Prologue

Prologue

Hadley- 7 months ago…

I clutched the purse against my side as I walked up the steps with a certain amount of vigor you’d never see from me on any other given day coming home from work. Normally after working a twelve-hour shift at the nursing home I’d drag my white slip-resistant sneakers across the metal stairway with my head slumped. Our apartment was on the third floor. I always tried to make it up to my bed to sleep for a few hours before Lucy got up. Sleep was scarce between a full-time job, nursing school, and being Lucy’s mommy.

But tonight was different. I gripped the purse once more with a beaming face, recalling my earlier conversation with Georgie at work.

“Well?” Georgie arched an eyebrow as I stepped out of one of the two stalls in the bathroom at work. “What does it say?”

I couldn’t keep the happiness off my face as I held the stick in my hand. “I’m pregnant.”

“Lord, child.” She shook her head and was slow to smile. “I didn’t think you were serious about trying for your second one.”

“I wanted Lucy to grow up with a brother or sister close to her age,” came my normal response as of late, since I heard something similar from Mom and worse from Dad weeks ago when I told them Scott and I were trying for another baby.

There was a slight hesitation before she asked, “Has Scott found a job yet?” I knew Georgie. She wanted to say more, but she knew how defensive I got about the subject.

I looked down to keep from seeing her scrutinizing stare. “He’s focusing on school right now. He’s only got one more year—”

“I thought he got into the police academy?” she interrupted.

I felt my cheeks flush with both anger and reluctance. I hated that I even told people Scott had gotten into the academy. I remembered being so proud of him and not being able to help it. “It didn’t work out,” was all I told her.

Scott had gotten his Mom to drive three hours to pick him up on the same day I dropped him off there. Scott hadn’t lasted a day, and I wished I had been surprised about that outcome. I was disappointed in him and myself. I wanted him to like what he did, but I hated how enthusiastic he got speaking about his plans when he hadn’t even given it a full day.

“Oh, what’s he gonna do now?”

“Doctor,” I winced as I said it. Georgie nodded, unimpressed or maybe that was her response toward my tight expression.

“That’s a long time.”

I shrugged. “He seems excited about it.” He seemed eager about becoming a police officer too. I closed my eyes and hated myself every time I doubted him. I should be the one that believed in him most, and I was… Maybe just not lately.

There was only so many disappointments a girl could endure before she expected the inevitable letdown. I was fine with Scott doing anything. He was the one hung up on all these things he thought he was supposed to be. Take the police academy… He was so hyped for months, but the week before he was to start I sensed his change. That morning, I thought he wouldn’t have even gone at all if I hadn’t been the one to wake him up. After that, he went through a phase of saying he wanted to become a lawyer. Now it was a doctor. In between all of that, he had a job at McDonald’s only to quit a week later saying he couldn’t deal with the manager. We’d just found out that I was pregnant after graduation. I was hopeful when he found a job at the Family Dollar, but that lasted less than a week. That was when I’d taken a certified nursing assistant class. Then I started working at the nursing home. Honestly, I’d been in college as long as Scott had.

Frankly, I believed Scott was someone who might not ever keep a job. He was good at painting beautiful pictures of what our life could be like provided he got this or that job.

The thing was, I liked our life. I thought we were happy. Although Lucy was unplanned, we loved her wholeheartedly, and that was something I couldn’t fault Scott about. It was why I stood by him even when my dad said I was an idiot. Scott watched Lucy while I worked. I was perfectly okay with being the one that worked. The one that made a living while he became a stay-at-home dad. It was the freaking twenty-first century. Times were different and things were changing, but people still frowned upon a woman footing the bills.

Maybe years down the line, when Scott finished medical school and our kids were a little older, he’d become the doctor he wanted. Maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, I loved him. Yes, Scott was lazy about work, but he was Lucy’s father. He was the man I dated throughout high school, and the father of our soon-to-be son or daughter in my tummy.I chose all of this—the life I carried, Scott, Lucy, and even our small apartment—because I knew things would be better for us in another year. I’d be finished with the nursing program, and I’d get a job at the hospital where I desperately wanted to be. I loved my co-workers and the residents, but I was anxious for better working hours. And my family needed the better pay.

“Yeah, but it works out. He gets to stay home with Lucy while I work,” I said honestly.

“Pay no mind to me, Hadley. You know I’m too old to understand a man staying at home playing video games instead of working.” She frowned as she walked toward the exit.

“He’s home with Lucy right now,” I told her.

“It’s bedtime of course. He doesn’t have to do much babysitting when she’s sleeping. Does he watch her when you’re in class too?”

I bit the inside of my cheek. My first extinct was to defend Scott. It got old when you heard these conversations time and time again. If Scott didn’t have plans, he watched Lucy. Unfortunately, he went out a lot, leaving my parents to watch Lucy since I had classes after work. Most of the time, I couldn’t get more than a couple hours of sleep after picking her up since she’d be awake, and he didn’t come home until it was time for me to leave again.

“He does sometimes,” I sniffed, feeling down just minutes after being on cloud nine. I stared at the pregnancy test in my hand. “We’re happy, Georgie. Is it too much to ask for you to be happy for me? You know how much I’ve wanted this baby.”

She sighed, came toward me, and wrapped me in her meaty arms. “I’m sorry. I know you’re happy. I won’t say no more about it.”

“You always say that,” I accused, but I was smiling when she pulled away from me.

“And I always will. You deserve better.”

“You’re worse than my dad.” I huffed.

“You’re my best worker, but you remind me of my foolish daughter.” She patted my shoulder. “I’m not looking forward to losing you next year.”

“I’ll still come to see you,” I told her and then held up the stick, waving it around between us. “Now… Are you going to congratulate me or not?”

“Go to the doctor first and make sure.” She saw me sulking and added, “I’m happy for you.”

I held my stomach and beamed down at it. “I can’t wait to tell Scott. I wonder if we’ll have another girl or a wild little boy?”

“Lucy’s wild enough for ten boys.”

I laughed at her statement. “She’s rotten.”

“Go on,” she shooed me away.

I glimpsed at the watch on my arm. “I still have another ten minutes on my break.”

“No, I mean go home. We’re covered for the night for once, and there’s no need for you to be prancing around, waiting to tell your man. Go on.”

I grabbed her hands and squeezed them. “Really? You’re the best.”

She pulled her hands away and scowled. “Here the best student I ever had grabbed my hands before she washes hers with her pregnancy stick still in one.” She shook her fingers and walked toward the sinks. “See, this is why you need to go home tonight.”

I grinned as I shoved the pregnancy test into my scrub pocket and went to wash up. “Now you know I don’t leave this bathroom until I wash my hands. I just got a little excited.”

I shuffled up the last set of apartment steps. The area wasn’t the best, but I just kept telling myself once I get out of college we could leave this place. I’d chant the same words over and over—Only three more years… Only three… Before I knew it, I was chanting only two more, and now I was chanting only one more... Just one more, and I’d be able to afford a mortgage since I’d be done with school. I’d go on to pass the National Council Licensure Exam—NCLEX for short—and become that registered nurse I was meant to be. In the meantime, I built up my credit score preparing for the day we would move out. It wasn’t easy finding a credit card company that would work with me since I had no credit starting out, but now I was proud to say I bought my first car—a white Ford Focus that was amazing on gas and affordable to purchase—last year because of my efforts.

Dad nagged on me about Scott, and I would never listen to him about my love life, but I let him aggravate me about everything else. Growing up, he always told my sister and me to never depend on a man. The day we got our licenses, he bought us each a hunk of junk car and said that was all we would get from him. Dad taught us to change the tires and the oil. And the day I told him I wanted to build up my credit, he told me it was a good idea. Afterward, he told me he’d skin me alive if I let Scott get a hold of my personal information or anything else. Dad even went with me the day I got my car. He had something to say about every vehicle and stood there beside me as I spoke with the salesman. I knew what he was doing. He wanted to see if I’d let the car dealer cheat me because Dad often said I was too soft. He believed I gave people the opportunity to take advantage of me. Said I was too much like Mom. Mom didn’t seem too softhearted to me when she was making him shut up though.

But apparently, Mom and I were soft. When I was ten, I gave the five dollar bill I earned from doing chores to a man sitting on the sidewalk at the gas station. He held up a sign saying he needed food. Mom also gave him money. Dad had warned us that the man was a fake homeless person. I didn’t even know people faked doing that until we saw the same man dressed cleanly a few hours later getting in his truck to drive—a twenty-four pack of beer in his hands. Dad shook his head and said nothing.

My dad loved Lucy. Loved her with his entire being the same way he had been with Olivia and me, but when I told him I wanted the baby I was carrying, he tried to talk me out of it. He couldn’t get past his judgment of Scott. He always said we weren’t meant to last, but I begged to differ. We were young, but I had my crap together better than half of the thirty-year-olds. Scott and I weren’t the first young parents. All around me I saw so many like us, making it work. The world was full of young sweethearts living their lives together…forever and ever, old and wrinkly.

I grinned as I punched my passcode in to unlock our apartment. Scott was my first, my only, and I knew he would be my last.

I loved Scott, Lucy, and our little speck in my belly. Papaw Will would come around the moment he saw the baby. He was easy like that. We’d get past it. In a few years, my dad would see that all my struggles were worth it.

It was a little after one. I left for work around eight every day and came home around five or six every morning, then took a quick nap before I’d leave for class. Scott was probably sleeping or playing the PS4 that I’d gotten him with my credit card last year for Christmas. When I entered the living room though, it was completely dark. The TV and game were as quiet as the room was until I startled at the little figure on the couch.

“Lucy?” I whispered as I bent down to get her.

“Mommy?” she mumbled, lifting her head slightly.

She was sleeping sitting up. “What are you doing? Why aren’t you in your bed?” I scooped her up in my arms and kissed her forehead. Her tiny little arms went around my neck. Her legs instinctively knew to wrap around me. Such a thing always made my heart melt.

“BeeBee’s giggles kept waking me up.” Just like that, a bucket of ice fell over me. My smiled waned as my heart fell to the floor. Beebee was Lucy’s nickname for my cousin Briana. She could never say her name right.

“Briana’s here?” I asked slowly. I thought maybe Lucy was having a weird dream. Briana never came over. Briana and I barely hung out since high school. I wasn’t as much fun to her with a kid.

“Yeah, she’s in your bedroom with daddy.”

And because life knew I needed confrontation, Briana’s laughter rang out through the thin walls, followed by Scott’s.

“I don’t like when she comes here,” Lucy whispered as she hugged me tighter.

I staggered but held her tight, blood rushing up my neck and face.

Young love turned old and wrinkly. My one and only. My faith all but crashed and burned.

Life chewed up my ideas and spat them out.

Oh, Hadley. What a freaking idiot you were.