“Lauren!” Katie puts her hand on mine. I close my eyes, feeling like I’m getting sucked backwards into a vortex of darkness. “Tell me what is wrong!”
I make myself open my eyes. “I’m pregnant,” I whisper.
“No, you’re not,” Katie says right away. “Because you have to have sex to get pregnant and you don’t have a boyfriend, and you don’t sleep around.”
“I know. But I did. Just once.” I carefully unfold the ultrasound pictures and hand them to her. I watch her face go from confusion to horror then back to confusion.
She leans back on the couch, looking straight ahead. “When—how? You … no. This is a joke, right?”
“I wish it was.” My eyes are filled with more tears, and I’m trembling. Katie turns to me, face as white as a ghost. Then she bursts out laughing.
“Sorry,” she says, covering her mouth. “Just you … Everyone thought I’d be the one to get knocked up before marriage. No one ever expectedyouto be the family slut!” She’s doubled over laughing.
“This isn’t funny, Katie! I’m not a slut. It was one night, one time, one mistake!”
The laughter dies in Katie’s throat. “Oh my God.” The seriousness has hit her. “This is from your drunken one-night stand none of us believed.”
My eyebrows push together. “Why is it so hard to believe that I—never mind. But yes. That’s when it happened because that’s the only timeanythinghappened in a very long time.”
“What are you going to do? I assume you’ve considered all your options.”
“I’m keeping it. Once I saw the heart beating … I don’t know. I just know I have to keep it.”
“Okay, that’s good if it’s what you want. So you don’t know who the father is?”
My lack of response tells her everything.
“You have to tell me who, Lauren.”
I put my head in my hands. “No, I don’t. It’s bad, Katie. Really bad.”
“You’re already pregnant, Lauren. It can’t get much worse than this. Even if this guy turns out to be nothing more than a sperm donor, we can make him pay child support or something. Just tell me who you hooked up with and I’ll help, okay?”
“Okay.” I look up, meeting her eyes, feeling sick again. His name is on the tip of my tongue, yet I can’t make myself say it. I close my eyes and let out a breath. Fuck it. “Noah.”
Katie doesn’t say anything for a good thirty seconds. Then she blinks several times and pushes her eyebrows together. “Colin’s friend Noah?”
I put my head in my hands. “Yes,” I say, voice muffled.
“Are you sure it’s his?”
“Positive. Like you said, I don’t sleep around. He’s the only possible one.”
She holds up a hand. “I need a minute to process this.” Her eyes close. “So you got drunk, slept with Noah, and now you’re pregnant with his child.”
“It sounds worse when you say it out loud.”
“It sounds pretty bad in my head too. Does he know?”
I shake my head. “I thought about telling him, but I actually don’t know his number, or where he lives.”
“I’ll get the info for you.”
“Do I have to tell him? I mean, Noah … he’s not exactly father material.”
“He has the right to know. Colin is going to beat his ass. You know that, right?”
My stomach flip-flops. “I haven’t even thought about telling anyone else. Oh my god—Mom!”