Number Nine

Chapter Five: A Few Mistakes Ago

I was just a pawn, you played the part so well it hurts to know you're gone. Did you mean it? Could you feel it when you broke into my head? Did you fake it just to break another stranger in your bed? Was it worth it, was it perfect, when you up and left me cynical? Like you planned it, you're a bandit; just a no good, too big, filthy rotten criminal.- All Time Low, Get Down on Your Knees and Tell Me You Love Me

Lea stared at the two boxes on her bed.

One was familiar, the printed BULGARI on the top seared into her memories like a scar. Inside was the necklace Tim had given her a couple of weeks ago, before she'd left and changed her number. Beneath it was a note in his handwriting. It had taken her fifteen minutes before she'd been able to force herself to read it.

Lea—

This was a gift. It was meant to be yours. I was meant to be yours, too, and I'm not giving up. I love you too much to let you go without a fight.

He hadn't signed it. He didn't have to. She knew who it was from.

She considered mailing it back to him, but something stopped her. She wasn't sure what.

Maybe it was the other box. This one was empty, and she held its contents in her shaking hand:

A pregnancy test.

It was positive.

She could get an abortion. She considered it momentarily, but quickly decided that no, she wanted it. It was hers, it was Tim's, and she wanted it. So she signed up to take as many classes at once as she could so as to finish school as quickly as possible and set things in motion to move back home to North Carolina with her mom.

She had to tell Tim, though. She knew she did.

Lea called him from her new number, her voice raw from crying. "Hey," she sniffled into the phone when it went to voicemail. "Sorry to bother you, I just wanted to let you know that I took a pregnancy test and it's positive. Call me or text me if you wanna talk about it."

It took fifteen minutes for him to text her back.

Tim
I think you have the wrong number, sorry. Please don't contact me again.

And that was that. So much for the note with his little declaration of love, huh?

She wandered the streets of New York mindlessly, looking up at the buildings she'd be saying goodbye to soon. It was for the best, really. The city reminded her far too much of him.

"Hey," a woman's voice interrupted her thoughts. Lea looked at the girl. She was tall with dark hair, tan skin, and visibly pregnant. "I know you." Lea raised her eyebrows in surprise, and the woman nodded. "You're Lea."

Furrowing her brows, Lea said, "Huh?"

"I'm Olivia," the girl told her, glancing around at the people walking past them and leaning closer to whisper, "One of Tim's girlfriends."

Lea's eyes widened, and she realized that this was the Olivia that Tim had said was pregnant a few months back. "Oh," she breathed, shocked.

"Well," Olivia sighed, straightening up again, "ex-girlfriend now, I guess."

"Why, uh... why ex?"

Olivia shrugged. "I loved him and wanted him to myself. Figured it was better to leave than raise a kid with a man who's fucking other women."

Lea nodded emphatically in agreement. "Wow, uh." She gulped, immediately feeling a kinship with this woman. "Me too, actually. I broke up with him 'cause he doesn't love me the way I love him. And now..." She put her hands on her stomach.

Olivia's eyes widened in shock. "Shit, you too, huh?"

Lea nodded. "I'm moving back home in a few weeks."

"Where's that?" Olivia wanted to know.

"North Carolina," Lea told her.

The other girl sighed. "Sounds nice. I don't have anywhere to go."

Lea considered this for a moment. "Well... you could come with me if you wanted. Work out a roommate situation or something."

Olivia blinked at her. "You don't even know me and you're offering to let me come with you?"

She shrugged. "We're the same. We'll understand each other, I think. And anyway, strangers move in together all the time. If you don't have anywhere else to go, why not?"

Olivia considered this. "Yeah," she finally agreed. "Why not?"

As it turned out, Lea and Olivia—or Livvy, as she'd taken to calling her new friend—had a lot in common. Livvy was big into historical fashion, too, and she knew a whole bunch of weird obscure facts.

"I hate how good of a kisser he was," Lea complained as they sat on her mom's couch several weeks later.

"Ugh," Livvy groaned, "I know. I'm not sure how I'll ever get over the bastard."

"Me neither," Lea admitted, reaching for the bag of potato chips that sat between them. "I guess it works out, though. I never wanted love to begin with. Now I've had it and learned that it's never going away, apparently, which is fine. It'll make me less tempted to try again with somebody else."

"You'd never been with anybody before him, right?" her friend recalled.

"Nope," Lea confirmed, popping the P. "First kiss, first love, first everything."

"And he gave you that," Livvy said, gesturing with a potato chip to the necklace that Lea wore.

"Yeah," Lea said softly, "he gave me this."

Livvy stared at her for a few seconds before deciding, "What an asshole."

"Yup," Lea agreed. "He's a dick alright."

"I still think the whole text situation is a misunderstanding, though," Livvy insisted for the bazillionth time. "Tim's a lot of things, but a deadbeat dad ain't one of 'em."

Lea shrugged. "Doesn't matter. He's giving you child support and I'll be done with school soon, anyway. Once I'm done, we can get a house."

"Hell yeah," her friend agreed, reaching for the bag again.

Lea smiled over at her. The truth was, she was miserable. She was miserable and she was broken and she cried herself hoarse at night, but at least she wasn't alone in this. Maybe she'd recover someday, maybe she wouldn't. Either way, though, she and Livvy were in it together.