Marrying Daisy Bellamy by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online Page A

make himself scarce? Did she have a boyfriend, for Chrissake?
    â€œThen tell me.”
    â€œI don’t want you to hate me.”
    â€œI could never hate you. I don’t hate anybody.” Not even the drunk driver who had hit his dad. Julian had seen the guy in a courtroom. The guy had been crying so hard he couldn’t stand up. Julian hadn’t felt hatred. Just an incredible, hollow sense of nothingness. “Seriously, Daze,” he said. “You can tell me anything.”
    â€œI hate myself,” she said, her voice low now, trembling.
    The phone wasn’t cordless, so his pacing was confined to a small area in front of a window. He looked out at the colorless February day. Down in the parking lot, Rojelio’s wife was bringing in groceries, bag after bag of them. Normally, Julian would run down and give her a hand. She had a bunch of kids—he could never get an accurate count—who ate like a swarm of locusts. All she did was work, buy groceries and fix food.
    â€œDaisy, go ahead and tell me what’s going on.”
    â€œI screwed up. I screwed up big-time.” Her voice sounded fragile, the words like shards of glass, even though he didn’t know what she was talking about. Whatever it was, he wanted to be there, wished he could put his arms around her, inhale the scent of her hair and tell her everything was going to be all right.
    His mind scrolled through the possibilities. Had she started smoking again? Was she failing in school? He waited. She knew he was there. He didn’t need to prompt her anymore.
    â€œJulian,” she said at last, a catch in her voice. “I’m going to have a baby. It’s due in the summer.”
    The words were so unexpected, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. He kept staring at Rojelio’s wife, now on her second trip with the grocery bags. Daisy Bellamy? Having a baby?
    At Julian’s school, pregnant girls were pretty common, but Daisy? She was supposed to have, like, this privileged life where nothing bad ever happened. She was supposed to be his girlfriend. It was true, they’d parted ways in the summer having made no promises, but it was an unspoken assumption between them.
    Or so he’d thought.
    â€œJulian? Are you there?”
    â€œYeah.” He felt as if he’d been punched in the gut.
    â€œI feel really stupid,” she said, crying now, sounding scared. “And it can’t be undone. The guy…he’s somebody from my school in New York. We weren’t even, like, together or anything. We got drunk one weekend, and…oh, Julian…”
    He had no idea what to say. This was not the conversation he’d imagined when he’d picked up the phone. “I guess…wow, I hope you’re going to be all right.”
    â€œI pretty much changed everything for myself. I told my parents, and they’re, like, in shock and everything, but they keep telling me it’ll all work out.”
    â€œIt will.” He had no idea if it would or not.
    â€œJulian, I’m so sorry.”
    â€œYou don’t need to apologize.”
    â€œI feel terrible.”
    So did he. “Look, it is what it is.”
    â€œI wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to see me again.”
    â€œI want to see you.”
    She breathed a sigh into the phone. “I still want to see you, too.”
    â€œI guess we will at the wedding.”
    â€œRight. So…enough about me.” She gave a weak laugh. “How are things with you?”
    It didn’t feel right to share his news with her now. All the energy had been sucked out of him. He couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that she was pregnant…and what she’d done in order to get that way.
    â€œEverything’s fine,” he said.
    â€œGood. Julian?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI miss you.”
    â€œYeah,” he said, though he didn’t know what he missed. “Me,