Here's my newest preview of the bare novelization WIP. This is most of the scene "Promise". It's a little long, so if you enjoy what I have here, there's a link at the bottom to read the rest of the scene. (Please let me know what you think!! It motivates and inspires me so much!!)
Jason closes his eyes. He's sorry, he really is, sorry in a hundred different ways for the way that he treated both Ivy and Peter, but he can't go back, he can only go forward and she just won't let him go. She just won't understand.
"I'm sorry, Ivy," he says, trying to keep his voice kind. "We can't be together - I changed my mind and I'm sorry. I don't feel the same."
"Listen, Ivy, I'm so stressed right now, I've got so much going on, I just - can we just leave things at this and move on? Please?"
Ivy pauses for a second, her pretty eyes filled with hurt, but then she sets her jaw and her expression darkens.
"Move on? You want to just move on? Well, think about this, Jason. When we … you know, before break … we weren't safe. So how exactly do we move on from that?"
Jason glances at his watch and makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. He wants to be nice, to be understanding, but she's just not getting it and he doesn't have time for games.
"What do you want from me, Ivy? I've got to do this speech and run these lines and I don't have time for this."
She snorts, looking angrier than he thinks he has ever seen her. "You're worried about your speech?! Let me help you, Jason. You know what I'm saying! I know you know - you got me pregnant!"
The world tilts, there's no other word for it, as the word pregnant smacks Jason in the face. It's impossible. Absolutely impossible. Right? This could never -
"You still worried about your speech?" she asks bitterly. "Put that in your fucking speech. Nothing more real and raw than this! Pat yourself on the goddamn back!"
"No," Jason says, his face pale. "Shit - this…" He runs his fingers through his curls and then rounds on her, jabbing his finger at her. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"What?" she cries. "Me? You - you're the one who, who - "
Her voice breaks partway through her sentence, and her angry mask crumbles alongside it. She's hurt, so hurt and scared and so, so alone, and Jason can't help but reach out to her and pull her into his arms, soothing her even as his brain works a million miles an hour.
She looks up at him hopefully, and Jason feels a dark dread inside him. "But we're in this together, right, Jason?"
Pull it together, asshole, he commands himself. You did this.
"We'll get through it," she chokes out. "And Jason, I still love you. I love you."
Is this it? Is this what you wanted? he asks himself angrily. Here it is, you big man. She's beautiful and she's yours.
"Maybe... I know you don't love me right now … I know. I get it. But maybe someday you can..."
For a minute, his life with Ivy flashes in front of his eyes. An unplanned pregnancy would be bad, but not disastrous in his family's eyes, not if they did the right thing and got married right after graduation. Ivy would have an adorable baby and he knows she would be a good wife, supporting him and loving him but not pushing him too hard, never pressing him the way Peter did…
It's the thought of Peter that brings him back. Peter loved him, loved every inch of him, but now that Ivy is pregnant, God, who knows…
But he's still holding Ivy, his mind racing for what to say and what to do, when he hears a cough from the doorway and they both look up to see a furious Matt Lloyd standing there.
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