“I’m going to finish my senior year.” I shrugged. “And then I’ll work full-time at the diner. I’ll figure it out.” It had never occurred to me to do anything other than have the baby. It was what the women I knew did. No matter how many came along or how little time or money there was to care for them, babies were born around here. It had nothing to do with the faded billboards that lined the highway warning that abortion stops a beating heart, photo of a tiny fetus curled up like a tadpole. Hell, my mama would have spit in the face of anyone who told her she had to give birth, anyone who thought they had any right to tell her what to do, or not to do. But it was also a fact that getting rid of either Cal or me had never crossed her mind.

“You’re in high school,” Zach said, not a question, more of a horrified realization, his eyebrows crawling up toward his hairline. “Jesus Christ. You didn’t tell me that.” He ran a hand through his hair, mussing up the strands.

“Yeah, well, you told me you were passing through. Never heard you mention the girlfriend you had stashed down the road.”

He gave me a weak half smile. “We’re both liars, I guess.”

“I prefer omitters,” I said, and his half smile turned into a real one, warm and bright. My heart squeezed in my chest.

Zach’s smile faded. “For the record, Jenny broke up with me that weekend I met you. We got back together soon after, but I wasn’t cheating, for what it’s worth.”

I nodded, and a loud cheer went up on the other side of the wall, the music swelling against our backs. “It’s getting crazy in there,” I said. “You’re missing your own party.”

“I’m not going to disappear,” Zach said. “You’re not in this alone.”

“Yes, I am.” I held up a hand when he started to speak. “And that’s okay. You have a life and there’s no point in screwing it up. It’s not like you and I were ever going to be a long-term thing.”

“If I’d known . . .”

Now it was my turn to smile. “What? You wouldn’t have married Jenny? You’d have married me instead? Come on. We don’t even know each other.”

He didn’t argue with me, but he didn’t go back inside, either. “You want me to walk away?” He reached out again and this time put his hand on my belly before I could deflect him. The baby kicked out hard, probably because my whole body tightened up at the contact. Wonder exploded on Zach’s face, and when he looked at me, I could see the sadness in his eyes. “Do you know what it is?”

I shook my head. “No. But I think it’s a girl.”

“I want to know this baby,” he said as he pulled his hand away.

I pictured it for a split second. Having someone to help with the bills, someone to hold the baby when I was tired, someone to share the burden. But just as quickly I pictured the look on Jenny’s face when she found out. The look on her mother’s. The talk that would follow my child, the anger, the shame. Being a single, out-of-wedlock mother was nothing new around here. But fucking Jenny Sable’s new husband, forcing him to become a father before Jenny managed to squeeze out a baby herself? That would haunt us forever.