Page 37 of Something Like Sugar (Pine Forest Something #2)
SHANA
TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER
B roken.
That’s how I feel. Torn in half, like a fragile sheet of loose-lief paper, crumpled in on myself because I thought we’d both changed.
He warned me he’d never be able to control that side of himself. The one that can’t stand by and hold back.
Still.
I never should have let myself go on that stage and speak in the first place, leaving him alone with that scummy flinger-has-been, somehow resurrected from the depths of my memories and shoved in a suit and seat at our very table.
It felt odd.
I should have known there was something connecting him to Dustin’s father and the properties when I saw him at the table by Mr. Campbell, but this?
In front of several hundred of my peers in the Business Elite, I’ve been humiliated.
I take the elevator twelve floors up to my suite, not even caring that I’ve wiped mascara across a thousand-dollar dress I imagined Dustin unzipping me from only hours ago.
I slam the door behind me and promptly tear the heels and gown from my body to change into one of Dustin’s oversized shirts and some dance shorts.
In an instant, I feel safe. It even smells like him… Nautica, that stupid glass bottle I’ll always go gooey for because of him.
Because it brings me back to our roots, and that reminds me what we really are.
Forever.
As long as I have memories, Dustin’s been in them. And I never want to think that will change, even if I am bummed some other parts of him seem to be holding on steadfast and not so amicably.
Mainly the fighting. The unnecessary urge to stick up for me. To solve it all.
But I guess it goes both ways. I have an unnecessary need to bundle up my woes. And he knows I’d have tried to handle it completely on my own had I known what he knew about my building and Lawrence Lawson.
Still, I’m angry for the secrets. All they do is cause people to hold onto feelings for centuries, like me and Dustin. I smile at that memory.
But I guess I haven’t been so truthful either. Not where secrets are concerned, at least. The biggest one of all being the one Dustin and I have been keeping from his sister. From everyone except Lemon and Jeremy, really.
“I want to tell Dev,” I tell Lemon over the speaker phone.
I dialed her up a few moments into my ruminations and threw on a face mask to cool off my puffy eyes.
“I’ll talk things out with Dustin and lay into him for sure…
but still. After all that, I want this secret, and all secrets, put to rest. Everyone knows everything from now on. ”
“No more hurling balls, then?”
“Guess not.” I sigh, reaching my hands above my head and knocking into the shelf above the hotel headboard. It’s fancy up here on the Twelfth Floor, Elitists and all . I roll my eyes as Lemon bursts into laughter over the phone, but then I see something that pulls my mouth into an instant smile.
“He left me a note!” I squeak happily.
“Over your anger already?” Lemon shakes her head in faux disappointment, but I can’t help myself.
I am mad.
But I also love him.
So, I unfold it and read aloud.
Seeing you in fancy gowns has nothing on the stars we saw before. Meet me there when you see this.
-XO, Your Octopus
“Uhh?” Lemon squints up close to the screen. “Does that mean something to you because it’s weird, per usual.”
“It does.” I swoon, recalling our dance around the aquarium only a few hours ago.
“He wants me to meet where we went earlier today. I know I’m supposed to still be mad, but…
is it super weird if I just want to hug him and make sure we’re all right?
” Even if he was in the wrong for giving in to Lawrence’s shit, which he one hundred and twenty percent was, life is better with that grumbly milkshake man.
And I am proud of him for showing quite a bit of restraint tonight.
The old Dustin would have thrown a punch before appetizers had been served.
I smile at that. At the progress he and I have both shown in our own lives.
“You’re worse than Hunter and Devyn,” she teases, but the smile stays in her eyes when she assures me I’m not a total relationship moron.
“It’s normal to want to make up. I think .
I’m no expert in staying in relationships, as we all know, just starting them.
” I hold back a snicker when she gives me a serious look.
“But you and Dustin have clearly been a match for—”
“Centuries?” I offer excitedly, and she nods in agreement, her support and friendship wrapping me up like I didn’t know I needed. Because we do need our friends, as much as it hurts to lose the ones we love, loving them at all is worth it for people who are there when you need them most.
“Hold on, Lem, I didn’t see I had a voicemail from before I turned my phone on silent at the gala, but I still need to figure out what to say to him when we meet. He can’t be totally off the hook, ya know?”
“For sure, babes. I wouldn’t dream of letting him slide easily if I were you. Groveling and oral at the very least for punishment if you’re asking for my honest opinion.” She clicks her tongue sassily into the camera as I laugh in agreement.
“K. Hold on, lemme click over.”
The recording plays in the background, and I recognize almost immediately it’s from the Pine Forest Health Center. The therapist I’ve been seeing has been working to get me on meds to help with the anxiety surrounding Dad’s situation, and that eases my mind a little.
“Miss Holiday, this is a notification from the afterhours nursing staff at Pine Forest Health Center. Because you have signed authorizations indicating we may relay health information and lab results to you via phone or voicemail, we are exercising our right pursuant to…” blah blah blah, the bored-sounding nurse recites her script on the message, and I don’t want to wait any longer to find out my doom.
I just want to leave this room and find Dustin.
“Recent lab results show that you are not a viable candidate for benzodiazepines, therefore your prescription will not be filled as previously discussed with your healthcare provider. Please call our office for additional information or check your health portal for test results. Thank you for trusting the staff at Pine Forest Health with your—”
I end the call, immediately dialing the doctor’s office, but it’s almost eleven on a weekend.
Of course they’re closed. Ugh!
I switch the call back to Lemon, who is still on hold, the amazing friend that she is, and every scary thought rolls out of my mouth at once. “What if it’s bad? Why can’t I be on an anxiety medication? What if—” I can hardly speak it. “What if I’m like my parents, Lem?”
“Stop it!” Lemon snaps. “Look me in the eyes.”
I do.
“Go to your health portal and pull up your lab results. We’ll read them together. Okay?”
I do what she asks, taking her off video to log in and promptly clicking the newest attachment. “I got it.” I study the document, confused and equally frustrated. “I don’t know what any of this means!”
“Look at the key on the right as you go down the list,” Lemon explains, “If it’s out of normal ranges, it should show up in red.”
“This one does.” My breath leaves my lungs. “It says positive, hCG 36.”
Lemon gasps.
“Shay, you’re pregnant.”
Sadness, happiness. Fear and apprehension.
All of them course through me like an injection to my heart.
I rummage for my keycard, leaving my purse on the bed.
We’ll be back here soon, because I refuse it to be any other way, needing more than anything to be with the man I love, regardless of what happened at the gala.
None of that matters now—meaningless fights and grudges.
Our family is what could be.
I yank at the door, rushing my thoughts to Lem, my fears, plans, hopes…whispers of words that don’t make any sense at all as they stumble directly from my stillblown mind and out of my mouth with no filter.
My future.
No, our future, Dustin and me.
And this baby.
Not the last of my kind.
“I’m pregnant.”
But speaking it feels like a sting . That can’t be right.
I shake my head, colors and light spinning around me as I try desperately to maintain the truth I just held so close, one where a life now lives inside of me.
But the sting is a sting, pinching at my neck. Alarm censors beat from my chest as I use all the force I can muster to slap my hand against the entry point, and I feel it there.
A needle .
A scream rips from my chest; the last thing I manage to get out before my body hits the ground.