w 1 t n e s s

forty-one

I couldn't tell Tyler. Not yet. Something within me was so scared of his reaction. I'd been basically hiding out at Tayler's while he was home, unable to even look him in the face. My excuses were starting to fail. Tayler and Alex were encouraging me to tell him before they did. It was a fight with myself every night over what I was going to do.

Finally, I decided. I couldn't keep it from him any longer. I left Tayler's with heavy footsteps. Everything was so out of place. I'd always imagined doing this with cute balloons and happiness. Instead, there was terror and heavy dread in my heart. The fear of Tyler's negative reaction was strong. What if he hated me? What if I screwed up his career? What if he blamed me? Would he even want to keep it? I couldn't imagine a scenario where this went well. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. We'd already talked about this so many times before.

My hands were shaking by the time I was unlocking the apartment door. I shut the door behind me loudly. I could hear music blasting from the bedroom. As I set my keys on the island, the sound paused. Tyler appeared, grinning. His look of happiness immediately disappeared when he saw how I was leaning on the counter.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I wanted to melt at the compassion in his voice. I pointed weakly at the chairs.

"Can you sit please? We need to talk." His face changed into a hundred different emotions at once. He sat cautiously. I couldn't look across at him. I was too scared that I would start to cry. I sucked in a shaky breath and tapped my nail against the cool stone. I gathered all my courage and squeezed my eyes shut.

"Ty. I'm pregnant." When I didn't get a response right away, my lip quivered. "And I know this is shitty timing and you didn't want this and we're too young and I get that you're going to hate me because I ruined your life but please don't make get rid of it becau—" I had my hands pressed against my chest in a desperate last attempt to stop the sobs. I tried to take deep breaths but the panic was winning.

Tyler cut me off. Not with his words, but with his actions. He pushed away from the island and was at my side in a second. One hand found the back of my neck, supporting my head. The other squeezed against my back, pressing me into his chest. I sucked in a breath before letting out a choked sob. I buried my face into his shoulder, needing the comfort so desperately. He held me until I'd relaxed enough to talk.

I pulled back, tears still lingering in my eyes. There was so much passion in his face that it almost hurt to look at.

"Why would you ever think that I would hate you? Especially over this." I blubbered out an incoherent response. He pushed my hair away from my tear stained cheeks. His thumbs brushed under my eyes to catch the tears. "And it's not going to ruin my life. It's going to make it so incredibly amazing that I won't be able to imagine my life without it." My lip quivered again, tears threatening to spill.

"So you're not mad?"

"Of course I'm not! Halle, this is the last thing I'd ever be mad about. You had me worried that you were running away with some Cubs player or something." His lame attempt at a joke made me smile slightly.

"No it's not that good."

"Hey!" His smile dropped slightly. "But...how? I thought you were taking birth control?" I shrugged.

"I was. I didn't miss a single day. But it's only ninety nine percent affective. So I guess I fall into that one percent that gets through."

"It's destiny. Have you been to the doctor already?" I fumbled in my pocket for the ultrasound pictures I'd received a week and a half before. I put them in Tyler's hand. His face changed into complete wonder.

"Wow." His voice was soft and so relieving to hear. "Wow. You're that far along that you got an ultrasound?" He looked confused.

"Six weeks now. Guessing it happened a bit before Christmas." A lot clicked into place for him.