Page 72 of Mom Com

“He’s not a good guy, Mads. I don’t want you getting hurt because—” But he doesn’t get a chance to finish because I cut him off.

“As opposed to you, who are such a sterling individual that you planned a whole prom limo without ever telling me?” I say, now fired up in exactly the way I didn’t want.

But this time he’s not balancing me out with his comforting steady tone, he’s matching my frustration. “Look, it’s not like that. Asking Elaina just—”

“Elaina?” I say, my sinking feeling increasing. She’s a gorgeous Cuban-American with a wicked sense of humor and a kind streak a mile long. It’s impossible not to like her. “Are you seriously going to try to tell me that you asked her and then forgot? It just slipped your mind for... How long has it been exactly?”

He leans his elbows on his knees, momentarily looking at his hands. “A week.”

I swallow, trying to hold back the wave of hurt and failing, my hormones tap dancing on my nerves. “Tell me, Wilder. Did you hope I just wouldn’t find out so you wouldn’t feel obligated to perform some sort of charity and invite your pregnant friend as a tagalong?”

“Hey,” he says, looking up. “That’s not what’s going on. I could never be embarrassed by you. I don’t know how you could even think that.”

“Maybe because you’re acting like I’m a third-tier friend.”

He hesitates, annoyed at me or himself, maybe both. “Look, things were finally going well with us. I just didn’t want to complicate it by... You want the truth? I was actually working up to telling Elaina I can’t go with her.”

I stare at him, my upset spiraling into something unruly. Since I’ve gotten pregnant, it’s as if I vibrate at a more intense frequency, unable to shrug off slights or pull back the reins. It’s one of the reasons I’ve kept to myself so much. But right now, Wilder is poking at my biggest insecurity, the one I try to hide more vehemently than all the rest, the nagging voice that keeps telling me I’ve changed for the worse and that no one will ever love me the same way because of it.

“Fuck your pity,” I fire back. “Don’t you dare break it off because of me. You think I wouldn’t be happy you had a prom date, that I was incapable of handling that news?” I know I’m not doing myself any favors, but it’s too late; I’m strapped to the board and headed down the slope at a dizzying speed, backward.

“Come on, Mads. You know I don’t mean it that way.”

“No, actually I don’t.”

He gives me a look likePlease don’t do this.

“Tell me, why would you having a prom date complicate things, as you so clearly claimed?”

He huffs but doesn’t answer, which increases my fire tenfold. This is what we always come to, him and me, a place in a conversation where he just shuts down and lets me dangle with my emotions all on my own. And today I’m not having it.

“Is it because you think I’m still in love with you?” I say, my tone barbed and dangerous. “Because, if that’s the case, I can tell you with the utmost certainty that I most definitely am not.”

He looks out at the ocean, his expression hardening. And I know without a doubt that his emotional drawbridge is lifting, sealing me out.

“Great. Silence,” I say. “I want to say that I’m surprised, but I guess I should have expected this from someone whose mother told them to break up with me.”

Wilder goes so still that I think he might have ceased breathing. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me.”

He looks like he’s falling even though he hasn’t moved an inch. The color drains from his face and then is replaced by tensed muscles. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then explain it to me!” I say, giving him one last chance, imploring him to tell me something that makes sense, something that explains why after seventeen years of friendship he’s suddenly decided to close part of his life off to me.

“Just let it be, Maddi.”

“And if I can’t?” I say, drawing a line in the sand, and even as I do I kind of wish I didn’t.

“Then I guess you can’t,” is all he says. And even though he’s sitting next to me, I feel him slipping away, our truce evaporating into the air like a misty memory.

“Okay then,” Liv says, rolling her glass between her palms, “as long as we’re doing whatever this honesty thing is, let me ask you something. Is the bakery important to you?”

My heart stutters like it hit the brakes too hard. “That’s not—”

“The same thing?” Liv says, finishing my sentence. “Because I would argue that it is.”

I frown.