Free Fairytale Lost by Lori Hendricks Page B

could remember was that Zavia had an intense and overwhelming need for eggnog—damned inconvenient too, since Zee’s first trimester had occurred during the spring of the year.
    Finally deciding to order something and hit the grocery store, she called an Indian restaurant that wasn’t too far from her house and ordered several different entrees. They all sounded good, but she wasn’t sure what she would be able to hold down. As she threw on some presentably clean clothes and ran a brush through her hair (dear God, when was the last time I combed my hair, she thought, as the brush got caught in yet another knot), she made a quick list of necessities and headed out to the store.
    She grabbed her purse, remembering that the doctor had given her some pamphlets about healthy pregnancy as well as a referral to an obstetrician. She pulled the first pamphlet out. It was titled A Joyous Time and had a picture of a happy couple and a cute baby. The sight of the man in the picture instantly brought the father of the child she was carrying to the front of her mind, the one she’d taken to bed then let walk out of her house and her life. Emmalyn threw the pamphlet on the table, grabbed her keys, and headed out the door.
    Unable to wait until getting home to begin eating, she grabbed a piece of buttery naan from the box on top. She munched on the delicious flatbread as she drove home. Isabel and Zavia were sitting on her stoop waiting for her.
    “Dammit,” she cursed to herself.
    Emmalyn wasn’t ready to have this conversation with herself, let alone her two best friends. Em pulled into her driveway and grabbed the food off the front seat.
    Zavia rushed over to her, blocking her in the doorway of the car. “Where in the hell have you been? I have been trying to reach you for days now,” she charged.
    “I’m fine. I’m not dying.” Emmalyn smiled and tried to move around Zavia, but Zavia was having none of Emmalyn’s flippant attitude.
    “Emmalyn, I swear I am about this close to beating the shit out of you right here. Now what in the entire fuck is going on with you? Missing work? Not answering your phones, texts, emails? I’m worried about you.” Zavia began to tear up, illustrating just how worried about her friend she’d really been.
    Em blushed in guilt and embarrassment. “I know you are. I know you both are. But please, give me some time, and I’ll tell you everything. I’m just not ready to talk about it yet.”
    “What about work?” Isabel asked. Since they’d generally partnered up on most of their projects, Isabel had been covering Emmalyn’s share of the work, but that was getting tiresome.
    “I’ve taken a short leave of absence. I talked to HR and Martin and they’ve agreed to two weeks.” Emmalyn couldn’t quite meet Isabel's eyes. She knew she should have told Isabel directly, but she wanted to avoid just this kind of confrontation. Isabel simply walked away. She took her purse off the stairs and headed toward the car she and Zavia had ridden in.
    Zavia turned on Emmalyn, anger pulsating in her eyes and in her voice. “You have one week to tell me what is going on with you, or so help me God, I will do you harm. Do you hear me? You push our friendship too far sometimes.” Zavia turned away, not giving Emmalyn a chance to respond. Em couldn’t do anything but stare as the two people who had always been there for her, no matter what, drove away in anger.
    “Why didn’t I just tell them,” she thought to herself as she unpacked her car and carried her food and groceries into the house. But she knew exactly why. She didn’t want them to know she’d slept with Lukas and that she was now going to be having his child. But she was going to have to fess up, and soon. And not just to Isabel and Zavia.
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    Z avia paced the floor anxiously . Their planned intervention with Emmalyn did not go as planned. If anything, the encounter left Zavia even more worried than before. Back at Isabel's