“I guess because I thought this was impactingourlife. The one we’ve been planningtogether.” I stared up at her as I sank further into the personal hell that was her bedroom floor, when all I wanted to do was crawl into her bed and hold her.
“I love you, but I can’t be who you want me to be, or dowhat you want me to do. I’m sorry.So sorry.I love you…and I hope one day you see this is for the best.” She gulped, wiping away the tears that clung to the twitching muscle in her jaw. “My appointment is on December third, if you want to come be supportive.”
“So that’s that? Fuck me, right?”
“I’m not doing this to hurt you. I would never. I just…can’t.”
On shaky legs—like a newborn horse—I stood and rubbed the pads of my fingers over my eyes. I leaned in and, to my surprise, she let me kiss her softly on the forehead.
The ring box fell from my hand to her bedspread, and I said, “You can keep this or sell it or have it melted and made into a necklace. Whatever you want. Mom wanted me to give it to you.”
She didn’t fight me leaving her room, or her dorm, or her building. She didn’t text or call. And despite how exhausted I was in every sense of the word, I drove the entire way home and then continued right past the ranch. Until I found a road I’d never been on before, and when the road turned into something resembling a trail for ATVs—with a cliff on one side—I didn’t even hesitate to continue.
Maybe it was dramatic and morbid and insane, but I didn’t care a whole lot in that moment if my truck went off the road and rolled two hundred feet to the bottom. Instead of dying, I found a place where I could scream and nobody would ever hear me.
So I did. Until my lungs nearly collapsed the same way my knees did. Bloodied legs from falling on the rocks underfoot, I bent down so my forehead hit the dirt, and I unloaded every ounce of emotion left in me.
Then I sat there for hours before returning mid-afternoon to find Austin waiting in my room for me.
“No Blair?” he asked.
“No Blair.” I stripped off the clothes I’d been wearing fortwo straight days and slid into a pair of sweatpants. “I proposed, and then I think she broke up with me, actually.”
“I thought you were going there to bring her home….”
“She called me yesterday and said she made an appointment for an abortion. Thought maybe I could change her mind.” My eyes were instantly heavy when my head hit the pillow. “Thought wrong.”
“That’s a piss-poor reason to break up.”
“Suddenly everything we’ve talked about over the years has apparently been a lie, according to her. Seems like a damn good reason to me.” I rolled to my side, facing the wall. “Can I get some sleep, please?”
“You two will work it out, buddy.” Austin slapped his palm against my leg, and didn’t say a single word when I spent the rest of the week in bed.
Blair
(eighteen years old)
“He’s going to come,” I muttered under my breath to Cassidy, while staring at the glass front door.
“You’re probably right. I’m sure he got lost.” She gripped my hand tight in hers. “Vancouver’s pretty overwhelming for those of us who never leave Wells Canyon.”
“I got so lost trying to find my classes at first.” I used my free hand to keep my knee from anxiously bouncing into another dimension. “We haven’t talked since he showed up at my place. I just…Cass, I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, that seems like a question you maybe should’ve askedbeforewe came to your abortion appointment, but…”
“No, I know I need to do this. I’m in no place to have a baby.Especiallysince Denver and I aren’t in a good place rightnow.” I glanced over at the door again. “I don’t know how to handle us. I don’t know if we can ever come back from this.”
“You will. I may havezerodating experience, but I know you two are the real deal. Everyone in town knows it.”
Suddenly a nurse called my name from the swinging double doors.
“Oh, um. Can we wait another minute? I’m waiting for somebody.”
The middle-aged woman gave me an earnest smile. “Honey, your appointment was supposed to be twentyminutes ago…we can’t keep waiting, unfortunately. I’m sure whoever you’re waiting for will be right here when you get back.”
Cassidy let go of my hand with a nod. “I’ll stay right here in this chair, so he won’t panic when he gets here and you’re gone.”
Blinking back tears, I turned to follow the nurse, leaving my best friend and the baby-poop-yellow waiting room behind.
