I got pregnant on purpose to keep my best friend’s man, and I told myself the lie that made it easier: I’m not stealing him. I’m just making him choose.
My name is Madison “Maddie” Kerr. In Austin, people love calling women “girls’ girls,” like it’s a brand you can wear. My best friend Sienna Brooks actually lived it—big heart, loyal, the kind of person who’d pick you up at 2 a.m. without asking why.
Her boyfriend was Ethan Cole—nice smile, steady job, the kind of guy who knew how to say the right thing in a calm voice. He also had a habit of looking at me like I was the person in the room who understood him the most.
It started small. Double dates. Game nights. Ethan venting to me in the kitchen while Sienna was in the bathroom. “She’s amazing,” he’d say, “but she’s… intense sometimes.”
I’d nod like a therapist. “She loves you,” I’d reply.
Then the texts started. Nothing explicitly romantic at first—just memes, “Are you going?” questions, little updates about work. I didn’t shut it down. I didn’t tell Sienna. I told myself it was harmless.
One night after Sienna and Ethan fought—something about him canceling plans again—Ethan showed up at my apartment with a six-pack and that exhausted look men wear when they want forgiveness without accountability.
“I can’t breathe around her lately,” he said, sitting on my couch. “Everything’s a test.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” I whispered.
“I just needed somewhere quiet,” he said. Then he looked at me like he’d been holding his breath for months. “Maddie… you ever feel like you’re the only one who gets me?”
I should’ve stood up. I should’ve opened the door and pointed him out of it.
Instead, I stayed.
What happened next wasn’t a fantasy, and it wasn’t “romantic.” It was messy, human, and selfish. The kind of mistake you can’t un-make.
Two weeks later, I stared at a positive pregnancy test in my bathroom, the plastic shaking in my hand. My first thought wasn’t fear.
My first thought was strategy.
Because the same day I found out, Sienna texted me a photo of her and Ethan smiling at brunch. Caption: “We’re good again. I think he’s the one.”
I sat on the edge of my tub, heart hammering, and typed back: “I’m so happy for you.”
Then I opened my notes app and wrote a single sentence I would repeat until it sounded like truth:
If Ethan is tied to me forever, he can’t choose her.
A week later, I invited Ethan over. I told him I needed to talk. I didn’t cry. I didn’t yell.
I simply handed him the test and said, “I’m pregnant.”
His face drained of color.
And before he could speak, my phone buzzed—Sienna calling.
Part 2
Ethan stared at the screen lighting up my coffee table like it was an alarm. “She calls you a lot,” he murmured, voice tight.
“She’s my best friend,” I said, too quickly.
Sienna’s name kept flashing, cheerful and innocent, while Ethan’s hands started to shake. “Tell her you’re busy,” he said. “Please.”
The word please should’ve made me feel powerful. Instead, it made me feel sick.
I answered anyway, forcing brightness into my voice. “Hey, Si!”
“You’re not gonna believe this,” Sienna chirped. “Ethan surprised me. He said he wants to do a little weekend trip—just us—like a reset.”
I looked at Ethan. He couldn’t meet my eyes.
“That’s amazing,” I said, my throat tightening. “You deserve it.”
“I know!” she laughed. “Also, can you come with me tomorrow? Dress shopping? I think I found the dress. Like… the one I’d wear if he proposed.”
My stomach flipped hard, like my body was trying to eject the truth.
Ethan mouthed, Don’t.
I swallowed. “Tomorrow’s tough,” I lied. “Work’s insane.”
Sienna paused. “You okay? You sound weird.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just tired.”
After I hung up, the room went silent in that heavy way that makes you hear your own breathing.
Ethan dragged a hand down his face. “Maddie… this can’t be happening.”
“It is,” I said. “I’m pregnant.”
He paced once, then stopped. “Did you… did you plan this?”
The question landed like a slap because the honest answer was complicated. I didn’t plan the night. I planned what came after.
“No,” I said, choosing a half-truth. “But it’s real.”
Ethan’s voice cracked. “Sienna is my girlfriend.”
“Then act like it,” I snapped, and immediately softened. “I’m not trying to ruin her. I’m trying to figure out what we do.”
“What we do?” he repeated. “There is no ‘we.’ There’s a baby. There’s—” he pointed to my phone like Sienna was still on it, “—her.”
I leaned in, quiet and controlled. “If you walk away,” I said, “she finds out anyway. And you become the guy who got her best friend pregnant.”
Ethan froze. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s reality,” I replied. “I’m not asking you to love me. I’m asking you not to abandon your child.”
His eyes were wet now, and that made me angry—because his tears didn’t mean remorse. They meant consequences.
“I need time,” he whispered. “I need to tell Sienna.”
“No,” I said, too fast. “Not yet. Let me go to my appointment. Let’s be sure. Then we decide how to handle it.”
Ethan stared at me like he was seeing the real me for the first time. “You’re… calm.”
I forced a small smile. “I have to be.”
He finally nodded, defeated. “Okay. One week. Then I tell her.”
As soon as he left, my calm shattered. I slid down the door and pressed my palm to my stomach, whispering the ugliest prayer I’ve ever said:
“Please be real. Please make him stay.”
Part 3
The pregnancy was real. The ultrasound was real. The tiny flicker on the screen made the nurse smile and say, “Congratulations.”
I smiled too—because smiling was easier than admitting I’d turned a heartbeat into leverage.
Ethan came to the appointment. He sat stiff in the chair, hands clasped, face gray. When the nurse left, he whispered, “This is my fault.”
I didn’t correct him.
Afterward, in the parking lot, he finally said, “I’m telling Sienna tonight.”
I grabbed his sleeve—not hard, not violent—just enough to stop him. “If you tell her, you lose her,” I said.
“I already lost her,” he replied, voice shaking. “I just haven’t said it out loud yet.”
That night, Sienna invited me over for dinner—just the two of us. Her apartment smelled like garlic and candles. She wore cozy socks and looked happy in that soft, unguarded way that made guilt feel like a physical weight.
Halfway through the meal, she reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “I want you to promise something,” she said.
My stomach sank. “What?”
“If Ethan ever hurts me,” she said, trying to laugh, “you’ll tell me. No sugarcoating. No ‘he’s stressed.’ You’ll be honest.”
My mouth went dry. “Sienna…”
Her smile faded. “What?”
I could’ve lied again. I was good at it. But something about her hand on mine—trusting, warm—broke the script.
“I need to tell you something,” I whispered.
Sienna sat up straighter, eyes narrowing. “Okay.”
I swallowed, feeling my throat burn. “I’m pregnant.”
She blinked once. “What?”
“I’m pregnant,” I repeated, quieter. “And it’s… Ethan’s.”
The room went so silent it felt like the air turned to glass.
Sienna’s face didn’t crumple the way I expected. It went still. Controlled. Like she was watching herself from outside her body.
“How long?” she asked.
I hesitated. “A few weeks.”
She nodded slowly, eyes glossy but not spilling. “So when you told me you were ‘busy’… when you said you were ‘tired’… you were hiding this.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” I said, hating how weak it sounded.
Sienna stood up so fast her chair scraped. “You didn’t know how,” she repeated, voice shaking. “Or you didn’t want to.”
I opened my mouth, and the truth tried to come out: I wanted him to stay. I wanted to win. But saying it would make me the villain in a way I couldn’t talk my way out of.
Sienna grabbed her phone, hands trembling. “Get out,” she said. “Before I call him and I say something I can’t take back.”
I stood there, frozen. “Sienna, please—”
“Out,” she repeated, louder now, tears finally spilling. “You were my sister. And you used me.”
I walked out into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind me like a verdict. For the first time since the test turned positive, I realized the thing I’d “secured” wasn’t a man.
It was a lifetime of consequences.
So tell me honestly—if you were Sienna, would you ever forgive a best friend for this? And if you were Ethan, would you stay for the baby… or walk away from both of us? I’m reading every comment, because I already know people will split into two brutal sides on this one.
