Secret Pet
Sloane sighs. “Mandy asked for an extension to her vacation. Eileen sort of told me why.”
I wait for her to go on, but she doesn’t. “She’s trying to stay away from me?”
My sister nods, not meeting my eyes. “Yes. Something she should have done in the first place.” She gets up and walks towards the door.
“Sloane!” Her eyebrows go up as she turns back to look at me. “Will you tell me where Mandy is?”
“No. Mandy needs time to herself. I’m not going to tell you anything. You don’t deserve to know.” My sister leaves quickly, and I stare after her.
I have to find my pet. The longing in my heart is so bad I can barely breathe. I need to apologize or something. The truth is that I miss my pet badly. No. I miss Mandy. I know that I got too possessive. Once that Jered guy showed up, I couldn’t handle the competition. I wanted her to be mine, all mine, but now, I don’t even know where she is.
Without even thinking, I pull my laptop to me and open it. The program that downloads info from Mandy’s phone is still there, it’s still installed, but I haven’t checked it for weeks. My fingers move over the mouse pad making the curser circle the app. I know I shouldn’t, but I’m so tempted. All I need is just one hint of where she is, just one tiny hint and then I will delete the stupid app, tell Mandy everything, and learn to trust her — her as a person, not a possession.
My finger hovers over the mouse. I shouldn’t, but I have to find her, even if it means betraying her trust one more time. I find the button and click.
The first thing that fills my screen is pictures. Mandy has been sending her best friends tons of pictures. Most of them are of wildlife and the sea: whales jumping out of waves next to a boat, seals and sea lions sitting on an island, puffins overhead. My pet is on a cruise in the Alaskan waters. That narrows down her location. It also means she won’t be gone from New York forever.
I find myself smiling as the next set of pictures comes up. Mandy is standing next to her grandmother, smiling like the happiest woman in the world. Both are in heavy coats — the grandmother’s is shocking pink. This picture is followed by a few texts that tell her friends how much fun she is having on board, from buffets to watching shows to taking walks on deck.
Pulling the laptop onto my lap, I sit back in my chair. My imagination is full of Mandy doing all these things and having the time of her life. She is such a smart girl to take a vacation after a breakup, although perhaps it was her grandmother’s idea. The old woman is shrewd. Mandy is lucky to have her.
In most of the pictures, she is all smiles. Back to the happy girl she was before she met me. In one of them, she is eating the biggest ice cream Sunday I have ever seen. I didn’t even know that she liked ice cream. I never asked, like I never asked about anything. I just kept telling myself that I didn’t want to know. It’s not true though. I want to know everything.
I also want to apologize for making her want to leave.
When I click to the next picture, it sends me straight to my feet. In it, Mandy is standing in front of a mirror without her heavy coat on. She has one hand at the bottom of her stomach pulling her shirt tight over a very small, but obvious bump.
Oh, my God!
I can’t even explain the range of emotions that pours through me as I run my eyes over the picture again and again. I memorize every detail, from the awkward smile on her face, and the worry in her eyes, to the flush of her cheeks. But each glance of mine settles with my eyes on the bump — the baby. My Baby. I don’t know how I know, but I do. My pet is pregnant with my child.
My longing for her increases tenfold. It’s a burn, an ache in my chest so hard that it makes my throat constrict. I need to have my arms around her as soon as possible. I need to touch that little swell in her stomach that is holding my child — my heir.
I have to find her immediately and beg her to take me back.
Chapter Twenty
Mandy
Going on an Alaskan cruise when you are two months pregnant is a terrible idea. I shouldn’t have agreed to even buy the tickets, but when Bubby overheard me lying to Sloane, I didn’t have the heart to tell her no, or what is really going on. But she wasn’t in the dark much longer. I ended up throwing up almost the whole plane ride from New York to Anchorage — that was her first clue. The second was that my usually flat stomach decided to pouch overnight. I went from to totally normal to obviously pregnant so fast that I started to worry that I was having twins.