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"You have to tell him."
I sigh and hide my feelings as I remember telling Lily the same words just weeks ago. I look up at my gentle friend and squeeze my eyes shut. From my crouched position on the bathroom floor, I can see his concerned look and instantly feel guilty. I am doing to Luke what Lily did to Calum.
"It's not that easy." I choke out through my anguished tears. "He's gonna hate me."
"Meredith." Calum frowns, squatting down beside me and pushing my hair from my face with a finger. "He could never hate you. And by the off chance that he would, I want you to know that I'll always be here."
"And I'm grateful for you, but you're not Luke. I love him, Cal, and he's the father." I shake my head and use the side of the bathtub to help myself up. Calum stands as well and pulls me into a caring hug, letting his head rest on my shoulder. I squeeze his body tightly and close my eyes.
"Please tell him soon, before he has to find out on his own." Calum whispers, his voice muffled by my shoulder. I nod and hang on tight.
-
Later on in the day, Luke, Calum, Michael, and I all walk down the sidewalk together with plastic bags of groceries in our grasp, feeling very healthy as we make the trek on foot rather than in a car.
"Whose idea was it to walk?" Michael groans, swinging a gallon of milk and a bag of canned goods back and forth as he walks.
I raise my hand. "Mine, sorry."
Suddenly, as if the Earth had suddenly risen to torment me, I kick the edge of a raised sidewalk block and trip over myself, sending vegetables flying down the sidewalk and my body forward. I land on the ground with a thud and scrape my elbows and knees against the rough surface, earning a yelp in surprise from the three boys.
I immediately scramble to my feet and rush past Luke to collect the items from the bag that I dropped, looking for a white box in particular. I had been a bit on edge since I took the first pregnancy test and wanted to confirm the truth with a second, and I didn't want Luke to know anything about this if it's a fluke. Sure, I had been experiencing minor "morning sickness," but the flu is always a possibility.
"Meredith? What the fuck is this?" Luke asks suddenly, drawing the attention of all of us. I grip a shuck of corn tightly and look up at him, preparing myself as best as I can for the worst. In his clenched hand is the white box I had been searching for, his knuckles white as snow and his fingers wrapped so tightly around the item that I'm afraid he'll crush the box.
"Luke, it's n-"
"Don't feed me bullshit, I know what it is." He shakes his head and takes a deep breath. "Is it true?"
My breathing quickens and I feel my nerves tingling. "I don't kn-"
"Is it true?" He shouts, whipping the crinkled box at my feet. I jump away to avoid breaking a toe and nod my head.
"Then why the fuck would you keep this from me? What, did you honestly think I would never find out? Wow, the kind, honest, humble Meredith has a dark side. I should have seen this coming." Luke yells, attracting the attention of bystanders as they pass by.
"Luke, please l-"
"I don't think I can handle anything else you have to say. Just- I think we need to take a break." Luke drops the grocery bag he once held, runs his fingers through his styles hair, and walks off, leaving Calum, Michael, and I in shock.
I bring my hands to my mouth and watch as Luke turns a corner, disappearing from sight. A strangled sob escapes my throat and my knees buckle, sending me back down to the ground that caused this eruption of anger in the first place. Michael awkwardly steps around me to gather the food I dropped when I tripped, and Calum stands behind me in complete shock. A bit of blood from my knee smears on the concrete, sending another wave of tears out of my ducts.
"He's an idiot." Michael murmurs, coming to sit in front of me on the sidewalk. He rids my cheeks of moisture and takes a deep breath through his nose. "He'll come around. Come on, don't cry."
"I can't help it." I whine. "I'm pregnant and single."
"Being in a break doesn't mean you're breaking up forever." Calum says, finally coming to his senses. "Besides, he loves you too much to actually mean what he said."
"He hates me now. What am I supposed to do? We live together, and he just broke up with me...how is this gonna work?" I ask, standing up to straighten myself out. I pull the bottom of my shorts down a bit and make sure my bra isn't hanging out before turning to face Calum.
"We'll figure something out. For now, let's just go home and put these groceries away before the frozens melt." He shrugs.
Once we finish the trek home and put away everything we bought, I head to the bathroom to clean up my knees and elbows from my fall on the sidewalk. I perch myself on the toilet seat and pull a first-aid kit from a drawer under the sink, then place it on the counter to sift through the contents.
When I can't find what I'm looking for, I groan and pout. "Cal? Where's the pain cream shit?"
Calum appears in the doorway of the bathroom with a small tube in his hand and a smirk on his face.
"You're supposed to clean the blood off first, dumb butt." He teases. I shrug and clump up a bundle of toilet paper and wet it before wiping away the dried blood from my knees and the small points of my elbows.
After tossing the half-empty tube of cream into the little red box, Calum kneels down in front of me and helps me clean myself up. I squirt a bit of cream onto my fingertips and apply it to my cuts, then cover them with bandaids - I'm secretly six.
"I'll be right back...wait here." Calum mumbles as he scrambles out of the bathroom, leaving me alone in confusion. Instead of sitting on the toilet waiting, I wobble into the hallway, only to freeze near the entrance to the living room at the sound of Calum's voice.
"You know, Luke, lately I've been taking care of your fiancé a lot better than you have. She's been slowly breaking and all you've done is throw her into the street and run her over." Calum shouts, his voice sounding angrier than I've ever heard it before.
"She's pregnant, Cal! I don't want to be a father yet, and she told you before me!" Luke retorts, his voice slightly more hushed but still laced with anger and humiliation.
"I found out on my own! Jesus, quit assuming everything and actually consider everyone elses' sides." Calum fires. "And now you've just ruined everything - your fiancé is now lonely, pregnant, and depressed because you don't know how to consider other peoples' feelings."
"How would you feel if Lily got pregnant? You'd probably feel like absolute shit too, right?" Luke raises his voice. "Of course this would happen to me - the very first time Mere and I have sex..."
"How do you think she feels?" Calum asks, his back coming into view as he paces around the room. He doesn't mention Lily at all.
"Why do you care so much, Calum? Damn, if you love her so much, why don't you just go marry her and father her kid?"
I cringe at Luke's words and nervously pick at a crinkle on the bandaid on my left elbow.
"You don't deserve her love, you dick." Calum spits furiously. "If this is how you treat women, then I hope you're okay with living alone for the next sixty years."
I scramble into Luke and I's shared bedroom and act as if I had been collecting my things the entire time by tossing my belongings into the box that carried them here. Calum appears moments later with an aggrivated scowl on his face, his hands in his front pockets.
"I know you were listening." He murmurs, his face tilted down to avoid looking at me.
I keep quiet and finish tossing random things into the cardboard box. Once I finish, I hike up my sleeves and lift the box into my arms, then follow Calum to his room. But I make sure to leave one single item behind - Luke's favorite pair of my underwear.
{ ik it's short fight me }
