Chapter 1.

END OF JULY

Emily's POV

"I'm moving out, Emi."

Four words. Four words that were going to change my life from end to end. When Lana mentions it with a look of distress as she massages her wrist restlessly, the piece of chicken I was barely tasting in my mouth goes down my throat unprocessed making me cough like Wheezy, the hidden old penguin from Toy Story.

"Wait, what?" With watery eyes from lack of oxygen and a chicken leg stuck in my windpipe, I look her straight in the eye, hoping at some point she'll say she's joking. But she doesn't." You're kidding, aren't you?"

My voice comes out raspy. I cough once more as I hit my chest, and when the chicken seems to find its way into my esophagus, Lana shakes her head.

"Emi, I'm getting out of here" She states once again making the piece of chicken suddenly start to taste like garbage to me: "Don't look at me like that with those huge green eyes of yours Emily, I have no choice."

The frenzy in her eyes and the anguish in her expression made me think that behind the ultimatum there was a compelling reason. Still, the whole news took me with my panties down and the brunette didn't make herself understand very well.

"A moment ago we were talking about your boss Lana's, with that horrible mustache, now you're shooting me the news that you're moving out?" I question incredulously, still hoping that at some point a hidden camera will pop up and tell me I'm being taken for a ride. I look at the box full of chicken wings courtesy of my roomie, and then the wires in my head come together: "That's why you brought me chicken..."

The insult was synonymous with affection. Though at the moment, I wasn't abounding with love for her.

"Chicken makes you happy, I just wanted to make you happy while giving you the news otherwise I feel like a murder is going to happen in this apartment" Once again, her words hurt me: "Emi, I have no choice."

"What do you mean you have no choice? Are they threatening you? Are they going to kidnap you? Is the guy next door still stalking you?" I question hurriedly as I take off my plastic gloves. Suddenly I had lost my appetite for chicken.

The brunette, who claimed to be my best friend, now disguised as a backstabber shakes her head, swallowing dryly.

"Something much worse, friend" She responds, with that traumatized little girl look she had been wearing for a few minutes.

My anger turns to concern and I limp my way over to sit next to her. I was already sure she wasn't kidding, so I was interested to know what had her so distraught to decide this caliber.

"Lana, what's wrong friend? Explain to me because I'm seriously not understanding anything" I take her hands in mine and look at her sympathetically. Waiting for her to open her mouth: "Lana, come on."

Lana sighs deeply. She squeezes my hands between hers and plants her gaze away from mine nervously. She relaxes her lips, passes saliva one more time and after another sigh, she finally speaks: "I'm getting married, Emily."

I feel my heart stop.

"Marry? Marry who? Smelly Peter, Lana?" I let go of her hands with a jerk stunned by what had just come out of her mouth.

In frustration, the brunette frowns and says to me. "Peter, Emily. I've told you a thousand times his name is Peter, just Peter"

"I don't care about his stupid name." At this very moment, I don't give a damn what that scrawny little guy's name is. That news took me by surprise and even worse it made me a little angry. I was being abandoned by a penis. "Are you telling me you're leaving our home to go buttering up the man you've decided to rehabilitate?"

Clarification. Peter is not a drug addict but he looks like one because of how ungraceful his parents have made him. The man is an iconic character from yesteryear, I knew him since I had moved to London with Lana. Although the guy was a good man, comical, charismatic, and attentive to my friend to his misfortune he had a smelly flaw.

Peter's sweat glands had to have been inherited from Tutankhamun himself because every time that man came to this apartment from the gym he reeked of rotten, the thousand devils, and twenty old skunks. Hence his famous nickname "Smelly Peter". I didn't dislike the guy but it did get on my nerves that he was taking my best friend away from me, knowing what that meant to me.

"What is he offering you besides sex?" I begin to question in an octave higher than my normal voice as Lana remains unmoved. "While I don't have a penis and I don't play both teams, I can swear there is nothing he can offer you that I can't. Or what Lana? Why are you leaving? What do you need?"

Silence overshadows us for a few minutes. Lana wrinkles her little forehead and with a trembling lower lip whispers: "He will be a father."

Oh my goodness. This had escalated from brown to dark in a tenth of a second.

"Lana..." Automatically my tone of voice lowers five decibels for the pain I have inside because of all the anger that the news had caused me. Even though it was quite obvious what the girl was referring to, I needed to confirm it: "You…?"

Frantically my friend starts nodding over and over as if she has nothing in her head but a nut. She catches her lower lip between her teeth and with eyes watering with tears she confirms the obvious to me in words.

"I'm pregnant" She finally can't hold back any longer and bursts into tears on my shoulder.

A feeling of guilt fills my insides for having dragged her to this point. To tears. I didn't want her to imagine that a baby was bad news, because for them it meant the consummation of their love, but for me, it turned out to be fatal.