Dante comes over. He’s made a drink for them both, and the one for Sash he places in front of her. Ice cracks against the treacle brown liquid.
“You might need that for the shock”, Dante says.
Sash turns the glass in her hands. One secret they can never take away.
“Dante”, she says. “I have something I need to tell you.”
Dante sits forwards on the edge of his seat. He’s sat away from Sash, distracted perhaps by what’s going on, to feel the need in this moment to be close to her. His concentration has shifted in the last couple of hours. He has to set this right, and he still has no idea what he’s going to do. Not only that, he’s clearly made a mistake with Henry, and for that, he’s going to have to take responsibility. For a brief moment, Dante wonders whether what Sash wants to tell him is something he should have seen already. After all, it was Sash that wanted to let the whole world know about their affair. He cocks his head, tastes the possibility of it, works it around his lips and over his tongue. Surely, she couldn’t. Surely Sash didn’t have the balls to do that.
“Go on”, he says, more curious now than ever to hear her confession.
Was this her plan all along? Coming back to him and forcing him to stay by making the whole world know about them? She didn’t have to, not like this. Oh, Sash, you didn’t have to.
Sash bites her lip. She puts her hand on her belly without thinking about it, but Dante doesn’t pick up on the gesture. He’s too busy framing her for something she didn’t do.
She looks to the ground and then back up to her stepbrother, her skin already flushing red. She can feel two hearts beating inside her. The words on the tip of her tongue. Her mouth open, ready to say them. One simple sentence. Dante, I’m pregnant.
The photos in the back of Henry’s car. He didn’t put them there, Sash did, it’s obvious now. The intimate way they were shot. Who else could have known, but her? How did he not see it before?
Dante stands, and before the words can come out of her mouth, he’s clapping.
Sash looks at her stepbrother like he’s gone mad.
“Brilliant, Sash, absolutely brilliant.”
He can’t work out whether he’s mad she’s deceived him or impressed she’s been able to.
“I had no idea”, he continues.
Sash wonders whether he’s guessed. They regard each other a moment, Sash utterly confused about what’s going on. She doesn’t know whether she needs to tell him, or whether she needs to worry about how he’s reacting. In the end she doesn’t say anything at all, and just sits there in her seat, her shoulders and cheeks going crimson red, which only serves to reinforce Dante’s misguided beliefs even further.
“Why did you do it, Sash?” Dante asks, dark storms brewing in his eyes.
Her secret. And without her telling him, he knows.
“Did you think I didn’t love you, was that it? You didn’t trust me?”
“I’m sorry, Dante”, Sash blurts out. “I did it for us.”
“There might not be an us”, Dante says. “Did you ever think about that?”
“No”, Sash says, shaking her head.
For Dante, it’s unclear whether she says it as a response to his question or for the real reason, which is as a denial to the prospect of them not being together.
“This is the last thing that we need if you want us to be together”, Dante says. “I thought I was clear on that.”
“Please, don’t say that. I love you, Dante. We can make this work.”
Dante swirls the dark liquid around in his glass, clattering the ice against the edges. Sash can tell he’s pissed off. Maybe she’s made a huge mistake. Maybe she should have aborted it.
“That wasn’t your decision to make alone”, Dante says.
“I’m sorry”, Sash says. “I was going to tell you before, it’s just, I never got the chance.”
“Yeah, right. You would have gone through with it anyway, wouldn’t you, no matter what I did? That was your plan from the very start wasn’t it? Your plan to make sure you got me.”
Sash shakes her head. She’s up on her feet now, in front of Dante, trying to placate him. Dante shakes off her touch.
“No, I promise”, Sash says. “It wasn’t like that.”
“I’ve done everything for you, Sash. I’ve been open and honest, and more than generous with my affection and my money. I don’t know why you continue to distrust me, and which parts of “I love you”, you don’t seem to understand. This will ruin us, although it’s too late to go back now, I suppose. You’ll see what you’ve done when we get to New York and we have to deal with the shit storm. You saw it already this morning.”
Sash is confused again. She has no idea what the events of this morning have to do with their baby, unless he’s talking about what happens after people find out.
“Please, Dante”, Sash says. “I thought you’d want this. Don’t you think it’s perfect?”
“How is jeopardizing my career perfect?” Dante says.
“People will understand.”
“You have too much faith in people.”
“Yeah? And maybe you have too little.”
Dante finishes his drink and stares at the semi melted ice cubes, sat in the bottom of the glass like snowmen’s bollocks. Sash uses the moment to close the distance between them again. She takes Dante’s glass away, and he lets her do so, only because he thinks she might fill it up again for him.
“It’ll be fine”, Sash says, taking his hand in hers.
This is the father of her unborn child. This is Dante, her one true love. She has to know, she can’t hold it in any longer. Sash takes his hand and places it against her belly, spreading out his fingers in a gesture that can mean only one thing. Dante’s eyes go wide as it finally dawns on him.
Sash looks up.
“Jason Walker is dead”, she says.
“You’re pregnant”, Dante says, pulling his hand away. “Fuck, Sash, you’re pregnant.”
He can see it now, he can see it so clearly he can’t believe he didn’t before. Her glow, her smile, everything about her. Dante stumbles back to his seat, overwhelmed by this new information. Sash watches him, keen to try and pick out sense in his reaction.
“Did you hear what I said?”
Dante is shaking his head, trying to come to terms with it. “You’re pregnant. I can’t believe you’re pregnant. Do they know about this?”
“Jason Walker is dead”, Sash says again, ignoring his question.
“Who is Jason Walker?” Dante asks angrily, trying his best to pretend not to know the name.
“Did you kill him?” Sash asks, exploding uncontrollably into fitful tears as she does so.
It’s the question that has been going around her head ever since she heard the news. One minute Dante has no idea who he is and the next minute he’s dead. Is taking her virginity for the first time going to be responsible for ending his life?
Dante looks over to her like she’s lost her mind. “Sash, what the hell are you talking about? Who is Jason Walker?”
“Did you kill him because he took my virginity?”