Downplay| Jordan Clarkson & Quincy Brown

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"You can't keep it." Lucas' voice was firm as he stared down at her.

They'd known each other for years, keeping their secret smiles and desires to themselves. He liked her but he loved her sister, half-sister. Yara knew this but Lucas was the only person that had ever cared to ask her how she felt about things. When she spoke, he listened intently. When she fell, he'd always picked her up until she fell for him. When she'd needed him most he'd chosen Aya.

Everyone always chose Aya, there dad, their grandmother Mary, even her friend group Kaia and Zolee gravitated more towards her sister. The only people that had given equal attention to both were their brother Amari and Lucas.

Now that was all gone, he'd made his choice and it wasn't her. She was wide-eyed and 18. He was five days from 19 and still healing from her sister's betrayal. They'd broken up but he never stopped loving her. Yara should have known but she'd been eager to let him bury himself in her so she could feel a modicum of the love she'd dreamed of receiving from him.

"Lucas, I... don't know if I could get rid of it. I don't think I can do this." Her voice trembled as she looked out the window and took in the cold exterior of Planned Parenthood.

"You have to Ya. We're not ready to be parents, we're not even in love."

Her heart ached; he wasn't but she was sure that she was. She had been since seventh grade and she'd had to sit back and watch him love her sister for years. It wasn't fair but then again life had never been fair to her.

"You just don't want Aya to know." Yara's thoughts escaped her lips and made her blush while Lucas froze. His jaw tensed at the mention of her sister's name. Aya was pregnant with another man's child.

"I'm just not ready to be a father Yara. Look, this is messy okay? We should've never gone there. I love you but I'm still in love with your sister."

"She moved on Lucas, she's having another man's baby, isn't that enough of a sign for you? She's never loved you the way you loved her, but I do."

Raising his hand , Lucas shoved open his car door before coming to her side and opening hers for her.

"We're not doing this Yara. I don't love you and all that kid is going to do is cause drama, tie you to a person who won't feel the same for you and trap you here. Do you want that?"

His words stung her. As she turned away from him, she caught her reflection in his rearview mirror and felt stung. She was becoming her mother, pining for a man who wouldn't have her. Lucas was ashamed, he regretted her, he didn't love her, and she knew deep down she believed the child in her womb to be a mistake. Her father had also called her a mistake once.

As she turned to the clinic, she steeled herself.

She wouldn't be her mother. She couldn't bring a child into a situation this heartless and unfair and most importantly, she couldn't stay in Colorado. There was nothing here for her, perhaps there'd never been.

"Yara?" Ebony waved her hand in front of her friend's face as she examined the glazed look in her eye.

Yara had taken a week to come to terms with her situation. It opened old wounds and poured salt in the fresh ones. She'd been here before, but no one knew, she'd never told a soul. After that fateful day, her and Lucas stuck to pleasantries and pretended that everything was okay. She thought she had forgiven him, but she realized she'd just buried him like she did everything else.

Running her hands through her curls, she came back to earth and shrugged Ebony's concern away before dejectedly staring down at the pancakes on her plate.