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Luke tossed me a pile of Post-Its and I quickly jotted the info I did have down.

“Give me the day, and I’ll have more information for you later tonight,” Luke instructed.

I nodded, but something in the back of my mind was telling me that it wasn’t good enough, stuck with me.

And I was right.

Turns out tonight would be too late.

Chapter 20

Dear sleep, I love you.

-Coffee Cup

Aspen

“Look at that,” Attie said. “Do you think that my dad would…” she stopped when she saw the look on my face.

“He wouldn’t let me, would he?” She laughed.

I shook my head.

“No, he wouldn’t,” I said, scanning names on the internet. “I think I found you a doctor. It’s the one I use for my yearly exams and have used since I turned sixteen. My mom doesn’t use her, though. She’s too ‘hip and modern’ for her. She also does obstetrics.”

Attie’s eyes turned squinty.

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing. I just don’t like thinking about…it.” She hesitated, “When I first found out I was,” she swallowed. “Pregnant. I did some research.”

I laughed then at the look on her face.

“It’s not very pretty,” I said. “But it’s got a good benefit at the end,” I supplied, standing up when I heard the doorbell ring.

She snorted.

“I guess,” she grumbled. “I wasn’t very happy to find out. The guy I was with…” she looked down at her lap and I paused. I hadn’t heard anything about this ‘guy.’ I’d asked, of course, but she’d been pretty tight lipped about him. “He told me he put on a condom. And he also convinced me to do it in the first place.”

I stopped with my hand on the knob.

I didn’t bother rushing to answer it. It was the mailman, and he usually just left my belongings on the front porch for me and left without waiting for me to answer.

“You didn’t want to do it?” I asked in surprise.

She shook her head.

“I, well, I fell in with a bad crowd. When my parents divorced, I decided to find some other friends since mine thought bringing it up every five minutes would help me get over it.” She bit her lip. “And so I found different friends that knew nothing about me…and that’s where Ellison came in.”

“Ellison,” I tested the name. It was familiar. “Why does that name sound so familiar?”

She pointed across the street.

“That’s him,” she said, pointing to the front yard.

I looked out the side window at the yard directly next to Drew’s, and my heart dropped.

“No,” I gasped, voice low and unsteady. “You and him?”