjoyed their honeymoon.”

There was a hesitance to his voice that immediately had me suspicious. He knew what I was calling for, and it was making him cautious.

“What about Scarlett?” I asked deliberately. “Has anything interesting happened to her?”

There was a short silence, and then he sighed, and it sounded as heavy as mine had been. “Zach, man, I…”

“What is it?” I asked. I sat ramrod straight despite my exhausted muscles begging to relax. My free hand curled into a fist as I waited for him to speak. “If there’s something you can tell me about her, anything at all, I’d be grateful. Please.”

He sighed again, even heavier than before. “I think you’ll want to talk to her, Zach.”

“That’s just the thing, though,” I complained. “I’ve tried talking to her by every means I can. I’m practically stalking her social accounts but I’m getting absolutely nothing back from her. She doesn’t answer my calls, she doesn’t return them. It’s been fucking months, Chad. Tell me if you’ve seen her lately.”

I tightened my lips in a frown and waited for him to say something.

“I… don’t think I should be the one to say this,” he said hesitantly. I waited for him to say it, afraid he’d change his mind if I prompted him. I even held my breath. After a moment, I heard him take in a heavy breath. “Scarlett is seven months pregnant, Zach.”

The words didn’t hit home at first. I knew what the words meant, but then putting them in the same sentence with Scarlett’s name just made them sound so… foreign. When the words did register, I inhaled sharply.

Scarlett’s pregnant? It was my first clear thought. Followed quickly by, is the child mine?

But then I thought about the whole statement, not just that she was pregnant, but that she was seven months along.

“What the hell?” I muttered. “Tell me you’re kidding?”

There was a short silence on the other end, then, “I’m not. I was skeptical when I heard, but we met up as a group and I saw it for myself. She’s pregnant, man.”

There was a knock on the door and I pulled my attention away from Chad for a moment. I got up and went to the door. I wasn’t even surprised to see Abigail standing there. She had some bags at her side, and I assumed it was food for the both of us, probably her way of trying to clear the air. Had it been any other time, I would have been wary. Right then, I stepped aside so she could come in.

“I wish someone would have told me this before, Chad,” I growled into the phone. “We’re all fucking friends, aren’t we? How come I’m the last one to know?”

He sighed. “I know, but she said no one was to tell you, that she would do it herself. I shouldn’t have told you in the first place. She’ll be so mad when she finds out…”

“Yeah, well, she can go and screw herself. Feel free to tell her that.”

With that, I cut the call and turned to Abigail. She had the bags on the table, hands already reaching inside one, but she’d paused to watch me. Probably in response to my tone. Very little could get me to lose my cool, but Scarlett was among them. Abigail tilted her head slightly.

“Is something else wrong?” she asked.

She was there to listen to the tail end of the conversation, so she could guess that much. I ignored the question.

“Would you like to go out? Sorry, you already got food, but I’m not in the mood for take-out tonight.”

Her eyebrows shot up, but she left the paper bags alone, instead sitting back in the chair and looking up at me.

“You want to go out with me?” she asked slowly. “As in, like a date?”

For a moment, my body froze. I pushed the feeling away. There was no Scarlett and me; there had only been one night of passion, followed by several others.

“Sure, Abigail,” I said, putting on one of my smiles. “Let’s go out on a date.”

She looked ecstatic, and I almost felt bad. But, unlike Scarlett, she knew what the score was, so the feeling faded quickly. There’s no point in thinking about Scarlett anyway, I thought to myself angrily.

Seven months pregnant. And she’d kept it from me, probably all along. And that stupid promise of marriage we agreed… I had lied to her when I said I didn’t take it seriously. A part of me had thought about actually ending up married to Scarlett, going out on dates, and having fun together in and out of bed. If relationships could only be like that, I would have done it and gladly, my issues with commitment aside.

But she must have been pregnant then when she made the promise to me. Pregnant with another guy’s baby. I wasn’t sure if she’d known or not. I frowned a little since I remembered she’d been drinking.

She must have found out after that night, I thought. And she decided to keep it from me.

If that was the case… If she could get over me so quickly… Then I could, and would, do the same. From that point on, I decided to be over Scarlett, because the stress of having to keep up with her just wasn’t worth it.