My chest stirred. I’d never walked into my place to find a woman who’d made herself at home like this. Whenever she had been around, she’d either have been in Ryker’s room with him, or ignoring me with a passion.

We never meshed.

I used to think she hated me. But now I knew she was just shy.

She set the bowl down and clasped her hands together. I could see the anxiety in her. She’d been waiting around for me. For this.

I set the keys down and took a seat next to her. She smelled like Ryker and I didn’t like the smell on her. I shook my head at the stupid knotted feeling inside of me and turned to her nervous face. God, she was pretty, wasn’t she? All doe eyed and frightened. It was a subtle attractiveness that grew until it was in your bones and you couldn’t look at her without feeling it. The less obvious kind of beautiful was the most dangerous, I realized. Because it made you want to keep looking, keep seeing that beauty, until every inch of that face was burned in you.

“He’s okay with it, Allie,” I said quietly, ignoring the way my pulse was weirdly picking up around her.

Her eyes immediately watered. “Really?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“He didn’t try for an abortion?”

I shook my head immediately, knowing this lie was needed. “No, he was shocked. I mean, he was asking me all kinds of questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like how far along you are.”

“And you told him?

“Yeah.”

“What did he say?”

“He wants you to go through with it.”

She wiped her eyes and smiled brightly at me. It was a beautiful smile. Made her look less like the miserable person she’d been the last week. “That’s amazing,” she said. “I was thinking about it all day. I’ve already grown so attached to this pregnancy, I decided I didn’t care what he’d say. Because it’s my choice, you know?”

I nodded, feeling relieved by her conviction. “It is your choice, Al. If I pushed you in the start –”

“You didn’t. You were right. I was reacting impulsively. Now I’m not. Now I’m looking at the bigger picture, and I know I’ll be okay. I don’t care if I have to postpone College and work at a shit job. I want to do this because I want to prove that I can be responsible for whatever unexpected things come my way. Because life never goes according to plan, right? It’s just a bunch of rollercoaster bullshit, and you never learn anything by picking the easiest way out.”

God, how the fuck could someone so young pull herself together like this? I’d never given her this mindset. She’d developed it on her own. Grabbed a shit situation and turned it around. It was hard – very fucking hard – not to admire Allison Wallace in that moment. It was hard not to feel jealous at Ryker for having someone whose head was screwed on so right. Yeah, they made a mistake, but so did everyone else. Making a mistake isn’t the issue. It’s how you handle it that defines you. She was handling it beautifully, and in a calm manner that helped me feel grounded.

“None of that is going to happen,” I told her softly, unable to turn away from those enthralling eyes. “Wanna know why?”

She scanned my face and whispered, “Why?”

“Because you got me.”

She surprised me with a hug, leaning over to wrap her arms around me. I was stiff at first. She’d never gotten very close to me before. This was out of her element. After a tense moment, I relaxed and hugged her back, bringing one arm around her little frame. My face was against the side of her head, my nose breathing in the scent of shampoo.

My shampoo.

My heart did that weird fucking thing again, thumping a little faster, giving me a strange feeling like I was doing something that was out of my comfort zone. When was the last time someone gave me a genuine hug? I wondered.

Since Mom.

When she broke free from the hug first, I immediately hid the conflicted look on my face and smiled warmly at her. I then leaned my back against the couch, pretending that contact was normal for me.

Yeah, fucking right. That was not normal. That was weird as hell.

She seemed comfortable, though; smiling to herself as she also leaned back, relaxing before turning her attention back to the television. I stared at her for a while. Watching, she brought her knees up to her chest and ran a hand through her long hair. She might have even forgotten I was there, a foot away from her. But that was okay. I liked watching her. She carried her emotions on her sleeve, and I could read every single one of them as she lost herself in some trashy reality show.

Eventually I looked away and watched too, sucking my soul dry with this ridiculous fucking drama that people found entertaining. I nearly got up to leave from the absurdity of it all when Allie laughed and said something regarding a character, and suddenly I was never more invested in a show than now.

Spending time with a girl and not touching her explicitly was different...

But I was beginning to like different.

Seven

Allie

Ten weeks pregnant and I was talking to my stomach a dozen times a day. Whether it was natural to talk to your unborn baby or not was irrelevant to me. Point was it made me feel better.

“Your father supposedly wants you,” I whispered while resting a hand over my belly. The sun was just starting to come up, lighting up the room through the cracks in the blinds. This was morning number four waking up with that sick, nauseous feeling. I’d paced the hallway quietly for an hour, waiting for last night’s spaghetti to come up. All to no avail.

“If he feels for you the way he does for me, I’m sure he’s going to love you,” I continued, stroking the bottom of my stomach where I could just barely feel a bump. “At least… I hope he will.”

It was hard for me to believe that Ryker had accepted the pregnancy and hadn’t pushed for an abortion. I wasn’t stupid. A big part of me had suspected Heath had made that up to make me feel better. I was surprised that it wouldn’t bother me either way. If he’d told me a white lie then that showed he at least cared about my feelings and wanted me to concentrate on what really mattered. That was this baby and starting my first year at college.

It was hard without Ryker, but every passing day I relived the moment he was arrested. The lies he’d told me – that he was clean and hadn’t broken the law – only to learn otherwise. I was cut deep, and I knew at some point soon I needed to confront him about it and let him know how much he hurt me. I’d never gotten the chance to. From the time he was arrested to his sentencing, it’d been a swift open and shut case.