“Mina?” both parents called out at the exact same moment.

I hopped to my feet and grabbed the banister for balance before turning and running back to my room. I slammed the door behind me and pushed my back up against it for support. The old farmhouse latches on our doors were worthless—a little well-placed banging made any lock reversible within seconds. I bent over, hands on my knees, gasping and heaving to refill my lungs with air. I could hear stomping on the stairs as my dad’s feet got closer and closer, the softer steps of my mom just behind him.

“Mina! Let me in. Now. We need to talk.” His fist pounding on the door sent a prickling wave of vibrations along my back. I stepped away and turned, holding my fingers down over the latch to keep the hook from coming undone.

“I’m not calling Nate, Dad. I don’t care if you believe me or don’t believe me. That’s your decision and I can’t change that, but I’m not bringing Nate into this. Not today, and not like this. I tell Nate on my own terms.”

“I’m not having this conversation through a slab of wood, Mina. Open the damn door, or I’m getting the ladder and coming in through the window. Your decision.”

I sighed, accepting my defeat. Hiding behind a closed door was pointless. I needed to change tactics and calm him down, start building back the trust somehow.

“Fine,” I said, yanking the latch up and swinging the door open. His cool blue eyes opened wide, surprised that I’d surrendered without more of a fight. “Let’s have a calm and rational conversation.” I walked over to my bed and sat on the edge, hands folded on my lap, looking up at him. “Mom’s told you everything that she knows and everything that I know. I didn’t have sex with anyone, Dad. I didn’t, I really didn’t, as ridiculous as I know that sounds. I don’t understand why this is happening either, or why me, why any of this, any better than you do.”

He loomed over me, rigid and stone-faced, a statue with my dad’s clothes and my dad’s features, but still just an imitation, someone, something, very different from my actual father. My mom came over to the bed and sat down next to me, wrapping her arm around my shoulders. I could see my dad’s eyes shift from me to her, his forehead crinkling in disappointment.

“I would like at least a little show of support in all this, Sallie. I don’t want to be the only sane parent in the house. The only person who sees that all this is completely ludicrous. Complete bullshit.”

I winced, my ears unable to process my usually warm, devoted father talking about me like I was trash, a disgusting, despicable liar. I could feel my mom’s body shaking next to me, but she stayed silent, letting him push all his ugly words out into the open.

He glanced back at me then, apparently finished with my mom, and cringed. “I can’t even look at you right now, Mina,” he said, turning to stare out the window instead, running a hand through his already rumpled thick brown hair. “I feel like I don’t even know who you are.” The words ripped through my chest, like an anchor being yanked straight out of my heart, leaving a big, gaping, bloody hole in its wake.

“I didn’t sign up for a third kid, Mina. How are we going to handle this? Or, better question, how are you going to handle this? Are we supposed to play the daddy and mommy while you go off to college and have your own pretty little carefree life? Have you thought about any of this at all? Do you even grasp the fact that your life will never be the same? This changes everything, Mina. Every damn thing. All the dreams I had for you, all the dreams you had . . .” He choked up at the thought, putting his fist to his mouth to stifle the sob. “How could you do this, Mina? How could you?”

He started crying. My strong, invincible father. Weeping right in front of me. I had only seen him cry exactly four times before, twice for each of his parents—the moment that he’d heard each had passed away, and the point at the funerals when the caskets were lowered and the handfuls of dirt were thrown on top, forever separating my nanny and my pop pop from life on the surface, from green grass and sunlight and the first warm breeze of spring.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I whispered. “I really am.”

His breath hitched and he looked up at me, expectant and hopeful. He thought that he’d cracked me, that I was finally going to confess all my horrendous sins.

“I’m sorry . . . but that doesn’t mean that I did anything wrong. I’m sorry that I’m hurting you, but I can’t apologize for being pregnant. I can’t apologize that I’m having this baby. I didn’t ask for any of this. Believe it or not, this wasn’t my life plan either. This wasn’t my big dream for myself. I may not have it all figured out, but I have six months to get my act together.” I breathed in, balled my fists, and looked him directly in the eyes. “I can do this, Dad. I can. And I will.”

As I heard those words come out from between my lips, felt the full shape and size and weight of them, I believed myself. I really believed myself. I had accomplished everything I’d ever put my mind to, mastered any class, any project, any hobby I’d tried, no matter how difficult it was at the start. I had always kept trying, kept pushing myself further and further. I’d never failed. And I wouldn’t fail at this, either. I wouldn’t fail when it mattered the most.

My dad lowered his eyes and shook his head slowly in a daze. “I thought I’d gotten through to you. But clearly I haven’t even made a dent. I don’t know what it’s going to take.” He sighed, lifting his hands to massage deep circles around his temples. “Call Nate and tell him to come over. Now. I want to hear what he has to say about all this.”

“No.” I crossed my arms tight to hide my trembling hands. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I needed more time.

“He needs to know, Mina. This is his problem, too.”

“This is not his problem. It has nothing to do with him, Dad. It’s not his child. It’s mine. And yes, he does deserve to know, and yes, our relationship will change because of this, but I get to decide when and how he finds out.”

“Give me your phone.”

“Don’t make her do this, Paul,” my mom pleaded, speaking up for the first time since she’d come into the room. “You shouldn’t force something like this on her, not so soon. Please, Paul. Give her more time.”

“Now, Mina,” my dad said, ignoring my mom.

“No!” My heart was skipping, banging in my chest, and I could feel the beads of sweat creeping down my neck.

He was quicker than I was, his eyes darting around the room until they spotted my phone on the nightstand directly in front of him. He lunged for the phone and grabbed it, skimming through my contacts list. His fierce eyes locked on mine as his finger hovered over Nate’s number, testing me, waiting for me to react.

“Are you asking him to come here, or am I? If you don’t do it, I will, Mina. This is nonnegotiable.”

My stomach was twisting and churning, but I couldn’t stop him, I realized. This was happening, I couldn’t fight it—I would be telling Nate that night. Though, if I was being honest with myself, it probably didn’t matter when, where, or how I told Nate. I knew how this would go—how this would end—regardless of how we got from point A to point B.

“Fine,” I said, my voice so thin and shaky, I barely recognized it as my own. “I obviously can’t stop you. But I won’t ever forget that you made me do this.”

My dad nodded as he pressed the dial button and handed me the phone.

There was barely one full ring before Nate answered, like he’d just been staring at the phone, waiting all day to hear from me.

“Mina! Thank God. I just got home from DC a little bit ago and I was about to drive over there if I didn’t hear from you soon.”

“Nate . . .”

“I’ve been really worried about you, Meen. It’s not like you to get this sick. You scared the shit out of me when you were too sick to even pick up the phone to say ‘happy anniversary.’ But I guess that’s why you were so tired last week. How are you feeling? Any better?”