Ugly Love: A Novel
Ugly Love: Chapter 22

Six years earlier

My dad says he needs to speak to us.

He asks me to get Rachel and meet him and Lisa at the dining-room table. I tell him okay, that there’s something we need to speak to them about, too.

Curiosity flashes in his eyes but only for a brief second. He thinks about Lisa again, and he’s not curious anymore.

His everything is Lisa.

I go to Rachel’s room and tell my everything that they want to speak to us.

We all sit down at the dining-room table.

I know what he’s going to say. He’s going to tell us he proposed. I don’t want to care, but I do. I wonder why he didn’t tell me first. This makes me sad but only a little bit. It’s not going to matter after we tell them what we have to tell them.

“I asked Lisa to marry me,” he says. Lisa smiles at him. He smiles at her.

Rachel and I aren’t smiling.

“So we did,” Lisa says, flashing her ring.

So.

We.

Did.

Rachel gasps quietly.

They’re already married.

They look happy.

They’re looking at us, waiting for a reaction.

Lisa is concerned. She doesn’t like that Rachel looks so upset. “Honey, it was spur-of-the-moment. We were in Vegas. Neither of us wanted a big wedding. Please don’t be mad.”

Rachel begins crying into her hands. I wrap my arm around her and want to console her. I want to kiss her reassuringly, but my father and Lisa wouldn’t understand it.

I need to tell them.

My dad looks confused that Rachel is so upset. “I didn’t think either of you would mind,” he says. “You’re both leaving for college in a couple of months.”

He thinks we’re mad at them.

“Dad?” I say, keeping my arm around Rachel. “Lisa?”

I look at both of them.

I ruin their day.

Ruin.

“Rachel is pregnant.”

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

DEAFENING SILENCE.

Lisa is in shock.

My father is comforting Lisa. His arm is around her, and he’s rubbing her back.

“You don’t even have a boyfriend,” Lisa says to Rachel.

Rachel looks at me.

My father stands. He’s angry now. “Who’s responsible?” he yells. He looks at me. “Tell me who he is, Miles. What kind of guy knocks a girl up and doesn’t have the balls to be with her when she tells her own mother? What kind of guy would let a girl’s brother be the one to break the news?”

“I’m not her brother,” I say to my father.

I’m not.

He ignores my comment. He’s pacing the kitchen now. He hates the person who did this to Rachel.

“Dad,” I say. I stand up.

He stops pacing. He turns and looks at me.

“Dad . . .”

I’m suddenly not as confident as I was when I sat down to do this.

I’ve got this.

“Dad, it was me. I’m the one who got her pregnant.”

My words are hard for him to swallow.

Lisa is looking back and forth between Rachel and me. She can’t swallow what I’m saying, either.

“That’s not possible,” my father says, trying to push away all the thoughts that are telling him it is possible.

I wait for it to process.

His expression changes from confusion to anger. He looks at me like I’m not even his son. He’s looking at me like I’m the guy who knocked up his new stepdaughter.

He hates me.

He hates me.

He really hates me.

“Get out of this house.”

I look at Rachel. She grabs my hand and shakes her head, silently pleading for me not to leave.

“Get out,” he says again.

He hates me.

I tell Rachel I should go. “Just for a little while.”

She begs me not to go. My father walks around the table and shoves me. He pushes me toward the door. I release Rachel’s hand.

“I’ll be at Ian’s,” I tell her. “I love you.”

Those words are obviously too much for my father, because his fist immediately comes at me. He pulls his hand back and looks almost as shocked as I do that he just punched me.

I step outside, and my father slams the door.

My father hates me.

I walk to my car and open the door. I sit in the driver’s seat, but I don’t crank the engine. I look in the mirror. My lip is bleeding.

I hate my father.

I get out of my car and slam the door. I walk back into the house. My father rushes to the door.

I hold my palms up. I don’t want to hit him, but I will. If he touches me again, I’ll hit him.

Rachel isn’t at the table anymore.

Rachel is in her room.

“I’m sorry,” I say to both of them. “We didn’t mean for it to happen, but it happened, and now we have to deal with it.”

Lisa is crying. My father hugs her. I look at Lisa.

“I love her,” I say. “I’m in love with your daughter. I’ll take care of them.”

We’ve got this.

Lisa can’t even look at me.

They both hate me.

“This started before I even met you, Lisa. I met her before I knew you were with my father, and we tried to stop it.”

That’s kind of a lie.

My father steps forward. “The entire time? This has been going on the entire time she’s lived here?”

I shake my head. “It’s been going on since before she lived here.”

He hates me even more now. He wants to hit me again, but Lisa is pulling him back. She tells him they’ll figure it out. She tells him she can get it “taken care of.” She tells him it’ll be okay.

“It’s too late for that,” I tell Lisa. “She’s too far along.”

I don’t wait for my father to hit me again. I rush down the hallway and go to Rachel. I lock the door behind me.

She meets me halfway. She throws her arms around my neck and cries into my shirt.

“Well,” I say. “The hard part is over with.”

She laughs with her cry. She tells me the hard part isn’t over yet. She tells me the hard part is getting him out.

I laugh.

I love you so much, Rachel.

“I love you so much, Miles,” she whispers.