Morning sickness was awful. It was like discovering I was pregnant had released my body’s hold on the nasty side effects of being with child. I’d been able to hold myself together while we’d been in Colorado, but that first morning back, waking in my own bed, had been a nightmare. I soon discovered that the sickness wasn’t just in the mornings, either. Nausea followed me around like a ghost, always lingering in the background, threatening to make itself known and give me away when I was with Dustin. I couldn’t escape.

Even if I wanted to pretend the pregnancy and the sickness weren’t real, my body refused to let that be an option. I closed my eyes, and a brief reprieve would blanket me as sleep claimed me, but the calm never lasted long. Unspoken conversations would manifest themselves as dreams, and I would wake up feeling hurt and rejected, even though I was certain the news would be met with logic and understanding. After all, I hadn’t been the only one there that night. I hadn’t knocked myself up. Dustin was always willing to work through problems, even at risk to himself. He was selfless in ways I wasn’t sure I could ever be, and that only made me love him more. As it stood, I was the reason our relationship was currently a secret. I refused to be a wall between him and his family, especially when they needed him right now.

My main priority, outside of spending as much time as I could with Dustin before he left, was finding a way to tell Jen about my predicament. I wasn’t looking forward to that particular conversation, but the moment Megan had brought up talking to her mom, I’d known that was the smartest course of action. I wasn’t actively looking forward to disappointing her—and my pregnancy and lack of responsibility would be a disappointment—but I knew she was my best source of help, and the only adult I could openly discuss this with. I couldn’t and wouldn’t hide it from her. I just had to find the right time. The last thing I needed was my dad being called by the doctors when I was deemed a minor if I tried to go to the clinic alone.

Unfortunately, my timing to tell Jen was stolen from me. My body’s demands and sudden upheaval of anything I put inside of it gave me away long before I had the chance to sit her down and break the news gently. If the timing had been up to me, I wouldn’t have been hanging over her toilet while she held my hair back when she discovered my mistake. I would have sat her down and discussed the situation over a muffin while she was distracted, and I had organized someplace to hide if the talk went badly. I’d learned long before that moment, however, that I rarely got the things I wanted and was handed the things I needed instead.

I’d spent the night at their house after I’d fallen asleep watching movies with Megan. My body was getting less energetic the further I got into the pregnancy, and while the smell of the bacon frying had initially drawn me to the kitchen, a mouthful of egg had me running to the bathroom with Jen following in parental concern.

Sitting on the floor, Jen draped a cool, damp face cloth over the back of my neck, drawing away some of the misery that the retching had caused. Her gentle hands rubbed maternal, sympathetic circles over my back, easing the tension that had been there as I depleted what little was in my stomach to begin with.

The nausea was finally beginning to pass. The greasiness in my stomach eased slowly as I gulped down breaths of clean air and ignored the burning in my raw throat. I’d never done well with sickness, and this was no exception. Even as the sickness passed, misery had begun to settle in its place. My life was already changing too much and too quickly. It was quickly slipping through my fingers and out of my control, and I hadn’t even seen a doctor yet.

I’d barely glanced up at Jen when acknowledgment and realization burned in her eyes. I didn’t have to say a word. One look at my face and she already knew.

“Jesus, Miki. You’re pregnant!”

Jen’s voice had an edge as sharp as a whip. It lacerated the control I’d been trying to maintain over my pitiful sobs and brought them to the forefront as I drew my knees to my chest, encasing myself in a protective ball. I nodded. I didn’t have any other response to her accusation. What was there left to say? Anything that came from my mouth in the form of denial would be a lie, and that was the only thing she’d ever asked of me. No lies. Not for the big things, anyway.

This was pretty freaking big.

“Oh, baby girl,” she whimpered, sliding from her seat on the edge of the tub and curling her arms and body around mine protectively. The edge to her tone was gone, replaced by empathy, concern, and sadness as she gathered me to her. I clung to the lifeline she offered, my hands grappling and pulling her closer as I let go of the tenuous strength of will that I’d been holding onto by the tips of my fingers for weeks.

Megan had been amazing to me. She’d been a well of strength from the second I’d realized what was happening to my body, but this woman, this mother figure of mine, had stripped the walls of tenacity away until I was the lost seventeen-year-old child again. The lost teenager who was faced with an impossible situation and wasn’t entirely sure what to do.

“I’m so sorry,” I wept, pushing my face into her soft hair, unable to meet her eyes while I felt as raw as I did. “I never intended for this to happen. I was so careful. I thought I was… Jen, I don’t know what to do.”

“Baby.” I could hear the matching tears in the tone of her voice but chose to cling to the repetitive and comforting strokes of her hand through my hair. “How far along are you?”

Shaking my head, I drew in a deep breath and released it again before responding with some semblance of calm. “From what I know, eight to ten weeks. I’m pretty sure it was prom night.”

“Damn. What does Dustin say about it?”

“He… doesn’t know,” I replied in a small voice. “I don’t want him to know.”

“Mik—”

“Please. I can’t take his future away from him. I can’t make him live Dad’s life, Jen. I can’t see him like that. If I tell him, he’ll want to do the right thing, and he’ll throw his entire future away.”

“You can’t hide it forever, kid.”

“I don’t plan to,” I admitted quietly. “I just need him to get out of here—to start his life outside this place and get a taste of real life before he’s forced to make a decision. I love him, Jen. I love him so much, and I can’t take away his dreams. It was our mistake, but he has his whole life and a lot of talent carrying him to a future I wasn’t going to have anyway. I can spare him some of this pain and confusion, and I can give him a choice when he knows his options. At least he would know how that freedom tastes, and that’s something that I can offer him.”

“You’re your mother’s daughter.” Jen tucked my hair behind my ear and leaned back so she could meet my eyes. I saw the statement for the compliment it was meant to be. “Your grandfather talked her out of keeping you a secret. He thought Jeff was going to take her with him and get the hell out of here. Never dreamed your dad would quit to be a father. I’m not going to talk you into or out of anything; I can’t do that to you. You know what you want. You know what you can live with, but I can and will be here for you every step of the way. No matter what you do, what you decide, I am here, and I will be as long as I humanly can be.”

“I lied to him. Told him my dad got wind of my leaving and vetoed it.”

“Could be the truth.”

I had almost put money on the fact that my dad would fight the decision if I’d made the attempt to have him sign the transfer papers, but I hadn’t even asked, so this was a bitter lie.

“I hate lying, but I just need to figure this out. In two weeks, he’ll be gone, and I will have until Thanksgiving until he comes back and sees for himself what I didn’t tell him. He’s gonna be mad as hell and hurt. I know that, but I can live with it. If this makes him consider every path in front of him, then I will shoulder the blame and anger.”

“You’re killing me, kid.” Jen held me to her again, her heart pounding rapidly in her chest. “You’re so damn selfless, and it blows my mind because that’s all your mom. You got to see so little of her, but she made her mark on you. She’d be so proud of who you are.”

“I’m not so sure considering the situation I’m in right now.”

Jen pulled back, her eyes filled with tears and her forehead coming to rest against mine as the first fell, slipping down her cheek. “I don’t think you’d be in this situation if she were alive, Mik, but your mom would be proud of you no matter what. You’re smart, beautiful, and kind. When you love, you love with all of your heart and soul despite your foolish father. That is an accomplishment. We all make mistakes and granted, this is a gargantuan one, but you’re not just storming through without thinking. You’re considering options, you’re thinking out loud, and you haven’t lied, even when it would have been so easy for you to do so.”

“You made me promise.”

“You wouldn’t have anyway.”

I didn’t know whether or not she was right. I don’t think it really mattered. The truth was out there between us, and I had two of the most important people in my life standing at my back, offering me support where a lot of girls in my situation wouldn’t have any at all. I was annoyed that I had fallen into a trap, that I hadn’t been smarter about contraception. I should have gone to Jen the moment I’d started having sex and asked her opinion about the pill. The conversation would have been awkward because I would have been admitting I was copulating, but in hindsight, that talk would have been far less heartbreaking than this moment between us.

“We need to get you a doctor’s appointment. I’m going to suggest going to Amarillo or any big town outside of this one. You know that people talk here, and there won’t be any escaping that, no matter how locked your files are supposed to be. Elizabeth Walston may be the nurse, but she loves to run her mouth down at the salon, and inside the better part of a week, I’d be hearing how you went in for a pregnancy exam.”

“No, you’re right. I was going to ask if we could find someone outside of Childress. I know I won’t be able to hide a baby forever, but I’m hoping I can hide this long enough to have all the details.”

Jen laughed and kissed the top of my head. “This town is home, but I swear to God, some of these folk were born with their assholes as the predominant feature.”

I started to laugh through my tears, the small relief of having Jen knowing the truth and not hating me eased some of the weight from my shoulders, leaving me with enough energy to draw in a real breath.

“What’s so funny?” Megan finally asked, stumbling into the bathroom.

Silence hung over me as I stretched out over the hood of my car and followed the veins of branches that hung from the ancient trees surrounding me. I would normally have the radio on, but the sound of nature filling its place brought some semblance of calm over me as I waited for Dustin to arrive. The past two weeks had been difficult, more than I‘d ever really thought they could be. I’d put all thoughts of the pregnancy behind me temporarily. There wasn’t much to do until I could get in to see the doctor, and that appointment was coming quickly now that Dustin was leaving. I’d asked that it be arranged after Dustin left, and Jen had conceded. I was given two weeks to put the living nightmare on hold while Dustin and I acted like the teenagers we were and said goodbye the only way we knew how…

Spending every free second we could together.

For the first time in my life, I’d lived freely.

Without thought.

Without consideration.

Without worry.

I was selfish for a while and took what I could get so I could commit it all to memory. I lapped up every moment the two of us had together and greedily consumed him, committing every touch and breath in his company to my soul to devour once he’d left for college. I didn’t think about what was coming once he was gone. I couldn’t. That tiny voice inside me would play on my conscience and remind me how much I was hiding from him.

Dustin tried to convince me to go with him anyway, and as tempting as that was, I knew why I couldn’t, just like I knew this was my decision to lie to him about the why behind it all.

Not that complaining about my dad was a hardship.

Tonight would be our last night together, and it seemed apt that the night would be spent be in the very same place we got to know one another almost a year earlier. We’d done so much living in twelve months together, and so much loving that our relationship felt like a third entity under the boughs of the trees.

I heard the growl of his truck’s approach from almost a mile down the road, and even though tonight was our goodbye, I couldn’t stop the smile that curled the corner of my mouth at his arrival. The most important thing to me now was that he was here, filled with his eternal optimism and that he would leave without the knowledge of what was going on with me and my body. He had the opportunity to see his future come to life. He’d also know I loved him with every email and phone call and text that I sent to him while he was gone.

I could live with that.

The sound of ‘Bad Company’s’ Seagull greeted me before he fully came to a stop, and it only made my smile grow as I rolled to my knees and met his eyes through the windshield of his big truck.

“How long you been here, beautiful?” he asked, hopping from the truck and heading toward me with a cooler and his thick blanket.

“Long enough to learn the cicada song, handsome.”

He dropped the blanket, and the basket, then grabbed my thighs so he could pull me to the edge of the car and step between them. I folded both around his waist with my butt perched on the edge, and I indulged in the slow, hungry kiss he took from me without warning or apology. His roaming hands made quick work as they made their way from my ass to the nape of my neck so he could devour me with more fervor. The moment was so raw and right between us I had to fight to stop the whimper when he broke the kiss.

“Come with me, baby,” he whispered into my ear, his rough cheek rubbing against mine.

“I would if I could. You know that.”

“Every time I think about waking up and knowing you’re hundreds of miles away, it makes me sick.” He pulled me closer, nuzzling into my neck, forcing my eyes closed as the heat of his breath washed over me. “I’ve fantasized about just walking down the street with you, kissing you over pizza, and now that’s been taken away, too. If I could do this year over again…”

“You wouldn’t change a thing. Your mom needed you, she still does, and you needed to see her.” I stroked my hands down his cheeks and smiled at him. “The distance isn’t too bad, and Thanksgiving’s not that far away. I’m coming to see you on Labor Day weekend, too.”

Dustin kissed me again—this time with more passionate violence than hunger. The kiss was all-consuming as though he was doing his own committing to memory. My body responded immediately, my ankles knotting behind him and pulling him closer as my stomach fluttered to life with longing and need.

“I love you,” he said against my lips, his emotions worn on his sleeve. “I came out here tonight and thought I could just act as though it was any other night, but it’s not, Mik. It’s the last night I can meet you under our trees without having to drive hundreds of miles to see you. It’s the last night I can slip through your window, into your arms and sleep dreamlessly, knowing you’ll catch me if I fall. The last morning I can wake up and slip inside you until my name falls from your lips with the love I know you feel. It’s the last morning I can slip in the shower behind you, eat the food you make me, hear you singing when you think no one’s watching. I have to wait months to feel your body pressed against mine like this again. To smell that perfume you wear. I’m so fucking pathetic, I even bought the shampoo you use.”

“You did?”

“You always sound surprised when I say shit like that.”

I smiled, brushing my lips against his. “Only because I think I’m the only one to do things like that. I stole some of your sweaters to sleep with. Some of your shirts to sleep in…”

“If you say you have my Spurs hat—”

“I have it.”

“Fuck, I love you.”

He nuzzled into me, and I couldn’t help the watery laugh that flowed easily from me. The sound died slowly in my throat when his body pressed roughly against mine, and his lips consumed mine with renewed hunger. My blood heated quickly under the surface of my skin as my breath caught. I was always amazed at how quickly the desire rose between us, and this time was no different. The urgency, the passion, the undeniable need was consuming, and before another conscious thought could form between us, hands moved to buttons, tearing them apart before ripping the zippers open. It didn’t take us long to strip to where we needed to be, and he was inside me while my shorts hung from one leg and his jeans tangled around his ankles.

This wasn’t lovemaking or even our urgent neediness. This was marking, claiming, and taking. We needed this moment between us to eclipse all others, the one that would stay in our memories long enough to carry us until we saw one another again. Our hands and mouths explored, our breaths tangled as we fought for control and the drive to push harder—to pull deeper and consume. I wanted to be under his skin almost as much as I wanted to keep him under mine. And as I wheezed out my breath over kiss-swollen lips, I screamed out his name in ecstasy as my fingers curled into the muscles of his shoulders and he picked me up from the heated metal, coming with a violent jerk inside of me.

We collapsed against one another, breaths wheezing, skin on fire, and tears rolling down my cheeks. He held me against him as I cried, every ounce of hurt rising and washing over us as I said my silent goodbyes. I wasn’t sure if he would ever forgive me for lying to him once the truth came out, so I stole everything I could from that last night together.

We made love once more before the sun rose, the benediction of those moments getting me through the last goodbye before standing and watching him drive away from me.

I knew that was the last time I would see him before my secret would be unavoidably discovered at Thanksgiving. I knew that, no matter how he felt about the baby, he would hate me for hiding this from him. He would hate me for lying to him. I only had three months to come to terms with that new reality, and I knew I would never hold it against him. Whether he reacted with hate or resentment, the blame would always fall at my feet because I had taken his choices away. For me, that was the night I would hold onto. This was the memory I would always keep close. I was filled with love, memories, and joy, and it was those things that had brought us together. These were the things that had created my future. These were the very things that had created our child.