Never His Girl (Kings of Cypress Prep #2) - Rachel Jonas Page 0,90
mood,” he shares. “My dad and I got into it about something I can’t even remember now, but I just know I was desperate to get as far away from him as possible.”
He’s quiet for a second, and then meets my gaze before saying four words that—even in their simplicity—feel surprisingly heavy as they leave his mouth.
“There was a girl.”
Chapter 35
BLUE
“I met her at the party,” West adds with a sigh. When he pauses, I believe it’s an attempt to search for the right words.
“Her name’s Casey,” he says gravely.
The pace of my heart picks up just a little when he mentions her.
“She was a senior on Everly’s dance squad, and we just kind of hit it off,” he shares. “We danced for a bit, had a couple drinks, then… we ended up in a bedroom.”
When I clear my throat, it dawns on me that I might not be as evolved as I thought. I want him to be open with me, but hopefully I’m spared the details.
“Things… got heated pretty fast,” he goes on. “Then, when it was over, she took my phone while I got dressed and locked her number in under Casey W. She handed it back and slipped into her jeans. I shot her a text, so she’d have my info too, then we went our separate ways.”
A strange, loaded silence creeps in.
“So… what happened next?” I ask when he seems to get lost in a thought.
First, he breathes deep, then he shrugs. “For a bit, life just went on as usual. I’d hear from her every now and then, we’d make plans to hang out again, but they fell through every time.”
“You just lost touch after that?”
“Not exactly,” he answers, shaking his head. “Got a call from her late one night while she stayed with a friend. She was hysterical, crying so hard I could hardly make out what she said.”
My heart’s racing. Like I imagine West’s must’ve been when that frantic call came through.
“It was some kind of emotional breakdown,” he explains, looking as if he’s still trying to understand it after all this time. “Turned out she wasn’t just randomly visiting with the friend. She was there… recovering.”
His word choice seems strange to me, but I don’t question him about it.
“The week before, she’d been to see a doctor. Apparently, she had some weird symptoms that scared the shit out of her. Then, a day or two before I got that call, she’d already gone back to the clinic.”
“For a follow-up?” I ask.
“No,” West answers, shaking his head. “For a procedure.”
My heart feels like it stops in my chest when he says that, because I’m pretty sure I know what kind of procedure he’s talking about. Putting it plainly, this isn’t quite the conversation I imagined we’d be having tonight.
“I didn’t even know,” he adds. “Not until she’d already done something about it.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and take a breath, filling in the blanks when it seems he’s having a hard time doing that himself. He’d gotten this girl pregnant, and without him even knowing that much, she had an abortion.
Deep breath, Blue. Deep breath.
“Do you think you might’ve asked her to reconsider?” I ask, hoping I’m hiding it well enough that I’m in complete shock right now. The last thing I want is for him to misread any kind of tension in my voice for judgment.
He shrugs, thinking about what I’ve just said.
“I’ve wrestled with that, asking myself that very question,” he admits. “While I don’t think I was or am ready to be some kid’s father, I guess it also felt kind of weird not having any say in the matter, either.”
There’s pain in those words, in his eyes when he says them.
“On the one hand, I can’t imagine how hard it was for her to make that decision on her own, but I also wish she’d come to me sooner,” he says. “At least then, we could’ve come up with something together, explored all our options.”
He zones out again and I observe him, noting that I’ve never known West to be cautious about anything, but there’s no missing how delicately he’s handling this conversation. It isn’t lost on him that these were very serious circumstances, that led to a very serious outcome.
And… it’s something that affected him.
Deeply.
“We didn’t use protection the night of the party,” he admits. “Guess we both thought we were invincible or something. Needless to say, it didn’t take long for us to realize