Free Lovestruck Forever by Rachel Schurig Page B

about a dozen tests.” Her face crumpled a
little before smoothing out. “I was so sure it was a mistake.
Turns out it’s real—a nightmare, but a real one.”
    I
felt completely lost for words. When we were little, Sofie and I had
mapped out our entire future together while sharing a sleeping bag in
her basement during one of our many sleepovers. I was going to be a
famous writer and marry a Mr. Darcy clone, and Sof planned to become
a paleontologist and travel the world looking for dinosaur bones with
Dr. Grant from Jurassic
Park . We figured we’d
have kids eventually, when we were done having fun. In none of the
scenarios we discussed did our future include children before
marriage—before even moving out of her parents’ house, in
Sofie’s case.
    Oh
God. Her parents.
    “Have
you told anyone?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.
    She
shook her head, a few stray tears slipping down her cheeks. “No.
I just took the tests this morning. I’ve…I’ve had
a feeling for a while, though. I think I was just in denial.”
    “Shit,
Sofie. You should have told me.”
    “Before
your party?” She made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a
sob. “Yeah, that would have been great. Happy engagement cuz,
sorry to drop this on you, but I’m knocked up and my parents
are going to kill me.” She shook her head. “Like I said,
a nightmare.”
    “It
doesn’t have to be a nightmare.” I reached across the
table to grab her hand. “I’ll help you. Whatever you
need.”
    She
shook her head, her expression so sad it made my heart twist. “What
I need is a time machine. Don’t think you can help me there,
Lizzie.”
    She
released my hand and started fidgeting with the wrapper from her
straw, twisting it tightly before smoothing it flat against the
table.
    “Is
it…is it the guy from work?” As soon as the words left
my mouth, I felt like an ass, but she merely nodded sadly.
    “Yeah.
Tim.”
    “And
I take it you haven’t told him?”
    She
shook her head. “What’s the point?”
    “If
it’s his baby, he deserves to know, Sof.”
    Her
next words were so soft I had to strain to hear them. “He
doesn’t love me. And I don’t love him.” She met my
gaze, her eyes wide and clear. “There’s no fairy tale
ending here, Lizzie.”
    Shit.
I had no idea what to say to her, how to make this better. I
remembered the brief pregnancy scare Thomas and I’d had last
year in L.A. I remembered the panic and the shock. How scared I was
to tell my parents. And my situation was completely different from
Sofie’s. I had Thomas, for starters— a man that I loved
and was committed to. A man that could and would be happy to take
care of a baby. Sofie didn’t have any of that.
    “We’re
going to get through this,” I said, my voice suddenly firm. She
needed to know that she wasn’t alone, that I would be here
through this, whatever she needed.
    “They’ll
kill me, Lizzie,” she whispered, and I knew she meant her
parents. For a lot of families, a twenty-four-year-old having a baby
wouldn’t be a huge deal, married or not. But our family wasn’t
like most others. To say our parents were old fashioned was the
understatement of the year. I had left to go to London with my
boyfriend—not even living in the same apartment with him—and
my dad had refused to speak to me for months. Sofie wasn’t
over-reacting with her fear of their response.
    “They
will not kill you,” I said, with more conviction than I felt.
She raised her eyebrows at me. “I mean, okay, so they’re
going to freak out. That’s a given.” She laughed a
little, and I felt a rush of relief. At least she wasn’t
sobbing anymore. “But seriously, Sof, what’s the worst
that they can do?” I shook my head. “Yell for a while?
We’re used to that, being the terrible rebels that we are.”
    My
second attempt at being lighthearted didn’t even elicit a
smile. “They’ll kick me out, Lizzie. I bet they won’t
even speak to me.”
    I
swallowed,