Once Upon a Time

I’m sitting on Noah’s couch when he walks in, Grace in his arms.

“See, baby, I told you she was coming to see you,” he says to her, handing her to and then walking into the kitchen. “So how’d things go with your parents?” he calls to me while Grace plays with my hair.

I frown. I don’t want to think about it. My mother has never yelled that much, at least not at me – Kim, sure, because she was the bad one. Now I’m the unwed mother as my mom had put it. She says Kim may have gotten married at seventeen, but at least she waited until she was twenty-three to have a baby.

Noah walks out of the kitchen and eyes me cautiously. “What happened?” he asks me.

“Nothing good,” I mumble, pulling Grace to my chest, hugging her. Noah sits down next to me and Grace and pulls both of us into a hug.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “What did they say?”

I shake my head. “They just screamed mostly about how I’m smarter than this, and how I could let this happen, and did they raise me wrong?”

He kisses the side of my head. “Sweetie, they’ll get used to the idea. Just don’t let it get you down.”

“Can I stay with you tonight?” I ask him, and I feel silly, but a part of me is scared he’ll say no. I feel like everything is different between us now and I don’t know how to act anymore.

He laughs. “Of course you can. You don’t have to ask me. You can stay whenever you want.”

I just nod. “We’re going to be okay?”

He pulls me close to him and looks me in my eyes. “Teag, we’re fine. We’re better than fine, we’re amazing, just like we’ve always been. I know you’re worried, but I still love you just the same – maybe even more. You are so important to me. I’m here for you, and I’m not going anywhere. You’re my girl. I wouldn’t leave you to do this by yourself.”

I rest my head on his shoulder and try to relax, but I feel like everything is falling apart.

“This isn’t the end of the world, honey,” he says now, like he can read my mind. “It’s shitty timing, but this is our baby we’re talking about.”

Our baby, I kind of like the way that sounds. I’d rather like the way that sounds in reference to Grace, but I still get shivers up my spine thinking it.

“Actually,” he starts. “We need to talk about some things. Figure some stuff out.”

I nod. “I know.”

“What do you want to start with?” he asks, rubbing my arm.

“I don’t know,” I answer. “I’ve been trying not to think about it, actually.”

“Well, what about college? What do you want to do?” he asks me. I’ve been wondering the same thing. I’ll miss one month of semester one, and a month or two of the second semester when I have the baby.

“Kim thinks I should do freshman year online, or just take a year off.”

He nods thoughtfully. “That doesn’t sound too bad. You could do online.”

I grimace. “I don’t know… either way I’d be staying home with my parents all the time. I think I’d die if I did that. Maybe I should just…” I trail off. “I don’t know. I’ve got scholarships and I’ve been waiting for this, and having a baby is so expensive.”

“About that… remember what I told you about my dad? About how he left me money?”

“Yeah,” I answer.

“Well he left me more money than I told you he did. A lot more, and I switched it to my account today. I don’t want you to think that money is something you have to worry about.”

“How much more?” I ask, shocked. He already said his dad left him about fifty thousand, but that he wasn’t going to touch it.

“My dad was sort of rich. He left me everything – his estate, his cars, and his savings. So, in all he left me a couple million.”

I just gape at him, my mouth hanging open. “No. Fucking. Way.”

“I didn’t tell people because I didn’t want to be used, and I never thought I’d use the money anyway, but I knew you were worried about it, and now I can quit my job and take care of you and Grace and our baby. I don’t want that job to take away from my time with you, and I don’t want your parents to think that I’m not doing anything. Because I’ll take care of everything – all of the hospital expenses and clothes and food and everything – I’ve got it covered.”

I keep looking at him. “I was dating a millionaire and I didn’t even know it.”

He laughs and kisses the top of my head. “If you want to take a year off, honey, then you can. You don’t have to worry about scholarships, okay?”

I shake my head in protest. “No, I don’t want you thinking you have to pay for everything.”

“If I’m going to use that money, I’d rather spend it on the girl I love and our children. Think about it, you losing your scholarship and staying out of school for a year, and then worrying about money while knowing all of it is sitting in the bank wasting away.”

He makes a legit point, but I’m just his girlfriend. I would feel a little weird letting him pay for college.

“I don’t know,” I answer. “I’ll think about it.”

He shakes his head, grinning. “Alright. You think about it and then do whatever you want to. Now, doctors and Lamaze classes, things like that…”

“Kim is helping me with all of that – getting me the name of her doctor, and her Lamaze coach.”

“Lamaze and doctors’ visits…” he starts nervously, “Are those things you would want me to go to with you?”

I smile at the question.

“It’s just, I’ve never had to do this part, and I don’t know what you would want me to do,” he explains.

I laugh and put my arms around his neck, almost waking a sleeping Grace up. “I want you to come of you want to come.”

He nods. “I want to be there for you.”

“Okay,” I say, blushing. “Was that all you wanted to talk about?”

“That’s it for now, but we still have things we need to figure out later.”

“Alright,” I say, cuddling into his side. I feel a lot better about things now than I did earlier. I decide I’ll go home and get my things and then come back to Noah’s – spend a family night with him and Grace.