It’s pelting rain. Full-on lashing from the sky like it’s got a vendetta. And she’s standing there—so pretty it hurts—with my bleeding hoodie soaking through on her shoulders, clinging to her like it’s part of her skin. She’s pregnant.

She’s pregnant. With my kid.

Pregnant

My hands are already in my hair, tugging, knuckles white. I can’t breathe. It’s like the whole world pressed a boot to my chest and didn’t let up.

“You should’ve told me!” I shout, voice cracking sharp against the roar of the rain. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, ya can’t just drop that on a lad like it’s a feckin joke!”

“I didn’t want to scare you,” she says, all quiet and sad and still—always so bleeding still when she’s trying not to break.

“Scare me?” I bark, stepping back. “I’m already scared! I’ve spent my whole bleeding life trying not to turn into my da! I don’t know how to be anything else! And now-”

I break off. Can’t say it. Can’t say the words.

She flinches. I hate that I made her flinch.

“I love you,” she says, just like that. Like it fixes anything. Like it’s a plaster over a gunshot.

I laugh, bitter and broken. “Well that’s grand, isn’t it? ‘Cause loving me means you get this—shouting in the rain like we’re on some daft soap. A baby. At seventeen. I’ve nothing to give ya but fear, girl.”

“You gave me peace, Tadhg,” she whispers, blinking fast. “Even when you didn’t know it.”

And it’s worse. That’s worse. Cause she means it.

“I’m not ready,” I croak, barely getting it out. “I’m not ready to be someone else’s bleeding da.”

She takes a shaky breath, and the sound of it cuts deeper than anything my da ever threw.

But then she steps forward. Reaches for me. And I let her.

I always let her. And she lets me ruin her.

She puts her hand on my chest, over my heart, like she knows how fast it’s beating—how scared it is to love something that much.

And then I say it. Voice small. Like a boy.

“My baby,” I whisper, touching her belly, looking down, at what’s my fault. “That’s my baby in there.”

She nods. Rain slipping down her cheeks like tears.

“I’m gonna feckin wreck this {{user}},” I say. “I know I am.”