That gets my attention off my own pity party. My voice, I know, is dangerously low. “Why would you be scared?”
“Because I don’t know anything about being a mother!” she cries. “And I’m not with him. I have no idea how this happened.”
I’m not about to ask details on that so instead, I do my best to calm her down. “Addy, I’ll be here. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Beau… you don’t know…”
“Know what?”
“A few months ago, I was…” She sits up and pulls out of my arms. I want to tug her back to me immediately but I can tell she needs some space. She stands up, pacing around the small living room of my apartment. “Can you promise me you’ll listen without interrupting or getting angry?”
“No.”
“Fair.” She wipes the tears from her cheeks and pushes her shoulders back. “A few months ago, I was really drunk. I was so pissed because I’d just found out that Mom’s cancer was stage four, you know? And I just… didn’t handle it well.” She holds up a hand to stop me from saying anything. I’ve lectured her more times than I can count about being safe while drinking. It’s without a doubt my biggest fear, that she’ll be taken advantage of while in a compromised state. And if she thinks I’m not going to freak out hearing that she got pregnant while drunk, she’s crazy. But now’s not the time. I understand her reasoning, even if it makes me crazy. “I know. I know. It’s so cliché and dumb but that’s what I was. Drunk. It wasn’t that, though. I wasn’t taken advantage of. If anything, it was me taking advantage of him. I was just… so stupid. So sad. I wasn’t thinking and knew he’d be there for me.”
I stand also, moving in front of her and gently gripping her shoulders. “Addy, I’m freaking out right now and am trying to have patience but you need to get to the end of this story before I punch a hole in the wall.”
She takes a step back from me again. Not from fear, I know for sure. Shakes out her arms and looks me in the eye. “It’s Chris’s.” Addy blows out a breath as if saying the words is a relief.
I blink and blink again. There’s no way she can mean… “Chris’s? Chris’s what?”
“Baby.”
I’m struck stupid. “Chris… my little brother?” I shake my head because what I just heard cannot be true. “What are you talking about right now? What about Chris?”
“The baby, Beau. I slept with Chris one freaking time and now I’m having his baby!”
I sit down. Right on the floor because my knees buckle and I have no other choice than to crumble. I’ve known that Chris has had a crush on Addy since he was young but had no idea he’d go this far. To sleep with her while she was drunk.
Besides… “He took advantage of you when you were drunk and upset?”
She bites her bottom lip and cries harder shaking her head. “No. No. He didn’t. I told you it wasn’t that way and I wasn’t lying. I’m so sorry, Beau,” she says, defending him. For some reason, that only makes me even more angry. “I’m so so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I was just… sad.”
She keeps saying how sad she was. Why wouldn’t she come to me? “Addy, this isn’t your fault. If anything, it’s Chris who’s at fault here. What the fuck? Did he not use a condom? And he knows better than to sleep with a drunk girl.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she says sadly.
“It doesn’t matter what it was like, Addy. He took advantage of you!” No matter what she says, she doesn’t realize the truth of the matter. Chris isn’t an idiot, though all evidence of recent events is proving otherwise, but he knew damn well what he was doing. I’m sure of it. “Addy, he’s practically been in love with you since he was fourteen and there’s no way he didn’t know what he was doing.”
Not going to Chris and wringing his neck right now takes an enormous amount of will power. I’m not sure if it’s because of the overwhelming jealousy I’m feeling right now or anger. Fuck me.
“Can you just listen to me?” she pleads and the look in her eyes has me pausing. Thinking about what’s more important right now. Addy. Take care of Addy.