𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄ᵃʳⁱᵃⁿᵃ ᵍʳᵃⁿᵈᵉ

six

3 months later
  
   "oh, hi! i missed you two so much!" vanessa squealed as she opened her apartment door, her green eyes landing on eli and i. we both gave her identical big smiles as eli ran into her arms. she giggled, picking him up and walking further into the apartment. i followed, closing the door behind me.

   "you go play, alright?" i hear her whisper to my son before she sets him down on the hardwood floor. he jumps up and runs down her hallway, his sneakers making his steps loud. vanessa sighed before she turned to me, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. "y/n, hey."

   she walked up to me with her arms raised, and i wrapped my arms around her slim waist as we hugged. i sighed into the hug, feeling the tension release from my body at her touch. "i missed you," i groaned into her shoulder.

   i had spent the entire weekend with ariana and eli, and seeing ariana's very pregnant stomach hurt me every time i looked at her. it hurt me to know that ariana was going to try and live out the rest of the six months of her pregnancy like everything was fine. once she popped that baby out, i obviously would know it wasn't mine.

    still, she was the mother of my child and my first love, so i decided to help her through the pregnancy so she didn't have to do it alone. vanessa had broken up with dalton the night of the party, and when ariana told him she was pregnant, he just disappeared into thin air. god, the boy was a dick.

   i felt vanessa smile into me, making a smile grow on my face too. "i missed you too, y/n." she pulled away, even if i really didn't want her to. before she completely lost contact with me, she placed her hand on my cheek and pecked my other.

   you see, vanessa and i flirted with each other a lot, but we've never taken any step further. neither of us were ready for that yet, and we both knew that. instead, we just kept our flirty relationship with each other and just longed from afar.

we were both in pain, and we were helping each other through that. i don't know what i would do without her.

——

3 months earlier

my eyebrows furrowed and i felt bile build up in the back of my throat. "you—you're what?"

ariana let out another broken sob, still holding her stomach that apparently was growing a child. a child that was not mine. "i'm pregnant." she repeated in a whisper.

i felt the anger rise in me again, remembering the conversation we had this morning. was she asking if i wanted another child—and then was going to pretend the baby she's pregnant with right now was mine? this fucking bitch.

i stood up, beginning to pace again. "is this why you were asking me about more kids, ariana?!" my voice raised slightly.

ariana jumped, seeming startled by my tone. "i-i don't know i just—" she cut herself off abruptly, holding her face in her hands as she cried. i only scoffed, "you just what, ariana?!"

ariana lifted her hands from her face and looked into my eyes, the same hurt that i probably had surging through them. she brought her hand up and wiped a tear that had fallen down to her neck. "i know how much i've hurt you, y/n. i could see it in these past few years—i could tell that you knew. and i could tell that eli knew," her voice was choked up. "fuck, this is so horrible but when i found out that i was—you know—i thought to myself: ""maybe this is your chance, ariana. your chance to fix everything you've done wrong to your son and your wife that's done nothing but love you."" i just wanted some normalcy before we ended for good."

i ran my hands through my hair and nodded, just wanting to go to bed. i sat back down in my chair across from ariana, still not saying a word. we sat for maybe another ten minutes, and as we did, i couldn't help but think back to when ariana told me she was pregnant with elijah.