My face is hot and I never want to look at her again.

"Nick?" she says softly. "Nick, are you going to talk to me or what?"

I close my eyes and listen to the sound of her voice. It's still sweet and it shouldn't be, considering what we're talking about. "I don't want to care what happens to you anymore," I croak. "All this s.h.i.t with you and you don't even care. I'd get back together with you right now, you know that?" I raise my head and look at her. "Whether you want to have the kid or not because it's you and it's us. All that stuff you said about being on the same side-what happened to that? Because I was on your side, Sasha, and you weren't on mine."

"I was," Sasha says sadly.

"No, you were on your side, looking out for you."

"Then I didn't do a very good job, did I?" Her eyes are red and I think I want to make her cry. She could cry over me at least twice. Anybody is worth that.

"This isn't all my fault," I rasp. "You were in this too, Sasha. I never made you do anything."

"I never said you did," she whispers.

We sit silently on the bed, avoiding each other's eyes. My head is throbbing. Everything I do is wrong. There's no right thing between us anymore. "This isn't going anywhere," I say, and for a second it's like I've been unplugged, like I can't feel a thing.

"It's not what I came to talk to you about."

"I know," I bark. "I'm still crazy and you're fine. Don't worry about it-I'll get over it."

"I'm not fine!" Her hands fly into the air. "I have bigger things to think about. This isn't just about us. How do you think we'd get back together after this? Nothing would be the same. Look at us. We can't even talk like normal people."

I'm not sure that should be a goal-talking like normal people. I never thought we were normal people in the first place. Anyway, what I think doesn't matter. It's all over. I nod numbly and stare at my knees, feeling like a dead person.

"You think I'm not crazy anymore?" she cries hoa.r.s.ely. "You think I don't give a s.h.i.t about you? You have no idea how much I wish this never happened." She gets to her feet and grabs for the doork.n.o.b.

"Sit down," I plead, reaching for it too. "I'm sorry." My fingers automatically skim her hair. "I'm so f.u.c.ked up, I don't know what I'm saying."

Sasha sits down on my bed and presses her palms between her knees. "I feel sick," she says, bending at the stomach. "Can you get me some water?"

I touch her shoulder. She looks pale as snow, almost translucent, just a turtleneck and wet eyes hovering above my bed. I bring her water and sit down at my desk. "I'm not over you," I say honestly. "That's the problem."

Sasha lowers her gla.s.s and stares at me. "I'm not over you either."

My stomach drops. I can't take my eyes off her. "It makes it harder," I confess. "I don't know what to do." I never knew what to do about Sasha anyway, but this is different. I have no chance of forgetting about her now.

"There's too much to deal with between us," she says. "I can't do it, Nick. I miss you, but just being near you hurts."

"But that's the way relationships are-if you're with someone long enough, there'll always be stuff to deal with." I'm so happy that I think I'll burst, but it hurts too. This isn't what breaking up should feel like.

"Maybe you're right, but I can't," Sasha says, her voice hushed and slow. "I'm sorry." I nod wearily. I don't know if we'd work out either, but I don't know how to let go. "Are you okay?" she asks.

"Are you okay?" I motion to her water.

She swallows the last mouthful and hands me the empty gla.s.s. "I'm going to Lindsay's for a few days. I need some breathing room-away from my parents. My dad hasn't spoken to me since I told him and he and Mom are fighting all the time. They're making me crazy."

"Your dad knows?"

"Yeah." Sasha grimaces. "He thinks I'm a s.l.u.t now, but whatever."

"He doesn't," I tell her. "You just caught him off guard."

"I spoiled his perfect vision of me. He said that he feels betrayed."

"a.s.shole," I say vehemently.

Sasha flashes a hint of smile. "My mom's taking me over to Lindsay's after we're finished here." She stretches her arms into the air and arches her back. "I want to eat junk food, watch movies, and pretend this isn't happening for at least two hours."

"I tried that." I describe the conversation with Nathan's dad.

"What is it with you and parents?" Sasha teases.

"Just the fathers," I correct.

"Right," she scoffs, "because the women are crazy for you."

"It's a problem." I pull a serious face.

Sasha groans, reaches for the Magic 8 Ball, and pretends to hit me over the head with it. It's the second-best thing that's happened all day.

"Call me when you get back from Lindsay's, okay?"

"I will," Sasha says. "I should call my mom to come get me."

I hug her again before she goes. This one lasts longer and while it's happening, I'm sure everything will be okay in the end. It doesn't feel awkward this time; it feels natural. I kiss the top of Sasha's head and stroke her white cheek. Her dark eyes stare up at me and we stand there, caught in the moment. A second can change everything. I bend towards her, our faces so close that she blurs in front of me. "Nick," she whispers. Does that mean stop? I don't know, but I wait, frozen in time, and she inches forward and presses her lips against mine. It feels so real. I don't know any other way to describe it. It's her and it's me and the last five weeks never happened.

"Nick." She takes a step back and pokes her chin into her turtleneck. "I have to go."

She puts her coat on. b.u.t.tons one stiff b.u.t.ton at a time. Her hands smooth her hair back behind her ears and then burrow into her pockets.

"Call me when you get back," I remind her.

And then she's gone.

sixteen.

Holland is alone when I officially return home the next day. Whatever I was going to say about Diego has dissolved and been absorbed into the rest of my brain, but she has no idea about that; she looks dubiously over at me and rushes up to her room before the non-questioning can begin. Actually, I do have a question (although it has nothing to do with that) and I follow her upstairs and knock on her door.

"Blogging," she shouts. "Do not disturb."

"Two minutes," I shout back.

Holland opens the door and tosses me an impatient look. "Two minutes."

I slouch in the doorway. "I just want to make sure everything's okay with Mom, that she doesn't suspect anything."

"And what would she suspect?" Holland raises one eyebrow. My eyes get that glazed-over look that says I'm never going to answer and probably didn't even hear the question in the first place. "You're safe," she grumbles. "She doesn't know anything. n.o.body knows anything. Whatever is going on with you is safely shielded from familial eyes-except Dad's, of course."

Familial eyes? I told you Holland was a freak, didn't I? "Okay, good." I knock on the door frame. "Thanks."

"Nick." Holland calls my name as I turn to go. "Are you okay?" I swing back towards her, but the answer doesn't come. "You're not, are you? What's going on?"

"I..." I lean back in the door frame, instantly heavier. "I can't talk about it right now, Holland. I'm working on it."

Holland nods. "But you'll be okay?"

"Yeah, hopefully." I force a smile. "After years of intensive therapy."

"If you do want to talk about it, you know I won't say anything, right? I'm not gonna bug you about it, I'm just putting it out there."

"Okay, thanks. It's just, you know, not a good time for it right now."

"Mmm." Holland looks thoughtful. "You're not gonna say anything about yesterday with Diego?"

"Right." It's not my job to say anything. This is a whole other family department, but n.o.body else knows. "So what's that about anyway? I thought Diego had a girlfriend in Quebec."

"Yeah. He did." Holland scrunches her lips together. "She said they should start seeing other people."

"So you're one of these other people?" The old Nick, even yesterday afternoon's Nick, would've been more concerned about this, but I'm so tired, you have no idea.

"We're just friends." Holland shrugs. "He's having a hard time getting over her."

"So you thought you'd help out." It makes perfect sense and I'm not even saying it in a sarcastic way, I swear, but Holland's head twitches and her cheeks flash pink.

"It's none of your business, Nick." She throws her head back and rolls her eyes. "G.o.d, for a second I thought you were actually going to be cool about this and let it go."

"You brought it up," I remind her. "Just be careful, okay?"

Holland scoffs at that. "I don't need to be careful. Nothing's happening."

Where have I heard that before? "All I'm saying is you roll around on the couch with someone and things can happen that you don't antic.i.p.ate." I wince at my choice of words. Suddenly I'm Dad spouting off about complicated situations. Next thing you know I'll be handing over my fifties as some kind of dysfunctional family heirloom.

"Well, we're not all you," Holland says frostily. "Sometimes making out on the couch with a friend is just making out on the couch with a friend."

And sometimes a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b is just a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b and s.e.x is just s.e.x and getting your ex-girlfriend pregnant is just getting your ex-girlfriend pregnant. It doesn't necessarily have to mean anything, but then again, sometimes it does.

"I'm not ragging on you, Holland," I say. "I'm just saying be careful. It's good advice no matter who it's coming from."

I retreat to my room and call Dad. I don't particularly want to talk to him, but the call is overdue. Bridgette answers the phone in her country club voice, but her syllables tighten the moment she hears my voice. Dad, on the other hand, is weirdly ecstatic. "I've been thinking about you," he tells me. "You know your presents are still under the tree here. I'd like to drive up and give them to you-it'd give us the chance to talk."

"Yeah, I guess," I say. "When?"

"What about tonight?"

Canada is playing Finland in the World Junior Hockey Championship tonight, but I tell him okay. Nathan and I watched Canada kick Sweden's a.s.s last night and it felt pretty good, but I can't blow Dad off for hockey when he's trying to help. Besides, I doubt that good feeling will happen twice, even if we win.

"I'll pick you up around seven," he says. "We'll go somewhere quiet."

That's hours away and I check my e-mail. Dani is wondering if I'm going to Marc Guerreau's party and Ronnie, one of our goalies, wants to know if I'm okay. There's nothing from Sasha and I don't expect there to be. I know she's at Lindsay's trying to keep things straight in her head and that I shouldn't mess with that. She's okay there, I'm sure, but I keep thinking about yesterday. She kissed me and then she left and I don't know what the right thing is anymore.

I look up abortion on the Internet, not the pro-life stuff-I don't want to hear people tossing around the word murder or talking about G.o.d like they know him personally-but clinical information on the procedure. There's a pill the girl can stick up inside herself during the first eight weeks. The pill makes the uterus contract and get rid of the tissue. In the first trimester there's also the vacuum method. They give you a shot to numb the cervix and put these metal things called dilators in to gradually open it. Then they put a tube through the cervix into the uterus to suction out its contents. The whole thing only takes about five minutes, but it sounds painful. You can be asleep through it if you want to, but I don't know if she will be. After the first trimester you have to get a D&E (Dilate and Evacuate), which sounds even worse.

I stop reading for a while and concentrate on breathing. She'll be okay in the end. It's a surgery. People recover from surgeries. I look at a list of possible complications and it says that first-trimester abortions are nine to ten times safer than normal childbirth. The complications they describe have really small percentages attached to them and I know her mom will look after her. It'll be okay, I tell myself. I say it over and over, although my stomach hurts and my throat is swelling shut.

I never thought this would happen, not even when I suggested that we get those pills from the clinic. Stupid people get pregnant. Girls that sleep with guys at parties or girls that don't make their boyfriends use condoms because they love them and want it to feel special. That wasn't us.

But why should anyone care how bad I feel about it? It's not happening to me.

And then, because Dad's arrival is a long way off and Mom isn't due home yet either, I look at pregnancy sites. Sasha's five weeks pregnant, but they count back to your last period, which makes it officially seven. I didn't even know that about the counting. Either way it's not very old, but the embryo, just over half an inch long, already has the beginnings of eyes and the lungs have formed.

It's not an actual baby yet, but it could be. Somebody else would be happy about this. Instead it's a mistake. It's doing all this growing and forming for nothing. It's a waste and I feel sorry for it and that makes me feel even sorrier for myself.

I need to talk to my dad, whether he can help me or not. But Mom comes home first. She asks me about the tournament and puts her hand to my forehead. "You look clammy," she says. "Are you feeling all right?"

I try to conjure fictional tournament details, but I'm not feeling creative. Sick is easier to do and I touch my own forehead and say, "Bad headache. I think I'll lie down for a while before Dad comes."

"You're going out with your father?" Mom's eyebrows pull together.

"Yeah, we still have to do the present exchange." I haven't explained Christmas Eve to her yet and I'm not going to do it now.

I go upstairs, lie on my bed, and wait for Dad to show up. The waiting gives me more time to think and I congratulate myself on not calling Sasha while I'm desperate. It wouldn't be fair to her, and besides, Dad will be here soon.

Some people's divorced parents are friends. Some of them still sleep together. My parents only speak when it can't be avoided. Dad has never been inside the house we moved into after he left, and Mom has never met Bridgette. I can't imagine either of these scenarios actually happening. See, Dad honks. That's what he does. He doesn't even venture as far as the front door. He sits in his car and honks twice. I thought it was funny when it first started happening. What would happen if some divorced family with the exact same signal moved in next door? Imagine the confusion.

But today there's no honk. Mom knocks on my door at five to seven and says that Dad's waiting for me in the living room. It's a surprise, but my brain is overloaded and I just stand up and go downstairs, like it happens every day.

"I thought I'd have a look at the house," Dad says when I step into the living room. "Very nice."

"Yeah." I run my hand over my head. "Did you see Holland?"

Dad nods. "We talked a little."

About what? What do you say after nearly a year? "That's good," I tell him. "And Mom?"

"Oh, yes." Dad's nostrils flair. Aha, familiar family tension. "You still haven't told her?"

I shake my head and point to the door. Dad follows me into the hallway, where I slip on my coat and shoes. He looks lost out there, but I have no time for that. "Come on." I open the door and guide him outside.

We climb into the car, the promised presents in the backseat, and drive. I don't know where we're going and I don't care; I need to talk and I need him to start. "There's a nice place on Ridgeway," he says. "Great steak."

"Whatever." I'm not hungry.