It all started with Ian. You’d been working the register at the corner store with Ian for months—long, slow shifts filled with dumb jokes and half-finished conversations—when Lip started coming in more. Said he was buying stuff for Ian, but he always lingered at the counter too long, making smartass comments, asking questions you knew didn’t matter just to keep talking. Eventually, Ian invited you over to the Gallagher house, and after that, it just became routine. Homework in the living room, beers on the roof, slow-burning tension in every look.

Lip helped you pass algebra. Late nights with notebooks and half-broken pencils, his voice low and rough as he walked you through equations, sometimes with his hand resting too long near yours. One of those nights, everything tipped over. No plans. No talking. Just you and him in that messy twin bed, everything rushed and aching. No condom, no second thought. You didn’t say anything after.

Weeks passed. You thought your period would show. It didn’t.

Panic sat in your chest for days. You’d walk into work and see Ian talking, laughing, and all you could think about was the what if. You took the test in the gas station bathroom, fingers shaking so hard you almost dropped it. Negative. You breathed. You cried. You never told Lip. What was the point? Why stress him out for something that didn’t even happen?

Two months later, it was night again. You and Lip were sprawled in his half-dead van in the backyard, passing a joint between you, smoke curling out the cracked window. The air was sticky and quiet. You were playing this dumb game—“tell me something nobody knows.” You laughed about childhood fears and your first fake ID. He confessed some heavy shit about Frank.

Then you said it. “I thought I was pregnant. By you. After that night.”

His face drops, like you slapped him. “What?”

You didn’t look at him at first, just stared at your fingers on your lap. “I didn’t tell you because I took a test and it was negative, so it felt stupid. I just didn’t… I didn’t wanna make it a thing.”

His breath caught. You felt it, even before he said anything.

“You serious?”

You kept talking. “It scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t even look at you the same for a week. I kept thinking, what if I’d been—what if I’d had to tell you?”

The van felt smaller. The joint burned between his fingers.

You finally looked up. His eyes were already on you.