“Ohhh yeah,” she breathes confidently, knocking on the glass of the frame with her knuckle. “You’re, like, totally wig, and he’s average at best.”
“Is wig a good thing?” I ask, and she laughs.
“Definitely.”
My chest warms, and a natural rush of endorphins makes my smile climb all the way up my face.
Chloe must notice because she nods. “You’re great, Holley. And you deserve someone great to love you back.”
I suck in my lips, pretty sure the tears are only moments away from flowing freely when she reaches out and grabs my arm quickly. “Come on! We don’t have much time, and we both have to finish getting ready.”
I lead her down the hall and into my bedroom, and I’m pretty sure, from the sound of it, I hear the picture frame with Raleigh and me hit the bottom of the kitchen trash can when she passes it.
And if that is the case, I have zero desire to go back and dig it out.
I take her dress bag and hang it on my closet door, while she glances around, pausing noticeably on my bed. For the first time since it happened, I realize I’ve been markedly avoiding changing the sheets on my bed since Jake and I slept together in it.
In fact, his leftover semen is probably still there, staining it somewhere in the middle where it leaked out of me. I just haven’t been able to bring myself—
Oh, holy shit! Anxiety reaches out and wraps its hands around my throat. My freaking birth control pills!
When was the last time I took them?
And how I am just now coming to a full realization that we didn’t use a condom that night?
Wild with panic, I turn recklessly and bowl right into Chloe. She almost takes a tumble—we both do, but I don’t even remotely have the awareness or clarity to care. I single-mindedly run for the bathroom, grabbing on to the trim of the doorway to swing myself around at full speed, and grab the handle on the top drawer where I always keep my medication.
I’m violent in my motions, and the carefully organized rows I keep any and all medication in go right to hell, but I don’t care. I scrap and scrape at the stack, throwing everything I come into contact with that isn’t a little round case of very important pills right into the basin of my sink and mumbling to myself.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God…”
I can almost feel Chloe’s presence as she sidles up behind me, but I pay her no mind, finally finding the elusive case and popping it open to inspect it.
I count pills and calculate dates in my head, but fucking hell, it is a fool’s errand. I haven’t been taking this shit for at least a week and a half. I open my mouth and close it, gulping like a fish.
What am I going to do? What if I’m actually fucking pregnant? I mean, it’d be Jake’s kid, which is great—he obviously makes good kids—but holy SHIT! I’m not even dating the guy! We slept together one time, and he’s dating five other women! I swear to Zeus, this is some kind of bullshit universe full-circle crazy nonsense if I’ve ever seen it. I know it’s my fault for not being more responsible, but—
Chloe jerks me out of my mental tirade and spins me to face her. After getting one look at my face, she grabs my head on both sides with her hands and holds me steady as she gets as close as she can.
“Do not freak out,” she commands, sounding scarily authoritative like her father. I swallow thickly, but every fiber of my body wants to rebel against her. If ever there was a time to freak out, dammit, this is it!
“Holley,” she snaps, bringing my manic eyes back to her. “Do not freak out! Whatever you’re thinking about right now, stop, okay?”
I shake my head, and she grips it harder, forcing me to make it nod.
“Whatever it is, my dad is going to make it all right,” she says, showing a finesse and a heart so far beyond her years it’s not even funny.
Tears sting my nose, but this time, they’re the good kind.
It may sound weird, but I think I knew I loved her before I knew I loved him. Yeah, yeah. I love him. I admit it.
I laugh, and she frowns, fearing I’m moving even closer to the brink of a breakdown, but the