So here you guys go, the last chapter, which is a bit of a mess of everything if I'm honest. But it was an attempt to finish it before the deadline, and here we are! Dedicated to Defend who I am currently keeping up because she's waiting for this even though it's past midnight.

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 I was late.

            That much was clear, even if only from the way Andrew was honking loudly outside my window. Three times now I’d stuck my hand out of the window, gesturing for him to hold on just a while longer, as I struggled to get ready for school in what had to be record timing. Now, after I’d wriggled into my jeans and yanked a brush through my hair, I snatched up my bag and bounded down the stairs two at a time.

            It was Friday – not only the last day of the week, but also the last day of the project that had become a somewhat normal part of our lives. We were due to hand the baby over to Coach Davis last period, and although I’d never have expected it, I had mixed feelings about letting it go. Taking care of the doll had undoubtedly been crazy at times, but I’d become accustomed to having it around, and it had turned out to be the thing that finally brought Andrew and I together.

            “Finally,” Andrew said, when I collapsed, breathless, into the passenger seat of his car. “What were you doing, having a three-course meal or something?”

            “Forgot to set my alarm,” I told him sheepishly. “But I did get ready in five minutes. Come on, you can’t get much quicker than that.”

            “Could’ve got ready in four minutes…” he murmured, a smile playing at his lips as he shifted the car into drive and pulled away from the curb. His window was rolled down, letting the morning breeze fly through the car as it rolled into motion, ruffling his hair with it too.

            “Come on.” I pulled the seatbelt across me and turned to look at him. “Don’t I even get a good morning?”

            “Good morning.”

            I rolled my eyes, smiling. “How endearing. I didn’t even get a kiss.”

            “No time,” he answered. “To make it to school before first bell, we’ve got to severely push the speed limit and not hit any stoplights. You can blame yourself for that one.”

            “Charming.”

            “You know me,” he said, allowing his eyes to leave the road for a moment to wink jokingly at me. “Charming is my middle name.”

            “I thought your middle name was Sheldon?”

            He groaned. “You had to bring it up.”

            I laughed, my smile stretching wider as the sound reverberated through my chest. The action somehow felt lighter, more carefree than it would’ve done at the same point a week ago. Maybe it was just my imagination.

            It was my third official day of dating Andrew, although to everyone else we were closing in on the one-week marker. It was as if I’d been on a constant high since Wednesday morning; the feeling that had surfaced when Andrew had kissed me had yet to wear off. Even in dull moments, like in the middle of class, I’d find myself struck by the strange impulse to smile – as if being set double Economics homework was the best news I’d heard all day. It had earned me a few odd looks, but it didn’t bother me; my good mood seemed to have some kind of protective armor.

            What happened three days ago was still as vivid in my mind as it had ever been. We’d ended up falling asleep on the couch which, considering the extent of exhaustion the project had brought upon us, wasn’t really surprising. Unfortunately, that hadn’t fitted too well with my ‘sneak back before Mom even realized I’d gone’ plan; this was clear when we woke up to sunlight streaming in through the blinds, and a clock cruelly reminding us school started in an hour. Mom would be up by then, and a pile of pillows stuffed under a comforter wouldn’t be enough to cover up my absence.

            “Crap, crap, crap,” I muttered, running a hand through my tangled hair. Turning on my cell phone had revealed ten missed calls, each glaring at me in the ominous red text that read Mom. “I’m so dead.”

            But before I’d even brought the phone to my ear to call her back, my gaze caught on an object lying on the far side of the room. My school bag – the one that usually sat by my bedroom door. My brow furrowed and I turned to look at Andrew. “How did that get there?”

            “Beats me.” He shrugged. “I was asleep.”

            Avery, the note read, in a frenzied version of my mom’s scrawl. Don’t you ever think about sneaking out of the house again, young lady. You scared me to death! We’ll talk punishments later. Of course, I knew there was only one place you’d go, so I dropped your stuff off anyway. Thought it might come in useful. Have a good day at school, and don’t EVER do anything like that again. Mom.

            “Wow.” Andrew’s breathy voice sounded in my ear, and I jumped at his unexpected proximity. “Your mom is so cool.”

            “Yeah,” I said, tugging at the bag’s zip. It turned out to contain jeans and my favorite sweater. “She is.”

            I turned back to Andrew, who was looking down at me with an expression I couldn’t quite figure out. Maybe I was just imagining the nervousness that seemed to be etched across his features. “So, um, last night…” he began, chewing on his lip.

            “Uh huh,” I murmured, not daring to say any more.

            “I did, you know… confess, didn’t I? That wasn’t just a dream I had?”

            I swallowed, a blush threatening to creep onto my cheeks as a vivid memory of the previous night entered my head. “Nope,” I said. “That, uh… that happened.”

            “Oh…” He reached up to scratch the back of his head. “Good.”

            “Yeah.”

            We stared at each other for a few moments, neither of us really knowing what to do or say next. What was the code of conduct for best friends who had just sort of confessed to each other, anyway? Both of us were lacking the faintest clue, so it was I who eventually broke the tension, stepping forward and carrying out what seemed the most appropriate action for the situation.

            And that time, there were no frozen peas to ruin the moment.

            “Avery.”

            I snapped back to reality, where Andrew’s free hand was waving around in my line of vision. “Huh?”

            “Zoning out again,” he told me. “What are you thinking about?”

            I felt the temperature of my cheeks rise slightly. “Oh, nothing,” I said, a little too hurriedly. Andrew raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment, and I seized the opportunity to change the subject. “So, um, how was the baby last night?”

            His gaze flickered to the rear view mirror, where the image of the carrier in the back seat was reflected. For a moment a pang of sadness struck me, as I realized this was the last journey we’d make to school with the doll in our care, before mentally slapping myself. Any normal teenager would be relieved to get shot of the thing; my other classmates, I was sure, would be. Still, however many hours of sleep the thing had stolen from me, I did have a soft spot for it. Dodgy eye, and all.

            “It was okay, actually,” he said. “Only woke me up once, and I didn’t even have to change its diaper.”

            “Wow.” I watched the road as Andrew accelerated, narrowly avoiding a red light. “You got lucky.”

            “Uh huh.” He nodded triumphantly. “Maybe it sensed it was the last night. Decided to go easy on me, or something. But I’m not complaining – I actually woke up this morning without feeling like a zombie.”

            “Well,” I said, smiling, “that’s a bonus.”

            Despite Andrew’s initial doubts, we pulled into the student parking lot with two minutes to spare on his dashboard clock. I attributed this to a bizarre streak of luck: not only had we managed to dodge all the stoplights, the traffic seemed considerably lighter than usual. Miraculously, my waking up just as my ride pulled up outside hadn’t had such a drastic effect after all.

            “So,” I said, as he reached into the backseat and extracted the carrier, hooking it onto his arm, “last day. You ready?”

            He slammed the car door behind him, grinning at me. In the morning sunlight, with his hair perfectly messy and his eyes bright, I couldn’t help but return the smile. “Of course,” he replied, his free hand finding mine and enveloping it in his warm grip. “What about you?”

            I squeezed his palm. “Completely. Let’s do this.”

***

            “Are you trying to tell me you lost your baby?”

            Darcy laughed loudly, but there was a definite shakiness to it as she ran a hand through her hair. Austin, who stood beside her, could’ve won a prize for having the most bored expression in the room. Clearly, the scrutiny of Coach Davis’ gaze didn’t have as much of an effect on him as his blonde partner.

            “I wouldn’t call it lost,” she said, smiling in a way that was bordering on hysterical, “just… misplaced. Temporarily. We’ll find it.”

            “Right.” Coach Davis looked down at his clipboard. “Well, since you haven’t got a doll for me to assess, I’m afraid I can’t grade your project. You both get an F.”

            Darcy’s eyes widened. “But–”

            “No buts,” he said, cutting off her protest. “No baby, no grade. F.”

            I could hear their whispered argument as they sidled back to the bleachers, taking their seats in front of us. “It’s your fault, Austin,” she was hissing angrily. “Have you seen my grades recently? An F in health is not going to help!”

            “God, quit bugging me,” he snapped back. “It was a stupid project anyway.”

            At the front of the room, Coach Davis scanned his list, despite not needing to. Andrew and I were the only ones in the class who had yet to hand back our doll – the classmates seated around us all looked considerably relieved to have it taken off their hands. Evidently, it had been a long week for the entire class.

            “Avery and Andrew!” he barked, looking upward. There was a hint of confusion on his face, as if doubting the presence of students in possession of those names in his class. It wasn’t surprising, really; neither of us had outstanding performance history in gym, and we were easily the quietest amongst our more popular classmates. His eyes scanned the bleachers for a moment, before finally landing on us – the only pair with a baby still between them.

            We both stood, climbing down until the shiny gym floor could be felt beneath our feet. Andrew set the carrier and the baby’s bag on the tabletop, and handed the doll over to Coach Davis.

            A moment passed as he inspected the doll, looking for any visible signs of mistreatment. I held my breath, although we had nothing to worry about – the entire time it had been in our care, the baby had stayed a safe distance from any three-storey windows, giving us an immediate advantage over Andrew’s older brother.

            “Looks okay to me,” he announced, placing it face-down on the table. Then, unfastening its baby-grow, he extracted some kind of computer chip from the doll’s plastic back.

            The chip was essentially the gap between passing with flying colors and failing miserably. And the fact that the baby project made up a good proportion of our overall grade just made it worse. So, as Coach Davis inserted the chip into a slot in his laptop, pausing for a moment before the results appeared on screen, I held my breath for a second time.

            “Well, well, well,” he said, as what could only be described as a smirk appeared across his heavily-moustached face.

            I exchanged an alarmed look with Andrew. I mean, I wasn’t shooting for the World’s Best Parents award or anything, but had it really been that bad? We’d tried our best. It hadn’t been our fault that the baby had had multiple crying fits, each equally hard to stop. Had there been some kind of manual the other kids were given? Were we about to be crowned bottom of the class for our horrible parenting skills, only above Darcy and Austin who’d managed to physically lose their child?

            “I guess what I should say is… well done,” Coach Davis said.

            It took a while for the words to sink in. “What?”

            “Well done,” he repeated. “According to this, you two took care of this thing pretty well. Best in the class, actually.”

            “You’re kidding,” Andrew said incredulously. “But we… it cried… and we couldn’t figure out…”

            “That’s the point of this thing. There’ll be times when it won’t shut up, but clearly you two handled it as best you could. That’s why I’m giving you both an A+.”

            A breath of relief escaped me and a grin found its way onto my face. Maybe a half-decent grade had been expected, what with the lack of physical abuse some of them had suffered in the past, but an A+ had seemed way off. With it, I was pretty much guaranteed a decent final grade. The struggle of the past week, it seemed, might’ve just been worth it.

            “Good job,” he said. That was when something odd happened: he smiled. Not a half-hearted one, or even a smirk. It was something I’d never seen him do before, much less to unenthusiastic gym participants like Andrew and I. He placed the baby back in the box, atop the others, just as the final bell rang overhead. “Class dismissed!”

            “How about that?” Andrew said, as we retrieved our bags and headed in the direction of the gym’s exit. He nudged my shoulder. “Best parents in the class.”

            I laughed. “Maybe on the project. I think it’ll be a little while before we’re ready for the real thing though, don’t you?”

            “You could be right about that one,” he said. Between us, his hand found mine, giving it a squeeze.

            “You know, I’m going to miss that little thing,” I admitted. “I mean, sure, it was crazy annoying, but I was kind of getting used to having it around. You realize we didn’t even give it a name?”

            “Sure we did. It was called It.”

            “That’s not a name,” I pointed out.

            “It is now.”

            “Okay, okay,” I said, knowing better than to argue, choosing instead to smile. “But what about you? Aren’t you going to miss it?”

            “Of course I am,” he responded easily, as we made it out of the school hallway and into the afternoon air. The sun was comfortably warm, and the place was abuzz with pre-weekend anticipation – something that had a much greater novelty without screaming plastic dolls to attend to. “It was cute, really. Dysfunctional eye and all. And,” he added, “if you think about it, it was kind of the thing that brought us together.”

            “Well… not really,” I countered, “the thing that brought us together was you magically growing the balls to tell me you liked me.”

            His face broke out into a grin. “Well, that too. But I don’t know if it would’ve happened without the baby.”

            I paused. “So, basically… Coach Davis was the one who brought us together.”

            Andrew’s grimace was a replica of my own reaction. “If you really want to think of it that way…”

            “I don’t,” I assured him. “But I’m glad you did. Grow some balls, I mean.”

            “So am I.” He stopped in his tracks, our joined hands causing me to do the same. I frowned, about to ask him why we’d randomly ceased walking in the middle of the path, but he tugged gently at my arm and pulled me closer, so that I was facing him. “I really do love you, Avery,” he said, his voice soft. “And you know what?”

            I blinked up at him. “What?”

            “We’re going to make such badass parents.”

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There you go, the end to The Baby Project! I can't really believe I got this far, considering how close I was to giving up at some points. Thank you to everyone who's read and enjoyed this story, ev en with its erratic updates and some very disappointing chapters. And it's up for the Watty Awards (short story category) so don't forget to vote for me when the time comes!

THANK YOU! NaNoWriMo starts in a few days, so look forward to my newest story which I'll be writing for that :-) I LOVE YOU ALL.