Page 80 of Burn for You

“I tested. In the bathroom of my dorm, alone, in the middle of the night I tested. Positive.” My stomach is churning now. Guilt floods my system at the memory that we never used protection. I never even questioned it. I lean my head back against the wall.

She must feel my body stiffen behind her. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s fine. I’m on birth control and if I didn’t want what happened to have happened, then I would’ve stopped it.” I nod, her tone is decisive enough to make my heart rate calm, I start my circles up again when she continues.

“I didn’t know what to do. I was twenty-two, my life had barely started, and I just looked at myself in the mirror and I saw a child looking back, someone who had no idea how to raise one of her own.” She shakes her head, and I know she’s remembering exactly how that felt.

“Isla woke up to me crying. She’s the one who held my hand and sat with me on that disgusting bathroom floor until the morning. Until I had built up enough courage to go and see Owen. Throughout that night the only thing I could think of was that I wasn’t in it alone. I had Owen. He loved me and we would figure this all out together.” She pulls one of her hands up to wipe the tears that have been falling in a steady stream down her face this entire time.

“Except I was wrong.” She shakes her head. “When I told Owen I was pregnant, I could just see it on his face straight away. He had opted out of our relationship before the word baby ever left my mouth. Proving my mom right and leaving me feeling the emptiest I had ever felt in my entire life.”

So many things click into place for me, so many things aboutthe way that May is all of a sudden make so much sense. I don’t think I can blame her for the way she views the male species.

“May…”

She leans out of my touch, and I can feel that she’s not only physically distancing herself, but she just put a wall up between us. “That’s why you never saw me with the same guy twice. Why I can’t admit anything about this thing between us. I refuse to feel that emptiness ever again. I won’t ever let myself get so carried away that I forget the places I’ve been. Sex is just sex to me, nothing more, okay?”

I nod. But the problem is that sex with May was always going to be so much more, and I don’t know how long I can go on pretending like it wasn’t.

chapter twenty-nine

MAY

I lie backon the rug that covers the wooden floors of Marina’s apartment, my head landing on the soft woven fabric as I let out a sigh.

“Here,” Marina hands me an ice cream and I immediately sit up. “You need something to cheer you up.”

“I don’t need cheering up,” I say before taking a bite of the ice cream.

Isla snuggles into the corner of the couch. “Yeah, you do, Debbie Downer.”

“Hey!” My voice is muffled with the ice cream filling my mouth.

She tilts her head at me. “Did you forget that every single thought you think is relayed on your face?”

I frown and chomp down on the ice cream.

“And for the last week, your face has been saying that you are confused as fuck about something. What we are all wondering is what that thing is?”

Marina sits down beside her, and they both look at me with that look they’ve perfected. The ‘let’s interrogate her in a really soft and loving way so that she tells us what's going on’ look.

A knock onthe door sounds.

“Expecting anyone else?” I ask.

Marina shakes her head and makes her way to the door, pulling it open. “What are you doing here?”

Leo steps into her apartment with a bottle of wine. “I heard it’s girls’ night.”

She frowns at him. “That grants you an invitation, does it? Did you miss the main part of that sentence?Girls’night.”

He waves her off. “I’m sick of playing scrabble with the ladies at the B&B every night.” Marina’s frown depends. “I can tell you what happened at boys’ night?”

Marina yanks the bottle from his hands. “Get your ass in.”

Isla giggles as Leo sits down beside her. “So where were we?”

Marina plonks down next to me on the floor. “We were just asking May why she’s been so…” she waves her hands in my direction. “Whatever this is, lately.”

I scoff, waiting for Leo to ask what she means, or disagree with her, but he just sits there exactly like them waiting to hear what I say.

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