Page 17 of Wicked Brutal

“How did you find this?”

“I’m me.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.” Her eyes filled again. “Stop crying. You’re making Valentine’s Day extremely stressful.”

“I’m pregnant, asshole.”

“Right.” She laughed, then leaned into me, and I wrapped my arm around her.

For a while we just sat there under the stupid café lights I’d nearly died hanging, Ally holding the book against her chest and the pregnancy test on the table in front of us. Eventually she said, “What do we do?”

I looked at her. There wasn’t an easy answer. Tobias was still in Roman’s house. Tremblay still existed. Roman still thought Ally belonged to him — and now there was a baby that proved, in the most permanent way possible, that she never had. I took her hand. “I don’t know.”

She swallowed. “I thought you’d have a plan.”

“I will.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“No.” I turned her hand over and traced my thumb across her palm. “I’m not sure of the how.” Her eyes met mine. “I’m sure of you.”

She leaned into me. I kissed her temple, then rested my hand over her stomach again, and neither of us spoke for a while. Ally put her hand over mine, and I turned mine beneath hers and laced our fingers together.

“I love you,” she whispered.

I kissed the side of her head. “I love you too.”

And that was enough for that night.

By eight-fifteen in the morning, I have already lied three times.

The first is to Mrs. Delaney at the front desk, when she asks if I’m feeling all right after I stop too quickly inside Edgewood’s main doors and have to pretend I’m fascinated by the spring concert poster while the floor settles under me. “Fine,” I tell her.

Lie one.

The second is to Penny, who catches me at my locker with a sleeve of saltines hidden behind my chemistry book and asks why I’m eating crackers before first period. “Skipped breakfast,” I say.

Lie two.

The third is to myself, when I catch my reflection in the little mirror taped inside my locker door and decide nobody can tell. That one barely qualifies anymore. It’s closer to prayer.

Lie three.

I tug the front of my blazer straight and turn slightly, checking the line of it from the side. Edgewood’s uniform has never done me a single favor before — the skirts too short, the white button-downs too stiff, the forest-green blazers cut like somebody designed them specifically to make every student look like the child of an investment banker. Now I could kiss whoever approved the blazer, because it hides almost everything.

Almost.

The skirt is the problem. Mine stopped fitting last week — not dramatically, there wasn’t some morning I woke up looking six months pregnant and screamed at the mirror. The zipper simply started fighting me, then refusing me, and three mornings ago I admitted defeat and pulled the spare I’d bought in secret out of the back of my closet. Two sizes bigger. It hangs lower on my hips and gives me room I didn’t used to need, and nobody notices. Nobody except me.

My hand starts to drift toward my stomach. I catch it halfway there and shove it into my blazer pocket instead, because that’s the dangerous thing nobody tells you about keeping a pregnancy secret: your body keeps trying to betray you in a hundred tiny affectionate ways. Hand to stomach. Protective turn in a crowded hallway. The automatic smile when somebody mentions babies. The crackers. The ginger tea. The fact that yesterday I nearly cried because Tobias left half a grilled cheese on his plate and, for reasons I cannot explain, melted cheddar smelled like the end of civilization.

I have become a collection of tells. Which would be manageable if I weren’t surrounded by people who have spent the last year learning how to notice things.

“You’re doing it again.”

I shut my locker. Penny is leaning against the one beside mine, watching me. “Doing what?” I ask.