Page 8 of Girl, Forgotten (Andrea Oliver 2)

“Em—” He wasn’t going to let her walk away so easily. “I’m just—are you really okay? Because it’s weird that you’re here. It’s weird that we’re all here, but particularly because, well, your shoes. They seem to be missing.”

They both looked down at her bare feet.

Emily barked a laugh that gonged through her body like the Liberty Bell. She laughed so hard that her stomach hurt. She laughed until she doubled over.

“Emmie?” Blake put his hand on her shoulder. He’d thought that she’d lost her mind. “Should I call your parents or—”

“No.” She stood up, wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry. I just realized that I’m literally barefoot and pregnant.”

Blake reluctantly smiled. “Was that on purpose?”

“No. Yes?”

She honestly didn’t know. Maybe her subconscious was doing weird things. Maybe the baby was controlling her hormones. She would easily believe either explanation because the third option—that she was batshit crazy—would be an unwelcome development.

“I’m sorry,” Blake said, but his apologies always rang hollow because he kept making the same mistakes over and over again. “What I said before. Not before, but way before. I shouldn’t have said … I mean, it was wrong to say …”

She knew exactly what he was talking about. “That I should flush it down the toilet?”

He seemed almost as startled as Emily had been when he’d made the suggestion so many months ago.

“That—yes,” he said. “That’s what I should not have said.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.” Emily felt her throat tighten, because the truth was, the decision had never been hers. Her parents had made it for her. “I need to—”

“Let’s go somewhere and—”

“Shit!” She jerked her injured wrist away from his grasp. Her foot landed awkwardly on an uneven stretch of sidewalk. She started to fall, clutching uselessly at Blake’s tuxedo jacket before her tailbone cracked against the asphalt. The pain was excruciating. She rolled to her side. Something wet trickled between her legs.

The baby.

“Emily!” Blake fell to his knees beside her. “Are you okay?”

“Go away!” Emily pleaded, though she needed his help to stand up. Her purse had been crushed in the fall. The satin had ripped open. “Blake, please just go. You’re making things worse! Why do you always make things worse?”

Pain flashed in his eyes, but she couldn’t worry about him now. Her mind was buzzing with all of the ways that falling so hard could’ve hurt her child.

He said, “I didn’t mean—”

“Of course you didn’t mean it!” she yelled. He was the one who was still spreading rumors. He was the one pushing Ricky to be so cruel. “You never mean anything, do you? It’s never your fault, you never screw up, you’re never responsible. Well guess what? This is your fault. You got what you wanted. It’s all your damn fault.”

“Emily—”

She stumbled, catching herself against the corner of the candy shop. She heard Blake say something, but her ears were filled with a high-pitched screaming sound.

Was it her baby? Was it crying for help?

“Emmie?”

She shoved him away and stumbled down the alley. Hot liquid dribbled down the insides of her thighs. She pressed her palm against the rough brick as she tried to keep herself from falling to her knees. A sob choked her throat. She opened her mouth to gulp in a breath. Salt air burned her lungs. She was blinded by the sun bouncing off the boardwalk. She stepped back into the darkness, leaning against the wall at the base of the alleyway.

Emily looked back at the street. Blake had slunk off. No one could see her.

She bunched up her dress, using her injured arm to hold up the folds of satin. With her good hand, she reached between her legs. She had expected to find blood on her fingers, but there was nothing. She leaned down and smelled her hand.

“Oh,” she whispered.

She’d wet herself.