Chapter 1
Graduation night was supposed to feel like the beginning of my life.
Instead, it became the night I found out my best friend was pregnant by my boyfriend.
I still remember the sound of the music shaking the gym walls.
I remember silver balloons floating above the dance floor.
I remember my name printed on a paper banner beside the words Senior Class Celebration.
I remember thinking, for one perfect hour, that I had finally survived high school with my heart intact.
I was wrong.
My boyfriend, Ethan, had kissed my forehead beside the punch table and told me he was proud of me.
“You did it, Ava,” he said.
I smiled like a fool.
“We did it.”
He looked away too quickly.
I should have noticed.
I should have noticed the way his hand slipped out of mine whenever my best friend, Mia, walked past us.
I should have noticed how quiet she had been all night.
Mia had been my person since seventh grade.
She knew every ugly cry, every family fight, every dream I was too embarrassed to say out loud.
When my mother left when I was thirteen, Mia slept over for three nights and held my hand while I pretended I was not waiting for the front door to open.
When Ethan asked me out junior year, Mia helped me curl my hair and screamed into a pillow like she was the one going on the date.
So when I saw her rush out of the gym with one hand pressed over her mouth, I followed.
I thought she was sick.
I thought maybe the noise had overwhelmed her.
I thought a hundred things before I thought betrayal.
The girls’ bathroom near the auditorium was empty except for one stall with the door half open.
I heard crying.
“Mia?”
The crying stopped.
“Ava, don’t come in.”
Her voice sounded wrong.
Thin.
Terrified.
I stepped closer.
“What happened?”
“Please,” she whispered. “Just go back.”
I pushed the stall door open.
Mia sat on the closed toilet seat in her pale blue graduation dress, mascara running down her cheeks.
In her shaking hand was a white plastic test.
Two pink lines.
For a moment, my brain refused to understand what my eyes were seeing.
Then my heart began pounding so hard I felt dizzy.
“Mia,” I whispered. “Are you pregnant?”
She covered her mouth and sobbed.
I reached for her automatically because she was my best friend and she was crying.
Then she flinched away from me.
That was when fear crawled up my spine.
“Who?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Who is the father?”
“Ava, I’m sorry.”
Those words broke something before she even said his name.
My stomach dropped.
“No.”
She cried harder.
I stepped back.
“No, Mia.”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
The bathroom lights buzzed above us.
The music from the gym sounded far away now.
Like it belonged to another girl.
A girl who still believed people loved her.
I gripped the sink.
“Say his name.”
Mia looked at me with swollen eyes.
“I can’t.”
“Say his name.”
She whispered it.
“Ethan.”
My whole body went cold.
I stared at her.
My best friend.
My sister in every way except blood.
Pregnant by the boy who had just kissed my forehead and called me his future.
“How long?” I asked.
She wiped her face with trembling fingers.
“It only happened once.”
“That is not what I asked.”
She looked down.
“Two months.”
Two months.
Two months of lunches together.
Two months of sleepovers.
Two months of Mia sitting on my bed while I talked about college with Ethan.
Two months of both of them watching me trust them.
I laughed once.
It sounded so broken it scared me.
“You let me talk about him.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When? After the baby shower?”
She sobbed.
“Ava, please.”
The bathroom door opened.
Ethan stepped inside like he had been listening.
His face was pale.
“Babe,” he said.
I turned toward him slowly.
“Don’t call me that.”
He lifted both hands.
“I can explain.”
Mia cried harder behind me.
I looked from him to her.
My boyfriend.
My best friend.
My whole world standing in a public bathroom under fluorescent lights, looking guilty.
I pulled my graduation sash off my shoulder and threw it at Ethan’s chest.
“I hope both of you remember this night,” I said.
Then I walked out.
But I did not go home.
I walked straight back into the gym.
The principal was at the microphone, asking everyone to gather for the final senior slideshow.
My hands were shaking.
My face was burning.
My heart was breaking so loudly I could barely hear.
Then Ethan grabbed my wrist from behind.
“Ava, don’t make a scene.”
I looked down at his hand on me.
Then I looked at him.
“You made the scene.”
He let go.
Too late.
Because my father had just walked in through the gym doors with flowers in his hand.
He had worked a double shift to make it.
He was still wearing his mechanic shirt.
When he saw my face, the flowers lowered.
“What happened?”
Ethan stepped back.
Mia appeared behind him, crying.
The slideshow screen lit up with pictures of our class.
Everyone turned to watch.
But my father looked only at me.
“Ava,” he said. “Who hurt you?”
I opened my mouth.
For a second, no words came.
Then I looked at Ethan.
Then at Mia.
May you like
And I said the sentence that ended my old life.
“My best friend is pregnant by my boyfriend.”
