Page 152 of As They Are
“I can stop all talk about men,” Mollie said. Then she turned to me, all joy gone from her face. “Where’s the cake?”
“Henry’s not here yet.”
“Yes he is,” she said, pointing to the door. I turned to see him striding in, his hair in its usual pushed-back position. I wanted to go to him, but Mollie grabbed my shoulders. “Wren, I’m dying here!”
“Jeez, okay! You’ve been pushy since you got knocked up.”
“At least I’m making sure everyone’s on schedule.”
I put up my hands in mock defense before heading to the kitchen.
Mollie bounced on the balls of her feet as I brought it out and Cain smiled while looking at her. I set it on the table and gave her the knife before stepping back.
The whole room waited on the edges of their seats as the knife dipped into the cake.
And then Mollie saw the pink center.
The whole room erupted in cheers. But no one was more excited than Mollie and Cain. She jumped and hugged both him and Jackie. Cain reached down to talk to her rounded belly, and tears of joy leaked out from her eyes.
They were the perfect little family, and I knew that their daughter was going to have the best life.
I’d seen pictures of a party like this. In them, a woman with strawberry-blonde hair was holding up a cupcake with pink in it. She’d been excited like this too.
And then she met me.
My whole chest ached as I remembered the photo. It hurt so badly that tears prickled my eyes.
Fuck.I was spiraling, and that was the last thing I wanted to do on Mollie’s big day. Out of habit, I searched for Henry, who was congratulating Cain. I was tempted to get his attention and tell him exactly what was going on.
But that would mean cracking open the deepest secret I had, and he’d been clear that neither of us needed to get things confused when it came to this fake relationship. I’d met his mom, but hadn’t even seen the inside of his house, which was just a short walk away.
No, I needed to deal with this alone. If he knew, then he would know everything about me.
I stumbled to the back of the restaurant, glad that Ron was still engrossed in his newspaper. I rounded the corner and fell to the floor, pressing a hand to my eyes.
Tammy was right. I’d run from this for too long. I’d hidden this until I couldn’t anymore.
“You okay, kid?”
I looked up and saw Tammy. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw you come back here. Thought you might need to talk.”
“You don’t have to miss the party.”
“Butyouare,” she said. “And I’d told you I’d be here. So, scoot.” I let out a breath before moving over. Tammy got onto the floor next to me. “Are you gonna tell me, or do you want me to guess?”
I had a feeling she wouldn’t guess this one. I reached for my phone and scrolled back to one of the oldest photos I ever had and passed it over to her.
“My mom had a gender reveal like this.”
“You look a lot like her.”
“If you keep scrolling, you’ll see where she kept everything. Logs about how I kicked, excited notes on all the things we’d do.” I squeezed my fists. “I found it two years after she abandoned me.”
Tammy sucked in a breath and looked over at me with wide eyes. “What?”
“You know how most kids with divorced parents live with their moms and visit their dads? It was the opposite for me. I lived with Dad and went to go see Mom when she would have me. She started a new family and had the daughter she wanted. And when I proved I wasn’t who she wanted, she ... ghosted me. Disappeared. Told Dad I was too much for her.”
