Suddenly, Marlee understood why he’d run out of the room that morning. She wanted to do the same thing.
“Here.” Velma handed over a bottle of Dasani. “Drink up.”
“Huh?” Marlee pulled her gaze from the flashing neon.
“You’ve got a lot of peeing to do.” Velma glanced at the bottle of water and then back at Marlee. “Drink up.”
Oh.
“Did you tell Brek?” Marlee asked. For some reason, it seemed important to know who knew this information.
“Are you kidding?” Velma asked. “He stopped serving us because we were talking about tuxedos. If I mention anything about babies, he’ll take off for a month with Dimefront. I mean, I only told him I was pregnant with Lily because I was pretty sure he’d figured it out before I did.”
“So, no.” Heather pressed against Marlee’s back, propelling her forward. “She didn’t tell him about our situation.”
Marlee paused. The way Heather said it was like Marlee wasn’t in this alone. Even when everything made it feel like she was.
“Thank you.” She tried really hard not to let the tears well up.
She failed.
“For what?” Now, Heather had the what-the-fuck lines between her eyebrows.
“For not making me do this by myself.” Marlee sucked in a big breath of air.
“We’re your friends.” Velma’s arm came around Marlee on one side, Heather’s on the other. Claire held the door. “You’re not doing any of this by yourself.”
“Except the actual peeing on the stick,” Heather added. “Just to clarify, that’s all you.”
Marlee hiccup-laughed. “I can handle that part.”
“I should clarify.” Velma dug through her purse, her hand emerging with a set of keys. “Brek was over the moon about Lily. If you’re pregnant, Eli will get to the excited part, too.” They reached Velma’s Prius, and Velma leveled her gaze right with Marlee’s. “No matter what any test says, I believe Eli cares about you. And I don’t think anything will change that.”
“He’s a good man,” Heather added. “I mean, he doesn’t really talk, so you think it’d be hard to know. I’ve seen it, though. The way he takes care of his friends. The way he looks at you. He’s one of the good ones.”
He was one of the good ones, and she was probably pregnant, and he’d probably run away. Marlee shivered, but only because it was autumn and nearly winter and it was Denver. The outside temperatures had dropped. That’s the only reason she shivered.
In other words, she lied to herself.
* * *
Kellie:Scale of one to ten, how sure are you?
Becca: No matter what you decide, you know we have your back.
Sadie: …
Marlee: It’s going to be fine, right?
Kellie: …
Becca: …
Sadie: …
The drugstore didn’t make buying a pregnancy test easy, that was for sure. Marlee’s head was about to explode with all the choices. She only needed a yes or no. Was that so hard?
Yes, yes, it was.
