Monday morning, Adrian woke early, his stomach fluttering with nervous excitement despite the strange way the weekend had ended. He told himself he'd been overthinking things. Kai had been stressed about family issues—that was all. Today would be different. They'd talk, clear the air, and everything would go back to normal.
He took extra care getting ready, choosing the sweater Kai had once complimented, making sure his hair looked good. The marks on his neck had faded to yellowish bruises that he covered with concealer borrowed from his fer father's makeup collection. His parents had noticed something was off but hadn't pushed, and Adrian was grateful.
At school, Adrian went straight to his locker, expecting to find Kai waiting there as he had every morning for the past three months. But Kai wasn't there. Adrian told himself he was just running late. He organized his books slowly, giving Kai time to show up.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. The warning bell rang, and still no Kai.
Adrian's first class was calculus, which he shared with Kai. He walked in hopefully, but Kai's usual seat beside him was empty. Maybe he was sick? Adrian pulled out his phone and sent a quick text: "Hey, are you okay? Missed you this morning."
The message showed as delivered but not read.
By lunch, Adrian had sent three more texts, all ignored. He sat at their usual table in the corner of the cafeteria, his lunch untouched, watching the entrance. Other students gave him curious looks—everyone knew he and Kai had been together constantly. The absence was conspicuous.
Then Kai walked in, surrounded by his usual group of friends. Marcus was laughing about something, and Theo was gesturing wildly. Kai was smiling, looking completely relaxed and normal. Adrian's heart lifted. Kai was here. Everything was fine.
Adrian stood and started walking toward them. "Kai?"
Kai's eyes passed over him without even a flicker of recognition. He kept walking, kept laughing with his friends, as if Adrian didn't exist. As if he was invisible.
Adrian stood frozen in the middle of the cafeteria as Kai and his friends sat at their usual table on the opposite side of the room—the table where the popular mers held court. The table Adrian had never been welcome at.
"Kai?" Adrian said again, louder this time, his voice cracking.
This time Kai definitely heard him. Adrian saw the way his shoulders tensed. But he still didn't turn around. Didn't acknowledge him. Just continued his conversation as if Adrian was nothing more than background noise.
The whispers started immediately. Adrian could feel every eye in the cafeteria on him. Someone snickered. Someone else whispered, "Oh my god, is he serious?"
Adrian's face burned with humiliation. He grabbed his bag and fled to the bathroom, locking himself in a stall as tears streamed down his face. His phone buzzed—a text from an unknown number: "Take a hint, nerd. He's done with you."
The rest of the day was torture. Adrian tried to focus on his classes, but his mind kept spinning. What had he done wrong? Had the weekend been that bad? Had Kai decided Adrian wasn't good enough after all?
After school, Adrian waited by Kai's car in the parking lot. He needed answers. Needed to understand what was happening.
Kai appeared with his friends, still laughing about something. When he saw Adrian standing by his car, his expression flickered—guilt, maybe, or annoyance—before settling back into cold indifference.
"Can we talk?" Adrian asked, hating how desperate he sounded.
"I don't think we have anything to talk about," Kai said, his voice flat and emotionless.
"Please. Just five minutes. I need to understand—"
Marcus stepped forward, his expression cruel. "Leave him alone, nerd. The fun's over. Take a hint."
"Fun?" Adrian's voice was barely a whisper. "Kai, what is he talking about?"
Kai unlocked his car without answering. He got in, started the engine, and drove away, leaving Adrian standing in the parking lot with his heart shattering into pieces.
That night, Adrian called Kai fifteen times. Each call went straight to voicemail. He sent text after text, each one more desperate than the last:
"Please just talk to me."
"What did I do wrong?"
"I love you. Please don't do this."
"Kai, please."
None of them were answered. By midnight, Adrian was curled up in bed, his phone clutched to his chest, tears soaking his pillow. He didn't understand. The weekend had been intense, yes, but Kai had said he loved him. Had looked into his eyes and promised they'd be together.
How could everything change so completely in just two days?
-------
The next three weeks were the worst of Adrian's life. Every day followed the same brutal pattern. He'd wake up hoping it was all a nightmare. He'd go to school and watch Kai from a distance, trying to understand what had happened. And every day, Kai treated him like he was invisible.
Worse than invisible—like he was trash. Something to be stepped over and ignored.
The whispers followed Adrian everywhere now. People laughed openly when he walked past. Someone had started a rumor that Adrian had been obsessed with Kai, that he'd deluded himself into thinking they were together when Kai had just been being nice. Adrian heard himself called "pathetic," "desperate," "delusional."
Kai's friends were the worst. They'd make comments just loud enough for Adrian to hear:
"Can you believe he actually thought someone like Mercer would want him?"
"I heard he basically threw himself at Kai. So embarrassing."
"Scholarship students really don't know their place, do they?"
Adrian stopped eating lunch at school. Stopped eating much at all, actually. Food made him nauseous, and he had no appetite anyway. He spent lunch periods hiding in the library, trying to disappear into his books.
His grades were slipping. He couldn't concentrate in class, couldn't focus on homework. All he could think about was Kai. What had he done wrong? How had he misread everything so badly?
At home, his parents noticed something was wrong but didn't know how to help. Adrian couldn't bear to tell them the truth—that he'd given himself to someone who'd discarded him like garbage. The shame was too overwhelming.
"Sweetheart, you're losing weight," his fer father said one evening, concern evident in his voice. "Are you feeling alright?"
"I'm fine. Just stressed about exams."
It was a lie. Finals were months away. But his parents accepted it, probably because they didn't know what else to do.
The physical symptoms started around the third week. Adrian woke up every morning feeling nauseous. The smell of his mer father's coffee made him run to the bathroom. He was exhausted all the time, falling asleep in class, barely able to keep his eyes open.
He told himself it was stress. Heartbreak. Depression. His body was just reacting to the emotional trauma.
Then one morning, he woke up and made it to the bathroom just in time to vomit. As he knelt on the cold tile floor, trembling and sick, a terrible thought occurred to him. A thought he immediately tried to push away because it was impossible. It couldn't be.
But the thought wouldn't leave. And as Adrian sat there, counting back the weeks since that weekend at the lake house, his blood ran cold.
No. It couldn't be. They'd used protection. Kai had been careful. At least, Adrian thought he had. The night was hazy in his memory, rough and overwhelming. Had there been a moment when they weren't careful? Had something gone wrong?
After school that day, Adrian took the bus to a pharmacy across town where no one would recognize him. He stood in the aisle for ten minutes, staring at the pregnancy tests, his hands shaking. This was ridiculous. He couldn't be pregnant. The test would be negative, and he could stop worrying.
But some instinct told him he needed to know for sure.
He bought the cheapest test, paying with cash, avoiding eye contact with the cashier. At home, he waited until his parents were both in the store, then locked himself in the bathroom with hands that wouldn't stop trembling.
Three minutes. The instructions said to wait three minutes.
Adrian sat on the edge of the bathtub, his heart pounding so hard it hurt. He counted every second, watching the clock on his phone tick forward with agonizing slowness. At two minutes and thirty seconds, he couldn't wait anymore.
He picked up the test with shaking hands.
Two pink lines.
Positive.
The test slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. Adrian stared at it, his vision blurring with tears. No. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real.
But it was. He was pregnant. With Kai's child. The child of someone who'd used him and thrown him away. Someone who now pretended he didn't exist.
Adrian doubled over, a sob tearing from his throat. His whole life was ruined. He was seventeen, still in high school, with no money and no prospects. And now he was pregnant with a child whose father wanted nothing to do with him.
What was he going to do?