Chapter 17

I was in shock. There was no other word for it. I did not know how to process what was sitting in front of me on that seat. Most of what Izzy said after ‘I’m pregnant’ went in one ear and out the other. The only thing that jarred me back was the sound of the truck door slamming shut.

My head shot up, and I saw Izzy jogging toward her house, tears streaming down her cheeks, and in that moment, I knew I’d fucked up. If I didn’t go after her now, I’d regret it.

Cutting the engine, I threw open my door. “Izzy! Wait!”

She ran up the porch steps, and I bolted after her. “Izzy! Wait, please!” She paused, and my heart felt like it could beat again. I pulled her against me when I reached her, wrapping my arms around her upper back as she tucked her face into my chest. Her arms stayed limp at her sides.

“Look at me.” I pulled back, tipping her chin up with my finger, finding so much fear and rejection swirling in her emerald depths. “I just…I needed a minute.”

She swallowed, her voice wavering. “And now?”

“Shit, I don’t know.” I ran a hand back through my hair. “I’m still in shock, I think. I haven’t processed. You’ve had longer. I had thirty seconds.”

“You said no.”

“Did I?” I frowned.

She nodded, her features crumbling.

“I don’t even remember. I swear. Just. How? When?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just realized that I might’ve been last night.”

“Did I hear you say you want to keep it?” I asked, trying to wade through what she said in my truck. My stomach dropped at the thought.

She nodded. “That’s my only choice. I thought about it all night, Tucker, and it’s the only decision I can live with. If that means it’s over for us, I get it, but I can’t give up this baby.”

She pressed a hand to her middle, and fear lurched over my heart again. But this time it wasn’t just about a baby. It was about losing her.

I shook my head, grabbing her neck to cup the sides of her face. I stared down into her eyes, needing her to see what I felt. “If that’s your decision, then that’s what we’ll do. But don’t ever start to talk like we’re over.”

Fresh tears leaked down her cheeks. “Even now? With this?” She pressed harder against her middle. “What about all of our dreams?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just can’t lose you. You’re everything, Izzy. So, if that means having a baby, I’m in.” I leaned down, and she threw her arms around my neck as I swept her up in a toe-curling kiss.

I was terrified. Scared shitless. But I’d do this for her. With her. Because without her, I was nothing.

“Good news, Tucker. I don’t have to cut your dick off,” Annie greeted when she walked in with Jet. Izzy and I had gone inside, doing more kissing than the talking we’d planned to do. I rolled off of Izzy and sat up, and she curled against my side in the middle of the couch.

“Glad to hear it?” I wrapped an arm around her shoulders as Annie and Jet took their usual spot in the oversized armchair. Jet adjusted her legs over his lap, frowning between us.

“Why does it feel like I’m missing something?”

Annie, Izzy, and I exchanged looks before I looked at my best friend. Like ripping a Band-Aid off. “Izzy’s pregnant.”

Jet stilled, an expression on his face like it didn’t compute. “You’re kidding.”

“No, babe. He’s really not.” Annie gave him a look, confirming it was true.

“I– Wh– What? This can’t be happening.” He dropped his head into his hand against the arm of the chair, still staring at us in disbelief.

My thoughts exactly, buddy.

“It is.” Annie squeezed his arm above his cast. “Izzy took a test last night. She might’ve found out sooner if she hadn’t thought she might have something seriously wrong with her.” She shot her sister a look, and Izzy rolled her eyes.

“I’m sorry if I didn’t jump to pregnancy right after we went through everything with Daddy. We’ve been careful. I’m on birth control. We’ve used condoms all but one time.”

“Once it all it takes,” Jet deadpanned.

“Yeah, well. Lot of good it does to point that out now,” I tossed back. “And like she said, she’s been on the pill.”

“So, what are y’all gonna do?” Jet asked.

I exchanged a look with Izzy. “We’re keeping it.”

Jet didn’t say anything, but there was something in his look that told me he definitely had something to say. It just wouldn’t be in front of the girls.

We headed down to the basketball courts at the park later that evening, and after almost an hour of horse and some light one-on-one, he finally said, “Anything you need to say?”

“Funny. I thought that about you.”

“We’ll get to me. I wanna know about you,” he pressed.

“What do you mean?” I tucked the ball under my arm and went to grab my water bottle from the benches off the pavilion, tilting my head back to squirt some into my mouth.

I could feel Jet’s eye roll behind me. “I mean your girlfriend is pregnant. Our best friend is pregnant, and just like that y’all already have a decision.”

“You’d rather me have her get rid of it?” I shot him a glare, and that time I got to see him roll his eyes.

“No, but there are other options. Are y’all sure about this?”

I shook my head, almost feeling like I was betraying her by admitting it. “She’s sure. That’s all that matters. If it was you and Annie, would you make her give it up?”

Jet’s expression shifted, and he sighed. “No, I guess not. But that’s still hard to say for sure because I’m not in this position. You are.”

“Exactly. So, I need you to have my back.” I passed the ball in a harsh shove, and he grimaced when it hit his wrist. “Shit. Sorry.”

He waved it off. “I do have your back, man. Both of y’all’s. That’s the only reason I’m pressing right now. This is big. Life changing big. I just want to make sure you’ve thought it through.”

The concern in his expression ate at me, and I sagged to the bench. “I’ve barely thought at all, but I’m telling you, man, Izzy was willing to leave me over this. And that? That scared the living shit out of me. I’m scared shitless about this pregnancy thing, but losing Izzy? That’s not an option.”

Jet nodded, and I could see the resolve in the steady blue of his eyes. “That’s all I needed to hear. Now to just figure out how y’all are going to tell the parents.”

I grunted, dropping my head.

It didn’t take long for us to decide. Figuring the sooner the better, Izzy and I gathered our parents in my family’s living room the next day after school.

It might have been a mistake.

“You’re pregnant?!” Bridgette screamed, and I winced. Nostrils flaring, she jumped up from the couch, a glare so intense it surpassed anything her daughters had ever thrown at me. Izzy pressed her body back into the sofa beside me, her nails digging into my thigh, and I peeled her hand away, holding it in mine while my mom folded herself forward to cry in her hands. My dad sat perfectly still, staring straight at me, the vein in his forehead I hadn’t seen in ages starting to pulse.

“How can you be pregnant?” Bridgette tossed her hands wildly in the air.

“Sex?” Izzy offered, sounding on the verge of tears.

My gaze stayed fixed on the vein in my dad’s forehead, watching the momentum pick up as the seconds ticked by, my mom’s tears still in the background.

Bridgette was just getting on a roll.

“I didn’t even know you two were sleeping together. Did y’all?” She spun around to look at her friends, and Mom nodded through her tears.

“And you didn’t tell me?” Hurt flashed across Bridgette’s features as she spun back around before she could hide it. “You’re on birth control. Tell me you were taking it,” she demanded, glaring. Izzy nodded, her hand clutching harder to mine. “Then how did this happen? Don’t y’all use condoms?” Bridgette glared at me this time.

“All but once,” I offered. “But Izzy was on the pill, so we didn’t–”

“So, you didn’t what? Didn’t think?!”

“Of course he didn’t!” Dad came barreling into the conversation then. “How could you be so irresponsible?! You know to use protection every single time! I’ve told you that! I can’t believe you’d mess up your future like this! All of your scholarship offers! Those colleges…you know that might all be over, right?!”

It felt like a punch to the gut to hear it, but I nodded.

“Wait, no…” Mom cut in, finally looking up from her hands. “Their futures don’t have to be over.”

Bridgette turned around to look at her, and our parents started having one of those silent conversations only best friends could.

I looked at Izzy, seeing the tear tracks running down her cheeks. Our gazes met, both of us suspecting where this was going.

“Adoption.” It was like Mom finally breathed, relief spreading through her tone as Bridgette nodded. “They give the baby up for adoption and then they can finish school and go off to college just like they’re supposed to.”

“We’re keeping the baby,” I said firmly.

“What? Honey, why would you do that? You two have such bright futures ahead of you. You have so much talent. Do the right thing,” Mom pleaded.

“Izzy, Tucker, be reasonable,” Bridgette piled on. “You’re too young, and you’ve barely started dating. A baby is so much responsibility. You don’t even realize how much. Give it to someone who can take care of it.”

Izzy shook her head, defiance clear in her expression. “You don’t know what you’re asking, Mom.”

“I don’t? I work in a NICU, Isabel. I see babies all the time that are fighting for their lives. I see parents just wishing, praying, they pull through. I see the ups and the downs and the hardships. I had twins when I was twenty-two years old with not an ounce of family close by to help out aside from your father, while I was going to nursing school. But no, I must not know what I’m talking about.”

Izzy stood up then, flushed with anger. “You may see all of that, Mother, and I know what you had to do was rough, but you don’t get to tell me how to feel. I love this baby,” she declared, her hand flying to her stomach. “I’ve already agonized over what to do. Over what I can live with, and I cannot just give it away to strangers. Adoption is not an option!”

“Isabel–”

“No.” She held a hand up and rushed out of the room, the slamming of the front door echoing through the front of the house.

All three parents turned to look at me, and I stood, meeting each and every one of their gazes. “My future is not over. It’s with Izzy. I knew that even before we knew she was pregnant. We may find it terrifying, cuz I’m not gonna lie. We do. And you may not like our choice, but it’s ours to make. We’re keeping our baby.” There was finality in the calm of my voice, and I followed my girlfriend out the door, leaving our parents standing in the living room, speechless.

I found Izzy waiting in my truck, and I opened the driver’s side door to join her. She was shaking, her face flushed crimson in frustration as tears leaked down her cheeks.

“You okay?”

“Just drive.”

She buckled and pulled her knees up to her chest, and I drove. For as long as she needed. And hell, I sure needed it, too. She loved the baby? I was still trying to believe it was even there. It wasn’t like she was showing at all. It barely even seemed real. But down in my gut I knew it was. This wasn’t like the bullshit Lisa had tried to pull back in September. I just didn’t know how I was supposed to handle it.

But I couldn’t lose Izzy.

I headed down the highway to Summer Ridge and took the back roads, finding loops and other routes on our way back to Breaker Ridge until Izzy pointed down a familiar road.

“Go there.”

I looked at her. “You’re sure? We won’t be able to go in.”

She rested her chin on her knees. “I know.”

I pulled up minutes later to a grassy spread at the edge of the sand that we’d parked on dozens of times in the past. We just sat, staring out the windshield at the large house in front of us, the beach and ocean spreading out past it on either side. An ache resonated in my chest knowing this was as close as we could get.

“Do you miss it?” Izzy whispered.

Like I lost a limb.“Yeah.”

“I still hate that your grandpa sold it.”

“Me, too.”

The house in front of us held so many memories. So much of my childhood had been spent here. Not just with family but with friends, too.

“I still remember Daddy, that last week we spent here for the fourth before I went to dance camp? We didn’t know then.”

“I know.”

“I hate that I didn’t come home.”

She turned to look at me, and there was so much in her expression. So much sadness, pain, and confusion I didn’t know how to fix. Things I’d hoped I’d helped her with ages ago.

“Do you think he’d hate me now? If he was here? For this?” She lowered her legs and pressed a hand to her stomach.

I shook my head, amazed that she could even think that way. “Your dad would never hate you, Izzy. He might be upset, but it’s me he’d hate for ruining your future.”

“My future’s not ruined, Tucker. It’s just going to be different.”

“But it shouldn’t have to be.”

“No, it shouldn’t,” she agreed. “But it is.”