Shatter (True Believers #4)(43)
Author: Erin McCarthy

That made me smile. “Mother Teresa was a nun. She wasn’t supposed to be getting preggers.”

“Whatever. You get my point.”

“I do get your point. And I know you’re right. But I need to feel sorry for myself today.”

“You’re allowed to do that. But you can’t trash-talk yourself.”

An enormous plate of food was placed in front of me. “I’m going to eat this like it’s my job.”

“And you should totally do that.”

“Don’t you have class today?” I asked her as I shoveled a forkful of hash browns into my mouth.

“Yeah, but I skipped for my best friend. She’s kind of a big deal to me.”

That made me feel a little less sucky. “Thanks. You’re a big deal to me, too.”

“I didn’t tell Rory. I thought you might want to tell her yourself. But I did tell Riley.”

“Okay.” Everyone was going to know anyway. “I’ll call her once I get my phone back. It’s at my apartment and Jonathon has the keys.”

“He’s being great, you know. In case you hadn’t noticed that,” Jessica said, pouring nine thousand pounds of syrup onto her waffle. She seemed to be on a sugar kick. Being with Riley was good for her. She didn’t worry about every single calorie that went into her mouth like she had before. “Jonathon’s a keeper.”

Grateful my mouth was crammed full of eggs, I just nodded. I knew that Jonathon was a keeper but I also wasn’t sure what this would do to our relationship. We were together because of the baby and now there was no baby. Would he still want to be with me? I was a burden to him. I had been from the beginning. It was an unequal relationship, with him being responsible for caring for me. He had been the giver, me the taker.

“Speak of the devil.” Jessica picked up her phone. “He’s calling me.”

“Why is Jonathon calling you?”

“Let me ask my spirit guides for psychic direction.” She made a face at me. “I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s because he wants to talk to you.” She swiped her phone and put it to her ear. “Hello?”

I held my hand out automatically but she sat still, listening to whatever he was saying. Finally she said, “We’re at the pancake house. She was hungry. Sorry, I didn’t think to text you. I thought you were going to be gone for a while still.”

He obviously said something else because she said, “Uh-huh,” but then mouthed to me, “talk to him?”

I shook my head rapidly, having a sudden adverse reaction to the thought. I didn’t want to talk to him. He would ask me how I was feeling and I would tell him fine and then what? I had nothing to say right now and I didn’t want to come across like an ass**le by being blah when he had been so amazing the last five weeks.

“Oh, sorry, she’s in the restroom. I’ll have her call you a little later.”

Her eyes widened as he responded. “I think she can go the john by herself. It’s okay. I’ll have her call you later. Bye.” Jessica hung up the phone, looking horrified.

I wasn’t that surprised actually. He was hands-on and usually that was a good thing. But at the moment I was feeling a little too helpless, like I needed to reassert my independence.

“WTF. Does he think your uterus is going to drop into the toilet? I’m not accompanying you to the bathroom.”

“For which I thank you.”

“I guess I can’t fault the guy for caring, especially since I live with a guy who refuses to buy my tampons when he goes grocery shopping.”

“He is a nice guy.” I sighed as I cut my waffle. “He’s going to stay with me because he feels guilty,” I told her. “Then eventually he’ll get sick of me and he’ll dump me and it will all be a waste of time that utterly breaks my heart.”

Her fork paused halfway to her mouth. “Honestly, I have never heard you talk like this. It’s freaking me out. When did you become such a pessimist?”

Was that what had happened? “I’m having a bad day,” I said pathetically, tears springing up.

Her face softened. “Of course you are. Do you want me to sing ‘The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow’ to you? That’s what you always do to me when I’m upset and I end up so annoyed with your cheerfulness that I forget to be sad.”

I gave a watery laugh. “Yes. That’s exactly what I want you to do.”

She did. It was off-key and she had the words almost completely wrong, but she sang her heart out to me, until I was laughing, amazed and grateful that I could.

“Thanks,” I told her. “That was the best thing I’ve heard since I saw a video of Kermit the Frog covering a Bee Gees song.”

“I aim to please.” Then she started laughing, too, when she held up her phone to show me the screen. It said “Kylie’s john.” “OMG, your boyfriend is calling again. I guess he figures that was sufficient time to pee.”

“I can’t believe you saved his number as my john. That does not sound okay.”

She shrugged. “It’s funny. Now you better answer or he might show up here with a medical team.”

Jessica had a point. I took the phone. “Hello?”

“Kylie?”

“Yes. Hi. Sorry I missed your call before.” Lie. Total lie.

“That’s okay. I just stopped back home to check on you between classes and you weren’t there and I started to worry.”

“I got hungry so Jess is buying me brunch.”

“Okay. That’s good that you’re eating.”

“Yeah.”

Awkward silence.

“So you’re okay?”

No. “Yeah. How are you? With everything?” I asked, because it wasn’t like this, the big this, had happened to just me.

“Me? I’m okay.” He sounded surprised by the question.

“Can you pick me up later at Jessica’s?” I didn’t want to go back to his apartment. It was too unfamiliar. “I can text you her address.”

“Sure. What time?”

“Whenever you’re done for the day. I don’t want to interfere with your schedule.”

“That will probably be about seven. I have to tutor a student at five.”

Why did that suddenly make me completely and irrationally jealous? Had he ever slept with any of his other tutoring students? “Okay, that sounds fine.”