Chapter One.

AMELIA

"I'm pregnant," I said out loud to no one, just to hear how it sounded.

The test strip was warm from how long I'd been gripping it. I'd been standing outside his door for ten minutes, rehearsing a scene that hadn't happened yet. He'd be excited, he was the one who'd been eyeing crib ads for months, joking about wanting a daughter first "to ruin some boy's life in fifteen years."

It was perfect timing. We were newly engaged. He'd just gotten the promotion he'd wanted since we were twenty-two, splitting ramen out of a dorm mini-fridge. It was his birthday. This was the gift, the whole point of six years of scraping by together.

I smiled at the door and pressed a hand to my stomach. Then I noticed the second car in the driveway. He'd mentioned going out with friends tonight. Plans change, I told myself. Not strange.

I let myself in. The living room was empty, beer bottles scattered across the floor, music thudding from upstairs.

I climbed the stairs. The second I reached the top, the music cut off, and a heavy silence rushed in behind it.

I walked toward his door, my teeth cold, my fingers pressing grooves into the strip. I told myself he'd laugh, pick me up, spin me around like he did at my graduation. Everything would be fine.

I reached for the handle.

A grunt. Deep, male, unfamiliar enough that my brain almost filed it under normal.

"God, I'm so fucking exhausted."

"Me too, baby." Darrel.

Something in my chest went still.

"You're the best lover any motherfucker could ask for."

My ears started ringing. *Pregnancy dizziness*, I told myself, grasping for anything that wasn't the truth already climbing up my throat.

Lips smacked together on the other side of the door.

"Best birthday gift you could've given me."

My hand found the handle. I didn't remember deciding that.

"Much better than that slut could ever give you, huh?"

I didn't remember opening the door either. One moment I was in the hallway holding a pregnancy test like an offering. The next I was standing in the doorway holding it like evidence.

"Who the fuck do you think you're calling a slut?"

The room tilted. Darrel was naked. So was Gregory, his best friend, his best man six weeks ago, the one who'd toasted us as "made for each other." Gregory's wedding ring sat on the nightstand. He'd remembered to take it off.

"This cannot be right. Tell me I'm insane."

"Babe, it's not what you think."

"Tell me you're not fucking your colleague. Tell me you're fucking a man."

"Babe — it's — you know —"

"I know what?" My voice came out flat, too controlled, like someone else was renting my throat.

He looked at the door instead of me. Checking who else might have heard. Not comforting me. Not explaining. Checking the exits.

That told me more than six years of marriage plans ever had.

I pulled the ring off my finger and threw it at the bed. The test strip went with it, landing in the sheets between them like a punchline neither of them deserved yet.

"I'm done, Darrel. Three months to our wedding, and I'm pregnant, and this is what I walk in on."

"Babe, calm down —"

"Don't call me babe. I gave up my study-abroad spot so we could save for your bar exam. I worked diner shifts so you could graduate early. Six years, and you built a second life behind a locked door."

I pulled out my phone and started recording.

"Proof," I said, "that my fiancé was fucking his best friend on his birthday while I was down the hall finding out I'm pregnant with his child."

They scrambled for the sheets too late. I caught the ring, the clothes, both their faces.

"Amy, delete that." Gregory's voice had lost its wedding-toast warmth.

"Make me."

"Babe, you just said you're pregnant," Gregory said.

The math finally landed. I was pregnant for a man sleeping with his best friend.

"How could I not see it? Six years of anniversaries. 'Working late.' Was there a signal?"

"Amy, please calm down."

"Not babe anymore? Not your slut either, I guess — that title's up for grabs now." I turned back to Darrel. "What did I do to deserve this? A real answer. Not 'babe.' Not 'calm down.'"

Silence.

"Oh, fuck it, Darrel," Gregory said. "Look, Amy — this has been going on for six years."

Six years. The number hit like a physical blow. Six years ago I'd helped him move into his dorm room and told my mother I'd met the man I was going to marry. Every memory I had of us apparently had Gregory folded into it too.

"Greg, what are you doing?" Darrel's voice cracked — the most honest thing he'd said all night.

"It's time she knew. I'm tired of hiding."

"You're tired?" I laughed, ugly and short. "You're married with kids, and that's the headline — your exhaustion."

"I can't wait to hear how your wife feels about how tired you've been," I said, already dialing my best friend. I didn't have his wife's number. He didn't need to know that.

"Amy, don't. I have children. This will destroy lives."

"I'm relieved you finally understand how that works."

Gregory lunged and tore the phone from my hand before the call connected.

"Give it back."

"No."

"I will ruin your life, Gregory."

"Do your worst."

I shoved him with everything I had. He staggered but didn't fall. The phone slipped from his grip mid-scramble and I dove for it, fingers grazing the screen, his hand connected with my stomach , hard, and the floor rushed up sideways.

"You — Ow! My stomach!"

Darrel was at my side in an instant, his voice suddenly frantic in a way it hadn't been two minutes earlier, when I'd needed him honest instead of scared.

"What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"My stomach." The pain was sharp, low, wrong in a way I had no language for yet. "I feel like I'm dying."

Then I looked in between my thighs, I saw blood. “My baby…” I cried out, with so much pain and agony.