Page 59 of Between Never and Forever
The desperation on his face, the plea in his words, makes my stomach churn and the tears fall faster. My anger spikes again. At him. At Julianna Lark. At the situation. At my fucking shitty luck.
“How is this not going to change anything? She’s having your kid, Levi,” I force out through gritted teeth. “You’re going to be afather.”
Another thought pops into my head and I jerk my head back.
“She goes to your church,” I whisper, and Levi nods. “Her dad is friends with your dad. Your families are close, right?”
His eyes clamp shut. “Yeah. That’s her,” he croaks.
“They’re going to make you marry her,” I say flatly, and his eyes fly back open.
“No way, they wouldn’t.”
“They will.”
“It doesn’t matter what they want. I won’t do it.”
“She’s having your child. You are having a child with her,” I shout at him.
“I don’t care,” he shouts back. “I don’t care, Savannah. I don’t want Jules. I don’t want to marry Jules. I want you. I want only you.”
“And what about the baby, then? You can’t be traipsing around the country on your girlfriend’s shitty band tour while the mother of your child is raising your kid. You can’t do that. How would that even work?”
“She wouldn’t...I don’t think she would....”
His voice is strangled and pained, every bit a reflection of how I feel. His shoulders fall. I can actuallyseethe defeat washing over him in the way each muscle sags and his cheeks grow wetter. And then it hits me.
“She wouldn’t have the baby yet...” I say, almost to myself. “You’d be with me on tour, and she’d just be pregnant and waiting for you when you get back in the fall?”
He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t confirm or deny my suspicions, but I can’t stop now. Speculating. Guessing. They don’t feel like guesses, though. They feel real.
“She messaged you Friday,” I say. “She told you she missed a period. You knew she’d had a positive pregnancy test. She messaged you Friday to call her, said it was important, and you ignored her.”
“I didn’t ignore her,” he says. “I got the message when we were in the club. Right before...”
He brings his palms up, gesturing at nothing. He doesn’t have to explain. I know. I snatched his phone. He got the message right before I snatched his phone from him, then essentially kidnapped him for the weekend.
“Why didn’t you call her back, Levi?”
My voice is deathly calm. He had to have known why she wanted to talk. He’s not an idiot. He had to have known what she would say.
“Why didn’t you call her back, Levi!”
“Because I didn’t want her to ruin it,” he shouts back. “Because I was here and you were here and I’ve missed you for so fucking long, and I just—”
“You wanted to enjoy your spring break with the stripper before going back to UNC and your baby.”
“Jesus Christ, Savannah, you know that’s not true.”
“You wanted to slum it. You wanted to make plans for the summer until your baby was born, and then you’d go back home to Julianna Lark and be a daddy. You used me—”
“I didn’t.”
“You used me!”
“I didn’t! I swear I didn’t. I really, truly, didn’t think it was anything. We had sex one time. Once! I used a condom. She’s on birth control. Do you know the statistical probability of her getting pregnant? It’s just...”
He drags a hand down his face then pinches the bridge of his nose.
