Chapter 1 - The Bathroom Door
The first sound Nia Bennett heard when she stepped away from her graduation party was not crying.
It was laughter.
Her mother’s laughter floated up from downstairs, warm and bright, mixed with music, glasses clinking, cousins shouting congratulations, and the squeal of children batting gold balloons beneath the enormous blue-and-white banner stretched across the living room.
CONGRATS NIA.
Every time she saw it, Nia smiled.
She had spent four years imagining this night.
Her blue graduation gown still hung from her shoulders. Her white dress showed underneath. Her diploma case was tucked beneath one arm, and the tassel on her cap kept brushing her cheek.
She had graduated near the top of her class.
In August, she would leave for Hawthorne University in North Carolina on a nearly full academic scholarship.
Tonight felt like proof that everything had worked.
Then she heard someone crying upstairs.
Nia stopped at the bottom of the staircase.
The sound was faint.
Broken.
She climbed slowly.
“Jasmine?”
No answer.
Her best friend had disappeared twenty minutes earlier.
Nia reached the upstairs bathroom and knocked.
“Jas?”
Something scraped against tile.
Nia pushed open the door.
Jasmine Price sat against the bathtub with her knees pulled to her chest.
Her graduation gown had been thrown beside her. She wore the fitted cream dress underneath, but it was wrinkled now. Her sleek hair had fallen across her face.
Mascara streaked both cheeks.
In one trembling hand, she held a pregnancy test.
Nia froze.
“Jasmine…”
Jasmine looked up.
“What happened?”
Jasmine’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Nia closed the door behind her and knelt.
“Are you pregnant?”
Jasmine began crying harder.
Nia’s shock immediately became concern.
“Oh my God.”
She reached for her.
Jasmine recoiled.
That was the first thing that felt wrong.
Nia stared at her.
“Jas?”
“I’m sorry.”
Something in Jasmine’s voice changed the temperature of the room.
Nia slowly withdrew her hand.
“What are you sorry for?”
Jasmine looked toward the sink.
Nia followed her eyes.
A silver chain lay beside Jasmine’s phone.
Nia knew that chain.
She had bought it eleven months ago with money from her summer job.
Malik wore it every day.
Her eyes remained fixed on it.
The bathroom suddenly seemed too small.
“Why is Malik’s chain here?”
Jasmine said nothing.
Her phone screen lit.
Nia saw the message before Jasmine could reach it.
MALIK:
Did you tell her yet?
Nia stopped breathing.
“No.”
Jasmine covered her face.
“No.”
Nia stood.
Her knees nearly buckled.
She grabbed the edge of the counter.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
Jasmine sobbed.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
Nia stared at her childhood best friend.
Fourteen years of sleepovers.
Birthday parties.
Secret handshakes.
Middle-school heartbreak.
College applications completed together at Nia’s kitchen table.
Jasmine had hugged her after graduation less than two hours earlier.
She had smiled beside her in pictures.
She had told Nia she deserved everything good coming to her.
Now she was holding a positive pregnancy test beside Malik’s chain.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Malik appeared in the doorway.
His black dress shirt was open at the collar.
His graduation stole hung crookedly.
He looked first at Jasmine.
Then at the test in Nia’s hand.
His face collapsed.
“Nia.”
She turned toward him.
“Nia, let me explain.”
The disbelief vanished.
Rage replaced it.
“You got my best friend pregnant?”
Malik lifted both hands.
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated?”
Jasmine stood shakily.
“Nia, please.”
Nia spun toward her.
“When?”
Neither answered.
“When?”
Malik swallowed.
“It happened a while ago.”
Nia laughed once.
It sounded frightening even to her.
“A while ago.”
Jasmine wiped her face.
“We were going to tell you.”
“When?”
Nia stepped toward her.
“Before the cake?”
Jasmine flinched.
“Or after you smiled in my face all night?”
“Nia—”
“You helped my mother decorate.”
Jasmine’s shoulders shook.
“You stood downstairs underneath a banner with my name on it.”
Malik stepped closer.
“It was a mistake.”
Nia turned.
“No.”
Her voice suddenly became quiet.
“A mistake is spilling a drink.”
Malik’s face tightened.
“This was betrayal.”
More footsteps came up the staircase.
Ms. Bennett appeared.
She looked from Nia to Jasmine, then Malik.
Her eyes fell on the pregnancy test.
Silence swallowed the hallway.
“Tell me,” Ms. Bennett said slowly, “I’m not looking at what I think I’m looking at.”
Nobody answered.
That was answer enough.
Nia tore the graduation cap from her head.
She threw it at Malik.
It struck his chest before he caught it awkwardly.
“You didn’t just ruin tonight.”
Her voice cracked.
Malik’s eyes filled.
“You poisoned every memory attached to it.”
Jasmine cried openly.
“Nia, please.”
Nia looked at her.
For one terrible second, Jasmine seemed seven years old again, sitting beside her on the Bennett family staircase, promising they would be sisters forever.
Then Nia looked at the pregnancy test.
“Best friends don’t do this.”
“Nia—”
“Keep the baby if you want.”
Jasmine went still.
Nia looked between them.
“But neither of you gets to keep me.”
Her mother stepped beside her.
Downstairs, the music continued.
Someone laughed.
A balloon burst.
The party did not know Nia’s world had ended.
She started down the staircase.
Then Jasmine called after her.
“Nia.”
Nia stopped.
Jasmine was gripping the bathroom doorway.
“There’s something else.”
Nia slowly looked back.
Jasmine’s face carried something worse than shame.
Fear.
“What?”
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Jasmine whispered the words.
“Malik didn’t only lie to you about me.”
