“You’ve never pulled away from me before, Lisette.”

“I know, I’m sorry. But it just doesn’t seem right,” I said.

Adam looked at me with a hurt expression and then turned and walked away. I tried to call after him, but he just closed his door and ignored me. When I walked past Sarah’s open door, I happened to glance in as she was looking up at me. Her expression was difficult to read, but it kind of reminded me of the kid in class who always used to cheat off of someone else’s papers.

“I’m not lying!” Sarah shouted.

I knew that having a few days of drama-free time wouldn’t last too much longer. It had only been about three or so days since the drama with Adam in the kitchen, and at least he seemed like he was trying to move on from it. But now there was drama with a resident of the house. I mean, I guess that’s part of why we were here; to help people through whatever drama it was that they were dealing with. But I had so much of my own, that I was really too exhausted to deal with anyone else’s issues right now. As soon as I had that thought, I realized how selfish it made me sound.

I pulled on a pair of sweatpants since I had just woken up and the guys had beaten me out of bed and to the coffee machine again, and walked down the hallway, getting closer and closer to the commotion that Sarah was making. She was loud enough to wake the entire building, but thankfully I had slept in late again and it wasn’t too early.

“What is going on?” I asked as I appeared in the doorway of the kitchen and rubbed my face as I yawned. It was too early to deal with this without coffee, even if it was technically already like ten o’clock.

I looked around and was taken aback by what I saw. Sarah was standing in the kitchen and lifting her shirt up to expose her stomach for some unknown reason. Michael’s face was fire hydrant red, which meant that he was either very angry or very flustered. Rob seemed to be sitting at the table with a mixture of amusement and disbelief on his face.

And Adam looked like he couldn’t care less about whatever Sarah was going off about.

“This is simply not true,” Michael said sternly. I could tell by his tone of voice that it was anger which was turning his face red. “I don’t know why you would say something like this, but it’s crazy.”

“Careful,” Sarah said. “Calling people crazy here is frowned on by your girlfriend.”

“Okay,” I said as I stepped fully into the room. “What the hell is going on?”

“I’m pregnant,” Sarah said.

Okay, well that was surprising I guess, considering that I’d never seen her with a guy here. I supposed that was why she had her shirt lifted up to expose her belly as if it were some attempt at proof. She did look a little swollen around the abdomen, but who knows.

“Congratulations, I guess,” I said. I wasn’t trying to sound rude; I just didn’t know if this was something that she was happy about or not. “I still don’t understand why you’re all yelling at each other about it in the kitchen.”

“Oh, you will in a minute,” Rob said with a look of shock still resting on his face.

“He’s the father,” Sarah said as her finger lifted up to point in the air.

I felt the room start to go fuzzy and my legs shake beneath me as I choked out a single word.

“What?” I said as I looked at who she was pointing to—Michael.

“She’s lying,” he said.

The scarlet coloring of his skin gave indication that he was getting ready to tackle her to the ground or at least give her a solid smack in the face.

“Why would I lie about who the father of my baby is?” Sarah cried. “He just doesn’t want to admit that he slept with me when I first got here. And now look; now I’m pregnant and he’s trying to just throw me away because he’d rather be with you.”

I didn’t know what to say or what to do. There was just no way that I could believe that this was true. Michael and I were more in love with each other, more bound to each other, than anything imaginable. He would never in a million years sleep with someone else.

But why was Sarah doing this?

If she had gotten accidentally knocked-up and just wanted to find a man to pin the baby on who would be with her and take care of her, she could have picked any one of the several single guys here. It seemed way too difficult to try to pick Michael. She knew that Michael and I were together. In fact, she had just asked about it a few days ago which honestly made it seem all the more suspicious.

“I have never slept with this woman,” Michael said with fierce defensiveness. “I don’t even know her aside from the very few, brief conversations that we’ve all had with her together.”

He turned to me with a look of helplessness.

“Lisette, please, you know that I’m telling you the truth. I would never lie to you, not about easy things or hard things. This woman is lying.”

“I believe you,” I said as I went up and threaded my fingers in his. “Of course I believe you.”

“I don’t,” Adam said without looking up from the table.

“That’s just because you’re still pissed off,” Rob said to him with a huff.

“No,” Adam continued. “It’s because I saw him coming out of Sarah’s bedroom.”

“What?” Michael said as he looked at his friend.

His jaw dropped open as he stared at Adam and it looked as if someone had just driven a dagger straight through his heart.

“Why would you say something like that?” Michael asked him.

“Because it’s true,” Adam answered nonchalantly. “You thought that nobody saw you, but I did.”

“Why are you lying for this girl?” Michael said as his voice began to raise in both pitch and volume. “What are you doing?”

“I just think that Lisette deserves to know the truth, that’s all,” Adam said.

“Is that what this is about?” Michael asked. “You’re stooping so low as to betray our friendship in some ridiculous attempt to paint me as being unfaithful so that you can take Lisette for yourself?”

“Now who’s being ridiculous?” Adam said.

There was a snakelike quality to his voice now. One that made him sound slippery and dishonest.

I was becoming overwhelmed with worry as I continued to clench onto Michael’s hand, both because I felt like I needed to hold and touch him, and because I thought that if I didn’t, he might punch Sarah, or Adam, or maybe even both of them. No matter which one of the guys was telling the truth, it meant that one of them was lying to me and I couldn’t bear the thought of that. I was absolutely furious at Sarah for somehow getting herself in the middle of all of us. The only thing that I could think of to do, was to deal with her on my own and take the stage of men away from her performance. I let go of Michael’s hand, and as soon as I did, he reached for me again.

“Please tell me you aren’t believing this garbage,” he said as he held on to my hand, not wanting to let me go until we resolved this mess.

“Trust me,” I said. “I’m currently not believing anything from anyone.”

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I just want to talk to Sarah alone for a little bit. I’m also going to take her to go get a pregnancy test so we can at least rule that out as being either truth or lie.”

Sarah rolled her eyes dramatically at me. “Seriously? Are we going to go have girl-chat or something? I’m a resident here, not a patient. I don’t need you to take me to get a pregnancy test, I already know that I’m pregnant.”

“Humor me,” I said as my patience was fading.

I pulled Sarah out of the kitchen with me while the guys all watched looking dumbfounded. I could hear them start to talk and argue once we left the room. I was relieved when we got out of earshot because I hated hearing the guys fight.