Noah
After prom, I knew it was time to talk to Elle about my plan, well really our plan, for next year. We had both kind of been focusing on getting ready for prom and just dealing with the news of Elle's pregnancy, on top of telling everyone about our secret relationship. But now that prom was over and we didn't feel quite as shell shocked about everything, I knew it was time to start making plans for next year. We obviously had decisions to make together but I had also been talking to my Dad about what I needed to do for my Freshman year at college. I knew what I wanted, but I needed a little help figuring out what my options were.
Dad wanted me to end up at Harvard. I'm pretty sure he started planning for me to go to Harvard about the time I started walking, or maybe it was even earlier than that. Once I finally got through to him that going to Harvard next year is no longer an option. That being away from Elle is not an option I'm willing to consider, especially for this first year, he finally worked with me to figure out my options. Once we had what I thought was a pretty good plan, I wanted to talk it through with Elle and make sure she was onboard.
We were both quiet on the short drive between her house and mine, both a little apprehensive for this discussion. Once we walked into my room, I sat on the bed, patting the spot next to me so Elle would sit down too. She sat down for a split second before she jumped up and started walking all around my room as she said, "Before we start, I just want to know that I completely understand whatever you need to do. You have your future to think about - "
"Elle." I tried to interrupt.
But she went on, "and Harvard. . ."
This time I jumped up to stand in front of her to stop her pacing as I interrupted again, "Shell, stop. Can you listen to me first before you start freaking out?" I took both of her hands in mine as I quickly continued, "I want to defer enrollment to Harvard so we can stay in LA together next year." Elle was still standing in front of me where I had stopped her but she didn't look at me until I said we would be together next year.
"You're not going to Harvard?" She asked, sounding shocked.
"Of course I'm not. You need to stay close to home next year to be close to our families and to finish high school and I have to be where you are."
"I thought you might decide you couldn't pass it up and we'd have to try doing it all long distance."
"I wasn't going to leave you to do this by yourself."
"But what about your future?"
Now that Elle seemed to be calming down, I sat back on the bed, this time pulling Elle onto my lap. I wrapped my arms around her as I responded, "My future will just be on hold a year until you graduate. I'm only going to defer for a year for now. That will give us time to decide what we want to do after you graduate. If we want to go to Boston together or if we want to stay in California or if there's somewhere else you want to go to school. I'll take some classes through the community college or another California school, my Dad and I haven't worked out all the details. I'll stay in shape so I'll be ready to play football next year, if that's what we both decide. And, I'll be here to help take care of the baby so you can keep up with school and graduate."
I finally felt Elle's body relax in my arms as she rested her head on my shoulder. "Wow, that's a lot. I want to argue that you shouldn't put off college but I can't. I can't imagine having our baby without you here."
"I can't either, I don't want to be away from you or our baby."
"And your parents are okay with this?"
"They are now and it doesn't matter what they think anyway. This is our future."
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It's hard to believe the school year is over and it's finally time for graduation. Graduating today should make me feel excited or some sense of accomplishment but I just don't. I had been ready to get out of here for most of the school year but right now I'm so focused on this next step of my life with Elle, it's all I can think of. After our initial talk about what we wanted to do next year, we've spent a lot of time making plans and it made the last couple weeks of the school year fly by. And now it's over, although I guess not ending exactly how I thought. I won't be running 3,000 miles away to college as soon as possible like I always planned on. I thought once I was done with this place, I would never set foot on school property again. Now since I'll be staying in LA next year and Lee and Elle will still be in school, I'll probably have to hang around here a little longer.
I make it through the ceremony without paying a whole lot of attention. I hear Elle and Lee cheer for me as I cross the stage to pick up my diploma. When it's finally over, I'm ready to make my way to find Elle, and of course the rest of my family. I hadn't had a chance to see Elle this morning before I had to be at school to get ready for my graduation ceremony and I find myself excited to see her, even though I just saw her last night. I get held up by a few friends who want to talk, then some teachers who congratulate me. I get away from them as soon as I can without being rude. I spot Jayden coming towards me through the crowd. He has a shit eating grin on his face if I ever saw one. When he gets close, I hold out my hand to shake his but he pulls me into a hug. "Congrats man! I don't even know what to say. I'm sure you want to go see your girl but we need to talk soon. I'm happy for you!" Jayden yells as he claps me on the back a couple times.
"Congrats to you too," I'm a little surprised by his reaction, I mean he just graduated also, so it's not like I've done anything more than he did.
"Hey, I have to go, my Mom will kill me if she doesn't get some pictures. We will definitely be catching up soon." He yelled as he ran off.
As soon as Jayden was gone, I heard a high pitched, "Flynn" from behind me. Not really wanting to, I turned around to find Kelsey and Kendra. They each pulled me in for a hug and congratulated me, which seemed a little weird but I guess this was the thing you did when you graduated. It was the surprised looks on their faces that had me confused. I didn't ask any questions, though, feeling like it was taking me long enough to get out of this crowd. I congratulated them also and headed to where I had last seen my family in their seats. I shook a couple hands along the way but this time didn't let anything slow me down once I saw Lee and finally Elle standing next to him. Elle had her back to me, congratulating one of my classmates. When Elle turned towards me, it made me stop in my tracks. She was wearing a short white dress that clung to her in all the right places. It reminded me of the dress she wore for prom, but unlike her prom dress, this dress was tight across her stomach, leaving no question that she was pregnant. Elle noticed me standing dumbly in front of her and I saw the huge smile on her face fall, which got me moving again. I reached out to her pulling me into me.
"God, Elle, you look beautiful."
"You're not mad are you? I wanted to surprise you but maybe I should have asked if you were ready for everyone to know?"
"Are you kidding? It's great. I thought you weren't ready."
"We're done with school now so we won't have to listen to all the gossip. So I decided I'm ready for everyone to know, let them see how happy we are."
"That explains why everyone's been acting weird and congratulating me."
"Have you seen Tuppen yet? I'm pretty sure he's been dying to congratulate you since I saw him when we first walked in. He picked me up and spun around when saw me, I'm pretty sure he wants to do the same to you."
Elle
I realize Noah graduating means something much different now than it would have meant if we weren't in this situation. If it wasn't for the pregnancy, Noah's graduation would mean he would be leaving for Harvard and we would have to deal with everything that meant - would we break up or deal with long distance? I guess a positive of the pregnancy – Noah wouldn't be leaving and we would be staying together. I know this wasn't necessarily a good thing, considering it means he's going to miss out on the college experience and his first year at Harvard, but if I'm being selfish, having him stay in town will make me happy.
After we talked about Noah's decision to wait at least until next year to go to Harvard, I realized he really is all in on this with me, he's not going anywhere. I felt this sense of calm, knowing that Noah would be with me through all of this really made me feel like we could do this. He makes me feel like we could do anything together. I no longer felt embarrassed by the fact that I was pregnant or like I should feel bad about it but that still didn't mean I wanted to hear everyone talk about it at school. I had decided that as soon as school was over, we would start telling people. Then, when I woke up the morning of Noah's graduation, I realized the perfect way to do it. I wouldn't have to tell anyone, I could let my belly spread the news. I was almost positive that Noah would be glad about it. Although, once I saw his shocked expression, I wasn't so sure. I wanted him to know that I didn't want to hide anything about our relationship anymore. I had gotten some dirty looks and some sidelong glances but those were mostly from girls who were always going to be jealous of my relationship with Noah. For the most part, our friends who saw me at graduation seemed happy for us and our news. All their support made me realize I was happy about this baby also.
A/N - I'm going to take a short break from updating this story. I do plan to continue it but since this is where I had always planned to end the story, I need to take some time to figure out where I want to go with it. I had always planned to stick pretty close to the original storyline but just fill in more detail we didn't get to see. I went a little outside the storylines by making Lee's reaction a little less horrible and obviously a lot outside with Elle's pregnancy in the alt version. I'll probably plan to do the same through at least TKB2 time period but I'd love to hear anything you guys would like to see for either version of this story. I always love to hear everyone's ideas in here and I would love to incorporate them into the story.