who’d been my first everything. From holding his hand in a darkened movie theater to letting him have the piece of myself I’d held onto for eighteen years. He’d made me feel special, cherished, wanted. And for a girl who’d spent so much of her life feeling like a castoff, being wanted was everything.
“You knew how scared I was of this. Of being like my mother. Of people thinking I’m like her.” I didn’t regret my little bean, not one bit. I was going to love him or her with everything I had in me. But that didn’t change the betrayal of Grant’s actions. Apparently, he didn’t care enough about my fears to protect us both.
He straightened. “If you were truly on the pill, it wouldn’t have mattered if I didn’t use a condom a few times. Hell, maybe you cheated on me. This baby probably isn’t even mine.”
“How can you say something like that? You know me. You know that I would never do anything to betray you.” My heart was cracking. As if the organ had been submerged in subzero temperatures.
The boy I thought I knew better than myself suddenly seemed like a stranger. I’d always known that Grant had a short temper. He was used to getting things the exact way he wanted. But I never expected that he’d turn on me. I was the one who listened when his parents were too busy with work and charity galas. I was the one who explained where he was coming from when Harriet lost her patience with him. I made sure he stayed on top of his schoolwork. I cheered him on at every football game. I’d held him as he’d cried when his grandfather died. How could he forget all of that in the blink of an eye?
Grant began pacing back and forth. “You heard about Lacey, didn’t you? The parties? You think you can trap me?”
I blanched, my mouth falling open, but I couldn’t seem to form words, and my mind rapidly spun. The sickly-sweet scent tickled the back of my brain. Lacey. It was the perfume of the girl who had made my growing up years on the island torture. Throwing my mom’s drunkenness and abandonment in my face more times than I could count. Tripping me in the hallway. Writing nasty things on my locker. The boy who was the love of my life, the father of my baby, smelled like…Lacey.
I closed my eyes, trying to block out the pain slicing at my chest. “How could you?”
He scoffed. “You really think I was going to wait around for years when you were locked up tighter than a drum? Just because you’re the hottest girl on the island doesn’t mean you’re going to lead me around by the balls. God, you’re so damn naïve.”
All it took was one spark. The discovery of one lie that ignited a chain reaction, revealing all of the other deceits. But the worst realization of all was that there was no way Grant loved me. He never had. I was only a pretty face to him. A beautiful possession. That spark sent the future I’d been building in my mind, the home I’d thought would be my forever, up in flames.
Grant began backing away towards the lawn. “I don’t want a damn thing to do with any baby. If it is mine, then get rid of it. Because if you don’t, you’re on your own.”
I reared back as if he’d physically struck me, though that would’ve been less painful. “You don’t mean that.”
“The hell, I don’t.” Those hazel eyes I loved so much hardened with a glint I’d never seen before. “My dad warned me you might try and pull a crazy stunt to get me to stay. Said you’d try to guilt me, to manipulate me. But I never thought you’d stoop so low. You make me sick.” With that parting blow, he tore off, moving up the hillside and towards his house.
My body trembled as I sank to the rocky sand. If I didn’t sit, I worried I’d fall. I pressed my back against the worn wood of the log. This was one of my favorite spots on the estate. A place I’d always found peace. Somewhere that reminded me how limitless the Universe was, and how small I was in it. I’d always found that comforting, as if whatever I struggled with was so tiny compared to the vastness of the sea surrounding me. Now, I just