Burn Our Bodies Down(65)

“I told you!” she shouts. “I told you and told you.”

“Theresa,” Mr. Miller starts.

“It’s not Eli. I have no fucking idea what’s going on!” Her mother is looking up at her, mouth open, aghast. She doesn’t move as Tess storms away from the table, eyeliner running as tears track down her cheeks.

Connors frowns, takes a step forward, but an officer is already crouching between Mr. and Mrs. Miller, and another two are gathering rolls of paper towels to clean up the mess. I take advantage of the distraction and hurry around the edge of the room, following Tess to where she’s thrown open the back door and disappeared.

It leads to the floor of a stairwell, the flights above running up to the ground floor and beyond. I find Tess sitting on the bottom step, her forehead pressed to her knees. This close I can see a streak of blood down the side of her dress, and the long tear in her cuticle that must’ve caused it. I sidle inside and let the door swing mostly shut behind me.

“It’s me,” I say, and she looks up. Deep hollows under her eyes, sallow skin. She looks like she’s barely slept. I won’t ask if she’s okay—I already know she’s not. She was like this yesterday, too. Before I ruined everything.

“What’s going on?” I ask instead.

For a moment she does nothing, and then she sighs, folds over and presses her forehead to her knees again.

“I can’t believe this,” she says, her voice muffled. “I can’t actually believe this.”

I sit down next to her, careful to leave room between us. “Believe what?”

With a huff, she straightens, her hair coming loose from its threadbare elastic. I watch as she sneaks one hand onto her stomach.

“This is,” she starts, and then she breaks off. Laughs, incredulous and angry and near the edge of something. “I was feeling sick yesterday. I have been for a few days. Just like, on and off. It was nothing. It was absolutely fine. Except my mom freaked out about Eli staying over all the time because apparently that means we’re sleeping together and she made me take a test and. Yeah.”

Oh.

Oh.

“You’re…” I trail off. I don’t want to be the one to say it.

Tess does it for me. “Pregnant. With child. Owner of one oven containing one bun,” she says, hysteria bubbling under every word.

“Um,” I say. “I guess. Congratulations?”

“Go to hell,” Tess says, but she laughs weakly, the air rushing out of her, and her body tips against mine. We fought, but we’re here, and I can be this for her. I can be someone she counts on.

“So it’s not Eli’s,” I say. I remember those boys outside in sports coats. Somehow I can’t imagine Tess with any of them. With anyone. “Is it…Can I ask whose it is?”

“Go ahead and ask,” Tess says into my shoulder. “And if you find out, let me know.”

My eyes widen. I fumble for the right words to ask if she’s okay, if she’s safe. To make sure she knows that whatever she needs, that’s what I’ll do, but she keeps going before I can find them.

“I just don’t get it. I don’t know how this is happening.”

“What do you mean?” I ask slowly. There’s something else going on here. Something I’m missing.

“I mean, it’s physically impossible.” She twists her skirt in her fists, knuckles going white for a moment. I lean away from her, try to get a good look at her face. “I thought the test had to be wrong, right? But my mom made me take four, and they all said the same thing. I’m literally the fucking Virgin Mary over here.”

I should say something. But I can’t work past the shock. She’s serious. She’s really pregnant, and if I understand her right, she’s saying there’s no father. No nothing. Just…her.

The stairwell light catches her cheeks, pulling shadows across her eyes. Her fingernails have been bitten down, stripped clean of polish. She laughs, bitter and sharp. “How does this happen?”

“Okay.” I do my best to sound calm. In control. One of us should be. “Let’s take it in pieces. You said your mom made you take tests?”

Nodding, she shuts her eyes and lets out a breath. “This morning.”

“And there’s definitely no way there could be a father?” I say slowly. Her eyes flick open, and she shoots me a look that’s half exhaustion, half despair.

“Please,” she says. “It doesn’t make any sense to me. So don’t ask me to make it make sense to you. It’s too much. I mean, I’ve got my mom asking me about Eli and my dad won’t even look at me, but God forbid we miss this fucking party, and—”

She breaks off as someone knocks on the other side of the stairwell door. I turn to look. Gram’s face peers through the gap I left, arranged in the sympathetic expression I saw on her when I got to Fairhaven.

“Everybody all right in here?” she says. Bright and soothing and perfect. This is the grandmother I came here for, the grandmother who did my hair and dressed me up, but now it puts me on edge. This is a performance. I can see that now. And if she’s like this, there’s a reason.

Tess sniffs and wipes her nose on the back of her arm. “We’re fine,” she says. “Sorry to cause a scene.”