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That made my heart hurt.
I tried with all my might to force a smile, but I just couldn’t muster it. It was like an invisible heaviness weighed everything inside me down, and my lips followed. The mention of Owen’s name resurfaced the image of his smiling face when I’d told him I was pregnant…and then how I’d destroyed that happiness when I’d had to tell him the baby might not be his. Tears welled in my eyes.
“Oh my God.” Billie covered her mouth. “I’m so sorry. Did something happen between the two of you? I didn’t mean to upset you.”
The last thing I’d planned was to tell anyone else I was pregnant, but my insides felt like a volcano rumbling before the big eruption. Before I could stop myself, I started spewing all over the place.
“I’m pregnant, and when I told Owen, he was happy—not upset or angry—and then I had to tell him it might not be his because I’m a horrible person and slept with two men a few weeks apart, and my IUD needed to be changed, but my mother is useless, and how can I have a baby when I can’t even get Heath to stop cutting school? Oh my God. What if I turn out like Vera, never paying my rent, taking off with a new boyfriend named Bo, and my baby winds up in foster care?” I started to hyperventilate. “My baby can’t go into foster care.”
Poor Billie’s eyes widened. Though she quickly reached over and took my hand. “Close your eyes and take a breath, sweetie.”
Hot tears streamed down my face. “Oh my God, Billie. What am I going to do?”
“You’re going to listen to me for starters. Now close your eyes.”
I squeezed them shut as tight as I could.
“Good. Now, give me three deep breaths. I’m going to count, and you’re going to inhale until I get to five and then let it out. Keep your eyes shut and focus on nothing but breathing. Are you ready?”
“Not really.”
“Let’s do it anyway. Inhale and…one, two, three, four, five.” She paused. “Now exhale and push out all the air in your lungs.”
I did as instructed.
“Good, now let’s do it again.”
After a couple more rounds, my tears actually started to slow. I opened my eyes and looked across at Billie. She smiled warmly.
“Congratulations.”
I wiped my cheeks. “Thank you.”
“How far along are you?”
“Somewhere between seven-and-a-half and nine-and-a-half weeks. Which is the problem. I stupidly slept with Robert a couple of weeks before I left to come to New York. I’d been distancing myself from him, but I fell off the bandwagon.”
“Robert is someone you had a relationship with?”
I nodded. “Off and on for three years.”
“Okay. Will he make a good dad?”
I thought about it. Robert was self-absorbed and selfish in so many ways, but I’d seen him interact with his nieces and nephews. He was the kind of uncle who sat on the floor and played with them, and he kneeled down to their level to tell them they’d be okay when they scraped a knee. He was a good person. He’d just gotten caught up in the Hollywood life the last few years—too much being catered to and living extravagantly.
I blew out a jagged breath. “I think he would be a good dad, yeah.”
“What about Owen? Do you think he’d make a good dad?”
I didn’t have to think about that answer. “He’d make a great dad.”
“Do you want a family?”
“I didn’t think I did, but that somehow changed the moment I found out I was pregnant.”
Billie smiled. “I know that feeling. Not only did I not want to have a baby, but I had a rule to never date a man with a child. What did I wind up doing? Dating a single dad with a baby momma who has a whole lot of baggage, raising his daughter as my own, and then getting pregnant myself. But you know what?”
“What?”
