How could I be fucking pregnant? Did you hear me before? I was supposed to go to grad school, I had plans to go to a good school, a really great school. It should have hurt more to lose it.

Yet, over the next few days, I found myself thinking of only one thing; Xavier smells like orange peels and firewood. A scent you want to hurry home to. One that the baby could have too. Maybe the same curls. And just like that, my brain floods with gentle giggles and baby blankets and tiny toes. I woke up every next day expecting the notion to wash away. It had reached shore by accident and the ocean depths would come collecting it soon. It only grew.

I thought about all the love I would show up with in the morning, then into the night. I thought about eating up my shame. I thought about the melting sun swaddled up in fragile pinks, cooing between beginning blinks. I thought of the warm possibility and of late night rocking chairs. Of approaching birthdays and the color of their hair. I thought of us protecting each other.