At 8:45 Wednesday morning, I was sitting outside a women’s health clinic with my heart pounding over a baby that, as far as I knew, might change the rest of my life. Forty-five minutes later, I learned there was no baby, no appointment, and apparently no limit to how cruel the woman I loved was willing to be for a joke.

Chapter 1

The message had arrived shortly after eleven the night before. I was half asleep on the couch in my Baltimore apartment, watching baseball highlights while my girlfriend, Natalie, was supposedly staying at her friend’s place across town. We had been together fourteen months and living together for six, long enough that I had started thinking of the apartment as ours even though my name was the only one on the lease.

My phone buzzed against the coffee table.

I’m pregnant and scared. I have an appointment at a clinic tomorrow at 9. Please come with me. I can’t do this alone.

I sat straight up.

For several seconds, I simply stared at the words.

Then I called her.

Natalie answered on the second ring, crying so hard I could barely understand her. She said she had taken a home pregnancy test that afternoon and had been too terrified to tell me. She didn’t know what she wanted to do, and she wasn’t asking me to decide for her. She only wanted me there.

“Of course I’ll be there,” I told her.

“What if you hate me?”

“Why would I hate you?”

“For putting us in this position.”

“We’re in it together.”

She started crying harder.

I stayed on the phone until she seemed calmer. Afterward, I went to bed, but sleep never really came. I spent the night staring at the ceiling and imagining futures I had never seriously considered.

I was twenty-eight and worked as a project manager for a commercial construction company. I made decent money, had health insurance, a reliable truck, and a little savings. On paper, I was probably more prepared for fatherhood than plenty of men who had become fathers.

Emotionally, I had no idea.

Natalie and I had never even seriously discussed marriage. We had talked vaguely about “someday,” the way couples do when they want to sound committed without making promises. Now I was wondering if we might be making decisions about prenatal vitamins, cribs, marriage licenses, or something far more painful before lunch.

I also wondered whether the child was definitely mine.

I hated myself for the thought.

The previous few months had been strange. Natalie had become protective of her phone and had started going out more often. Sometimes she returned after midnight smelling like expensive perfume, restaurant food, and whatever sweet cocktails she ordered with her friends.

Whenever I asked if everything was okay, she smiled.

“Of course.”

So I believed her.

Trust had always been important to Natalie because of what she said her ex-boyfriend had done to her.

His name was Eric. They had dated for three years before she met me. According to Natalie, Eric cheated on her with a coworker, lied repeatedly, and spent most of their relationship making her feel as if she were lucky he tolerated her.

When Natalie and I became serious, I spent months helping her believe she deserved better.

Apparently, I had become very good at proving my loyalty.

At six Wednesday morning, I called my boss.

“I’ve got a family emergency,” I told him. “I need the day.”

Tom had been my supervisor for four years and knew I almost never missed work.

“Take care of what you need to take care of,” he said. “We’ll manage.”

I showered, made coffee, and tried to eat toast. After two bites, I threw it away.

By 8:45, I was sitting in the clinic parking lot.

I texted Natalie.

I’m here. Where are you?

Nothing.

At 8:55, I called.

Voicemail.

At nine, I called again.

Voicemail.

By 9:15, irritation had given way to genuine fear. I imagined her sitting somewhere crying, unable to drive. I imagined complications. I imagined that she had changed her mind about going inside and was wandering some parking lot by herself.

Finally, I went into the clinic.

The receptionist was a woman around my mother’s age with silver streaks in her dark hair.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m meeting my girlfriend. She has a nine o’clock appointment.”

The woman asked Natalie’s name.

I gave it.

She typed for several seconds, frowned, and checked again.

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t have anyone by that name scheduled today.”

“Could you check again?”

“I already did.”

“Maybe she checked in already.”

“She hasn’t.”

My face grew hot.

“She specifically told me nine o’clock. This clinic. This address.”

The receptionist gave me a sympathetic look.

“We do have other locations. Perhaps she scheduled somewhere else?”

“Maybe.”

I thanked her and walked outside.

In my truck, I called Natalie again.

Nothing.

I sent another message.

They don’t have an appointment for you here. Are you okay? Please call me.

Five minutes passed.

Then ten.

That was when I opened Instagram.

I almost never looked at Natalie’s stories. She posted constantly—coffee cups, sunsets, clothes from the boutique where she worked part-time, and inspirational quotes about healing from people whose names she probably didn’t know.

A colored ring surrounded her profile picture.

She had posted twenty-three minutes earlier.

I tapped it.

The video opened.

Natalie was sitting at a trendy restaurant with exposed brick walls, hanging plants, and enough avocado toast on the table to feed a small neighborhood. There were glasses of orange juice and champagne lined up between two plates.

Across from her sat Eric.

The supposedly toxic, manipulative, cheating ex-boyfriend.

He raised his glass toward the camera.

Natalie laughed.

Then I saw the caption.

When you test his loyalty and he comes running 😂

I watched the video again.

And again.

My hand began shaking.

There had never been a pregnancy.

There had never been a clinic appointment.

There had only been a test.

A performance.

While I was sitting in a parking lot worrying about the life of a nonexistent child, Natalie was drinking mimosas with the man she had spent a year telling me had nearly destroyed her.

For fifteen minutes, I sat without moving.

Then I took a screenshot.

I found the restaurant because Natalie had tagged the location.

Before I drove there, however, I made two phone calls.

The first was to my friend Marcus, who managed rental properties.

The second was to my landlord.

By the time I pulled away from the clinic, I knew exactly what I was going to do.

And for the first time that morning, I wasn’t scared anymore.