Icarus

Eight

"He did what?"  Ren found herself shouting at her heavily pregnant sister.

"He left, Ren.  He said he's not ready to be tied down like this with a child, and that he couldn't be a father."  Claire explained, eyes red and puffy from crying.

"Bullshit.  He spent six months saying that he was ready and convincing you to keep it.  The fact is, he's just a coward who can't handle commitment."

Claire let out a small chuckle at that.

"Well, I think I could probably get another job, Shannon's moved in with her boyfriend Bryan so you could take the guest room.  Honestly, we could probably make enough money off of Boone so that we could take care of the-"  Ren noticed Claire's face fall, "What?"

"Ren, I'm giving the baby up for adoption."

There was a beat of silence.

"What?"

"We can't give the baby the life it deserves.  Somewhere out there, there's a family that wants children and the parents would have steady jobs.  The baby would get the life it deserves."

Ren's heart shattered.  

This is Claire's baby, it's her decision.  That's what she had to keep reminding herself.

"What do you need me to do?"  The question fell from her lips before she could think, not that she was planning on saying anything different.

"Do... do you think that you could come with me for the appointments?"

"Yeah.  Of course."  She said immediately, "Whatever you need."

Those three words caused Claire to burst into tears.  The worst part was, Ren wasn't even sure what she'd said.

"Uh... don't cry."  Ren said awkwardly, patting her sister on the back.

Of course that only made Claire cry harder.  What had she done wrong?  She was shit at comforting people, she had absolutely no clue how to fix whatever she'd messed up.

"There, there."

Shit that didn't work either.

"Uh, you're strong and I know we can get through this?"

Suddenly Claire laughed.  It started out as a giggle but ended up as full on laughter.

"Ren, you are the absolute worst at comforting people."

"What?  It took you 18 years to realize that?"

Claire was still laughing, so Ren took that as a sign that maybe she wasn't terrible at comforting people.