Just then, my phone started buzzing like crazy on the counter next to me. I looked down at the phone and saw Mom calling. I shook my head and sighed.

  “It’s Mom. She must have gotten some really juicy gossip. Hello?” I said.

  “Ella, it’s Mom,” she said. “I need you and Taryn to come to the hospital. It’s your father. He’s had a heart attack.”

  “We’re on our way,” I said, hanging up the phone and looking at Taryn. “Grab a coat. Dad’s had a heart attack.”

  Luckily, the hospital was only a few blocks away, and knowing what kind of traffic there would be, Taryn and I took off on foot for the hospital. All the tiredness, anxiety, and worry about my own situation disappeared as my footsteps hit the pavement. In their place came fear for my father. I had never heard my mother in that kind of a panic before, and I wasn’t even sure what to say. Taryn looked terrified, but we didn’t have time to talk. We just needed to get there.

  We jogged through the halls of the hospital, coming up on my father’s room. As we approached, I took in a deep breath, terrified of what we would find. However, as I turned the corner, I stopped and let out the air in my lungs upon seeing my father sitting up in his bed and bossing the nurses around. I grabbed my chest and breathed deeply, trying to calm myself down. I shook my head and laughed. My father was still as brazen and bossy as ever. Even a heart attack couldn’t slow the man down. I half expected him to start in on law school with his IV still hooked in his arm.

  “Dad,” Taryn said, hugging him tightly. “What happened?”

  “It was a heart attack, though a minor one, luckily,” he said. “My doctor has been telling me for years to take better care of myself.”

  “But you’re a stubborn old man,” I said, smiling and walking forward. “I’m glad you’re going to be okay.”

  I leaned in and kissed him on the forehead, winking at my sister, who still looked terrified. My heart was slowing down, and I sat on the edge of the bed and talked to Dad further about what had happened. My mother had gone down to the cafeteria to get him some food since he had missed the brunch at the club and was apparently starving to death. When she came back, she was so relieved to see us there.

  “I’m so sorry you were alone,” I whispered to my mother. “But he’s going to be okay.”

  “Damn right,” he said, lifting his decaf coffee in the air.

  “He is,” she said, shaking her head. “But he’s definitely going to have to start eating healthier, exercising, and taking care of himself. He didn’t do it before, so now I’m taking over.”

  “Great,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Dear, would you and Taryn do me a favor and give me a few moments alone with Ella?”

  “Of course,” my mother said, walking over and kissing me on the forehead. “Don’t let him talk you into sneaking any fried food in here. Come on, Taryn. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

  Taryn shook her head and kissed Dad on the cheek before turning to me and hugging me tightly. She held on for several moments, and I could feel the rapid beating of her heart. This whole situation had taken a toll on her.

  “I would wait to tell Dad about the baby,” she whispered in my ear. “He may seem bold, but he’s weak, and maybe you should talk to Will first.”

  I nodded my head against her shoulder so that she would understand. She got up and made her way out of the room, leaving me alone with my father for the first time in a while. I had to admit that it felt uncomfortable, even with him in a hospital bed. Close, calm conversation had never come easily to my father and me, and my mom said it was because we were so alike. We were both bold and knowing, and we went after what we wanted with gusto.

  “What’s up, Dad?”

  “I wanted to talk to you,” he replied. “This heart attack got me thinking. When the pain struck, I was seriously worried that I wasn’t going to see tomorrow, and I didn’t want to leave things the way they were between us. It made me realize what was truly important. I’m not going to badger you about law school anymore. I promise. What is so very important to me, above all else, is that you are happy with the choices you make for your future, no matter what they are. Just graduating from Harvard is a huge deal, and I have the privilege of being the father of the valedictorian. That’s pretty damn impressive. So, I wanted to tell you that I am sorry.”

  I sat there for a moment, really taking in what he was saying. I had wanted to hear those words from him for longer than I could remember. Of course, I wished they hadn’t come on the back of a heart attack, obviously, but either way, he was finally saying them. I leaned in and hugged my father tightly.

  “Of course I accept your apology, Daddy,” I said. “It scared the hell out of me not knowing if you were all right or not. I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”

  “Me either, sweetie. Me either,” he whispered, holding me tightly, which was so unlike the pat-hugs I used to get.

  Not only did he survive for me, Taryn, and Mom, but little did he know he survived for his grandchild, too.

  Chapter 29

  Will

  After I put Avery to bed, I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a beer, checking my phone to see if there was any more news on Ella’s father. She had called me the morning before, apologizing profusely but having to cancel on watching Avery. I had heard the anxiety in her voice, so I knew it didn’t have anything to do with me. When she told me her father had had a heart attack, my heart immediately went out to her. I knew how strained everything had been with him lately, and then for that to happen, I knew she was feeling all kinds of things. I offered to go be there with her if she needed, which seemed to strike a positive note with her, but she refused, saying her mom and sister were there and he was doing better than when he had been admitted. I’d been glad to hear it, and I had let her know I was there if she needed me.

  I hadn’t heard anything from her since, so I was surprised when there was a knock on the front door. I put down the beer I had pulled out and stood up from the couch to walk across the wooden floor and open the door. Ella was standing on the other side, smiling kindly at me.

  “Hey,” I said, pulling her into a hug. “How is everything? How is your dad?”

  “He’s doing much better,” she said with a sigh. “Thank god it wasn’t a massive one. He was in good spirits, although he wants to come home and they won’t let him. They have to do tests to find out what caused it and monitor his progress.”

  “And how about you?” I took her jacket and led her over to the couch, sitting down across from her. “How are you handling all of this?”

  “That is actually why I came over,” she said. “My father having that heart attack really started to make me think about the future and everything that has been going on. My father and I had a heart to heart. He told me how much this has impacted him, and it made him realize that life is short and precious. He realized just how hard he had been on me for the last five years and apologized to me. He said he would never mention law school again. He finally told me that he supported my choices for my future and just wanted to know that I was happy. Nothing else mattered to him if I was making myself happy.”

  “Wow, Ella, that’s so amazing,” I said, genuinely happy for her. “I know how much that has hurt you over the years. I know you felt strongly about your career choice and that you didn’t want to bend for anyone when it came to that. It’s tough when you want to make your parents proud but at the same time make yourself happy and content with life.”

  “Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “And it really means even more now with everything that has happened.”

  I sat there and looked at her, slightly confused by that comment. I wasn’t sure what she was referring to. Had she talked to her father about her and me? Was there more to this story than just her education choices? We hadn’t sat down and talked for so long that I realized I barely knew anything about Ella’s life outside the walls of this apartment. I wanted to comfort her, to ask questions, but I didn’t want to push what was happening. Making a move could cause her to clam up again, and that was the last thing I wanted. I still wanted the opportunity to smooth things out between us, and her coming here to share these things with me was a good sign that we were starting to move past all the hurt and she was beginning to regain her trust in our friendship. I knew that to even attempt to have a relationship, we needed to have a friendship to grow on.

  Ella was quiet, sitting back on the couch and looking up at the ceiling. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap, and her knuckles were beginning to turn white. She was obviously nervous about something, but I had no idea what. She had already confessed to me a while back that she was falling in love with me, so that couldn’t be what was making her so anxious.

  “Ella,” I said, leaning forward and reaching for her hands. “What’s wrong?”

  “I have something really important to tell you,” she said. She sounded as if she were about to cry. “But I’ll be honest. I’m absolutely terrified to do so.”

  “You can tell me anything,” I said, concerned now.

  “I know, and that alone tells me that you absolutely deserve to know,” she said. “I’m just afraid of how you will react. This is big, and not just nonsense big, but life-changing big. God, I feel like I’m going to throw up all over the place.”

  My heart raced, and I stared at her, watching every expression and movement she made. I scanned her body, thinking maybe I had missed something. Maybe she was injured somehow. Maybe it was something about her and me, like she had met someone else or lied to me about having a boyfriend. There were about a million things running through my mind, and my anxiety was starting to shoot through the roof. I had been so distant and so standoffish for so long that maybe she was going to tell me that she didn’t see me as part of her future anymore. Maybe she had finally gotten to the point where she was tired of our back and forth relationship—not that I would completely blame her for that. From her body language, though, whatever it was had her all twisted and tied up in knots.

  “Ella, calm down,” I said kindly. “You are really starting to worry me. Are you okay? Are you sick? Is there something going on with your health? Whatever it is, I’m here for you.”

  “It’s funny that you would say that,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s really no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. I’m pregnant. I found out about two months ago, and I’m around three months along. I found out when I was in school, and I’ve kept it a secret because everything has been so completely insane in my life with school, my family, and everything you and I have been struggling with. To be honest, I was completely lost. I had no idea what to even do with the news. That’s why my senior year has been so stressful. I was juggling all the normal stuff and then added that on top. It’s been a little bit more than confusing to say the least. I knew, though, that I had to tell you, and after seeing my father that way, I knew the time to do so was now, not later.”

  She sat there and stared at me, and I could see the nerves flowing through her, but I couldn’t respond. I was completely and totally in shock. I had no idea how to even process what she had just told me. My mind raced at a million miles an hour, and I let go of her hands and leaned back in my chair, staring off in the distance. There had been a ton of things going through my head, but her being pregnant was nowhere near one of them. On top of that, she had known she was pregnant this entire time. Thinking about it now, it all made sense. The fact that she had barely eaten her dinner that night, her on-again, off-again emotional rollercoaster, the fact that she looked different and had even felt different during sex. All of these things made perfect sense when they were added up.

  “God.” She chuckled nervously. “Please say something, anything.”

  “I, uh, I don’t know what to say,” I stuttered. “I mean, is it mine?”

  I knew the words were the wrong ones as soon as they left my mouth, but they just spilled out like word vomit and there was no taking them back. Immediately, I looked up at her, sorry for what I had just asked. Why would she tell me this if the child wasn’t mine? But I had said it, and I had to go with it because an apology at this point wasn’t going to do any good. I could already see that from the anger written all over her face. Her clenched hands separated, and she put them on her knees, looking me in the eyes with complete outrage. I recoiled, knowing I was about to really get it from her.

  “Why in the world would I be sitting here telling you this if it weren’t yours?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It was just the first thing that flew out of my mouth. I—”

  “You what? You think I’m some kind of whore, running around sleeping with everyone?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Of course not. I just thought, maybe, I don’t know, that our time together had somehow broken you open to the world of sex in some way. I thought maybe it made you want to be more exploratory. You know, with other men. Maybe in Cambridge or something.”

  I should have known that repeating anything Brian had said to me was a foolish idea. He wasn’t exactly the best person to quote when talking to a woman, but I was in panic mode, trying to calm the situation and at the same time process that Ella had just told me I was going to be a father again. It was completely mind-blowing, and she wasn’t giving me a chance to even grasp what was going on. She knew I was terrible with words, and she wasn’t taking into account that I had just been given some really huge news.

  “Not that I should have to explain this to you,” she said, standing up, “but I haven’t slept with anyone since spring break last year other than you. So yes, the baby is yours, not some random guy on a crazy sexcapade. I really thought you might think more of me than that, but I guess I should have gone with my gut instinct. It was obviously a mistake to tell you, especially since all you see me as is a babysitter and a fuck toy.”

  She turned and stomped through the house and out the front door, slamming it behind her. The echo of the slamming door reverberated through every part of my body, causing me to shudder. I should have gone after her, but I knew that would only make things worse, especially since I was still sitting there in complete and utter shock. How could I have missed that? How could I have not been prepared when she said she had big news to tell me? Talk about being sideswiped. She had completely knocked my feet right out from under me and then kicked me in the stomach while I was down. This was huge, and I didn’t have the first clue how to handle it.

  Chapter 30

  Ella

  That next morning, I woke up with Taryn already there for me. She had known I was going to tell Will the night before, and she had seen me come back enraged and shut myself in my room. When I walked into the kitchen, a pot of decaf and a plate of bacon and eggs for the two of us was waiting for me.

  “You are, like, the world’s greatest sister,” I said, sitting down at the table. “Really, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  “Be hungry and crabby,” she joked. “So, tell me what happened.”

  I took a deep breath and launched into the story, telling her about me opening up to him, how everything was going so great, and then how I told him. I shook my head as I continued into the worse half of the story and ended it with me stomping away and slamming the door. I picked up my cup of coffee and took a sip, feeling like I was right back there in the living room with him.

  “I just can’t believe it,” I said. “I mean, I can’t believe he would ask me if the child was his or someone else’s.”

  “Maybe he didn’t actually think that,” she said, trying to calm me down. “Maybe he was in so much shock that he just word vomited all over himself. From what you’ve told me, he doesn’t seem to be very good with words.”

  “Or maybe he really thinks I’m some young whore,” I said. “I mean, when you care about someone, you don’t usually have those thoughts.”

  “Look, I know I haven’t had any really serious relationships, so that makes me a novice in the area of dating advice, and I don’t know a lot about love, but I do know you,” she said. “I can tell you that I’ve seen how you are with Will, and every time you were with him, especially at the beginning of all this, you were happier than any other time in recent memory.”

  “Ugh,” I said, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. “Why does this have to be so confusing? This was not what I had planned out in my mind. I had planned to be happily married, successful, well-traveled, and living in my dream house before I got pregnant. I imagined being excited to tell my husband that we were pregnant and having him smile with pride and joy, not ask me if it was another man’s. I mean, I really do want to be with Will. The man isn’t the issue. he way this man has been for the last year is the issue. He is hot and then cold, and then hot and then cold, and then somewhere way off the charts where he is in macholand, thinking he can just have me whenever he wants. I mean, there is a serious part of me that wonders if he acted that way and asked that question because he’s really just looking for a reason to run. The look on his face was one of absolute terror and mortiifcation, not of support and care like it should have been.”

  “Right, but remember, you just told him he was going to be a father again,” Taryn pointed out.

  “I know,” I said, looking down at my plate. “I’m trying to remember that, but it’s hard when he has never given me much hope at all that he ever planned on being there for me, much less for a baby. I guess I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up or even thought that the response would be anything other than what it was. I did this to myself really.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I would say that.” Taryn giggled. “That would be kind of difficult, unless there is something I don’t know about you.”

  “Very funny,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You know what I meant.”