The Senior (College Years 4)

Ava nods. “Doesn’t mean they’ll like it. They always want more for us. They tell us that a lot. And what am I going to do about school? I just signed a lease and I’m leaving for San Diego right after New Year’s.”

My heart drops at her admission. “What?”

“That was always my plan,” she admits, her voice small. “I thought it was best to go back to school.”

“You can’t leave,” I say fiercely, telling myself I won’t get mad. Though I can’t believe she made plans to go back to San Diego, it’s not surprising. I’m sure that was always the plan, just as she said. “I want you to stay here with me, Ava. I want to take care of you. And our baby.”

She gazes at me, her expression soft and open. All I want to do is hug and kiss her, but she wants me to listen to her right now, so I restrain myself. “We really, really need to talk everything through.”

“We will,” I say, slipping my fingers around her chin and tilting her head back, so I can kiss her. My mouth lingers on hers as I kiss her once. Twice. Three times. Trying to pour all of my love for her into this simple connection of our lips. “Let me eat breakfast first, though. Daddy’s hungry.”

Ava cracks up, pulling away from me. “Okay, that was a little gross.”

“You liked it.” I smile at her.

She smiles back.

Yeah.

She liked it.

Thirty-One

Ava

After I watch Eli eat—I only munched on his sourdough toast, which caused him to order more toast for himself—we head back to his apartment to talk. God, I was so scared to tell him about the baby, but he responded really well.

In fact, I can tell he’s excited, which I didn’t expect.

I don’t know what I expected from Eli. That’s the best and worst thing about him. His impulsiveness, never knowing how he’s going to respond to…whatever.

Last night after I took the pregnancy test and saw the almost immediate results, I told Autumn it had to be false. So I drank a bunch of water and took another one.

Positive. Again.

The look my sister sent me practically dared me to deny it.

I’m really good at denial though. It’s like my brain couldn’t compute it. Pregnant? Me?

Impossible.

Luckily enough, she bought three tests, so I drank even more water and two hours later, I took the final test.

Still positive.

I cried. Autumn held me and said soothing words while I sobbed all over the front of her pretty dress, always careful not to get snot on it. I felt weak and stupid for getting pregnant. Really, really stupid. I’m only twenty. I should’ve known better. I was on birth control and let it lapse like a dumbass and then like an even bigger dumbass, I let my ex-boyfriend—which is what he still is if we’re keeping things real—come inside me.

Multiple times.

It’s like I forgot. We’ve gone for years without condoms and I was totally used to not using them. He was too. We just fell back into old habits and while it was amazing as always, the sex resulted in me getting pregnant.

Pregnant.

&

nbsp; I’m going to have a baby.

Eli’s baby.