A Hero in the Dark: 2nd Edition

Chapter 120: Cursed Predicament

"What?" I can't tell if he's upset or dumbfounded or both. Probably both, so I try not to look. "How? How can you be pregnant? I don't understand!"

"I kind of took a test a few days ago," I murmur, still trying to hide my cries. "In Okinawa... I went to see Naya. I thought she could help, and while I was there... I... I must've passed out because I woke up in a hospital and the doctor there took an MRI test and—"

"Wait, hold on, slow down," he states. "What are you saying? You're actually pregnant? Since when?! For how long?! Why didn't we know about this sooner?!"

"I only started having symptoms after we broke up apparently," I tell him.

"What kind of symptoms?"

"Changes in mood, exhaustion, nausea... and..."

"And what?"

"Well, I haven't cycled since before my birthday."

"That long?! Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I didn't know that was why," I try to explain. He's mad. He's really mad, and I hate knowing that that's because of me. "But that's what the doctor said. He said missing a cycle was common."

I can't stop crying in front of him. It's not my fault this happened! Is it? It's not like I wanted this! But I saw it—her, I mean. It was as clear as a black and white mirage; I wish it was just a mirage. I wish all of this was just a dream. I wish alien boy wasn't mad at me...

"So... that day I found you..." he murmurs, calmer now, "in Earth Garde HQ. When you wanted me to make love to you... that's why you're pregnant now? After all this time, that's the reason?" I nod—because that's what Dr. Zong said too, and it makes sense, no matter how much I don't want it to. Bae runs a hand through his hair and sinks down beside me. "Shit."

And it's that—that single-word reaction to my cursed predicament—that breaks me down even further. I cover my face in my hands and let out an audible cry, however accidentally. Yeah. Shit. I couldn't be in any more of a deeper one, and it's all my fault.

"Don't cry," John mutters. "Don't cry. We can still figure this out."

"How?! How are we possibly going to figure this out?! There's... There's a baby inside me! A real, live, unpredictable thing, and I don't know how to take care of something like that! I don't even know if I can—if I can—" I can't say it out loud. Even the thought of giving, well, birth—at seventeen—is insane! I can't do it! And the more I think about it, the scarier it is.

"I don't know," he says, which is honestly not the answer I was looking for. But it's the only one that I can expect; I know that much. "I don't know..."

He puts an arm around me, and his touch is my undoing. I curl into him, cheek to his chest, and I let loose. I wail and sob unable to stop, and his other arm comes around me. He squeezes me hard, rests his chin atop of my head, and slightly, just maybe, I think I feel him shaking too.

Suddenly, he takes a weak breath in that sounds more like ten breaths in one. "Does this mean the ring is off the table?" he asks in a slow, soft whisper. I think he's trying to make a joke, lighten the mood, whatever. I hate to say that it barely works.

I want to shake my head, tell him no, but I just—I don't have the energy or the guts to, so I try to settle my chest first. "Don't know," I eventually mutter. "I don't want it to be."

He leans away, enough to look into my eyes. "Really?"

I nod a bit. "Really. If I really had a choice, the answer would be yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Big YES."