I just need to stick to the plan.Stick to the plan.
Just because Ryan is in Oregon doesn’t have to mean anything. We visited there all the time. It’s a place he is familiar with, where he can move on, too.
“Promise me, Tyler,” I say through more tears and clenched teeth.
His face fractures, knowing what I’m going to make him promise.
“Promise me you won’t abuse that power. Just let me stick to my plan. Okay? Let me stick to my plan and live my life.” I sniffle. “Promise me you won’t go down that dark path. Promise me you won’t be like your father abusing the power, the system. Promise me you won’t do what I think you want to do,” I plead. “Swear it. Swear it on Sam, the family. On us. Our friendship. I’ll never forgive you, Tyler. I will never forgive you if you shatter that promise and become who you always feared.” I refuse to be a contributing factor to the abuse he’s endured. He deserves normalcy. “I don’t care if you do it for anything else but not for me.Not for me. I won’t forgive you. I won’t forgive myself.”
He stares at me, contemplating, his chest moving slowly up and down. His pulse still bounds in his neck, the only indicationof his true thoughts. The only flaw in the lethal calm exterior he presents. His eyes move up and down me, his predatory character breaking as a flash of pain fractures his facade.
He nods. “Okay.”
“Promise.” I hold my pinky up.
“I promise, Sunny.” He hooks his pinky with mine.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SUNNY
The Bachelorette playson the TV while Sam and I sit on the couch with bowls of pasta in our laps—compliments of her brother. Our uncontrollable laughter overcomes what's being said on the screen. A closing shift at the public library explains Macey’s absence, but we have a bowl of pasta waiting for her in the microwave.
With how impressed I am at the public library here, Mace promised me a job if the nursing gig changes. The good thing with nursing is I’m too busy keeping my patients alive to spiral down the dark hole that has become my own mind.
“We should apply to be on the bachelor,” Sam says while she plays with a pink strand of hair, watching the TV.
“That’s not very keep a low profile and run from your abusive ex, of me to do.”
She barks out a laugh. “See, this is why we are friends. We can bring humor into our traumas.”
That’s practically the foundation of our friendship.
I clear my throat. “Speaking of traumas, when the hell are you going to tell me the dynamic between you, Cole, and Anthony?”
I’m hoping it’ll be something as comical as a threesome between the three gone wrong. Unfortunately, the look in Sam’s eyes tells me it’s something much deeper.
She smiles at the screen. “I was waiting for you to ask. I’m surprised it took you this long.”
I shrug. “I know what it’s like to not want to unleash your traumas. No obligation to tell me if you aren’t comfortable. But the obvious is pretty blaring between the three of you.”
“Cole and I… we hooked up one night. I could go on about the things Cole has done for me and why I feel the way I do.” She toys with a thread on the couch. “While I’m not proud of it, considering I knew Anthony’s feelings for me, we slept together too. But that’s a story for another time,” she sighs. “One night after Martha’s, Cole gave me a ride home. Tyler normally would have, but he called it early since he had a big meeting at work the next morning. Anyways, when he got to my place, I asked him to come in and he did.” She shrugs. “It was one of the best nights I’ve ever experienced. It made it even better knowing we both made that decision soberly. Nothing influenced us except for genuine feelings.” She smiles. “Or so I thought. It made me fall more in love with him, even though it probably didn’t mean the same to him. He acted so odd after that night, and still does to this day. I can’t help but wonder if it’s because he knew.”
“Knew what?” I ask.
“That I got pregnant.” She looks at me.
I blink, trying to stifle my reaction.
“Let me just pick your jaw up off the floor,” she teases. “One second.” She places her glass of wine on the coffee table and runs upstairs.
Sam got pregnant with Cole’s baby.
This is a lot more complex than I anticipated. I figured it was a drunken mess of a one-night stand, not this.
I sit anxiously on the couch as I wait for Sam’s return. Soon after her departure, she comes back downstairs holding a smallpink box. Placing it in her lap, she opens the lid and pulls out a single sonogram. There in the middle is a tiny little baby.An actual baby.
“This was her. I was nine weeks.”
