25

Hayley's POV

I dialed the number with assurance, no longer terrified of what was on the other side of the phone line—or so I tried to convince myself. My mom sat behind me, watching my every move carefully, ready to face just about anything. But I wasn't planning on making a scene this time. I kept a hard expression on my face and repeated my speech in my head.

I pressed the handset against my ear and waited for the ringing to be interrupted. Hopefully, he would actually answer his own phone this time instead of asking his friend to do it for him.

"Hello?"

It was him. I sighed in relief. Then, just like I expected, a sudden wave of panic overwhelmed me. Tightening my grip on the phone and twirling the wire around my finger, I promised myself to stay calm and began, "Josh, it's me. I wanted to talk to you about the… baby." I swallowed back the bitter taste crawling up my throat and shot a panicked glance toward my mom who nodded encouragingly. I took a deep breath and got straight to the point. "I'm getting an abortion."

I felt the sickening guilt of betrayal weigh on me after saying this. Not towards Josh, but towards the thing in my belly, as if it could hear me and it knew what I was planning to do with it. I ignored it and waited for Josh's answer.

"Are you sure?" he asked in a small voice after a minute of silence.

"Yes," I said firmly. I had spent hours deliberating with my mom on whether I was ready to do this or not. In the end, we had reached the conclusion that I wasn't ready, but I was even less ready to have a baby. It just wasn't the right time. I was not changing my mind.

"Ok," he whispered so weakly I wondered if it was just my imagination. My mother took my hand and squeezed it just as Josh was hanging up without another word. I placed the handset back in its cradle and smiled weakly at her.

"I love you," she said with tears in her soft voice. "It'll be alright."

Josh's POV

Unfortunately, after Ian had broken Matt's mom's precious blue vase, she had not only banned him from her house, but she'd also banned him AND me from having any contact with Matt whatsoever—as if this had anything to do with me. Obviously, none of that had been my fault, but Matt's mom had spent the last few weeks just begging for an excuse to keep me away from him, and this was it.

Which is why, after Hayley called to tell me something I had been expecting for a while now, I had no one to go whine to.

But I wasn't exactly the type of guy who would give up in front of the first obstacle. I quickly escaped from my house like a ninja—ok, so I told my mom I was going for a walk—and ran like lightning all the way to Matt's. I got there without any trouble and just stood contemplating the house for a second.

Now came the hard part.

I wondered if I could just throw stuff at his window like I used to do with Hayley or if that would be too awkward. Before I could decide though, the front door opened and out came his dad, rubbing his mustache and frowning at the paper in his hands. I leaped behind the car in the driveway as fast as I could and landed on my hands. That hurt.

I spied the short man through the windows of the car until he returned inside with a pile of mail. Breathing out slowly, I got up and examined my hands. Bloody, of course. "Ouch."

But it didn't matter. I ran to the back of the house and spotted Matt's window. Since it was on the first floor I realised that I didn't really have to throw anything; I could just knock…

"What the fuck are you doing here, man?" Matt asked as soon as he opened the window. "Gosh, don't knock on my fucking window! I almost had a fucking heart attack!"

Wow, I had never heard Matt swear this much. "Calm down man!" I chuckled and tried patting his shoulder but he backed away.

"I'm perfectly calm, Josh! Do you know what my mom will do if she finds out you're here?"

"She'll kill you?" I guessed.

"YES! Exactly! So leave!"

Ow, that was rude. "But there's something I have to tell you! It's important!"

Matt rolled his eyes and tried closing the window in my face but I stopped him with my bloody hand. "Hayley's getting an abortion!" I yelled.

As soon as I said that, Matt froze and his eyes widened. He pushed the window open again and sighed. "Ok. Fine. You can come in." I smiled weakly as he helped me up through the window and into his room. "What the fuck happened to your hands?" he asked when he saw the pink lines filled with blood and dirt that covered my palms.

"Long story," I muttered. He stared at me expectantly, that familiar cunning smile growing on his lips. I gave up with a grunt and told him. "I fell on my hands trying to hide from your dad."

He burst out laughing and waved his pinky finger in front of my face. "I guess we're even now, eh?" I smiled as I remembered how he'd broken his finger trying to follow me at Warped. Ah, good times. "So, anyway," Matt began, leaning against the window I had just crossed, "Hayley's getting rid of it, huh?" I nodded slowly, biting my lip. "And are you happy about that?"

I have no idea, Matt.

"It's so strange because I hate the thing," I started slowly, "and I wish it had never existed. But now that it does… it feels wrong to just delete it." I made it sound like a computer file. "I don't know, maybe I'm just crazy."

My thoughts were a blur. I couldn't even understand my own feelings anymore. Why did I hate it so much when it actually hadn't done anything wrong and I was the one to blame, the guilty idiot? And if I hated it so much, why did I feel the need to protect it? Matt didn't say anything. I kind of appreciated that he didn't feel the need to fill up the silence with stupid encouragements.

"Do you think it would hurt her?" I asked in order to get my mind off those answerless questions.

"Like, physically?" Matt inquired. I nodded. He shrugged and tried holding back his smile. "Well Josh, I never got an abortion before. So, I suppose I'll go get pregnant now and I'll get back to you with that."

I punched his shoulder and tried to look angry. "Shut the hell up!" I knew I was smiling though, so he couldn't really take me seriously.

"Well… I could go ask Nicole about it," he said after a second.

"Nicole?" That sounded like a fifty-year-old fortune-teller with breast implants. Matt looked so uncomfortable all of a sudden that I wondered if I had accidentally said that out loud. His face went through about twenty shades of red before it settled for an Elmo-driving-a-fire-truck kind of colour. "Dude, are you alright!?" I tried controlling my laughter while I fanned his face with a notebook that was lying around.

"She's just a girl, ok!?" He shoved the notebook away and stared angrily at the ground.

"Uh oh, Matty's got a girlfriend…" I teased, laying my head of his shoulder romantically.

"Go away!" He jumped away from the wall and sat on his bed with his arm crossed like a little kid. Yup, that's my best friend right there.

"So… how long has this been going on?" I didn't want to be annoying but… Ah, who am I kidding? Of course I wanted to be annoying.

"We've been together for about two weeks, I guess," Matt finally muttered after pouting for a minute.

My jaw dropped. "Two weeks!? Two whole fucking weeks!? Why didn't you tell me earlier!?" To be honest, I felt a bit betrayed. I told him everything all the time and he didn't even have the nerve to tell me about his girlfriend?

"Well… you never really cared about this kind of stuff…" he said sadly.

That's when I realised how right he was. I was always so caught up in my own problems that I never took time to actually listen to Matt's. The only thing he ever talked to me about was music—which wasn't bad, but compared to all I told HIM…

It wasn't his fault that he didn't tell me about 'this kind of stuff,' it was mine. What kind of friend was I?

"I'm sorry I never took time to listen to you, Matt," I said sombrely.

"It's ok, dude!" He chuckled and shrugged it off as if it didn't matter, but it only made me feel more like a jerk.

An irresponsible jerk who was so good at fucking up everybody else's lives.

My baby was so unlucky to have me as a father. Either way, it didn't really matter anymore since that baby wouldn't survive for too long.

Argh, why did that thought make my stomach hurt and my knees weak? I didn't want Hayley to kill it. It was mine too and I had a right to stop her. I had to protect it. It was my purpose, my ONLY purpose. For once I actually had a goal, I was actually needed somewhere. It was all very clear to me suddenly.

I had a mission. I had to save our child. And I would not fail this time.

Code Red, agent Ramsay.