“You don’t have to decide tonight,” he finally says quietly. “You don’t have to decide tomorrow, either. You’ve got options, Noelle. All kinds of them. And whatever you choose, I’ll back you up. You hear me?”
My throat tightens. “I don’t want to lose you…”
He reaches across the table, taking my hand in his and gripping it hard. He shakes his head. “You won’t. Not over this.Neverover something like this.”
I squeeze his hand, my next words dying on my tongue. If he knew the truth, he wouldn’t be saying that.
It kills me to lie to him, even worse that I’m intentionally keeping something this big to myself.
But I can’t go through with being honest, not when I know it will already completely ruin my life and his.
So, instead, I just nod and ask him to sit with me on the couch while we watch old Christmas movies.
It’s past the holiday, but I just need a little more cheer, if it’s possible.
I don’t know when I fall asleep, but the next thing I know I’m waking up tucked into my bed hours later.
When morning comes, pale light leaks through the blinds, dappling my blanket in soft gold and grays.
I stare at the ceiling for a long time, listening to the quiet rhythm of the house.
My hand drifts to my stomach without thinking.
The touch is tentative, circling around the spot that will eventually swell if I let it.
Fear curls in me like a fist, tight and suffocating, but beneath it…something else stirs. Something fragile but undeniable.
Life.
The word is small, but it echoes through me. It terrifies me, the enormity of it.
What it means and what it asks of me, but it also roots me in a way nothing else has. It’s not just a consequence anymore.
I close my eyes and for the first time I let myself imagine it: a future that’s blurry and uncertain, but mine all the same.
A small hand gripping my finger.
A laugh, light and pure. A pair of eyes blinking up at me with trust I’ll have to earn every single day.
I see messy hair and tiny socks, a crib by the window, mornings that are filled with laughter and loud music.
I don’t know who they’ll be or what kind of mother I’ll turn out to be, but for the first time since finding out, the idea doesn’t send me spiraling, it steadies me.
Maybe this is my chance to create something good out of the wreckage I’ve made of my life.
I’m twenty-two, almost finished with my degree. I can do this.
When I finally hear Dad stirring downstairs, the smell of coffee seeping up the stairs and under my door, I sit up. I know what he’ll say when I tell him.
I know he’ll worry, that he’ll see the road ahead clearer than I do, but I also know he’ll stand by me.
He always has.
I’ll never tell him about that night. Not about Grant’s steady hands, or Dean’s easy laugh, or the way Cal’s gaze burned right through me those few nights we shared together.
That part is mine alone to bear.
A secret I’ll carry with me to my grave, a mistake I can’t undo but won’t let define me.
