For a moment, I think it's Romeo coming back, unable to stay away, unable to give me the space he just promised. I stand up slowly, my legs unsteady beneath me, and I'm halfway to the door when I hear the wrong voice.
"Savannah. Open the door. I know you're in there."
It’s Thad.
The fear that grips me is immediate. My heart starts hammering against my ribs in a way that has nothing to do with the nausea or the pregnancy test. Thad shouldn't be here—he's supposed to be in Charleston, working. He never said anything about coming to New York.
"Savannah." His voice is harder now, edged with angry impatience. "I'm not leaving until you open this door."
I think about not answering and pretending I'm not home, hiding in my bedroom until he gives up and goes away. But Thad will get what he wants eventually. He’ll just come back later, and I can’t pretend to be gone forever.
I take a breath that doesn't quite fill my lungs and open the door.
He's standing in the hallway in an expensive suit and perfectly knotted tie, a flat expression on his face. He looks displeased, and my stomach twists.
"We need to talk," he says, and he's already pushing past me into the apartment before I can respond or try to tell him this isn't a good time—before I can do anything except step back and let him in.
He walks into my dorm’s living room like he owns the space, like he has every right to be here uninvited. He scans the room, taking in the soup container on the coffee table, the medicine bottles, the blanket still tangled on the couch where I was lying earlier. And then his gaze lands on the pregnancy test, and I watch his expression change, darkening and hardening until I want to flee from the room.
I was so sure it was Romeo at the door that I didn’t think to hide it.
"What is that?" His voice is very quiet, very controlled, and somehow that's more frightening than if he were shouting.
"It’s my roommate’s.” It’s the quickest lie I can think of. Thad thinks I’m a virgin, so there’s no way I could claim that it’s for me because I think he’s gotten me pregnant. But the look on his face tells me he’s entirely unconvinced.
"Don't lie to me." He picks up the test, turning it over in his hands. When he looks at me again, there's something in his eyes that makes me want to run. "You've been lying to me for weeks, haven't you? Telling me you're busy with school, that you need space, telling me everything is fine when you've been—" He stops, his jaw clenching. "When you've been fucking someone else."
The word hits me like a slap, crude and ugly, and I feel my face flush with shame and anger. "I don't know what you're?—"
"Romeo Ciresa." He says the name like it's poison, like it tastes bad in his mouth. "That's who it is, isn't it? The criminal from your seminar. The one you've been spending so much time with on your 'group project.'"
The fear that's been building in my chest crystallizes. "I don’t know what you’re talking about?—"
He laughs, but it's a harsh, ugly sound. "I'm not an idiot, Savannah. I've been having you watched since that night at thegala when you disappeared for forty-five minutes and came back looking like you'd been thoroughly fucked in the garden."
The crudeness of his language makes me flinch. He sets the test down carefully, deliberately, and takes a step toward me. "Do you have any idea what you've done? What you've risked? Your father trusted me to take care of you, to guide you, to make sure you didn't make any stupid decisions that would ruin your future. And instead you've been spreading your legs for a mobster."
"Don't talk to me like that." My voice is shaking, but I force myself to meet his eyes. "You have no right to?—"
"I have every right!" His expression is ugly, cruel, his jaw clenched as he steps toward me. "We're engaged, Savannah. We're supposed to be married this summer. I've been planning our future, building a life for us, and you've been—" He stops, breathing hard. "You've been lying to me. Sneaking around with him. Letting him touch you. Letting him—" His eyes drop to the pregnancy test again. "Is it his?"
The question hangs in the air between us. I can't answer it because I don't know. I haven't taken the test yet. The possibility that I might be carrying Romeo's child is still just that—a possibility, not a certainty. But my silence is answer enough.
"Jesus Christ." Thad runs a hand through his hair, his gaze furious. "Do you have any idea what this means? What you've done to us? To your father? To everything we've been building?"
"I didn't mean for any of this to happen?—"
"You didn't mean for it to happen?" He's staring at me like I'm a stranger. "You didn't mean to fuck a criminal? You didn't mean to potentially get pregnant with his bastard? What exactly did you mean to do, Savannah?"
"I meant to—" But I don't know how to finish that sentence. I don't know how to explain the way Romeo makes me feel, the way being with him is like finally being able to breathe afteryears of suffocating. "I meant to figure out what I want. Who I want to be."
"And who do you want to be?" His voice is sharp as a knife. "A mob wife? The mother of a criminal's children? Someone who throws away everything she's worked for because she's infatuated with a dangerous man?"
"It's not infatuation." The words come out before I can stop them, and I see something flicker in Thad's eyes, a cold anger that makes me flinch back.
"Then what is it?"
I don't answer. I can't answer, because naming it makes it real, means admitting things I'm not ready to admit. But Thad sees my hesitation, sees the truth written on my face, and his expression hardens into something I've never seen before.
