SUKI FINISHES THE MATH TEST before anyone else in the class.

She took half an hour to do an hour's worth of work. Then she slid her paper onto the teacher's desk and asked to go to the bathroom in a sotto voice. She took her bag with her.

It's only because I'm her boyfriend that I can detect the tremor in her voice, even as a whisper.

Something's wrong.

I wait a few minutes to dispel suspicion and act with languid carelessness. Even though I haven't given every question a solid effort, I strike off my last answers and hand the test in.

When I walk out of the classroom, bag on my shoulders, I list places Suki would have gone. The library is too open since there would be students in their study period there. I push open the door to the nearest girls' bathroom and stick my head in, hoping it's unoccupied by anyone other than my girlfriend.

"Baby?" I call quietly, observing one locked stall.

A moment's silence passes.

I wonder if some random girl is in there taking a dump and I just rudely interrupted.

Then the door swings open and Suki walks out, eyes rimmed red. She sniffs. "What— what are you doing here?"

She's been crying. I grab her into a breathless hug. Her face fits perfectly into my chest, and her arms wrap around my waist.

"Comforting you, apparently. What happened?"

"I don't need comforting," she insists, even as she buries her head closer to my heart. "It's just hormones. Baby brain."

Yes, the infamous hormones. Apparently, pregnancy brings with it bouts of horniness, sadness, happiness, anger, jealousy—all in the same ten minutes. Suki was more emotional about the prospect of being emotional than she was actually emotional.

But it seems to have hit her, right now.

"I— I couldn't do the test," she begins shakily. "I stared at all the questions, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out the answers. Even though I knew it was easy because I'd done countless examples of those types of questions just last week." Her voice raises in pitch, ringing clear like a bell. "My freaking brain. It's not working. Not like it used to."

As a witness to all her after-school study sessions, I know firsthand that she works so hard for the skills that are now slipping away. First she decides to wean ballroom out of her life, and now she can't do maths. All things she loves. All things she's losing.

I don't mean to say that she should trade the baby for algebra — heck, even I wouldn't do that. I'm just terrified that more and more of her hobbies, skills, and commitments are going to join the pile of things Suki threw out. I wonder if this one kid growing inside her will be worth it.

"It's okay, baby." I nod and smile wearily, though she can't see my face. Nod and smile. The mantra is engrained. "This will pass. Symptoms come and go."

"Yeah. Like hurricanes come and go. Equally destructive, too," she whines into my chest. Her breath warms my heart even as she dissolves into tears again. "Wow. Sorry. That was melodramatic. I've been getting overly emotional, too, like—"

Her weeping steals her coherence, and Suki resigns herself to sobbing into me. I rub my hands up and down her back for several long minutes, tortured. I hate that she cries. I hate that I can't always stop it.

Eventually, the tears subside and Suki raises her face to me. Her dark brown eyes swim with the recent moisture, shiny like marbles. "Thanks, baby. I'm glad you're still around. You make all my bad days better."

I press my lips to her forehead. "I wish you wouldn't have bad days."

"They're... they're worth it. All of this is worth it to me. You know what's terrifying?" she whispers.

I arch an eyebrow. Her hand reaches out to trace my jaw, skimming over my lower lip and Cupid's bow with reverent softness.

"I think I'll love you for the rest of my life, but I can't tell if you'll be here for the rest of it."

Her words pierce to the centre of my heart. I feel shot-through, almost transparent. I bet if someone aligned themselves with my chest, they'd see right through the little arrow hole Suki left there. And yet...

"I feel the same," I tell her honestly. "Terrified in love."

"Terrified in Love. Sounds like a crappy Hallmark movie," Suki sniffs, gaining clarity of voice by the second. "Jaded, unlucky-in-love career woman goes home for the holiday season and falls in love with a humble, single father who reignites her belief in Christmas magic."

I snort. "And then she wakes up, and it was all a dream."

"The next blockbuster."

Suki smiles weakly. She tiptoes and joins our lips slowly, taking care to preserve the painful, lingering sadness in the air. I can tell she doesn't want to get happy too quickly. She wants to wallow for a little bit, ride it out instead of bottling it up like me. It's her thing.

In a way, this is intoxicating, too. Half of it is the kiss, half of it is the admission we just gave each other. We love each other and yet we can both feel something buckling. It's heavy, and it hurts—but it hurts so good. Being in love is one thing. Being in love forever is another.

I've known I felt that way for a while. Since I met her, I can't remember ever thinking about the next person. But there's going to be a next person.

The baby.

She'll arrive. I'll fade away. There's no room for deadbeat fathers in Suki's life. Nothing about her is deadbeat. She aims high and shoots hard, flying like a rocket to her goals. I will watch from afar, once the day I can no longer call her only mine comes.

I pull Suki into me and kiss the breath out of her. Her hands are equally greedy, sliding into my hair, wrapping around my neck, pulling my tie, until the bell rings and jolts us away from each other.

"Boo," I pout.

"Right?" Suki pecks my lips, reluctant to leave. "I have to go to class."

"I'll walk you," I offer, still breathing heavy. "You have History, right?"

"Yeah. But I'm fine now. Don't make yourself late on my account." Suki presses another chaste kiss to my lips, then we slip out of the girls' bathroom before anyone walks in on us.

She accompanies me to my next class and farewells me with a wave. She turns and speeds down the hallway.

Something pricks the back of my neck.

I don't know why. Perhaps it's because she's lied to me before. Plus, she seemed so casually invested in my not being late—something she knows I never care about. I can't rationalise following her to myself, so I stop trying to. I just do it.

Hopefully, I won't get caught, and then I don't have to explain to anyone why I don't fully trust my girlfriend.

I wait for Suki to round the corner before I start walking, pressing myself to the wall and glancing around to see her next steps. She's gone up the stairs. Stocking-clad legs flash in my view before they disappear behind the landing.

When I come upon the landing, I see Suki disappearing around the corner at the end of the hallway. Voices become audible when I approach the turn, so I press my back against the wall and listen.

"—start applying for jobs soon," Suki says tersely. "Every shop starts hiring for the holiday season about now. You'll let me know if you hear about any openings, right? Nothing too manual labour, though. I can do retail and customer service."

A bolt of guilt strikes me. I vowed I would financially support the child, but I have made no plans to act on it. It's too easy to procrastinate when the responsibilities are hypothetical. But of course, Suki's been looking for jobs. She thinks of everything.

"Of course not," a feminine voice replies. "I wouldn't suggest those even if you weren't pregnant." My jaw drops. "Manual labour, ugh."

She told someone?

"So classist."

Whoever the girl is, knows about the baby?

Suki hasn't even told her parents yet. Her plan is to keep them in the dark until she can't hide the way her body has changed, thereby shortening the time they have to disapprove and scold before their grandchild arrives. Then, hopefully, their familial instincts will kick in and they won't kick her out.

I wasn't aware Suki even had a best friend. She has several close acquaintances, one for each class she has, and her ballroom partner.

But her ballroom partner is a dude that she sees for only a handful of hours every week and her school acquaintances aren't close enough to trust, save for Delaney Morrison. She certainly won't be seeing him anymore, at any rate, since she decided to quit, and that voice does not belong to Delaney.

Delaney got the highest GPA in the cohort last year, and I heard her voice—everyone did, really—when she gave a short thank-you sentence in front of the whole school. Her voice is piercing and it carries, whereas this one is lower and mellow. And familiar.

"Hey, I have nothing against manual labour. I just prefer not to chip my nails."

Suki laughs and falls silent. I wonder how they look at each other. They must be close if Suki trusted her with the biggest damn secret of her life, and yet they're not squealing like regular girlfriends. Well, actually, I've never seen Suki interact with her girlfriends.

I'm entirely separate from the rest of her life. Just like I never saw her dance, I'll never be introduced as her boyfriend. I used to love that secrecy, but now it cuts. It cuts that some random has invaded my realm of privilege, where I was the only one who had access to Suki's secrets.

"Got the essay?"

So this is the middleman that Suki works for.

No answer comes, but I hear a bag being unzipped. The jealousy I feel sharpens into hatred. For some reason, I had it that the middleman was a dude. Probably some dumb jock that thought he could charm his way into getting cheap intellectual labour. But now that I know better, I question the exact terms of the deal.

How much is Suki getting paid? How does the middleman feel about usurping the energies of desperate underclassmen? What the fuck is wrong with her?

It's sickening, what she's doing. Every student has their own struggles to deal with, both inside and outside of school. Fuck, Suki has the most struggles of all—and the middleman knows this.

How dare she use that to her advantage?

She's making money off of people who deserve real help, not shady deals. She built her scheme on the backs of the most vulnerable.

"If you're struggling with symptoms, I could have lightened your workload," the middleman says apologetically. I stifle a scoff. Like she really cares. "The seniors are flexible."

"No. I can handle them," Suki insists. "I can't do maths, but essays are as easy as ever."

How can she say this? How can she do this? If losing her cutting edge at maths sent her into a breakdown in the girls' bathroom, what will happen if her essay-writing skills tank themselves? All this stress for money?

I'm going to get a job. Two. I'll drop out if I have to.

The middleman sighs heavily. "I will never get you, Suki."

"You don't need to."

Sensing the swift end of the conversation, I push off the wall and start walking back the way I came. If Suki catches me, I will be dead. Well, not dead, but embarrassed. And angry. And offended.

Before I can reach the stairwell, I hear the middleman call, "See you around."

Then her footsteps round the corner. My cheeks flaming, pulse thundering, I plaster myself to the wall. I pull out my phone and pretend to scroll aimlessly through my social media. Dark hair and the Carsonville blue blazer flash in my periphery.

My breath catches in the back of my throat.

Brittany fucking Stanson.

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A / N :

(Dun dun dun. This is the game changer chapter.)

Happy holidays everyone! To be honest, this has been an un-Christmassy holiday season due to *gestures at the state of the world* I am thinking of the people who are spending this time lonely (not necessarily alone) or working retail or just trying to get through. It's not been easy but we are here and kicking and I am proud that we are. 

Here's to a 2022 with healthy relationships, ejected corrupt politicians and girlboss energy. Thank you for all the support you have given me.

Aimee <3