Laura began sobbing into the palms of her hands. Landry tried to hug her and comfort her, but ended up making himself feel even worse, which of course, was no help to Laura. After what seemed like hours of crying, Landry finally stuck his head up.
"I can't go to Texas." he said with his face still red and wet from the tears "I'll...I'll...I'll go to community college, work at night, get us a house of our own, we can do this,"
Laura looked up at him. Her mascara had run right off her eyelashes and turned into dry, black crooked streaks down her cheeks.
"Don't be stupid!" she said, sounding an awful lot like his mother after he asked her for a $60,000 car for his graduation present "You're going to Texas. I'm not going to let you ruin your life over something that was my idea!"
"No Laura! We're in this together!" He thought for a moment "Shoot! I leave in two days for training. That only gives us tonight or tomorrow to tell our parents our..uhh..situation." Landry waited for Laura to respond with some kind of opinion or comment, but she just sat there silently on the bench leaving Landry to think up a plan on his own. "I got it! I'll figure out a way to invite your family over for dinner tonight since tomorrows the Lourd/Cockburn family going away party, though given the news were going to tell them, who knows the fate of that event, and we can just tell them then. We're having barbecue tonight, nobody can stay mad with a pulled pork sandwich and a bottle of Jack Daniels right?" Landry asked trying to make a joke, but Laura didn't seem the least bit interested.
"No." Laura said curled up on the bench "I can't do that. You can't do that. We'll figure out another way. I could move down to Austin and get an apartment on campus, that way you could still be on the team and go to school and-"
"Then what about you?" he asked sitting next to her "Even if you did on-line school, there's no way both of us could go to a normal college, take care of a child, and still have enough money. Not to mention, if you lived there, I would need to work. I wouldn't have time to be on the team anyway."
Landry looked into Laura's sad, painful eyes. He put his arm on her belly, finding it so hard to imagine a child was growing in there. A child they both created on top of that hill that night after prom.
"Doesn't really seem like much yet." Landry commented as he took his hand off her stomach.
"Of course not." she said tapping her fingers on her belly "I'm guessing it's only a couple weeks old. It's probably the size of a pea right now."
Landry squished his fingers together trying to imagine the size. They both sat for a minute in silence. When suddenly, Landry realized something. He remembered his mom talking at dinner one night a few months ago about Alexandra's mom wanting to adopt another child. He immediately told Laura.
"It could be the best of both worlds." Landry said following his explanation to her. "The baby would go to a family we know and trust, I could still go to University of Texas, and you could have your senior year."
Laura gave him a disgusted look before speaking.
"It's not like giving up one of your autographed footballs, Landry! This is a person, a person that I created, a person that I will be both physically and emotionally attached to for the next nine months! Maybe, I don't want to just give it away to Alexandra's family!" Laura paused for a second, trying to cool herself off before saying the next thing "You know my mom had me young. Maybe I want to prove to her that I can do what she did instead of just giving up, and handing the kid off to some family."
Landry got closer to her, trying to grab her hand before she yanked it away.
"Adoption is not giving up!" He said standing up off the bench to face her
"Well to me it is!" She paused again trying to figure out a way to explain to Landry how she felt, but figured it was no use "Forget it." she said "Look why don't you just have my mom and I come over for dinner, get your parents drinking some whiskey and we can tell them then"
"Uhh, ok, but don't you think we should have a plan in order before we just spring this news on them?"
"We'll tell them we're still deciding." she said completely ignoring the bigger picture
"But what about Texas?"
"What about Texas?"
"Well, they're probably going to want to know if I'm still going." he explained
"That's your decision." Laura said flatly, hardly looking Landry in the eye. "If you can live with yourself off at school while your seventeen year old girlfriend sits at home pregnant, and if you're ok with having basically no control over what happens to this child, then that's your choice."
"That's not fair!"
"That's life, Landry, literally."
Landry seriously considered both options for a minute, before telling his decision to Laura. If he went away, he would be at training with all of his new teammates. They'd be like mini-rockstars traveling all over the south, and hopefully beating every other team in the league, but then there's the baby. Staying home could mean a lifetime of hardships, but at least he'd get to see his kid grow up, or help Laura through the adoption process if that's what they decide to do. Also, could he really look at himself, knowing that he abandoned his son or daughter just so he could possibly make a professional football team one day. How would his kid understand that, how could he understand that? And it's not like this is his last opportunity to play football. He could try again for a team next year if they decide to give the baby up. That settled that. Landry then opened his mouth and said what hopped would be something he would not soon live to regret.
"I'll stay Laura."
Her eyes lit up as she got up to hug him
"You will?"
"Yeah. This is my baby...our baby" Landry had never felt so confused and terrified in his life.
Laura smiled and the two of them walked hand and hand back to their homes, not letting go until they reached their homes on either end of the street.
"I love" Landry whispered right before he headed up his driveway.
"I love you too." Laura responded before the two of them took off in either direction.