“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull. I have a girlfriend.” The way he tips his head when he says girlfriend makes me think that she’s upstairs. Maybe that’s why he’s being so quiet. Why he won’t let me in. I step closer to the house, so if she’s looking out the window she can’t see me. I don’t want to make things any harder on him than they already are. I don’t want to hurt him. I just want him to know. I just want him to help.

“I’m graduating,” he says. “I have a job lined up. I won’t let you ruin it. We used a condom. I always used a condom with you. It’s not mine.” His chest is getting red and splotchy from the cold.

“There wasn’t anyone else,” I say. “There wasn’t anyone it could have been.”

“Bullshit,” he says. “You drive around and sleep in other people’s houses and fuck anyone who looks at you the right way. You think I don’t know that?”

“You’re the only one it could be.” I don’t know why I thought Justin would somehow be thrilled that I’m telling him the truth. Like I expected a fucking parade for being honest.

“No,” he says, “I’m the one with a future to kill. With something you can steal.”

“Justin—”

“Don’t think I never noticed how you always took something. Money missing. Other stuff. I don’t owe you more.”

“That wasn’t what it was. I always—I always liked you.”

“You’re basically a prostitute,” he says, opening the door to the house, “and you need to leave.”

“It’s a boy,” I tell him. “Your baby.”

He shuts the door behind him and turns the porch light off.

I sit in my car across the street digging my fingernails into my palm. I can’t bring myself to drive away, just in case Justin will suddenly come running out and invite me in and put his hands on my belly and he’ll feel Max kick and everything will change for him. Everything will change for us. I would give up the road. I would give up my guitar. I would give up everything in a second if I could have a good home for me and Max. A real place with a floor that isn’t on wheels, where there aren’t any lies left to catch up with me. I fall asleep waiting and by the time I wake up, the cars in the driveway are gone and no one answers when I knock on the door.

— Chapter 67 —