“I know you don’t,” Michael said as he rubbed my hand with his fingers. “But sometimes you just have to let people work through stuff on their own. I think Rob is right; we just need to give him some space.”
After I finished my coffee, I headed down the hallway toward the bedroom to take a shower and get dressed. I was a little surprised to see Adam standing in the hallway talking with Sarah. She barely seemed to talk to anyone here, and Adam didn’t seem to be at all in the mood to talk to her earlier. They both looked up when they saw me come into the hallway, and Sarah immediately ducked back into her room.
“Hey,” I said as I walked up to Adam. “Listen, I don’t want you to be mad at me again.”
“I’m not mad at you, Lisette,” he said.
“You could have fooled me. You seemed pretty damn angry in the kitchen.”
“Not at you. I can’t stay angry at you.”
Adam lifted his hand to my face and traced the side of my jaw with his fingertips. I smiled and hoped that he was being honest. After such a wonderful night last night, I really didn’t want any of the three of us to be at odds. But when Adam leaned forward to kiss me, I pulled away. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to kiss him; I did. But after how wonderfully last night had ended, and how well it seemed to put a closure on things and carve a path ahead for me and Michael; it just didn’t feel right.
“What are you doing?” I asked quietly. “I thought the three of you had an agreement.”
“I don’t want to agree to it anymore,” he said.
“I don’t think that’s how agreements work.”
“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.”
