“How did you get pregnant?” I asked as Sarah and I walked through the store aisles to find where they kept the pregnancy tests.

“I think you might need to retake health-ed if you don’t know the answer to that question,” she snarked.

“You know what I’m asking,” I said in a less than friendly tone. “Who did you have sex with?”

“I already told you, Michael.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said sternly. “Michael wouldn’t sleep with you; he loves me.”

“You can tell yourself that all you want, but I’m telling you the truth. Michael came into my room a couple of nights after I got here. We had sex, he left in the middle of the night, and your other friend even saw him with his own eyes. You can’t really believe the voice of one man over the voice of two others.”

“Yes, I sure as hell can,” I said. “If that one man is someone that I know I can trust.”

“Well,” she said as she picked up a pregnancy test from the shelf and shrugged her shoulders. “That might work with me since you don’t know me hardly at all. But does that train of thought really work with your other friend? What’s his name again, Adam? Are you so sure that Adam is lying about having seen it, that you’re willing to just take Michael’s word for it?”

The only accurate point that she was making, was that I trusted both Michael and Adam. Which made things in this situation utterly impossible to deal with because it meant that one of them was lying to me. They both had reasons to lie, I suppose. Adam wanted to frame Michael as being dishonest and disloyal, so that I might then consider being with him. But if Michael actually had done it (which I still don’t believe that he had), then he would want to lie to cover up his infidelity. Either way, this whole thing sucked, and I found myself wishing that Sarah had never come to the house at all.

When we got back, she went right into the bathroom to take the test. I stood at the door to listen and to make sure that it wasn’t being altered or tampered with. Although I wasn’t really sure what you could even do to alter a pregnancy test to begin with. We waited the five minutes and then she and I stared at the pink plus sign together. Well, at least that question was proven to be answered. Sarah was definitely pregnant.

Now the only question was who was the father?

For the first several days here, it had just been me, and the boys, and Sarah. By the time everyone else moved in, I think it would have been too fast and too short a time period for her to have gotten pregnant. That meant that she must have slept with someone outside of The Sanctuary. But since she never went out and never had anyone over; it made it a bit of an unfounded assumption.

“Look,” I said as I tried to be as civil and unassuming as possible. “I know that you know who the father of this baby is. And I know that the father is not Michael. What I don’t know, is why you’re trying to do this to me.

“To you?” she shouted. “I’m the one that’s pregnant. Tell your boyfriend to come see me when you’re done yelling at him. I want to talk about how we’re going to be able to have this baby together.”

Sarah walked from the bathroom and back out into her own bedroom where she promptly slammed the door behind her.

I was upset, this woman was upset, and the guys were upset. I didn’t know who to believe because even though I knew Michael wouldn’t do something like this, I wasn’t ready to believe that Adam would lie to me and betray his friend.

17

Talking to Sarah had gotten me nowhere and taking the pregnancy test didn’t solve the problem behind all of the discord and drama of who the father was.

“Rob,” I said as I walked outside to where he was working on fixing up an old motorcycle.

He looked up when I called his name.

“Where did you get that?” I asked, completely detouring from the reason I came looking for him to begin with.

“I saw somebody selling it on campus,” he said. “I’ve always wanted a motorcycle. It’s pretty beat-up but I think I can do most of the repairs myself. Then when we move back to Asheville, I’ll be able to ride my new bike around the mountains.”

“That sounds really cool,” I said with a smile. “I was worried that maybe you wouldn’t be coming back to Asheville anymore.”

“What, just because you and Michael are going to be together? Nah, I’ll always be around. I still love you and we’re still all friends. None of that has changed. I may not be sleeping in the same bed with you guys when we get there, but I’ll be close by.”

“Good,” I said, feeling better about that, at least. “Can I ask you to do me a favor?”

“Depends,” he smirked.

“On what?”

“On whether or not this favor has to do with the messed up pregnancy allegation by that girl.”

I didn’t say anything, and Rob rolled his eyes and sighed at me.

“Okay, what’s the favor?” he asked.

“You’re used to doing detective stuff for the police force; can’t you just snoop around a little bit and use your agent skills to try and figure out what’s going on?” I asked. “It doesn’t seem right to me.”

“Which part?” he asked.

“None of it, to be honest. Michael wouldn’t have slept with another woman, Adam wouldn’t lie to me, and Sarah hasn’t had any men around here and has barely left her room.”

“Yeah, I agree that shit is definitely not adding up,” Rob said. “But one of those three people has to be lying. It’s impossible to have all three opposing stories be true. Somebody isn’t telling the truth about what happened.”

“Agreed,” I said. “The only thing we know for sure is that Sarah is pregnant.”

Rob stood up and wiped his greasy hands on his jeans. He stood back and admired the bike. It was kind of cool-looking, actually. It was run-down and in need of obvious repair, but the black leather of the seat looked worn and soft, and the metal of the bike was still trying to shine from beneath all the grime. It would be a pretty sweet bike by the time Rob was done with it.

“Okay,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll see what I can find out, but no promises because this isn’t really the same kind of thing as police investigations.”

“What’s different about it?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Well for one thing, two out of three of the suspects aren’t usually my best friends.”

Point taken. I knew it was a lot for me to ask of him, but somehow or another I had to find out the truth and I couldn’t wait until a baby was born or a paternity test was done. I needed to know now.

I hadn’t really talked to either Michael or Adam since the other night. I wanted so badly to hold on to the images and feelings of the night in the garden, and I didn’t want to tarnish it with the thought that one of the two men closest to me was lying to my face. I walked back into the house and sat down at a desk in the common room to work on some of the payroll for the staff. It needed to be done and I figured that it was a mundane sort of thing that would help keep my mind off of everything else. Running this place was so much more work than I had imagined. Even with people hired out to do various jobs, it was still an immense undertaking. But it was successful, and we were helping people, and that was all that mattered for now.

“Hey,” Adam said as he walked over and stood near the desk where I was working.

“Hey,” I said as I looked up. I was hoping this wasn’t going to turn into some kind of argument. I had questions that I wanted to ask him, details about what he claimed to have seen, but I just didn’t have the energy to get into it or to be disappointed if his story didn’t add up and I felt like he was lying.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“I’m okay,” I said. “You?”

Adam knelt down beside my chair and put his hand on my thigh.

“I can see that’s not true,” he said. “Remember how long I’ve known you? I can tell when you’re not okay, Lisette.”

“I just don’t really want to talk about it right now,” I said as I glanced back at my paperwork in order to keep myself from getting emotional.

“I understand that. But I want you to know that you can always talk to me about stuff if you need to. You can ask me anything that you want to, and I’ll tell you the truth. I’m always here for you.”