Page 126 of Never Forever

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Page 126 of Never Forever

A thousand Instagram messages. Missed calls from my agent, manager. From friends.

And one from Mom.

“Shit,” I breathed.

TMZ had a photo and the headlines were not so much about me kissing Matt Sullivan, who it was reported was a “sea boatcaptain” like he was on Sponge Bob Square Pants and, I had to admit, looked pretty great leaning over me. No, the headlines were “Tom Cruise Co-Star Having A Mental Breakdown In Rural Maine.”

“Come on,” I groaned. “I have a name.”

Another gossip site had the headline: “What Happened To Tom Cruise’s Co-star’s Hair?”

“Gross,” I muttered, and threw my phone on the air mattress.

“When were you going to tell me about Matt?” Annie asked and then looked me up and down with horror. “And what are you wearing?”

Another one of Gran’s housecoats. They really were the best thing since sliced bread and there was an endless supply of them. I just wish I hadn’t been wearing one in that picture.

I wrapped my arms around my sister, who resisted with her whole body, refusing to hug me back. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered. “You and Matt. Again. You made me promise to always hate him. What am I supposed to do now?”

“Let’s go downstairs,” I said. “Have some coffee.”

Mollified for now, she followed me down into the kitchen.

Together we sat down. Me with a cup of decaf tea and her with a mug of coffee. There was no way to ease into the story, I had to do it band aid style.

“I’m pregnant,” I said, and she lit up. “Small wrinkle…it’s Matt’s.”

If I had hit her over the head with a stick, she could not look more befuddled.

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, when two people hate each other, but apparently can’t keep their hands off each other….”

“Stop. Honestly, you’re telling me you had sex with Matt and now you’re pregnant?”

“I didn’t plan it,” I said. “I wanted to tell you but I asked him to at least wait until I was further along. Although I’m pretty sure he told his dad. There is no way he keeps that secret.”

“So Matt knows about this?”

I nodded. “Well, yeah. He was there. It’s not like I could keep it a secret from him. We had sex without protection, he was going to realize it pretty quickly when I started walking around with a bowling ball under my shirt.”

“So the kiss all over the internet? What was that?”

I didn’t have an answer. I mean, I could joke and say a lapse in judgement or a seizure, but I’d gone into that kiss with my eyes open.

“Pregnancy hormones?”

“Are you guys back together?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I mean. We’re together because of the baby. He’s of course pretending to be noble.”

“Matt doesn’t pretend to be anything.”

“Well, he pretended to be in love with me until the minute he dumped me.”

Annie opened her mouth like she was going to defend him. Or tell me that it was all in the past and maybe I should get over it. And fine. Maybe.

But I didn’t want to and I didn’t have to.


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