"Have you told her?" Nate cornered Cameron in the kitchen after Kith went upstairs.

    "No," Cameron shook his head. Glancing around, he made sure no one was close enough to hear any of what they were saying. "She just had her baby shower. And she's so happy right now."

    "Excuses, excuses." Nate folded his arms. "You're not going to tell her, are you?"

    "I don't want to tell her!" Cameron hissed. "I know I should, but I just... I'm supposed to be better than that now. And I know I fucked up. I just really don't want to tell her, Nate. I really don't." Resting his head against the wall, he propped it back up suddenly. "Can you tell her for me?"

"Hell no." Nate wrinkled his forehead. "It's not my place to tell her."

    "Fuck," sighing, Cameron punched the side of his thigh. "I don't think now is the best time. That baby shower was really cool, by the way."

"Noproblem," Nate shrugged. "I'm great. I know."

    "I can't tell her now," Cameron concluded. "Tomorrow. I'll tell her tomorrow."

"Are you actually gonna do it, or are you just bullshitting?" Nate raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

    "I will," Cameron conceded beneath Nate's withering look. "I will, swear on my life. I just have to get my head together."

"Do you love her or something?" Nate questioned, relaxing his facial muscles.

    "What?"

"Do you love her?" Nate repeated. "I mean, we've only known each other since freshman year, so I can't really comment. But from what I've seen, you're more of a man-whore, no offense, than a relationship guy. You've never gotten this worked up before."

    "I do not-shut up. I don't love her. We barely know each other," Cameron commented harshly.  Turning away from his best friend in the house, he gazed out the window.   

    "Don't be a bitch," Nate wheedled.

     "I don't love her," Cameron hissed. "I just like her a lot and it's not even-we don't even have a thing, man! I'm supposed to be there for her because things have not worked out like they were supposed to, for either of us."

    "You're gonna marry that girl," Nate said definitively, waltzing over to the fridge.

    "I'm done talking about this," Cameron said quickly.  They'd gone miles off topic.  Marriage?  That was weird to talk about with any of them.  Yeah, he'd shared his plan about getting a house with Kith later on in life with Nate.  He'd never specifically mentioned marrying her.  If they were going to end up living together, raising a kid together, did that mean that they should just go ahead and get married? 

No. 

No, no, no. 

Even if he asked, Kith was bound to tell him no a half second after his proposal, or even during the proposal.  His ideas weren't usually her favorite things.  "If you'll excuse me, I have to plan my funeral."

    Marriage... of all things...

    Cameron waited until the sun set the following day.  With the sky painted red and peach and pink, he dragged his feet upstairs to his room and watched Kith for a few seconds before actually entering their domain.  Holding his breath, he let it go in one, silent swoosh.  Lifting her head, she noticed him and smiled serenely.

    "Hi," she greeted him.

    "Hey," shoving his hands in his pockets, he swallowed to combat his sudden dry mouth. "Uh. I have to tell you something, something important."

    "What?"

    "Uh," he couldn't concentrate with her looking at him like that.  Removing his hands from his pockets, he discreetly dried them on a sweatshirt hanging over his chair, and then shut the door. "I... it's... I really don't want to tell you this, but I feel like I should."

    "What are you talking about?"

    "I... um," blinking repeatedly, he swallowed again and stared at her face, at her dark eyes.  Even when she got mad at him, they were always so calm.  They were the prettiest eyes he'd ever seen.  Kith had the only pair of eyes he could actually name the color of, besides his own. "Okay, so... you remember Valentine's Day?"

    "Yeah."

    "Okay, well... there's this thing we have here called the Greek Hearts Ball. It's more of a formal, really, and everyone gets dressed up and, uh, we had our fight and stuff that day," he rambled. "You remember that?"

    "Yeah," she nodded while twirling her pencil.

    "I went downstairs to study for my test, which I ended up getting an A on, by the way," he explained.  Maybe if he impressed her with his intellectual prowess, she wouldn't be as mad.  Closing the distance between them, he sat down in the desk chair and once again wiped his hands on his sweatshirt. "But I couldn't really focus because you were mad at me and we weren't talking to each other and... I don't know. I wasn't getting anything done so I decided to go to one of the parties down the street.  I told myself that I was only going to stay for an hour, but I got a little drunk and..."

    Pausing, he studied her face, waiting to see if she would fill in the blank for him.

    "And?" she looked at him strangely.

    "And, uh.... I m-might have-no," shaking his head, he decided it was best to just say it.  There was no might have. "I-I did. I slept with Heather that night. That's why you didn't see me until the next morning."

    Resting her chin on her fist, she looked at him intently. "I know," she said finally.

    "What?" All the pressure in his chest vanished.  How did she know that?  Fury welled in his stomach.  Who the hell told her before he did?

    "I knew because you never came back," she answered slowly. "It was pretty obvious."  She cracked her knuckles as his fury disappeared.

    "I'm sorry," he apologized in a low voice.

"You don't have to say you're sorry," her eyes rose to a spot directly above his head.  She didn't sound like she meant any of that. "You and I both know you'd rather sleep with her than with me." She lowered her voice so much on the last part that it was almost unintelligible.

    "Kith," he groaned. "That's not true," he dropped his damp forehead onto the backsides of his hands. "We've talked about this." Closing his mouth, he decided not to say that he'd been thinking of her while having sex with Heather.  That was probably the last thing she wanted to hear, ever.

    Kith lowered her eyes back to her homework, like she no longer wanted to speak to him.  Please don't think I'm lying, he said telepathically. "We did, Kith," he pressed. "That night? You remember, I know you do."

    "You won't have sex with me because I'm fat," she mumbled.

    "Kith, you're not fat," he sighed. "You're having a baby. Completely different."

"You still wouldn't."

    "Kith!" he almost shouted before remembering where they were. "I won't have sex with you because it's not right, okay?! It's not because I don't think you're pretty or because I think you're fat, or some bullshit reason like that. I want... I'm gonna tell you this and I don't care how it sounds or what you think. I want it to be like in those stupid romantic movies you girls like. I want to... I don't know, take you out somewhere nice and then come back to wherever the hell we're living and just... do it, missionary, a lot, all over the place, and make sure you get off several times. And there are candles and music and shit like that. That's what it's supposed to be like. I'm not supposed to be a stupid frat guy and you're not supposed to be pregnant; that's not how it goes down in my head."

    She just looked at him. "It's okay, Cameron."

"It's not okay," he refused to believe that. "It's not okay, Kith. I fucked up, and I hurt your feelings and I'm sorry because I've never wanted to do that. I'm sorry for the stupid things I said, and I'm sorry for sleeping with Heather...."

"Cameron."

    "No," shaking his head, he stood up and shoved his chair in.  The entire room felt like it was spinning. "I can't... I'm sorry, Kith. I'll be back, I swear. I just can't do this right now. I'm sorry."

    Grabbing his favorite hat, he walked quickly from the room.

    Shifting in the bed, Kith slowly opened her eyes in the relative darkness.  A strange sound had awoken her from a fairly decent dream.  She didn't even want to look at the clock; she knew it was late.  Cameron's frenzied exit from the room earlier had been weird, but she'd gotten over it.  Kith assumed he wasn't going out and sleep with Heather, or anyone else, again, so she left him to it.  Lying on her back, still half-asleep, she listened to his shoes thud to the floor as he kicked them off.

    Pressure at the foot of the bed attracted her attention.  The mattress springs groaned beneath the extra weight.  Cameron placed a hand on her ankle and moved her legs to the side. "Move over," he said.

    "Cameron, what are you doing?" she asked, unnerved.  

"Just... move," he scooted her legs over a little more gently.  Heart racing, she yielded as much room to him as possible.  A full-size bed was not built to handle a pregnant girl and a guy.  Cameron crashed down next to her, squished between her body and the wall.  Groaning, he rubbed his eyes and tried to adjust himself more comfortably.  All of Kith's senses went into panic-mode, but she didn't move.  She couldn't move.  Cameron had only been so close once before, and his drunkenness was obvious at the moment.  Throwing his arm over her, he turned to stare at the side of her face.  Keeping her eyes trained on the ceiling, Kith did her utmost to calm her heart rate.

"Are you afraid of me?" he asked after a minute or two.

    "No."  And it was the truth. She wasn't afraid of him;  Cameron had never intentionally done anything to physically or emotionally harm her.  Past circumstances made her afraid of their present positioning.  In spite of deep-breathing techniques and attempts to think of other things, her heart was still pounding like an angry fist against a door.  The only thing making it slightly bearable was that he was on top of the covers, rather than under them with her.

    "I won't touch you, Kith," he reassured her. Cameron took his arm off and rolled onto his back.  He was still fully dressed.  Kith took his silence as his descent into sleep.  Closing her eyes, she inhaled and exhaled slowly, hoping that her interrupted dream would return.  A strange noise made her ears perk up and her eyelids shoot open. It took a few moments for her mind to register what it was. "Cameron?" she questioned, still not entirely confident. "Are you crying?"

    "No," he fired back.  Kith didn't need to look in his direction to know that he was in fact, crying.  It was more like sniffling, the precursor or close companion of crying.  What am I supposed to do right now? 

Cameron continued sniffling. "What if they won't let me be his dad?"

    "What?"

"What if they take him away from me because....?" Sniffling and rubbing the corners of his eyes, he didn't finish.

"Who'll take him away?" Kith questioned.  Was he crying over Tristan?

"The people," he answered vaguely, still sniffing.  She understood what he was getting at.  Cameron had never voiced such concerns while sober.  Kith licked her bottom lip and swallowed.  No one could do that.

"No one's gonna take him away," she said softly. "Cameron...."

"I'm trying so hard," he mumbled. "I swear, Kith. I know that you think I'm an idiot."

    "I don't think you're an idiot, Cameron."

    "I know I'm not as smart as you, but I'm trying." He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed a watery sigh. "I'm gonna do whatever it takes for you and the kid. We'll be happy."

    "Thanks, Cameron," Kith said quietly.  Resting her hands on her stomach, she blinked slowly.  She felt Tristan moving around inside.  His drunken promises were actually quite nice.

"You're too good for me," he replied, throwing his arm back across her.  Rolling onto his side, he went back to staring at the side of her face.  Kith didn't want to turn to gaze directly into his; that was a little too much.  She felt his warm breath skate over her face every time he exhaled. "I'm glad you're my girlfriend." He kissed her lightly on the cheek and rested his forehead against her shoulder.

    "Okay," Kith awkwardly pat him on the head. "Go to sleep, Cameron. You're drunk."

    "Whoa," he held up the hand crossing her. "I am not drunk, Kith. I'm just moderately tipsy. That's it." He laughed, which made her laugh along.  At least he wasn't crying anymore. "You smell nice, too."

Poor Kith, this is a bit awkward for her.