Mandy laughs, sadly. “Yes and yes.”
“As if you need his money. As if you want his asshole family’s money,” I go on. “I can’t believe he thought you were like….scheming to be his baby mama. That’s not you at all.”
“Yeah. It’s not. But when people are freaked out I guess they make all sorts of fake accusations,” Mandy says. “Which, I know this is a weird time for this, but I’m sorry, Finn.”
I spin around and realize Finn has returned, though he’s standing a little warily in the doorway. He shrugs. “It’s no big deal.”
“It is. Look, I don’t know if Kenley told you, but I’m the one that set up the whole spy-ring thing. She was just along for the ride. I figured you had to secretly be like Adams, right? And as it turns out, my own boyfriend has more in common with him than you ever have.”
“Mandy, seriously—“ I say.
“That’s it. I know I’m making it weird. But I really am sorry. And Finn, Kenley is great. And Kenley, Finn is great. And that’s really it,” Mandy says swiftly.
“It’s fine,” Finn says, then steps into the room and leans against the doorframe. Mandy makes a motion for him to take a chair, and so he enters the rest of the way and folds himself into it, looking comically cramped in a chair made for an average-sized human. We all sit in silence for a moment, no one quite sure what to talk about— I’m not quite sure if Finn heard enough to know what’s going on with Mandy, and don’t really feel like it’s my news to share.
Mandy, thankfully, breaks the ice. “So. I got knocked up.”
Finn laughs at her candor. “Sorry to hear that.”
“I’ll be alright. Though if you see Bradley, you can hit him. I promise I won’t even be angry if you wind up getting arrested,” she says.
“He’s not stepping up?” Finn asks, and looks genuinely surprised.
“To say the least. Have Kenley fill you in later. The point is just: Feel free to hit him, and feel free to make it below the belt,” Mandy says. Just as she says this, a nurse enters the room, pushing a small cart of scary-looking supplies and some sort of electronic thing with a screen,
“Miss Mandy Sullivan? We just need to do a few checks. Can we have the room, please?”
Finn and I leave, waiting just outside the door— the nurses closes it, and we hear murmured conversation on the other side. A few moments later, a calm and kind-faced doctor walks in; once he’s inside, Finn and I are entirely alone in the quiet hallway. I open my mouth a few times, certain that if I just start talking, I’ll figure out the right thing to say….but I’ve got nothing.
If Finn is floundering, it doesn’t show— he’s gazing at me, unblinking, unwavering, almost like watching me scramble for words is a mildly entertaining piece of performance art.
I frown at him, “It’s not like you’re making it easy, you know.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks.
“Just standing there like that. Making me feel weird.”
“I didn’t even say anything,” he protests.
“That’s exactly it! You’re just standing there quiet like you don’t have anything to say, and that’s making me feel like I need to say stuff, but I have too much I want to say but I don’t even know what it is,” I say.
“You don’t have to say anything, Kenley,” he says, his voice laced with gruff emotion.
“Well then you do, because the silence thing is killing me,” I say, shaking my head.
Finn grins, wicked and clever and bright. “The options aren’t just talking or silence, you know.”
I’m not sure what he means. I blink, open my mouth, try to guess—
Finn sweeps in, and before I can jolt away in surprise, he’s got his arms around me, he’s lifting me up. My head tilts back instinctively, my hands linking behind his neck, and then our lips meet. He kisses me, long and deep and in the way I’ve been longing for ever since I last saw him. I inhale his scent, as his tongue teases at mine. When he breaks off the kiss, we leave our faces together, breathing in one another’s nearness; he kisses my cheek, my jawbone, my neck.
“Finn—“ I say in a whisper.
“Hm?”
“Will you stay with me tonight?”
Finn grins— he’s too close for me to truly see it, but I can feel it in his cheek against mine, in the way he holds me tighter at the words. “Can we stay together more than just tonight?” he answers huskily.
And then he’s kissing me again— until the door to my sister’s hospital room swings open suddenly.
“Miss Sullivan? Your sister would like to see you,” the doctor says.
Chapter 19
My sister isn’t pregnant— not anymore. Apparently, a quarter of pregnancies end in miscarriage, but since no one really talks about it, no one knows that. For the next few days, I see Mandy battling with the entire thing. No, she didn’t want to be pregnant; yes, she might have ended it voluntarily anyhow. But to have the choice totally taken away, to have it just be gone, like a magic trick…that seems to be weighing on her.