SOMETIMES I COMPARE SUKI'S PARENTS and mine.

Even when Mom lived with us, she was never at home. Her office work consumed her, till I found out she'd mixed in pleasure with her business.

Dad feels like a ghost of the man he once was.

The hours he works are up to whoever rosters the shifts at Scoresby. If their current construction project is roadworks, Dad works night shifts and sleeps during the day. If it's real estate in the gentrifying suburbs, he works day shifts and visits the bar at night. Dad definitely provides. He makes sure I'm not screwing up my own future too much. But between landing myself in jail and returning home every night, I can do pretty much whatever I want.

That might sound like a teenager's dream, but I miss the days when he would show up. Back when Mom and Dad still loved each other—or were still pretending—Dad and I would drive around the city until Mom was ready to be picked up from work. That was so long ago that we only had one car for our family, shared between two late twenty-somethings madly in love.

Dad would sit in the front row at my basketball games, and cheer the loudest when our team scored. Now each time I get a detention pass, Dad looks straight at my eyes and beyond, like I'm transparent. Like I'm not there.

Then he sighs, says something like, "Let me know if you need to be picked up," and trundles to the living room TV.

Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to have parents that love me enough to ruin my life with rules and groundings.

I've never met Suki's parents, but her father is a property dealer and her mother is a nurse. They both work long hours, which was part of the reason she took up cello and ballroom lessons. A way to keep her occupied after school, when no-one else was at home. Suki's parents are traditional, regimented. They both think there is a right way to live life, and they don't refrain from telling Suki that.

Milestone One: She must get a university degree before she starts working full time—no freelancing. What's an unpaid internship?—otherwise she'll be stuck in a career path that has a wage ceiling.

Milestone Two: She must work full time before she buys a house—renting is an unproductive investment, she mustn't do that either—otherwise she'll have to take loans or a mortgage with less than optimal interest rates.

Milestone Three: She must have her own house before she marries, otherwise she could become dependent on a man that might leverage her living situation against her.

Milestone Four: She must marry before she has children, otherwise there's strong incentive the father will leave.

"Among many, many other rules," Suki remarks bitterly, filling in another line of our math workbook.

I thought no one could compel me to excel at mathematics. To excel at anything academic, really. I'm not a cerebral guy. I have no deep thoughts about faith, religion, the universe. I'm just here, dropped into a life that's shitty by middle class standards but glorious by world standards.

My goal is to make the best of it while not getting pulled up by authority for the questionable ways I have fun. I'll do well enough to get my high school diploma, but I can't wait until senior year when I can take as many hands-on electives as possible. I'm good with my hands, not my head.

Maybe, I'll be a builder like Dad in the future.

But a strange thing happened since finding myself in Maths with Suki. We're hiding our relationship and spending spare time away from prying eyes. And after two weeks of studying with her in the library, a fucking ingenious idea struck me.

If Suki didn't have to patiently teach mathematical concepts to me, we could actually talk about more interesting things. Don't get me wrong, I love the quirk of her eyebrows when I purposefully mess up an answer.

But each time we have long enough to delve into a deeper conversation, it's like I've found buried treasure on the bottom of the sea floor. I've got limited time to shove as many gold nuggets—Suki's thoughts—into my pockets before the demands of sophomore year pull me back to the surface. I hitch my socks up and do some legitimate homework. My reward is more time with my girlfriend, instead of more time with my tutor.

Nevermind that they're the same person.

"The way I dress in public, the way I sit at the dinner table, whether my skirt is wrinkled or not. It's infuriating. You are not a milestone, Terrence."

I smile comfortingly and place a hand over hers. Her skin is ridiculously soft.

"You mess with their plans for me, and if they ever found out, they would flip their shit. Oh," Suki scoffs, "No swearing either."

"I do love to mess with people's plans." The look my girlfriends sends me falls halfway between reproach and amusement.

I asked her to let me in from now on, and she listened. Now that she's being more vulnerable about her home life, I understand Suki's frustration. I'm sure if she were a boy, her parents wouldn't be half as strict.

Would Dad set a curfew if he had a daughter?

"But boyfriends aren't the only thing that could change your pathway, baby," I drawl. "Do they not understand how curveballs work? What if you buy a house and it catches on fire?"

"They also said I must always get an insurance premium. Milestone Three Point Five."

"Insurance is a fraud," I grumble jocularly.

I heard that on a TV show once, and it only sounded cool because the actor who said it was a good-looking and gun-wielding gangster.

Suki lets out a loud laugh, before clamping a hand over her mouth. "Wow," she giggles. "You almost sounded like a thirty-year-old man just then."

"Thanks. I was channeling my Dad."

Both of us glance around the school library to check if anyone hears our laughter. Our caution is unnecessary because the library is absolutely deserted after school. Suki studies here until she needs to catch a bus into town for her ballroom lessons. That means I also study here.

"But they can't seriously believe your life is going to play out like that, right?"

Her parents don't know that she's pregnant, of course. We dread telling our parents equally. And I will have to tell my Dad, once we iron out the dynamic of my involvement and the plan going forward.

I thought Suki would want to tell her parents and get their support as quickly as possible. Instead, she seems terrified of them finding out. So terrified that she decided to go it alone for the time being and make her own plans for the future. Her parents' utter lack of trust in her led to her utter lack of trust in them—and love isn't something that can substitute for it. Love and trust are two different things.

"But even ignoring what we know, your parents should have a taste of the real world. Strict plans don't work."

Let alone hormonal birth control, but moving on.

Suki completes yet another polynomial factorisation without blinking, bringing her pencil to her cheek.

I sneak a look at her answer and note it down in my own workbook. Hey, I have the steps of factorisation down, which is all that matters. I can get plenty of practice when the teacher springs pop quizzes on us.

"I think they think that putting down super narrow guidelines will make any of my missteps propitious, compared to society," Suki muses. "Like, great if I follow their rules to the T. Not the end of the world if I don't, because I wouldn't dare to stray too far away from the formula."

Propitious. Another word to find the definition of.

I nod knowingly, cracking into a sly grin. "Imagine their faces when you tell them. Curveball."

The laughter shrivels up, dropping with a clunk into sober silence.

Suki sighs. "Yeah."

Crap. It's not my intention to bring her mood down, but I also want to be a good boyfriend. Just because I don't want to raise the foetus, doesn't mean I can't support Suki in every way—physically, emotionally, and mentally.

The physical part means hugs, kisses, cuddles and massages whenever she needs them.

The emotional part means showering her with movie nights, sappy pick-up lines, and picnics at Haywood Park, while the weather is warm enough.

The mental part means having these important conversations with her, even if they're uncomfortable. Listening to Suki's worries, doubts and plans. Or confronting them with her.

"What's your plan?"

"The nurse told me my due date at the first ultrasound. Twelfth of March. Based on that, I'll start showing just as it gets into sweater weather. Lucky," she says sarcastically. "I think I can hide the bump up until six months, hopefully."

I chuckle wryly. Leave it Suki to iron out the exact details by pre-empting everything.

"I should get a job."

Her eyes narrow, and her lips part to argue.

I continue, "I know I'm not going to be a traditional father figure—" A shitty one. "—But I want to take equal financial responsibility. We can cut back on dates to save up, too. No more arcade games, okay?"

After a beat of silence, Suki's shoulders relax. "Really?"

I reach over to clutch her hand, replacing the pencil with my own fingers. I squeeze. "Of course." Then I shoot her a wicked smile. "I mean, bedroom dates are free."

She slaps my shoulder playfully. "Asshole."

I stick out a tongue, since I know she agrees with me.

We haven't been as intimate since school started. Less free time, no free reign of our homes, and my newfound caution for Suki's condition. Like... what if I hurt the foetus?

She insists I don't need to be so careful around her, but I quite like the new way we do things. It's slow, considerate. We talk and we laugh and I ask about every touch I want to lay on her skin. It's making love, and it's not manly to admit this, but I like it. And, in the sickest twist of fate, the stress of getting her pregnant has disappeared.

"—best-case scenario, they ground me for like a month and then come around. Second best, they pull me out of school so that I can stay home to take care of the baby."

"Worst?"

Suki glances down at her workbook. "They disown me."

The silence of the library wedges between us, bloating and lengthening as Suki falls deep into thought. Oh, no. No overthinking right now. I turn her hand over, grazing my lips across the satiny skin.

"I know you always map things out," I whisper comfortingly. "But this time, just take things one day at a time. Do your best. Don't think about the rest."

As if turning a new page in her mind, Suki flips to the next page in her math workbook. "But the rest is all there is to think about. What happens after the baby comes, Terrence? What will you do? You say you don't want to be a dad, but I'm going to be a mom."

I release her hand.

I know Suki will be a mother. An amazing one, at that. My place in her life will grow even smaller. And yet, I can't bring myself to mull over the idea of a child. A real, unique individual. Vulnerable beyond belief.

"I don't think I'll change my mind. I can't imagine myself loving a kid right now. Or ever."

"I know," she nods assuredly. Once more, I feel a wave of gratitude for Suki's compassion. Her eyes, alert, pose me a question neither of us have ever voiced. "But I'll be swamped. You either won't see me at all or you'll have to see me with the baby. And the kid will see you. It's just science, baby. What if a kid ends up loving you?"

That gives me pause. Before Suki fell pregnant, we used to talk about our plans after high school. I imagined finding a job in Auckland while Suki studied. Beach on the weekends, mountains in the winter. Then I would follow her around the world, wherever her archaeology work took her. Wherever she went. I just want to love her.

Now, I doubt that she'll even leave this state in her whole life, or her house once her parents find out. Babies are cash sponges. Dreams of the future have clouded and become murky. I really don't know what's going to happen in the next two months. I can't fathom that Suki has thought all the way past her giving birth.

I believe in Suki, of course. But I look at the sky now and imagine that it's shrinking. I look at her and see her future shrinking.

Is it one day going to get too small for me to fit? Or do I have to crush myself—swallow reality and put a Hi, I'm Dad label over my heart—to stay with her? God, I'm selfish for hating that idea. I want to run from the foetus and run toward Suki, and the fact they're sharing a body freaks me out. I want things to go back to the summertime, when we were floating in a lake and thinking of nothing.

How does she look at the future and actually see things? Scenarios and pathways. People and their probable reactions. Future Suki and her contingency plans.

I look at the cloudy future and just see pain. A general vibe that, no matter how I play the situation, something—my resolve? The Yamato family? Suki's heart? The kid's?—is going to break at the end of this.

Except I don't know what.

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A / N :

I consider this the end of Act 1. I'm sprinkling a bunch of tension here and there for the future explosions :') Remember not to spoil anything if you have already read TGR, even though I kept it vague what really went down. I will delete any comments I deem too revealing!

What TV shows are we loving/watching/hating right now? I'm binging Miraculous Ladybug and my heart is not okay. My baby heroes need to kiss. Like. Pronto.

Remember to vote, comment and follow!

Aimee x