Page 52 of Who's Your Daddy?

My tires squeal as I zoom out of the parking lot, the smell of rubber lingering in the air. There is one tiny consolation. I stuck to the plan. I met the sole objective.

I’m finally going home. Alone.

And I have never felt more...alone.

9. Lia

“OMG! You are a miracleworker, Lia.” Shontelle zooms in on the photo on her phone screen. “I’m usually not photogenic, but I look like a celebrity in this pic.”

“You look like Rihanna,” Tori concurs, looking over her shoulder to see the screen.

It’s a Sunday, so it’s been a slow day. Hardly any customers. My co-workers and I have been messing around to pass the time until closing. Tori suggested I give them both a makeover, and I agreed because I need to keep busy. Every time I’m left alone with my thoughts, I go from mild anxiety to flat-out panic in just a few short minutes.

I’m pregnant!

With each passing day, it sinks in a little more. Some days, I’m overjoyed and elated because being a mom is something I’ve always wanted. But on other days, reality hits me with a right hook and I have to come to terms with the fact that I’m only twenty-four and...

Dammit! I’m twenty.I need to stop telling that lie because I actually believe it now.

Somehow, the truth makes the reality harsher because, as a mere twenty-year-old, this is a responsibility I’m forced to bear on my own. I never even considered such a possibility.

Getting knocked up by an immature, egotistical fuckboy was never part of the plan. This isn’t how I saw my life playing out. I wanted to be in a loving, committed relationship before I ever reached this point, and now, thanks to lustful impulsiveness and incredibly bad choices, I’m going to be doing this all alone.

I don’t have much experience with men, but I’ve learned some hard lessons in the last year and a half. Both Teddy and Peter have played me for a fool, and I don’t know how I managed to fall for the same trick twice.

Both of them were just in it for the sex.

Both of them made me believe they cared about me when they didn’t.

And both of them dropped me like a hot potato the second shit got real.

And shit is very real. I’m pregnant. I haven’t told anybody because I’m so scared I’ll lose my job. I have no idea what I’m going to do. I don’t know how I’m going to pay for doctors’ appointments. The uncertainty of the future is so overwhelming that I’m constantly on the verge of a panic attack.

I haven’t seen or heard from Peter in over a week. He just abandoned me to figure this out on my own because it wasinconvenientfor him. Adding more notches to his bedpost obviously ranks higher on his priority list. And that’s fine. I feel like I’m drowning at the moment, but I will figure it out. I’m not going to freak out about the future. I’m just going to focus on the here and now and take one step at a time. I’ve been doing that since my parents died, and I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere, so I must be doing something right.

“You look amazing,” I say to Shontelle.

---