baby steps :: hemmings au

prologue

The doorbell.

That's what I remember.

Oh god, I hated the sound of the doorbell. Its ringing chimes and its echoing sound filling my body with annoyance - I begged my mom to change it, to just have a simple one that rang in a subtle manor, one that didn't play a song with a length equivalent to Moonlight Sonata. But as much as the doorbell itself irked me, what stood out to me was the fact that it was almost 5 AM on a Saturday. Who the hell was at my door at this time? The cops? One Direction? My aunt Margaret who still thinks I'm four although I turned eighteen a couple months ago?

Whoever it may be, they better have a good reason for waking me up this early on a goddamn weekend. I yawned before placing my feet on my cold hardwood floor, shivering at the broken air conditioning. I tried to be quiet, but the small amount of sunlight made that nearly impossible. It also didn't help that I was naturally clumsy. The floorboards creaked underneath me as I cringed and peeked through the sliver of my parents' bedroom door. I let out a silent sigh of relief; they were asleep, my baby sister sleeping soundly beside them. I quickly ran down the carpeted stairs to stop the stranger outside the house's ruckus.

I unlocked the door slowly, droopy eyes and messy hair not being my source of attention right now.

My jaw was agape and my eyes were wide when I saw what - more particularly who - was on my front porch.

   "Shit, what did you do?" I whisper-yelled, about to freak out at my best friend.

    "I don't remember, I don't even remember having - what's going to happen? I can't give him away!" Was all I could get out of the panicked yells escaping his mouth, the rest a jumbled mess of tears and desperation.

   "Crap, Luke! Does your mother know?" I said, glancing over my shoulder to make sure my parents or little sister or loud as fuck dog hadn't awoken. "You're only in high school."

He began crying, hot tears falling freely as he tried to explain the mess he had gotten himself into, "No, Axel. You can't tell my mom, she doesn't even know about what happened between me and Delaney, my mom will punish both of us." The emphasis on 'both' honestly scared me. Especially since he wasn't talking about me.

I sighed, "Okay, we're in this together, okay?" I watched as he nodded, tears still streaming down his face, and continued, "We'll figure something out, just find some way to keep him a secret."

He gulped along with me, staring at the baby in his arms. I glanced at him, trying to find the light in the situation I was now apart of.

I smiled and looked up at Luke.

"He has your eyes."