Page 106 of Catch You

“It’s-it’s not that. I just …” I steel myself to continue. “I have no idea if I’m relieved or disappointed.”

“Why would you be disappointed?”

“It would have given me something to think about,” I admit.

“I think you’ve got enough on your plate right now, don’t you?”

“But what am I meant to do between now and then?”

“Sleep. Book a doctor’s appointment, maybe. Talk to Corey,” she suggests, making my stomach somersault.

How the hell am I meant to even broach the subject of my pregnancy with him?

“Everything will be fine,” Brooke says with a smile on her face and an optimism that I don’t feel.

Our Chinese arrives, and I eat some of it before I make my excuses and head up to bed.

I love Brooke, and I know she’s just trying to make all of this easier, but I need to be alone.

It’s late, or at least I think it is, seeing as my room is in darkness, when the doorbell rings again.

Praying it’s just another flower delivery, I roll over and curl myself up in a ball.

Voices filter up to me. I know who it is immediately. I’d recognize his deep rumble anywhere, but I make no effort to move.

I’m mentally drained and physically exhausted. I don’t have it in me to deal with what he’ll want to talk about … what I need to tell him.

Light footsteps climb the stairs, and I breathe a sigh of relief that Brooke hasn’t just sent him up.

She cracks my door open. It squeaks slightly like it usually does, but I don’t move. I don’t so much as flinch as I attempt to make it look like I’m sleeping.

After a few seconds, she backs out of the room and descends the stairs once again. Knowing she’s telling him that I’m sleeping guts me. Tears burn my eyes, and my body trembles with my sobs.

This is too much. It’s all just too much.

Other than havingno choice but to speak to the funeral directors and the venue for the wake, the next three days all blur into one. I sleep, I cry, I throw up, I eat, and mostly I throw up again. Every day the doorbell rings, and every day I hide in my room. Whether it be Corey’s daily visit that Brooke insists ontelling me about the second she’s closed the door behind him, or her parents or Reese, I refuse to talk to any of them.

I just want to be in my own little bubble where I can pretend things are all still normal.

The funeral is this afternoon, so whether I like it or not, I’m going to have to leave this room and face the world so I can say goodbye to someone else who shouldn’t have left me so soon.

“Good morning,” Brooke sings, marching into my room and dragging the curtains open. They haven’t been like that in a while, and the sun from the outside world burns my eyes.

“Hey, stop that,” I complain.

“Harlow,” she sighs. “I’ve let you hide and wallow. Today it stops. Today you reenter the world again. People want to see you. They need to see with their own eyes that you’re okay.”

Guilt twists my insides that I’m making people worry about me.

“Do you think he’s going to be there?” Having to face him while trying to deal with the service is my biggest fear right now. I’m not sure I need my two disastrous worlds blending together into one. Each alone is hard enough to deal with; I don’t need them joining forces.

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“He didn’t say? B, he’s been here every day. How hasn’t that come up?”

She shrugs. “We just didn’t talk about it.”

“So what did you talk about?” Not all of his visits have been quick ones with him staying on the other side of the door. I know she’s invited him in, hoping I’d come down and face my issues.

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