“I can’t be a father,” he said, looking so sad and beaten that she wanted to cry. “I mean. I am one. I know that, but …”
She touched his face, wondering how long the pain of this moment would linger. She felt a dozen years older than him right now. It was clear suddenly that this might ruin them.
She longed to tell him okay, that she’d follow his parents’ plan and give the baby away and go on with all the things they’d planned. But she didn’t know if she could do it. She leaned toward him. In the firelight, his watery eyes were hardly blue at all. “You should go to Stanford and forget about all of this.”
“Just talk to the lawyers, okay? Maybe they’ll know something.” His voice cracked and that tiny little sound ruined her resolve. He was almost crying.
She sighed. It was a small, tearing sound, like muscle ripping away from the bone. “Okay.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Lauren closed her textbook and looked up at the clock.
2:45.
2:46.
She let her breath out in a nervous sigh. All around her kids were laughing and talking as they got their things together and headed out of the classroom. There was a lot of energy in school this week. That was to be expected. Finals began on Monday. In different—normal—times, Lauren would have been as keyed up as the rest of them. But now, in this third week of January, she had bigger worries. By this time next week, while her friends were looking for their new classrooms, she’d be done with high school. A graduate.
She reached down for her backpack and put her book and notebook away. Slinging the heavy pack in place, she headed out of the classroom. Merging into the crowded hallway, she forced herself to smile at friends, to talk and carry on as if this were any other day.
All the while she was thinking: I should have asked Angie to come with me today.
Why hadn’t she?
Even now she wasn’t sure.
She stopped at her locker and got her coat. She was just about to slam it shut when David came up behind her and tugged.
“Hey,” he whispered against her neck.
She leaned into him. “Hey.”
He slowly turned her around until she was facing him. His smile was irritatingly bright. This was the happiest he’d looked since she’d told him about the baby. “You look happy.” She heard the bitterness in her voice and it made her wince. She sounded exactly like her mother.
“I’m sorry.”
But he didn’t know why he was sorry or what he’d done wrong. She wondered if from now on he’d start handling her with care. She forced another smile. “Don’t be. My moods change faster than the weather. So. Where do we go?”
His relief was as obvious as the confusion had been. He smiled, but there was a new wariness in his eyes, too. “My house. Mom thought that would be more comfortable for you.” He put his arm around her, tucked her against his side.
She kicked her locker shut and let herself be swept through the campus and into his car.
In the few miles between Fircrest Academy and Mountainaire, they talked about things that didn’t matter. Gossip. The graduation night party. Hookups. Lauren tried to focus on that, the bits and pieces of ordinary high school life, but when David pulled up to the guardhouse, she drew in a sharp breath.
The gate swung open.
She coiled her hands together and looked out the window at the big, beautiful homes.
For the last few years, as she’d come into this enclave of the rich, she’d seen only the beauty of it. She’d dreamed of belonging in a place like this. Now she wondered why people with so much money didn’t choose to live on the water, or why they wouldn’t want to be in the busy neighborhood where the DeSarias lived. There, the streets seemed alive. Here, everything was too contained, too clipped and perfected. How could real life—and real love—grow in so confined a space?
As they pulled up to the curb in front of the Hayneses’ mammoth home, she found herself wondering what the three of them did with all the empty spaces in their house.
David parked the car, then turned to her. “You ready for this?”
“No.”
“You want to cancel?”
“Absolutely not.” She climbed down from the passenger seat and headed for the house. Halfway there, David came up beside her and took her hand in his. The support eased some of the butterflies in her stomach.
At the door, they both paused. Then David opened the door and led her inside.
The house was quiet, as usual. The very opposite of the DeSaria home.
“Mom? Dad?” David called out, shutting the door behind them.
Mrs. Haynes came around the corner, wearing a winter white wool dress. Her auburn hair had been drawn back in a tight bun. She looked thinner than the last time Lauren had seen her, and older.
Lauren could understand why. In the past weeks, she’d learned how life could mark a person. “Hello, Mrs. Haynes,” she said, moving forward.
Mrs. Haynes looked at her. A sadness tugged ever so slightly at her painted lips. “Hello, Lauren. How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”