Jamie and I already had plans to see each other after school. I hadn't bothered texting him when I'd left my mom's to tell him I'd be early. I simply showed up and took the path around the side of his house to the beach where I knew he'd be. I didn't immediately see him. The only sign of him was his empty towel stretched out on the sand. I sat down, tucked my knees to my chest, and waited.
My mom had insisted I take a pregnancy test. She'd walked down to the corner market and bought one and, like I'd known it would be, it had been positive. I was still having trouble deciphering my feelings. If my mom was disappointed with me, she'd hid it well. She'd hugged me. She'd said all the right things. She'd told me she loved me. It's why I had gone to her first, knowing she would show nothing but support for me. I'd fallen in love with her all over again during that hour. Her acceptance had made this situation seem less impossible.
But Jamie? I had no idea how he was going to react. My heart wanted to believe that, while this was in no way ideal, he'd make the best of it because he loved me. My mind didn't share my heart's optimism. My life was about to change in ways I didn't even understand, and his was too. The responsibility of a baby didn't fit into either of our plans—certainly not mine.
When Jamie came out of the water, my breath caught. I sometimes forgot what he was. It didn't matter to me and never had, but watching him come out of the surf, his smile when he saw me, the magnitude of him, it struck me how different he actually was from me. And I knew this baby would be like me, simply human. It wouldn't have special abilities. It wouldn't be special like Jamie was special. I'd shared everything with Jamie. And now I was going to have his baby, a baby he might not want because it could never be what he was, share the world he spent so much of his life in.
"Hi." He leaned down, lightly kissing my lips, careful not to drip on me.
"Hi," I said, feeling so small and fragile under the weight his gaze.
"You ready?" He offered me his hand.
Our pre-set goal for our run today was four miles. He could easily run twice that distance. I wasn't going to make it one mile today, much less four.
"No run today." I ignored his hand, gazing past him to the slow roll of the waves, hugging my knees tighter.
"You okay?" He crouched in front of me, leveling his eyes on mine.
"I'm just tired." I searched his face and saw the concern growing in his expression.
"Erin, what's wrong?" His voice gentled over me, causing a lump to form in my throat that clogged the words waiting to be voiced.
"I need to tell you something, but I'm afraid you're going to be mad."
He dropped the hand he'd laid on my forearm. "Are you breaking up with me?"
"God no." I laughed, though it came out sounding choked.
"Well that's the only thing I can think of that would make me mad, so what is it?"
"I'm pregnant," I said, my eyes hooded and focused on the sugary sand. The silence that followed my blunt declaration drowned out the sound of the waves. It was like time stopped as I waited for him to say something. Minutes without a response of any kind, uncomfortable minutes with my heart pounding so loud he surely must have heard it. I swallowed and forced my gaze to his.
He was looking at me with a blank expression on his face, but I could see his mind working behind his eyes, processing the information as though I'd just laid out the parameters of a mission. He continued to study my face, then his gaze dropped to my stomach where my hand had floated of its own accord and rested over my jeans, still flat and fluttering slightly.
"Say something." I needed him to be with me one this. Wholeheartedly, one hundred percent with me.
"Are you sure?" The tremble in his voice twisted my gut.
"Yes," I said. "I took a test. It was positive."
He let out a long breath and my chest tightened in response because it sounded like he was breathing for the whole world. And when he paced back and forth in front of me with his hands on the back of his head, the muscles of his back shifting under all that skin, he looked like he could carry the world too.
"This is my fault. We did it that time without... shit," he said as if he'd just remembered that other time. "Twice without protection." He ran his hands over his head, and when he faced me, his eyes softened. "Erin, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Are you?" I asked the words lost in all this open space, drifting away on the wind, as if I'd spoken into a void. I wasn't sure what I wanted him to say, but I didn't want him to be sorry.
Once again, he crouched in front of me, took my hand in his, and lifted it to his mouth, pressing his lips to my knuckles. Then he lifted me to my feet and wrapped his arms around me, and picked me up. My legs encircled his waist. His skin was still damp, his lips cool when he kissed me, a gentle, affirming press of his lips.
"I love you, Erin. I am sorry. For you. For what this means for you. I know you had plans and goals, none of which included a baby. But you have to know I'm here for you. I am yours. Forever." I heard the smile in his voice and it set my heart at ease. "I'm never letting you go now."
"So you're not mad? Disappointed? You're not going to accuse me of getting pregnant on purpose to trap you?"
He laughed. "You hardly needed to get pregnant for that. I was trapped the minute you threw that potato casserole at me. As for being mad, how could I be mad? Didn't you hear me when I said I loved you?"
And just like that, he made it all sound so easy. So right. Like we really were meant to be.
"Yes, I heard you, but are you ready to have a baby? Be a dad?"
"I'm up for anything with you." He stalled and something moved in the depths of his eyes, a shuddering apprehension. "Unless you don't... I guess if..."
I grabbed his face. "I want the baby, Jamie."
Air whooshed out of his mouth, his whole body relaxing. "Good. So do I."
I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly while the waves slowly turned and the breeze blew over us like a blessing.
My head lay on his shoulder. His hand skimmed my back as he rocked back and forth, chasing all my apprehension away. "Now what do we do?"
He set me down and knelt in front of me. His hands spanned my hips and his mouth pressed to a spot just below my bellybutton. Then he looked up at me, everything about him so heartbreakingly beautiful.
"Marry me."
"Jamie..." I swallowed a knot of emotion. I hadn't thought beyond telling Jamie, telling my dad. Marriage? It shouldn't have surprised me, with all Jamie's talk of respect, that he'd pop the question so soon. "Shouldn't we wait a few days. Think about this a little more. There's no need to rush into anything. We haven't even told your mom or my dad."
"What's to think about? You love me don't you?"
"Yes."
"Then say you'll marry me. We'll tell our parents together."
This was so Jamie-like. Tackling a problem head on. Making quick decisions. No looking back, only forward. His confidence, his surety, inspired my own.
"Fine," I said, believing as I gazed into his face this might actually work. "I'll marry you."
He sprung to his feet, picked me up, and crashed his mouth down on mine. There was no heat in his kiss, only a promise to take care of me. To take care of us.
"I promise I'll be here for you. Always."