*THIS IS AN UNDEITED, ROUGH DRAFT CHAPTER. SUBJECT TO CHANGE, ANY GRAMMATICAL ERRORS WILL BE FIXED IN POST.

A wise woman, once wrote a riddle. 

What is a beacon of hope to one person, and a set of shackles to another?

A pregnancy test, that’s what. 

Okay, I’m the wise woman. 

But in my defense, that hard earned wisdom came from years of shitty men, and even more pregnancy scares. 

Not enough to scare me straight, apparently, because there I stood, hovered over the bathroom sink once again walking the thin line between both sides of the coin of fate. 

Two small lines of smeared pink ink. 

How could just the thought of something so small make my stomach contort into more knots than a boy scout could ever dream of?

Two words- Eli Jameson, playboy extraordinaire. 

“Piper?” His knock sounded on the bathroom door and made me jump. “How’s it going in there?” 

I narrowed my eyes at the sound of Eli’s voice. These days, that was all it took to summon a rush of angry memories that I would have rather stayed buried. 

Pictures of naked girls in his phone, late night phone calls he swore were his mother, the evidence wasn’t just there, it was staring me in the eyes like a weird old man at a gas station telling me I’m the prettiest woman in the world. 

Fuck, I wished a weird old gas station man was my only problem in life. 

“Fine.” I tried my hardest to hold back the rasp of anger in my voice. 

“Why don’t you open the door, and we’ll wait for it to develop together?” I could hear the smile on his lips. 

That was the worst part about all of this, the way he was able to act like everything was okay. He was the king of all narcissists, but you know what they say about red flags.

Some bitches just think they’re at a carnival.

“No thanks.” I fought back the sting of all the words that wanted to fall from my lips instead. 

For a daycare worker, I had a pretty colorful vocabulary, and I wasn’t afraid to use it.

He had no clue that I knew about all the women he’d slept with behind my back, and that was the way I liked it. At least until I knew whether or not I’d be stuck dealing with the prick for the rest of my life- and not in a good way. 

“Just remember, no matter what happens, we’ll get through this together.” Eli’s voice slithered its way through the cracks of the door like the snake that he is.

My body tensed up at the words.

Out of any other man’s mouth, they would have meant something. Maybe it would have even been comforting. But the fact that he’d texted the exact same thing to a different woman, during their pregnancy scare made it nothing more than a proverbial slap in the face. 

"Yeah." My eyes trailed up to the mirror, and in that instant I realized that I didn't even recognize myself anymore. 

I didn't remember the redhead with tired eyes and an angry scowl. That was never me. 

But years of adulting had worn me down to nothing more than a shadow of the once bright eyed girl I was. 

I closed my eyes and tried to feel her, memories of years at the orphanage flashing behind my eyes as I did. I was the "mom" of the small group of kids who were never adopted. The guardian of the unwanted. 

If I tried hard enough, I could almost recreate the bubble of excitement that I'd had for the future- almost. I couldn't wait to grow up, and have a kid of my own so I could love it in all the ways that my parents had apparently never loved me. 

Every night before I fell asleep I'd imagine all the ways I'd play with them, and all the things I'd say. 

But, like all my childhood dreams, that one was sent out to the pasture years ago like Bessy the cow.

I'd managed to get a job at a daycare center to satisfy my case of baby fever, but it still wasn't enough to keep it at bay. 

I wanted a baby, I really did. 

Just not with a man whose cock has seen more pussy than an animal shelter. 

The timer on my phone pulled me from the dark pit of my thoughts, and I was sucked back into reality. 

This was it. 

The moment of truth. 

With a terrified gulp, and more courage than I even knew I had, I glanced down at the test. 

One line. 

A rush of emotion flushed over me. It was mostly relief and hope, but deep down, past the years of passive aggression, lay the slightest bit of disappointment at the possibility being ripped out from underneath me like a tattered old rug.

"Well?" Eli groaned. "Don't keep me waiting." 

Oh I won't. My jaw clenched so tightly that I had to grip the edge of the counter for moral support. 

It was like he was just asking to be punched in the face. But no, that would be too simple of a fate for the likes of him.

If there was one thing I'd learned after sixteen years in an orphanage, it was the art of tactful revenge, and I'd rather die than let Eli live one more day without knowing the sour taste of it. 

I reached for the doorknob, and as soon as I gripped it a searing hot pain swept through my entire arm, followed by a flash of images inside my head. 

A large castle. 

A roaring fire.

A set of emerald green eyes staring into my soul. 

"Ouch! What the hell?" I recoiled.

"That's it, I'm coming in." 

Without letting another second pass by, the lock on the knob popped and Eli helped himself inside the small bathroom.

"Why the hell is the knob so hot?" My injured hand throbbed.

"What are you talking about?" 

I watched as he wrapped his fingers around the smooth metal effortlessly, without so much as flinching. 

Weird.

"I don't know, I think I'm imagining things." I admitted with a hint of doubt in my voice.

"It's probably the stress, babe." 

He leaned in and wrapped his arms around me. 

I cringed.

The worst part was it felt genuine. It was like deception was his super power.

But little did he know, petty revenge was mine. 

His head turned in the direction of the negative test, and I felt the tension in his shoulders loosen. 

"Oh thank god!" He breathed a sigh of relief.

I glared up at him, my eyes like two hot daggers against his skin. 

He knew how much I wanted a baby, and he didn't know that I knew he was a cheating whore. 

Which meant he was just being a dick. If I had actually been hoping for one, that would have hurt like a bitch to hear him say. 

"I mean, there's nothing wrong with a kid. But I just don't think we're ready." He fumbled to recover.

"Right." I agreed, my voice nothing more than monotone shadow. 

"Well, I have to get to the gym before work. I'll see you after?" 

"Of course." 

Not. 

He didn't know it yet, but by the time he made it back to the apartment that we shared, I'd be long gone. 

I didn't know where, or how, but I'd make it happen.

After no more than sixty seconds, the front door closed with a solid thud, and I was left to deal with the thick silence that was left behind. 

"Yeah, he's really upset." I scoffed to the stale air, and brought my injured hand into the light.

Immediately my eyes gravitated to the star shaped birth mark in the center of my palm, or maybe it was a scar. It wasn't like I'd had the chance to ask my birth mom how I'd gotten it, but the people who ran the orphanage said it was there when I'd arrived.

I blinked at it a few times.

Was it darker than normal? 

No. 

I shook the thought from my brain. 

It was stress. Almost baby daddy stress- the worst kind in my humble opinion. 

With a shake of my head it was gone and my mind was free to fill itself with all the delicious ideas for revenge. 

"Piper?" 

A scream ripped its way through my throat on the way out of me. 

"Holy shit Megan!" I clutched my chest at the sight of my best friend's reflection in the mirror behind me. "How the hell did you get in here?" 

An evil grin stretched across her face as she held up the shiny spare key we kept above the frame of our apartment door. 

"I knew I should have never told you about that key. You're a menace." Her smile spread to my face too. 

"The best kind of menace." She teased before she threw her bright yellow box braids in a bun on top of her head. 

That made my smile grow even more. 

She was ready to get into shit. Like, really get into it. 

"Please tell me it was negative, babe." She pleaded. 

I threw a hot look in her direction, unsure of what she meant, before I slid the test across the counter. 

One look was all it took for the sigh of relief to flood out of her lungs. 

"Oh thank god." Megan clutched at her chest, and grabbed a handful of the yellow fabric of her shirt as she did. 

She always wore yellow, it was like her token color. I remembered the first day she walked into the orphanage when we were five. The yellow bow in her hair perfectly complimented the gorgeous dark tones of her skin. 

From that very first day she was a ray of sunshine- a sarcastic one at that. 

"No offense, but that child would have been born without a single thought in its little head. Eli isn't known for his brains." She smirked. 

"No, he's known for getting brain from every woman he can get his hands on." I grumbled and tossed the pee stick in the nearby trash can. 

"Speaking of that-" She held a manicured finger in my face, opened her purse, and rummaged through, before she pulled out a tub of industrial glue and a folder stuffed with papers.

"What, no cement bags in there?" I raised a brow. 

"Unfortunately, I left all my cement bags at home. But look at this." She slammed the can down with a metallic clink. "But I did bring copies of every screenshot of evidence that we have." 

She looked up at me and her brown eyes were full of mischief. 

It didn't take long to put two and two together.

"I like where this is going." 

***

I set the nearly empty can of glue down with a grunt, and wiped the beads of sweat from my brow.

"Well? What do you think?" Megan said with a smile that was almost to eager to be legal. “I’d say we have a pretty decent shot at careers in home renovation wherever we go next, right?”

I glanced around the apartment, every inch of the walls covered in the screenshots and naked photos that Eli had sent. Not even the flatscreen was spared. 

The frame of the front door creaked against my weight as I leaned against it.

"I think it's our best work yet." My arms crossed in front of me as I admired.

My eyes flickered to Megan. Her smile was probably bigger than mine. 

"You don't have to come with me, you know." My gaze fell awkwardly to the ground. 

Growing up the way that we did, forced to figure life out on our own, talking about feelings wasn't really our strongest suit. 

I knew that, and so did she. But somehow we still managed to make our friendship work, even after all these years. 

I kicked the single trash bag on the floor that held everything I owned. 

"It'll be our third move in the last five years. That's rough." I continued to play with the bag on the floor.

Megan rolled her eyes at me before rummaging through her purse again, this time pulling out a can of bright red spray paint. 

"What the fuck? How-" 

"Shhhhhhhh. A black queen never divulges her secrets." She smirked. 

Without another word she walked to the farthest wall in the living room, and I watched her do her thing. 

When she was finished she made her way back to me in the doorway. I tried to hold back my smile, but I couldn't.

"Where you go, I go. That's the deal boo." She pulled me into a hug, and I hugged her back. "Now let's get the hell out of here, because the only exception to that deal is jail."

She scooped up my trash bag and started off down the hall. 

With one final glance over my shoulder, I read the words she'd plastered across the wall.

Eli Jameson is a Fugly Slut. 

Yes. Yes he is.