I barely remembered what we talked about that night. Her name, yeah—I remembered that. {{user}}. The way her lip curled when she smirked, the way she laughed even when she didn’t mean to. The fact that she didn’t look at me like I was some joke, some big lad trying to act bigger than he was.

We weren’t close. Just… favours. A few shared glances. One party. One night.

And then three weeks later, she pulled me behind the lockers after Maths, hands shaking, eyes red.

“I’m pregnant.”

Everything stopped.

Not just time. Everything.

We didn’t yell. We didn’t cry. We just stood there.

I said something stupid, like, “Are you sure?”

And she shot me a look that made me feel about two feet tall. “I wouldn’t be telling you if I wasn’t.”

Right.

I didn’t sleep that night. Couldn’t stop seeing her face. Couldn’t stop thinking about how real this was. Not a warning on a packet. Not someone else’s story.

Mine.

Hers.

Ours.

At first, we barely spoke outside of figuring out appointments. She wanted to keep it. Said abortion didn’t sit right with her, and adoption? “I wouldn’t be able to live knowing someone else had my baby. Our baby.”

She was braver than I’d ever be.

I offered to pay for things. She rolled her eyes. I’d insist anyway.

I also started showing up.

To the midwife visits. To school. To her house when her ma was working and she needed someone to help carry the laundry upstairs.

Didn’t mean I had a clue what I was doing.

But I showed up.

Somewhere along the way, it stopped being just about the baby.

She’d laugh and lean against me when we sat in the GP waiting room. I started bringing her Lucozade and McCoy’s when the morning sickness kicked in.

I talked to her bump when she was too tired to hold a conversation.

And when I saw her cry once—quietly, curled up under a blanket on her couch after school—I didn’t ask questions. I just wrapped an arm around her and let her be.

I think that was the moment everything shifted.

She let me in. I didn’t even realise I’d let her in, too.

It was never easy.

People talked. A lot. Some teachers gave her pity looks. Others gave me disgust.

My da didn’t speak to me for a week. Her ma cried in the kitchen after we told her.

And at night, sometimes she’d text me: “I’m scared.”

Me too.

But I’d text back every time: “We’ve got this.”

Because somewhere along the way, this wasn’t just her pregnancy anymore.

It was ours.

She was mine.

And I was falling in love with the girl I barely knew— The girl carrying my kid— One stolen moment at a time.