Page 9 of Secret Triplets, Second Chances

LARA

A t first, Jake looks like he doesn’t understand what I said.

I stare at him, feeling the wall of tears at the back of my throat, and I realize I had no idea how hard this was going to be. I’m willing him to get it, so I don’t have to repeat myself again, so I don’t have to say the words that are breaking my heart, and clearly also breaking his.

His hair is practically standing on end, and there’s something gray that looks like plaster on the left side of his head. A smudge of dirt stripes under his left eye, and I resist the urge to reach out and run a thumb over it, to wipe it away.

This week, I kept telling him I was sick, trying to find more time to figure out what to say to him, how to tell him that I wasn’t going. There was a part of me that secretly hoped he would just leave for Michigan without me, forget that I had ever existed.

But now, looking at him, I realize I was stupid to ever think Jake Bradford would do something like that.

“What are you talking about?” he asks, and the hurt on his face is worse than anything I’ve imagined in all the scenarios I’d run through my head. Right now, Jake looks like the world is crumbling around him, and I want to make it better for him, but I can’t. I’m the one causing the problem.

I wanted him to be angry with me to make this easier. Suddenly, I wish I had gone to him, that I hadn’t avoided this. For a brief moment, I think about cracking and telling him the truth.

About our baby.

But I can’t do that. I know that if I do, if I tell him that I’m keeping the baby, he will stay. And I’m not going to let him sacrifice all his dreams when he’s worked this hard for them. When it’s all he talks about.

When he’s told me, point-blank, that he never wants to be a father.

Then I think about taking it back, telling him that I am going. But that would mean hiding the pregnancy from him or telling him once we got there. If not, it would mean terminating the pregnancy.

I know that isn’t the right decision for me. I want to keep this baby.

Which means I have to go through with this and follow my plan, even though the look on his face is making my stomach feel like a black hole.

“I can’t go with you to Michigan, Jake.”

He stares at me, and I watch the moment it settles in for him. He leans forward, glancing into my room like he’s worried someone might be with me, making me say these things.

“Something came up,” I add, unhelpfully, knowing that it sounds weak. It sounds like an excuse, like the lie that it is.

“What are you…what are you talking about?” he asks, shaking his head.

When he runs his fingers through his hair, they get caught on the gray stuff, and he yanks hard enough that it makes me flinch.

“You said you wanted to come with me. We’ve been getting ready for months.

I thought— I thought you told your parents. ”

“I didn’t.” My voice is nearing a whisper now, and I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing I could fast-forward through this interaction and save myself the heartache. “I decided not to, since I’m not coming with you.”

“Are you going with Zachery? To Europe?”

“No.”

“Then… what? Are you going to college?”

“I— I’m going to stay in Wildfern Ridge.”

Jake staggers back like I’ve physically struck him. He swallows, his eyes roaming over me like he might be able to identify the problem if he just looks hard enough. Like I’m a structure with a weak point, and all he needs to do is strengthen me with a well-placed two-by-four.

“So you don’t want to come with me ? Is that it? You’re breaking up with me, and it has nothing to do with Michigan?”

“I’m not—” I pause, throat clogging up when I realize I am breaking up with him. For some reason, it had never occurred to me that I would need to break things off with him to keep this secret. The hurt snowballs, and I reach out, holding onto the wall to stay upright.

“Can you just talk to me?” Jake asks, his voice nearly cracking, his hands raised, palms up, like a plea. “Please, Lara, I don’t understand what’s going on. Is it something I did?”

“I want to stay here,” I choke out, shaking my head and looking down at my shoes. “I don’t want to go with you. And I… obviously, we’re going to have to break up.”

“So, you’re scared?”

He doesn’t sound angry when he says it, but when I look up at his face, there’s something under his expression that I didn’t see before. A buried fury. I’m not quite sure it’s for me, but I feel its heat anyway.

“No, I?—”

“You’re running away from this because you’d rather stay in Wildfern Ridge, where you feel safe, than try something new. It’s the same reason you’re not going travelling with Zachery, and why you didn’t apply for college.”

“Jake,” I hiss, glancing over my shoulder, worried that my parents will hear.

“You’re afraid to leave because this is all you’ve ever known,” he spits. “I thought you were braver than that, Lara.”

He has a right to be angry, but he’s being way too loud.

Fear pounds through me. Fear that my parents are going to hear and come up to my room, and see him standing here. And later, when I have to eventually come clean with them about the baby, they’re going to have a pretty clear idea of who the father is.

Only Zachery and I can know. This thing has to be airtight in order to work.

I can do this. For Jake. I will.

“Jake.” His name comes out short, a sharp syllable, and it stops him short, his face falling as he looks up at me.

I hold his gaze for a long moment, set my jaw, and cross my arms over my chest. Before I can change my mind, I say, with my voice as level as I can keep it, “I want you to leave. And I never want to see you again.”

I’ve seen the expression Jake has on his face before — the same look was on my dad’s face when he found out his parents had died in a car accident. Devastation. Anguish.

Grief.

“Okay,” he whispers, and everything in me aches to reach for him, to pull him to me, to apologize and take it back. To tell him the truth.

For a second, I think it might be worth it. Sacrificing his future and taking away his chance might be worth getting to have a life with him.

But I know that it’s not. And that’s how I know I’m in love with him.

Silently, Jake turns, grabs onto the trellis, and swings his body over the side like he’s not overly concerned about whether he falls. I gasp and take a tiny step toward him, reaching to catch him just like I did that day in the tree house, but he’s gone.

I don’t even see him leave the yard before I turn and walk back into my bedroom, where I sit on the edge of the bed and bury my face in my hands.

Logically, I know that things are about to get much worse. This isn’t going to be the hardest thing about the path I’ve chosen to take.

Over the past few days, while feigning illness to Jake and my family, I’ve been combing the internet, reading about other girls choosing to keep their babies at a young age. Reading about what it’s like as a single mother and how to tell your parents about the situation.

And I’ve been watching videos of births. Reading about birthing experiences. Looking at all the opinions about getting an epidural and managing pain, natural births, and all the ways a person can ruin a baby without meaning to.

How well-meaning you can be and still mess everything up.

Knowing all that, I’m aware that everything after this is going to be harder than what just happened with Jake. But I also know I’ll never be able to forget the look on his face today. The hurt in his eyes when he turned and left.

The fact that he’s going to a future without me, and I wasn’t even able to say a proper goodbye.