Page 128 of The Favorites
“I didn’t, until tonight.”
“Then I guess you also know that Heath’s the father.”
I nodded, though my stomach sank. I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted to be wrong.
“Are you mad?” she asked.
I was feeling many things—so many I couldn’t find clear threads to labelangerorheartbreakor anything else.
“I don’t have any right to be mad,” I said. “Heath and I are just skating partners now.”
“Please. You two will never bejustanything.”
“Is that why you decided not to tell me?”
“I’m not due until May. I thought I had plenty of time.” Bella laid her hand on the blanket-covered swell of her stomach. “Obviously, none of this was planned.”
I attempted some mental math about when she must have conceived, how long she’d been keeping this secret. During the Team USAskating camp we’d been required to attend last August, maybe? She and Heath had disappeared several nights that week, but I figured they were just avoiding all the icebreaker activities and other mandatory fun that crowded the schedule.
“So you’re keeping the baby?” I asked.
“I wasn’t sure at first,” Bella said. “I even made an appointment for an abortion, then canceled it at the last minute. And now…”
I sank into the uncomfortable chair beside the bed. “What did the doctors say?”
“I have signs of severe preeclampsia. They want me to stay on bed rest until I deliver.”
“Shit.” For a woman like Bella Lin, used to working and striving every second of every day, bed rest might be a fate worse than death.
“Tell me about it.” She rubbed slow circles over her belly. “Heath says he’ll support me, no matter what. But I don’t know if he’s up for all this. Especially since we’re not exactly…”
“Not exactly what?”
“Together,” she said. “I mean, it’s not like Ilovehim.”
“Bella.”
“I don’t! Not the way you do. The way you did.”
“Bullshit me all you want, but stop bullshitting yourself.”
She gave me a wry smile. “You know how much I hate being stuck in second place.”
“It isn’t a competition.” I reached for her hand. “There are lots of different kinds of love.”
Love like a steady, warming campfire that keeps you alive in the cold. Love like a raging blaze that burns down everything in its path until nothing but ash remains.
“Do you…” Bella twisted the edge of the blanket. “Do you think I’ll be a good mother?”
“Are you kidding? You’ll be a wonderful mother. The best.”
A smile teased at Bella’s chapped lips. “So you’re saying I’ll win at motherhood.”
“Absolutely. All the other mothers will wish they could be half as good as you.” I squeezed her fingers. “You scared the shit out of me today.”
“Yeah, yeah. I still think you should have sucked it up and skated. You might have won.”
“We might have. Or Heath might’ve been so distracted by worrying about you that he dropped me on my head, and I’d be in the hospital too.”
