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 b.a.l.l.s 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.

chapter twenty-three.

TATE.

I miss you so much, Miles.

Thoughts like that are why I'm drowning my sorrows in chocolate. It's been three weeks since he brought me home. It's been three weeks since I've laid eyes on him. Christmas came and went, but I barely noticed because I worked through it. Two Thursday game nights that Miles didn't show up to. New Year's came and went. Another semester of school began.

And Tate still misses Miles.

I take my chocolate chips and my chocolate milk and walk to the kitchen to hide them from the person knocking at the apartment door.

I already know it's not Miles, because the knock at my door belongs to Chad and Tarryn. They're the only friends I've made here, as busy as I am, and they're only my friends because we're in study group together.

Which is why they're knocking on my door right now.

I open it, and Chad is standing in the doorway sans Tarryn.

"Where's Tarryn?"

"She got called in to cover a shift," he says. "She can't make it tonight."

I hold the door open further to let him in. As soon as he steps over the threshold, Miles opens his apartment door across the hall. He freezes when our eyes meet.

He holds me captive with his stare for several seconds until his gaze slides over my shoulder and lands on Chad.

I glance at Chad, who looks at me and arches an eyebrow. He can apparently tell something's up, so he respectfully retreats into my apartment. "I'll be in your room, Tate," he says.

That's nice of Chad . . . offering to give me privacy with the guy across the hall. However, announcing that he'll be waiting in my bedroom probably wasn't the respect Miles wanted to be shown, because now he's stepping back inside his apartment.

His eyes drop to the floor right before he closes his door.

The look on his face sends pangs of guilt straight to my stomach. I have to remind myself that this was his choice. I have nothing to feel guilty about, even if he is misjudging the situation he just opened his door to.

I close the front door and join Chad in my room. The silent pep talk I tried to give myself did nothing to ease the guilt. I sit on the bed, and he sits at the desk. "That was weird," he says, eyeing me. "I'm a little scared to leave your apartment now."

I shake my head. "Don't worry about Miles. He has issues, but they aren't my issues anymore."

Chad nods and doesn't question me any further. He opens the study guide and lays it across his lap as he props his feet up on the bed.

"Tarryn already made notes for chapter two, so if you get three, I'll cover four."

"Deal," I say. I scoot back against my pillow and spend the next hour preparing notes for chapter three, but I have no idea how I manage to concentrate, because the only thing I can think about is the look that crossed Miles's face right before he closed the door. I could tell I hurt him.

That makes us even now, I guess.

After Chad and I exchange notes and answer the study questions at the end of every chapter, I make copies on my printer. I realize three people divvying up three chapters and sharing answers is cheating, but who the h.e.l.l cares? I never claimed to be perfect.

Once we're finished, I walk Chad back out. I can tell he's a little bit nervous after having seen the look on Miles's face earlier, so I wait for him to get on the elevator before I close the apartment door. To be honest, I was a little nervous for him, too.

I walk to the kitchen and begin making a plate of leftovers. There's no point in cooking, since Corbin won't be home until late tonight. Before I'm finished adding food to my plate, the front door opens with a knock.

Miles is the only one who opens the door and knocks at the same time.

Calm down.

Calm down, calm down, calm down.