Keep Me If You Can (If You Can #3)

23. I Ruined Everything

Chapter twenty-three

I Ruined Everything

T he only thing that stopped me from assuming JP had hung up was that I could still hear the faint sounds of the gym in the background.

Past that, there was only silence. He’d gone so quiet that I didn’t know if he was even breathing.

“You’re joking,” he finally said.

I closed my eyes, my stomach churning.

“Babe,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Are you joking?”

“It might be nothing,” I said. “It’s probably nothing. I’m late. Like, two days late. Which I know isn’t a lot. But I missed a couple of pills this month and I’m freaking out and I can’t leave. Anne-Marie is here and my dad’s having this party tonight and I—” My voice caught and I shoved a hand beneath my nose as it started to water. “I’m scared.”

I wasn’t exactly prepared for any specific reaction from JP, but there were a few options I might have thought were likely. I might have expected him to get angry, or to panic, or to ask incredulous questions like “How the fuck did you miss a couple of pills?” and “How do you know it’s mine?” and “So you’re getting an abortion, right?”

But even though in hindsight it was by far the most likely reaction, I was still shocked when he took a breath, let it out slowly, and spoke in a calm voice.

“How long before people show up for the dinner party?” he asked.

“An hour, maybe,” I said.

“Alright. Here’s what’s going to happen.” The background sounds faded until all I could hear was JP’s voice. “I’m going to go to the dep and pick up a test. And some Advil. I’ll put it in a bag under your car and let you know once it’s there. You tell Anne-Marie you’ve got a headache and forgot your Advil in the car and run out to get it. Then go to the bathroom, take the test, and call me while you’re waiting. We’ll find out together.”

“I…” I said, then trailed off.

“What?” he asked.

“That’s… smart.”

A hint of laughter tinted his voice. Not much, but it was there. “It’s amazing what you can think of when you’re not freaking out.”

“I think I have a right to be freaking out,” I said.

“Sure, but it won’t do any good,” he said. “Shit happens. The first thing we have to do is figure out what we’re working with and go from there.”

My eyes watered again. “Since when are you so logical?”

“It’s a pretty good trait for a lawyer, babe.”

I didn’t think he intended to let the pet name slip out after my rant about it, but I didn’t mind all that much. “Don’t call me babe.”

“One of these days you’ll stop saying that,” he said.

“One of these days you’ll stop doing it.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you. I know how much you love it.”

I glared down at the bathroom floor. He wasn’t wrong, but like hell was I going to admit that.

“Nell?” he said. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“It’s not, actually,” he said. “It’d be a hell of a lot easier if we were—”

“Don’t,” I whispered. “Don’t do this to me right now.”

“—friends,” he finished after a pause. “If we were still friends, babe.”

My heart dropped. “Are we not?”

“I wasn’t sure,” he said. “I haven’t heard from you and then you just said we were friends, not that we are friends. So I guess it depends on what you want.”

I bit my lip, but it wasn’t enough to stop my chin from trembling. “I want to be friends.”

“Friends it is, then,” he said. “Now go get ready for your party so I can get the test.”

After hanging up, I took a few minutes to let my heart rate drop as much as it could and dabbed a cool cloth on my eyes, willing the redness to go down. Once I was done, I took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Are you feeling alright, chérie ?” Anne-Marie asked, glancing at me in the reflection on the mirror as she blended out her blush.

“Yeah,” I said. “Just a, uh… unsettled stomach.”

She nodded knowingly. “It happens. Do you need some stomach medication? I have some Imodium in my purse, which I am sure is too much information, but I keep forgetting to take my Lactaid pills before eating, so—”

“I’m okay,” I said quickly. “Really. What were you saying before I left?”

“Oh,” she said. “Just that my mother refused to let my dad cut off Jean-Paul completely and reminded him he has no say over the trust funds my grandparents gave each of us. Not that I think Jean-Paul would need to rely on his because he is quite responsible with his money, but I am glad he has it as a backup. Just so not everything is going wrong all at once.”

“What else is going wrong?” I asked before I could stop myself.

She glanced at me, her eyebrows raised.

Right.

Me.

I was going wrong.

“ Chérie ,” Anne-Marie said, her voice guarded. “May I say one thing about what happened—”

“You promised , Anne-Marie,” I said.

“It’s only that I want to apologize.”

“What?” I asked.

She sighed, looking down at her hands. “In my mind, it wasn’t such a big deal. It was just silly and playful, the way people are about things like this. But Jean-Paul explained… a lot. About why you didn’t want anyone to know. I am sorry I didn’t respect that. But more, I am sorry I wasn’t a friend you could trust to share that information with.” She looked up, her eyes glimmering. “I wanted so badly to talk to you about everything going on. And Remy, he kept telling me to call and explain, but I kept telling myself I did not deserve your help when I was never that person for you.”

And just…

Fuck.

Fuck .

My stomach churned again, guilt and sadness and remorse blending together.

“Thanks,” I said. “I, um… am also sorry. That I… I, um, slept with your brother.”

She waved a hand. “ Chérie , if I stopped being friends with everyone who slept with my brother, I would have perhaps three friends and at least two of them would be lying to me. As much as I would love for you and Jean-Paul to—”

“Annie,” I said, my voice low.

She lifted her hands. “I will not lie to you and pretend my opinion has changed on that, but all I mean is that he has a tendency to get around. It is no big thing. And I understand why you did not tell me, so there is nothing for you to be sorry for. But if you would be willing to forgive me…”

“I do,” I said. “Of course.”

Aesthetically, Anne-Marie was incredibly beautiful. Even if she didn’t curate her appearance with the latest fashion and high-end makeup and regular salon treatments, she would still be one of those girls that people looked at in awe because she was so pretty .

The way she smiled right then, though, was probably one of the most beautiful smiles I’d ever seen on her face. It was bright and relieved and genuine.

And it killed me because I didn’t feel like I deserved it.

Anne-Marie threw her arms around me and I hugged her back, agreeing the same way we did when we were kids that we would simply never fight again, even though we both knew we’d probably fight again at some point. We went back to getting ready and Anne-Marie must have felt like she’d gotten enough of her family drama off her chest, because she switched to talking about how Bruno had finally admitted to Remy that he was unhappy with Niko and needed to break up with him.

Which was good, because obviously I wanted to be happy that my friend was getting out of a toxic relationship.

But it was bad, too, because the topic was distracting enough that I almost forgot I was freaking out about my period being late.

And that could have been a good thing, but it meant that I wasn’t fully paying attention to my phone while I rinsed my makeup brushes in the bathroom.

“—and of course Remy said he’d be happy to be there while Bruno talked to him,” Anne-Marie said as I walked out of the bathroom with the clean brushes. “And—oh! You got another message, chérie .”

She reached for my phone, which I’d stupidly left sitting on the vanity.

And I panicked.

“Stop!” I half-shouted.

And unlike the last time I’d shouted at Anne-Marie to stop, this time, she froze, her eyes going wide.

“What—” she started, but I lunged across the room, the makeup brushes scattering along the top of my vanity as I threw them down and snatched my phone up. The message popped up on the lock screen beneath one that had been sent a few minutes earlier.

Bastard

Left it there in a white plastic bag

You there?

Thank God he was smart enough to keep it vague.

“What is wrong?” Anne-Marie asked, concern in her voice.

“Nothing,” I said. “I… I thought it was going to be something else.”

She lifted her eyebrows and I knew exactly what she was thinking, but before she even had the chance to forget that she said we weren’t going to talk about it, I started towards my bedroom door.

“I have a stomachache,” I said. “I left my Advil in the car. Be right back.”

“I don’t think Advil will help with that, chérie ,” Anne-Marie said, but I ignored her as I ran out of my room, still clutching my phone in my hand.

My heart wasn’t pounding so much as it was fluttering, like it was anxious vibrations scattering through my veins instead of distinct beats. Slipping my shoes on, I dashed outside, glancing around to make sure no one was watching as I strode up to my car. I unlocked it, yanking the back door open so I could at least pretend I was looking in the place it would make the most sense for me to find Advil, and leaned down to see where he’d put the bag.

Except there was no bag.

I blinked, staring at the stretch of stone beneath my car, empty except for a few pieces of gravel and a crunchy looking leaf.

Maybe I was looking at the wrong spot, I thought. Straightening up as gracefully as I could, I walked to the other side of the car and repeated the action.

No bag.

I went to the hood. No bag. To the trunk. No bag. To the Porsche parked on the driveway that JP knew damn well wasn’t mine.

No bag.

Me

Where is it?

He must have been watching for my text because he replied seconds after I sent it.

Bastard

Where I said it would be. Under your car

Fuck.

There wasn’t much I could do but take a last look before going back into the house. I opened the door, bumping it with my hip as I typed another message to JP.

Me

It’s not there. I checked under all the—

“Looking for this?”

I dropped my phone.

It clattered against the tile in the foyer, the sound not quite sharp enough to echo in the cavernous room, and came to a stop screen down about a meter away from my dad’s feet.

My dad, who was holding a white.

Plastic.

Bag.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

“I imagine you must be,” my dad said. “Seeing it was your car I found it under.”

“How—” I breathed.

“I believe you have heard of windows,” my dad said dryly. “I happen to have several them in my house. A few of which look out the front, where I was very curious about why Jean-Paul Marchand was poking around my daughter’s vehicle.” He let one of the bag handles drop open so he could reach in. “Now I am even more curious why the boy next door was leaving this underneath my daughter’s car.”

And he held up the pink-and-white box containing a two-pack of pregnancy tests.

“Me too,” I said. “I wonder what—”

“What is this for?” my dad asked, his voice like ice.

“Maybe you should ask J—”

“What is it for ?” he repeated.

“I don’t—”

“So help me God, Eleanor, I—”

“It’s mine.”

For a moment, I wondered how the hell I’d learned to say things without speaking, because while the pregnancy tests were most definitely mine, that voice wasn’t. But as my dad turned to look at the staircase, I followed his gaze and saw Anne-Marie standing near the top.

“Is it?” my dad asked.

“Yes,” Anne-Marie said. “I needed those.”

“Bullshit,” my dad said.

I looked at him, stunned. “Dad—”

“It is not bullshit , Mr. Belanger,” Anne-Marie said stiffly. “I did not want my parents to know, so—”

“So you asked your brother instead of your partner?” my dad said. “You asked him to leave it outside under someone else’s car instead of simply bringing it to you directly? You asked him to bring it here instead of your own house, even though your parents are not home?”

Anne-Marie hesitated. “Well… yes.”

He stared at her, then turned back to me without another word. “Are these yours, Eleanor?”

I glanced at Anne-Marie. “She just said—”

“Tell me the truth or I will call Jean-Luc and ask him to come speak with his daughter,” he said. “Given everything else going on right now, I imagine that would not be especially welcome, would it?”

“Dad, that’s not—”

He shook the box in my direction. “Tell me my daughter is not this stupid.”

“I—”

“Are you?”

“I’m not—”

“Were you stupid enough to get yourself pregnant, Eleanor?”

And maybe someone else would have been able to hold it together.

Maybe someone else would’ve kept denying it and denying it and denying it until a man who was not known for giving in finally gave in.

Maybe someone else would have cried, hoping tears would be enough of a distraction to turn the conversation around, or at least enough to suppress the sparks of rage from being interrupted every fucking time she tried to say something.

But I didn’t hold it together.

I knew he wouldn’t give in.

And even though the path to freedom existed right behind me, since the door was right there and I had my car keys in my hand and my shoes were still on my fucking feet, I couldn’t see it.

So, like always, I ruined everything.

“I don’t know !” I snapped. “That’s what pregnancy tests are for !”

Predictably, my dad lost it.

Unpredictably, he’d never lost it quite like that.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Anne-Marie pull her phone from her pocket as my dad hurled words at me. Because of course there had to be a witness to the worst moment of my life. And of course it had to be her, who would probably memorize everything just so she could repeat it to everyone. Which was quite a feat, considering he let out a string of French profanity featuring a mix of things I could barely translate paired with insults I’d never considered my father even knew.

Not because I couldn’t picture my dad swearing at someone. I knew he did. I’d heard him swear at my mom when they were still together. But the things he spat at me just then were words I pictured him thinking were too vulgar, too low-brow, too common for someone like him to use.

But apparently for me, he had no problem summoning up a variety of creative ways to call me a promiscuous embarrassment of a whore.

“Dad, stop,” I asked when there was enough of a break in his words for me to cut in. “I’m not—”

“Stop?” His laugh sounded like knives stabbing through muscle and hitting bone. “Stop. As if you have ever once considered stopping your behaviour. You are belligerently hostile. You take and take and take, and in return mock me openly, insult me at every turn, and now do the one thing I was certain you were not stupid enough to let happen after seeing the disaster that is having an accidental child.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate knowing how much I ruined your life.”

“I did not say that,” he said. “Your mother is the one who chose that path and while I sincerely hoped you would not follow in her footsteps, here you are putting things in motion before you’ve even finished the degree you were so insistent on taking.”

“I don’t know if I am,” I said. “It’s just a test .”

“I thought you were better than this,” he said. “But I suppose you do have your mother’s hair, her attitude, and apparently, her stupidity, because you are just as impulsive and stubborn and moronic as she is.”

“Jeez, that’s a horrible thing to say to your own child.”

Maybe if I hadn’t already felt like I was free-falling off a cliff, I would have jumped at the voice behind me, but all I could think was that the entire neighbourhood must already know because I didn’t close the door properly. Though, it was entirely possible that he’d opened the door himself and I was so wrapped up in the viciousness of my dad’s words that I hadn’t noticed.

Regardless, I wasn’t even shocked by JP suddenly appearing on the other side of the foyer. I wasn’t shocked that he spoke, or by the realization that I’d shrank back from my dad so much, I was nearly pressed against the wall.

All I felt was relief.

“Jean-Paul,” my dad said, his voice still cutting and sharp. “What happened to not sneaking in the back door to see my daughter?”

Instead of crumbling under my father’s gaze like so many others had, JP let one of his easy, casual smiles spread on his lips. He put one hand in the pocket of his basketball shorts—because apparently he hadn’t even changed before leaving the gym, which I had no idea how to interpret—and glanced around the room as though it wasn’t filled with a cloud of boiling tension.

“I never snuck in, Mr. Belanger,” he said. “I only came in the back door when it was specifically requested.”

How he could make me want to laugh in a moment like that, I’d never know, but I had to clamp my jaw closed to hold it in.

“Do you truly think that blithe attitude is appropriate?” my dad asked. “Though, I guess I should not be surprised. Perhaps your shared lack of sense is part of the attraction.”

“Dad, please,” I said. “Stop.”

“Why should I do that, Eleanor?”

“Because—”

I hesitated. There were a thousand words, a thousand reasons why, but they were all swirling around in my mind like leaves caught in twisted wind, just high enough that I couldn’t snatch them out of the air.

“—you’re embarrassing me,” I finished, because it was the only thing I could find.

My dad scoffed. “I am doing no such thing. You alone are responsible for any embarrassment you feel. You made your bed—or his, I presume—and you can handle the consequences.”

“Stop talking to her like that,” JP said. “She’s your daughter .”

“ My daughter would not be embarrassed by this kind of thing,” my dad said. “Because my daughter would know better than to get herself into these situations, seeing as I did not raise my daughter to be a slut.”

There was more he wanted to add. His mouth was still open to send slicing words at both me and JP.

But a roar from above silenced my dad in a way I’d never seen before.

“How dare you?!”

We all looked up, including Anne-Marie, who nearly stumbled off the steps as she turned. Standing at the top of the stairs was Kimberlee, her hair pulled back in a low bun. She looked to be about half-ready for the party, clad in a pair of leggings and a cute pink top with a bow on the front that didn’t seem to be her style at all.

And she looked furious .

“How dare you, Max?” she said again. “Do not tell me you truly said what I think I just heard.”

My dad’s face twisted. “You do not get to—”

“I absolutely do!” She stormed past Anne-Marie, lifting a finger and pointing it at him as she stomped down the rest of the stairs and walked right up to him. “I do get to tell you that you should not—not ever —speak to Nellie like that. To anyone like that! How could you even think such a thing?”

Rather than look like a chastised schoolchild, which is what I would have looked like if Kimberlee had scolded me like that, my dad’s nostrils flared into a sneer. “You do not understand.”

“You’re right,” she said, her voice strong. “I do not understand how this monster lived in you the whole time.”

That was what made my dad react. It was a blink and barely a shift of a facial expression, but coming from my dad, that was like a physical recoil.

“You promised me,” she continued. “When you threw her clothing out and I told you how you treated her was the worst behaviour I’d ever seen. You promised me, Max. You promised you would change and never do anything like that again. I did not think I had to specify that you would do nothing worse , either.”

My father said nothing.

“You have a smart, accomplished, strong, and talented daughter, no thanks to your own contribution,” she said. “And who puts up with horrible things from you to receive the bare minimum. The things she should get by default. The things you signed up for when you decided to be a parent.”

He’d never decided that. I was a mistake.

“We will discuss this later,” my dad said. “Right now—”

“You may not have later,” Kimberlee said. “Seeing as I am currently wondering if my decision to allow you to be a parent again is the greatest mistake of my life.”

Silence.

Silence broken only by the sound of my heartbeat in my ears, faster than usual but somehow steady, despite the turmoil around me.

“What?” I said.

I couldn’t see Kimberlee’s face, but my dad was staring directly into it, a silent battle raging between them.

“Yes,” he finally said. “That is why this dinner was planned. To announce that Kimberlee is pregnant.”

Kimberlee was pregnant.

With my dad’s baby.

She had to be fucking insane.

“How… how did…” I stammered.

“You certainly seem to understand the ‘how’ of it,” my dad said. “Considering you’re about to potentially experience it all on your own.”

“She’s not alone,” JP said. “And potentially is the key word there, Mr. Belanger. Seeing as this whole thing started because I stopped by to bring Nellie a test so she could know for sure.”

“How responsible of you,” my dad said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “At least one of the two of you has some semblance of a brain in their head. Perhaps there’s hope for the little bastard, assuming it’s yours and she hasn’t been out there spreading her legs for everyone else.”

Again, silence.

JP wasn’t smiling anymore. No one was. Anne-Marie’s mouth was open, Kimberlee was staring at my dad, and I couldn’t even breathe, let alone say something. JP looked at me, his gaze finally meeting mine and holding it. His eyes were stormy and clouded and heated, betraying nothing more than his anger.

What if he agreed?

I’d hooked up with Ben just a week earlier, though JP didn’t know about that and Ben had come in my mouth, so if I was pregnant, it was pretty damn unlikely to be his.

But all JP would know was that we’d never been exclusive. And he wouldn’t choose this. Who would? Who would choose to stick around for the barrage of vitriol from my dad all over the potential of being pregnant?

For a long, terrifying, silent moment, I was nearly convinced JP was going to shrug, then turn on his heel and walk right back out the front door.

Then, not breaking eye contact, he jerked his head towards the stairs.

“Go get your stuff, Nell,” he said. “You can come stay with me.”

“She absolutely will not ,” my dad said.

“You absolutely do not get to make that decision,” JP shot back.

“You do not come into my house and tell my daughter to—”

“If your daughter isn’t a slut, then I guess I’m not your daughter,” I said.

My dad looked at me, his mouth half-open.

“Space seems to be a good idea,” Kimberlee said, stepping back from my dad. “I think I’ll do the same.”

Some people explode when they’re angry. My dad wasn’t like that. He blew up sometimes, certainly, but when he was angry—really, truly, furiously angry—he imploded. The room went quiet as every bit of tension and energy seemed to draw itself to him, and his face transformed to stone as he looked at Kimberlee.

“Fine,” he said. “Leave.”

And he turned on his heel and walked away, footsteps echoing down the hall as he went to what I assumed would be his study.

For a long, quiet moment, all of us stared at the spot he left, like it was a black hole that couldn’t help but absorb our gaze.

“Babe,” JP finally said. “Go get your stuff.”

“Babe?” repeated Anne-Marie, her amused tone completely out-of-place in the tense room.

Part of me prickled, ready to snap at JP that he didn’t get to tell me what to do.

That I didn’t need him to protect me.

And for the love of God, to stop fucking calling me babe.

But I knew that anger wasn’t directed at JP.

And I knew I needed to go.

“I’ll just be a sec,” I whispered, then avoided looking anyone in the eye as I started up the stairs.