Adopting Jenny by Liz Botts

together and wind up hating each other?”
    Josh dropped his arms and took a step back. He stared at me in utter disbelief. “You’re breaking up with me?”
    â€œI don’t know.” I wrapped my arms around myself. I’d much rather have been in Josh’s arms, but an odd feeling of relief washed over me. I had made a decision. For myself. Something about that little act made me feel free in ways I hadn’t in a long time. A rush of adrenaline shot through my veins, giving me a buzzing feeling in my head.
    â€œHow can we be breaking up?” Josh sounded so lost as he spoke, but with each moment that passed I felt more sure that this was the right way to go. He clasped his hands together in a pleading stance, and his eyes were shiny. “I love you.”
    That got me. “I love you too. That’s why I need to take a step back.”
    We stared at each other, Josh’s face mirroring the raw emotion I felt.
    â€œDon’t do this,” Josh said softly.
    I swallowed past the growing lump in my throat. “I have to.”
    â€œHannah…” He started toward me, closing the distance between us.
    â€œGo,” I said with a harshness I didn’t mean. I didn’t have the strength to say it again.
    Josh’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything else. He simply turned, grabbed his coat and basketball, and headed toward the apartment door. The sound of the door shutting behind him reverberated through the small space. I was engulfed in the sudden silence, feeling lonelier than I ever had before. Part of myself had just been ripped away and walked out the door with Josh.
    ****
    â€œHey, Hannah, I’m home.”
    I blinked awake at the sound of Hayley’s voice. My eyes felt gritty and my nose chapped. It took me a second to remember why, but when I did, the tears welled up again. With great effort I pushed myself up on the couch. I pulled the crocheted afghan closer around myself, and started to sniffle as Hayley came in from the kitchen.
    â€œWhoa, what’s wrong?” Hayley asked as she settled onto the couch beside me.
    â€œI…I…I broke up with Josh,” I said with a hiccup.
    â€œWhat? You’re joking, right? Why?”
    I cried harder as Hayley wrapped her arms around me. “I just couldn’t take it all anymore.”
    â€œTake what?” Hayley smoothed hair back from my face.
    Swiping the snot away from my nose with the back of my hand, I sat up, mildly disgusted with my own grossness. “I had a pregnancy scare.”
    Hayley’s eyebrows practically flew off her face. “You and Josh were…?”
    â€œYeah, only for a little while. A few months.” I jammed my fingers through the web of the blanket.
    â€œUm, can I ask why?”
    I glanced at her in confusion. Her question bothered me a little. “What do you mean, why?”
    Hayley squeezed me one last time before leaning back on the hideous blue and purple zebra striped sofa Grandma had gifted us with when we moved into the apartment. “Nothing, really. I just figured that since you guys had waited this long, you were waiting for marriage or something. No offense, Hannah, really.”
    That made me laugh. So typically Hayley. “None taken. I wish we had waited.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you?” Hayley smoothed her shiny ponytail, and adjusted her hot pink tank top emblazoned with her sorority’s letters. Why she was wearing a tank top in the middle of winter was beyond me.
    I considered her question. The decision to have sex hadn’t been a quick one. Josh and I had discussed it at length. Several of my friends had been shocked to discover that I was a virgin at twenty-one, which had been embarrassing. But none of those reasons really felt right.
    â€œWe were together for nearly five years. We just decided it was time. Everyone else was doing it.” The words sounded hollow and cliché even to my own