“I wasn’t with anyone else,” I say, looking down. “He was my first. He was my only.” God, I can’t believe I confessed that last part. He didn’t have to know that, but since I’m already telling him my deepest, darkest secret, I might as well tell him the rest. The minute I say the words, I see the look on his face and the questions that are forming. I’ve been on dates, but they have never even gotten past first base. I tried, but the reality was, none of them were Beau.
“You don’t have to.” He looks at me, and I avoid his eyes.
“After he said that, I knew that I was going to be in this alone. I just …” I put my hand to my stomach the same way I did eight years ago. “I went over it in my head for a week. I even went so far as to tell my mother.”
“Oh, good God,” Beau says and rolls his eyes. He isn’t wrong.
“Yeah, that’s a story for another day. Needless to say, she told me that I would ruin my life by having a baby.” I have to get up now to say the rest of my story, the nerves running through me, but the minute I stand, the room spins, and I fall back onto the couch.
“No more whiskey,” I say, and he smiles at me for the first time since he’s gotten here. But I can’t sit, so I try to get up again, and this time, I get my balance right.
“I scheduled an appointment and went to the doctor. I sat in that waiting room.” I close my eyes, and I’m back in the bleak room with white walls and the blue plastic chairs. No pictures even hung on the wall. It was the most depressing room I’ve ever been in, and you have to think that there is no way it would ever be a happy place anyway. “I sat in the waiting room by myself, and I just kept telling myself that this was the only choice. It was the only choice.” I wipe the tear off my face, but another follows right after. “They called my name, and I got up, but something just …” I shake my head. “I couldn’t do it. I just, he was the size of a pea, but I already loved him more than anything in the world.”
I walk over to the fireplace and look at the picture sitting on the mantel. It’s the first picture they took of Ethan when they placed him on my chest. I will never forget that feeling. It was an all-consuming love, a love I could never put into words. “That night was prom.” My finger traces Ethan in the picture. I turn to look at him, and he sits there, looking like he wants to jump up and grab me, but he knows I have to get this out. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know who to go to.” I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I’m lying. I wanted to come to you.” I’m going to blame the whiskey for that slip. His mouth opens, but I don’t give him a chance to say anything. “I wanted to run straight to you but …” I shake my head. “I just couldn’t tell you. I didn’t want to see the look of disgust on your face.”
He jumps up now, and before I even know what is happening, his hands are on my arms. “I would never ever do that to you,” he says, his voice high, and he moves his face closer to me. He pulls me to his chest, and for the first time ever, I sob while someone holds me. For the first time, I have someone holding me up, and I am not standing by myself.
“I’m so sorry, Savannah.” I wrap my arms around his waist. “It’s over,” he tells me with one hand holding my head.
Standing here in the middle of the living room, he holds me as I cry. This man who has been by my side since I can remember, this man who loves with his whole heart, this man who I would do anything for. “I’m sorry that I ruined your big night,” I say into his soaked shirt. My ear rests on his chest, and I listen to his heart beating. “I never wanted you to find out like that.” He just rubs my back. Neither of us says anything when his phone rings in his pocket. He ignores it, but then it rings again, and I step out of his arms.
“You should get that,” I say and try to smile. “You’re the mayor now.”
He shakes his head and takes the phone out of his back pocket. “Fuck that,” he says, declining the call. He looks at me. “It’s my father.”
“You should answer him,” I say, and his phone beeps in his hand.
He looks down and then up at me. “Emergency family meeting. Tomorrow morning.”
“Oh my God,” I say, putting my hand to my stomach. “Do you think they know?”
“I have no idea,” he says, tossing his phone on the couch. “Regardless of that, I’m going to tell him I know tomorrow,” he says, and I suddenly get nervous because I didn’t tell him everything. “What?” he asks me, putting his hands on his hips. “Don’t tell me there is more.”
“Well …” I look down and then look up. “There is only one more thing,” I say but think to myself, Well, two if I tell him I love him.
“Should I sit down?” he asks, and I wonder if he should or not. “Savannah, you being quiet is not helping anything.”
I shake my hands now to stop them and walk away from him. “Well …” I try to think of a way to tell him this next part. “I kind of …” I rub my face. “I blackmailed your father.”
He looks at me in shock. “What?” He shakes his head. “What did you just say?”
“Well, when I couldn’t go through with the abortion, and Jacob took responsibility for it, he came to see me.” I look at him. “And he told me that he knew I was lying and all this shit.” I get so aggravated. “And then he might have, you know, called me a whore.” I roll my eyes now while Beau hisses. “Anyway, he got me mad, so I told him that I would tell the whole town, and I would sue Liam for paternity, and with that, I’d make sure he paid for the rest of his life.”
“You didn’t,” he asks, almost in a whisper.
“Oh, I did, too.” I fold my hands over my chest. “I had nothing to lose. The town hated me, Jacob secretly blamed me for Kallie leaving, and you …” I shrug. “You stopped talking to me. I had nothing to lose.”
“So what did he do?”
“He wrote me a check for three hundred thousand and made me sign an NDA and also made Liam sign a paper relinquishing his rights as father.”
“Incredible.” He rubs his face and sits down on the couch. “He basically sold his kid for three hundred thousand dollars.”
“Enough for me to buy the bar and this house,” I say, looking around, “and some of the furniture.”
“My head is spinning,” he says, leaning back on the couch. “This night isn’t ending like I thought it would.” I try not to let his words hurt me or wonder what he means by that. I know that he dates, and he goes out often. The girls he dates are not quiet about it either. I’ve gotten drunk many nights while a couple of them were sitting at the bar talking to their friends about him.
“I’m going to wash my face,” I say and avoid his eyes. I walk to my bedroom and go straight to my master bathroom and turn on the water. I shouldn’t have looked at myself in the mirror because when I do, I see that my eyes are puffy, my nose is red, and my hair looks ragged. After I wash my face, I slip out of the dress and hang it up, then put on my yoga pants and a tank top.