Best Friend Romance Short Stories & Pregnancy Novels

After I gave birth to Yates Zane's child, Leo Zane, I developed severe postpartum depression. I'd pressed a knife to my own wrist countless times. Every time, Yale fought with everything he had to hold me back when I lost control. "Don't do this. Think about the baby and me. We're here with you..." My sister, Claire Cole, and my best friend, Winnie Blake, even grabbed knives and held the blades to their own wrists. "You want to die? Fine. Then we'll die with you. Is that enough?" After that day, I committed myself to treatment. I couldn't bear to let anyone else get hurt because of me. Yet just when I thought I was finally about to see the light again, my sister took me to a wedding. There, standing on the stage were Yates and Winnie, the bride and groom of the hour. My mind went blank with a deafening buzz. The blood in my veins seemed to freeze. Claire gazed at the couple onstage with envy. "They should've had this wedding five years ago. "Your depression was the only reason the two of them spent all these years trapped by guilt." Then she suddenly turned to me. "Do you get it now? We've all been miserable because of you. "Let him go."

It was the national holiday when my husband, Damon Fuchs, married another woman behind my back in Kanna. The woman standing beside him in the video was my best friend, Mila Kirk. The page boy was the boy Mila had claimed was her nephew—the child I had raised for years. Now he was calling her "Mommy" and Damon "Daddy." Behind them, my own parents and mother-in-law sat in the front row, clapping the loudest. It was only then that I understood: the so-called vacation, Mila's supposed nephew—those were all lies. I projected the wedding video onto the living room TV, letting it play on loop for three days until they finally returned. Seeing what was on TV, Mila grabbed Damon's arm and cried, "Please don't get upset, Yvie. We're not getting married—it's a divorce. "Yes, it's true that Jojo is our son, but we lied because we didn't want to worry you." Damon's response was worse. "We just got needy on a business trip a few years ago—we only registered the marriage for fun. It's all over now, so quit being so dramatic." So that's why he proposed, lavished me with a grand wedding ceremony, and even agreed to try for a baby with me. The only thing he refused was to register our marriage, denying me fulfillment from a legal angle as he had bound himself to someone else long ago. Looking at our wedding photo on the wall, I lowered my eyes. "I'm not being dramatic. I'm just done with this life."

I had cancer. And Carl—my boyfriend of seven years—ditched me at the hospital to play fake boyfriend for his so-called best friend, just so she could dodge her parents' marriage pressure. When the results came in, I broke down. Clutching the report, I sobbed as I called him. "Carl, I... I..." My voice cracked. I didn't even know how to say it. I thought he'd comfort me. Instead, his voice came sharp through the phone. "Can you not? Mia's just a friend. What's so wrong about me helping her?—do you have to be so dramatic? I already promised to marry you this month. What more do you want?"

I rushed back from out of town overnight when my best friend, Siobhan Coventry, went into labor. After learning that both mother and child were safe, I got teary-eyed with emotion. "Have you decided on the baby's name yet?" I asked. Her smile stiffened unnaturally for a moment. "Leonard Kessler. We'll call him Leo." "Kessler?" I stared at her in surprise. "I thought you said the baby would take your last name. Is his biological father's last name Kessler?" She gave me a vague hum before quickly changing the subject. "Ginny, I've been craving the wraps from that place in the college town." I nodded, forcing my doubts aside, and went out to buy one for her. It was only when I reached the hospital entrance that I suddenly remembered I hadn't given her my gift yet. I hurried back upstairs, only to see my husband—who had been away for two years, supposedly carrying out a classified project and never once returning home—walking into my best friend's hospital room with a bouquet in his hands. He sat down beside her bed and took her hand, his face full of concern. "You were so amazing, my love." My mind went completely blank, and all the blood rushed to my head. My hand was still on the doorknob when I saw my mother carrying the baby over to them, beaming with delight. "Look—the baby smiled as soon as he heard his daddy's voice." So her baby's last name was taken from Vincent Kessler—my husband's last name. The classified project… The whole story about having a child without the father in the picture… It had all been a lie. Even my own mother had helped her goddaughter and son-in-law deceive me. The people I loved most in the world didn't want me involved with this family at all.