My Bestie's Dad Likes Me Wet-Chapter 97 ESCAPE

NOVA POV

I’ve been driving for three hours straight and I still don’t know where the fuck I’m going.

Nowhere, That’s where I’m going.

Nowhere with garbage bags full of my life and a car that costs more than everything I’ve ever owned combined.

The irony isn’t lost on me, and maybe it might have been funny in another circumstance, but I’m so damn numb.

My phone died an hour ago. I’d watched it buzz and light up with Grant’s name over and over until the battery finally gave up.

Good. Let it die. Let everything die.

The highway blurred ahead of me, white lines disappearing under the car like my future got swallowed up until it was gone. My hands gripped the steering wheel so tight my knuckles ached, but I couldn’t loosen them. If I let go, even a little, I might fall apart completely.

And I couldn’t fall apart yet. Not yet.

I kept seeing flashes of the video on that projector. My face, My voice, My body saying More baby, more. Playing on a loop for everyone to see, just like it was playing on a loop in my head.

How many people watched it? Hundreds? Thousands? Was it on Twitter now? Instagram? Some porn site where strangers could comment on my tits and rate my blowjob skills?

My stomach heaved.

Nova, stop. Nova, don’t think about it. Just drive. I never thought a day would come in my life where I would be my very own motivational speaker. But here we are..

But I couldn’t stop. Because that video wasn’t just me getting fucked—it was my scholarship getting fucked as well as my future, my reputation, and everything I’d worked for since I was fifteen years old and decided education was my only way out.

Gone in just two minutes and forty-seven seconds of footage.

I didn’t even know it was two minutes and forty-seven seconds until I saw the timestamp. Lena must’ve known exactly which clip to use. Must’ve gone through whatever collection of videos she had—because I’m sure there were more—and picked the most damning one.

The one where I sounded the most desperate and the most pathetic, the one where I sounded most like a girl who’d do anything for an older man’s attention.

God, I wanted to scream.

A sign whipped past, it was some small town I’d never heard of with a Population of 3,000. The kind of place where everyone knew everyone and strangers stuck out like blood on white sheets. Nah!

I kept driving.

My godmother hadn’t called, Not even once and not that I wanted I want to hear her voice. She probably heard about the scandal and decided I wasn’t worth the trouble anymore, She saw no more reason to pretend she gave a shit about me.

Fine, I didn’t need her.

My vision blurred from unshed tears and exhaustion. I couldn’t tell which was which, not that it mattered.

I should pull over and maybe find a motel. Figure out my next move.

But what was my next move? I had maybe three thousand dollars to my name if I pawned everything Luca gave me. That would last two months if I was careful and three if I was desperate.

Then what?

I couldn’t finish school. Couldn’t get my degree. Couldn’t get the job I’d spent years preparing for. Hell, I couldn’t even do anything except exist in whatever cheap room I could afford while the internet laughed at my sex tape.

Then my stomach rolled painfully. Nausea hit me like a freight train out of the blue.

I barely had time to swerve onto the side of the road before I was throwing open the door and puking onto the gravel. Everything came up—everything I ate earlier, the crackers, the water, the bile, my entire soul.

I heaved until there was nothing left, then heaved some more.

A car passed and honked. Probably thinking I was drunk. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and sat there on the side of the highway, door open, legs shaking, trying to remember how to breathe.

I pulled myself back into the car and kept driving slowly, even if my mouth tasted like acid and failure.

The sun was setting when I finally found a motel. The Sunset Inn, the sign said—generous considering the place looked like it had seen better days in 1987. Peeling paint, flickering neon sign, parking lot full of potholes.

Perfect.

The clerk was an old woman with grey hair and eyes that had seen too much. She barely glanced at me when I paid forty-three dollars in cash for a room. No ID required. The plastic tag boldly read Room 12.

Lucky number twelve. Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling lucky.

I dragged one of the garbage bags containing items I might need inside and locked the door behind me. The room smelled like old cigarettes. The bedspread had stains I didn’t want to identify. The TV had a crack in the corner.

I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall.

This was my life now.

No Grant. No school. No future in sight. I should cry. Maybe break down. Should feel something other than this hollow numbness spreading through my chest like ice.

But I was too tired. Too empty. Too fucking done.

I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes, hoping sleep would take pity on me. Maybe if I slept, I’d wake up and this would all be a nightmare. Maybe I’d wake up in my dorm room with my scholarship intact and my reputation clean and my heart not shattered into a million pieces.

Maybe. Just maybe.

But sleep didn’t come easy. My mind kept spinning, replaying everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. The damn video. The visit to the Dean’s office. Lena’s face when she told me how fake I was.

Fuck her. Fuck all of them.

I would move on with my life and all this would fade into a bad memory sooner or later. I just had to lay low for a while before I start my schooling all over again in a place where no one knows me.

I must’ve dozed off at some point because I woke up to darkness and my stomach trying to climb out of my throat.

I barely made it to the bathroom before I was puking again. Violent, painful heaves that left me gasping and crying and cursing everything.

When it finally stopped, I slumped against the toilet and tried to figure out what was wrong with me. Food poisoning? Stress? My body finally giving up after being pushed past its limit?

Then a thought crept in. Quiet at first. Then louder.

When was my last period?

I tried to think back. Before the kidnapping? After? Time had become such a blur of Grant’s bed and stolen moments and pretending everything was fine.

No. It couldn’t be.

We’d been careful. Mostly. Using pills and condoms. Except for all those times we weren’t—like in the kitchen and the swimming pool and the gym and—

Oh God.

My hands were shaking as I stumbled out of the bathroom. I hoped it wasn’t what I was thinking, but I needed to know. Needed to confirm I was just being paranoid.

The 24-hour pharmacy across the street glowed like a beacon. Or maybe a warning that I was about to confirm the biggest plot twist of my life.

I threw on yesterday’s clothes and walked across the empty parking lot on legs that felt like they might give out any second. The clerk looked half-asleep. I grabbed three pregnancy tests without making eye contact and paid with cash.

Back in the motel room, I lined them up on the bathroom counter.

Three tests. My three chances to prove to myself that I was wrong.

My hands shook so badly I almost dropped the first one. I peed on it and set it aside without looking. Did the same for the second one. The third one.

Then I sat on the edge of the bathtub and stared at the opposite wall, mentally counting down. Three minutes. The instructions said three minutes.

My mind was racing but also completely blank. If I was pregnant, everything would change. Everything just got a thousand times worse.

And don’t even get me started on the children-are-a-blessing shit.

I had no money. No home. No future as it is. And now maybe a baby? A goddamn baby? Grant’s baby? A Calloway child?

Lowkey, a part of me wanted it to be true. Wanted that piece of him I could keep. Wanted proof that what we had was real.

But the better part of me knew better. A baby would trap me. Would tie me to Grant forever. Would give Lena more ammunition and evidence beyond doubt. It would ruin what little was left of my life, and there would be no coming back from it this time.

The timer on my phone went off.

I stood up slowly on numb legs, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might burst through my ribs.

Three tests on the counter.

I looked at the first one. My heart skipped. Two pink lines.

Positive.

No. Maybe it was wrong. There’s false positives. Shit happens, right?

I looked at the second one.

Two pink lines.

Fuck.

My chest tightened.

The third one spelled it out: Pregnant. Digital letters sealing my fate.

All three tests. All three positive.

I was pregnant with Grant Calloway’s baby.

And I was standing in a shitty motel bathroom with forty dollars left to my name and absolutely no fucking idea what to do next.

I sank to the floor slowly, my back against the bathtub, and let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob.

Of course. Of course this would happen. Because my life wasn’t already destroyed enough. Because I needed one more thing to completely fuck me over.

A baby.

Grant’s baby.

Growing inside me right now while I sat in a motel room that smelled like cigarettes and hell.

I pressed my hands to my still-flat stomach.

What the fuck was I going to do? 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

I couldn’t tell Grant. Couldn’t go back. Couldn’t give him or Lena any more power over me.

But I also couldn’t do this alone. Couldn’t raise a baby with no money, no home, no support.

Unless...Unless I disappeared. Really disappeared. Cut every means of Grant connecting with me. Changed my name. Moved somewhere far away. Started over completely.

Became someone new. Someone who wasn’t Nova Hart, the scholarship slut with the viral sex tape.

Someone who could raise Grant’s baby without him ever knowing.

The idea solidified in my mind. It was insane. Impossible. Completely fucking crazy.

But it was the only option I had.

I pulled myself up off the floor and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Red eyes. Disheveled hair. Tear-stained cheeks.

Nova Hart was in pain. Nova Hart was confused. And that girl was done. Finished. Dead to those who knew her.

Time to become someone else.

Time to disappear.

I grabbed my bag and walked out of that bathroom, leaving the three positive tests on the counter like evidence of a crime as well as the new phone he got me so he won’t be able to track me.

It’s time for me to face my own problems alone and this time with no shortcuts.