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I looked in the rearview mirror.

“I mean... Go ahead. I'll wait for you.”

“Because of your father?” Bay asked.

Emely nodded.

I wished Emely would come with us. She had been the first to find out I was pregnant. The first to worry. About me. Even though she pretended to merely tolerate me.

I opened the door and we all got out. Emely too.

Confused, I turned to her.

“You... are coming with us?”

Emely shoved both hands into the back pockets of her jeans and looked around. “My father doesn't work in gynecology.”

I hoped so. Otherwise, it would be the most embarrassing thing that could ever happen to me in this town.

“Well then,” said Larissa, heading for the entrance. “This seems like an excellent place to practice my control.”

Emely stared after her in disbelief, and it took me a moment to understand what she had just said. All I knew was that she was constantly holding her breath so she wouldn't smell anyone's blood. And I prayed that she would do the same in this hospital.

“Oh my God... She didn't just say that...” Bayla sighed and quickly ran after Larissa.

I was about to follow them when someone gently touched my shoulder.

I turned to Emely.

“Julie?” She hesitated before the right corner of her mouth turned up ever so slightly. “Thank you for taking us with you.”

An embarrassed smile spread across my lips. “Thanks for coming with me.”

If I had told Julie in tenth grade that she would one day attend an ultrasound appointment with Emely Copeland, she would have laughed. That made me all the more grateful for the strange twist of fate that had somehow brought us together.

Pearson Specter Litt

Christopher Tyng

We left the parking lot and entered the rather modern gynecology department, where I spoke to a woman at the reception desk who immediately confirmed the appointment I had made on the spur of the moment.

After a few minutes of waiting, we were led into a room that looked very much like a gynecologist's office. There was an examination table, an ultrasound machine, and a few chairs, on which Emely, Bay, and Larissa sat down.

The nervousness in my stomach made my knees tremble.

I wish Erik were here.

As quickly as the thought had come, I hastily buried it again, because that was not possible.

If Quentin knew that I was carrying his baby, he would never come here in a million years. Besides, no one was allowed to know that he had a baby with a student.

I had decided to rebuild our friendship and protect it, and that meant keeping my identity a secret at all costs.

“Miss Blair.”

I jerked around.

A relatively young doctor with a light brown ponytail entered the room with an extra-wide smile. She nodded to Emely and the other two, and I didn't miss how Emely took another deep breath.