Darcy fired back instantly: "Don't let those of us WITH kids be held up by someone who doesn't have any! What, are you blind? Can't see the hospital's official stamp?"
Half the frustration knotted up in my chest finally loosened.
I hummed to myself through the rest of the afternoon.
Then I snapped a photo of the flowers someone had sent to help me relax and posted it on Instagram.
"It's nice to have someone who cares."
Toby, who never interacted with my posts, actually replied:
"Does lying to yourself actually help? Don't go around telling people I sent those."
In his eyes, I wasn't even worth that much.
I didn't respond.
After work, while I was waiting for my ride, a familiar car pulled up in front of me.
Toby rolled down the window, irritation written across his face. "Get in."
I stayed where I was. "I already called a car."
"I'm not asking. Get in."
I had no choice. I texted the other person not to send a driver after all.
Out of habit I walked toward the passenger side, but one sharp glance from him stopped me.
I got in the back without a word.
Toby drove fast. Too fast. The wind tore through the open window like a blade against my skin.
At a red light, he reached for a cigarette without thinking and lit it.
Then his eyes dropped to my still-flat stomach. He crushed the cigarette out.
"You can't keep this baby. What happened that night, I can compensate you for it, but I'm not taking responsibility for a child's future."
My hand drifted to my belly. Something clenched tight around my heart.
"The way you talk, it's like I forced you that night. Let me say it again: I don't need you to take responsibility. The baby isn't yours."
Toby swore under his breath and slammed his palm against the horn.
"You're still keeping up this act? I don't think you're attractive enough for some other guy to want you."
He studied me through the rearview mirror. Nothing but mockery in his eyes.
The car window caught my reflection: sallow skin, hollow cheeks. I didn't bother arguing with what he said.
Toby had always been the golden boy. Tall, handsome, hardworking in school, good at sports.
The girls who chased him could've lined up from our front doors all the way to campus. Even my breakfast got covered by his little fan club.
Plain-looking as I was, they'd silently agreed I posed no threat.
The first time I handed him a love letter on someone else's behalf, he looked genuinely alarmed:
"Hey, why are you giving me a love letter? I don't like you. Don't make this weird."
I pushed my thick glasses up my nose and told him the truth:
"I didn't write it. Someone asked me to pass it along."
"Oh. Good." He let out a long breath of relief. "Just so we're clear, don't get any ideas about me. You're basically genderless in my eyes."
The sting of those words sat somewhere I couldn't name, but I followed him around obediently for three years anyway.
Then we ended up in the same class in high school.
One day after basketball practice, he went out of his way to find me and grab my water bottle.
"Let me have a sip. I'm dying here."
The setting sun hit his sweat-slicked face, and he was blinding.
For the first time, my ears went red as I told him no.
"What's the big deal? Since when are you this stingy with your buddy?"
He snatched it anyway, tipped his head back, and drank.
After he tossed the bottle back, I slipped into a corner where no one was looking and secretly took a sip from the same spot.
That was when I knew. I'd fallen for him.
And he didn't feel the same.
I started caring about how I looked. Tried ditching the glasses. Clumsily smeared on makeup until my face looked like a mess.
He laughed without mercy. "Hideous."
Later, I threw away over fifty points on my SATs because I was dead set on going to college in the same city as him.
Truth-or-dare confessions, drunken rambling, dramatic scenes, every kind of desperate hint I could manage.
All I ever got back was his contempt and our mutual friends' vicious teasing.
The last time was three months ago, at a birthday party.
I'd gone out to grab him cold medicine and was heading back to the private room when I heard the group crowded around Toby, placing bets:
