A/N: Oh, my goodness, 105 reviews! I am so excited, thank you! frostedcupcakes, I hadn't really given the fact that Michelle is the female version of Mike much thought. I was just naming her after a friend of mine (JustRelax) But you're totally right and that is way awesome. So thanks very much for pointing it out and thanks, JustRelax for having a great name. Also? I just can't seem to take a break. Writing is good stress relief.

I didn't have to look very hard to find Tina. She was waiting for me at my house, sitting in our living room with my mother and crocheting her pale blue baby blanket. If looks could kill, then Tina and Mom simultaneously obliterated my very existence as I rolled through the door.

Twelve. That was the number of missed calls on my phone. Four were from Tina and eight were from Mom. I knew they both knew where I'd been because I'd been a good son and told Dad about my plans. But neither of them knew why I'd accidentally ignored my phone (the bowling alley and the restaurant were both noisy) or why I'd completely ditched Tina.

"So, looks like even though you aren't physically able to stand up, you stood me up without a problem," Tina fired off this line as though she'd been rehearsing it for hours. I looked at Mom, to determine if she was going to allow Tina a free shot at me. I quickly realized that I was fair game, as far as Mom was concerned. My mother crossed her arms and gave me a look that said I might very well be in for another lecture after Tina finished with me.

"I forgot," I said, chewing my thumbnail anxiously. "I'm sorry, okay? But… the truth is that I didn't really want to go with you to Mike's. It isn't my place to be involved with that. But I didn't stand you up intentionally. I honestly got distracted and forgot. And I'm sorry."

I'd said twice that I forgot and twice that I was sorry. I watched Tina sigh and fiddle with her crochet needles, apparently out of things to say about my despicable treachery. Mom picked up the laundry basket and the clothes she'd been folding.

"I'll leave you two to talk," she said, hoisting the basket on her hip and thankfully leveling the playing field by leaving the room. There was no way I could simultaneously take on Mom and Tina.

Tina looked at me. "We do need to talk."

I nodded, pushing myself closer to the couch and making the transfer as she continued to crochet the blanket. "You're good at that," I observed, timidly making small talk. "It's nearly ready, isn't it?"

"Well, it ought to be," Tina said, sighing as she rested a hand on top of her bump. "I've read that teen mothers tend to deliver early. And Quinn was early by a month. So, if that's the case, I may have less time than I think." She paused, admiring her work. "I need to something to give him."

I knew what we needed to talk about, and it wasn't the baby blanket. "What did the Changs say about all of this?"

She bit her bottom lip, carefully contemplating the texture of the ceiling. "That they don't want their grandchild living with strangers," she said, her voice straining.

"So, they want you to keep the baby?"

"No…" Tina sighed again, falling back against the couch cushions. I patted her leg and she looked at me quizzically. However angry she might have still been, she didn't turn down my unspoken offer. Her lips curled up slightly as she gladly put her feet in my lap. She wasn't wearing shoes, but I pulled off her socks and tossed them aside. She breathed a sigh of relief this time as my hands went to work massaging her poor, swollen ankles.

"So, what do they want you to do?"

Tina folded her hands across her belly as she leaned her head back and replied, still addressing the ceiling as she spoke. "They want to raise the baby as their own."

I was taken aback. "Really?" I exclaimed. "That's great!"

"Artie, it's… not great," she argued, lifting her head briefly to give me a puzzled look. "It's… weird, that's what it is. It's like they're trying to replace the son they lost. You should have seen Mrs. Chang when I told her it was a boy."

"That's not what they're doing," I countered.

"What makes you say that?" she wanted to know.

"Because…" I had my reasons, but I struggled to articulate it for a moment. I continued rubbing her ankles when she wiggled her feet, indicating for me to keep doing it. "I asked my Mom a question like that once. I said, 'Mom, if I'd died in our accident, would you have wanted more kids?' And you know what? She said yes."

Tina ran her thumb across her belly, appearing thoughtful now. She raised her head up again, and now looked quite curious as she asked, "Did you almost die?"

I nodded solemnly. "The paramedics revived me on the scene of the accident," I said, repeating what I'd been told long ago. "They revived me twice."

Tina sucked in a breath at that. "Artie…" she trailed off. "That… that gave me chills. To think of you…"

"I was very lucky," I said, reassuringly. But we were getting off-track. "But seriously, Tina, the Changs taking the baby and raising it as their own sounds like a really good plan. Mike's little sister's just a kid herself so she won't be that much older than the baby. And his parents, they look really young…"

"His mom's thirty-three," Tina informed me. My jaw dropped. I knew she looked young, but to me, nearly all Asian adults look younger than their real age. It's some sort of genetic gift.

"Damn, a thirty-three year old grandmother?"

"Yeah," said Tina, shaking her head. "Wendy… Mrs. Chang, I mean, she told me to call her Wendy. Anyway, she was sixteen when she had Mike. Her parents were like Quinn's. They threw her out. But she lived with Mike's father and they stayed together. Four years later, when she was twenty years old, they got married. Mike was the ring bearer in their wedding."

"I… still fail to see the problem with the Changs adopting the baby," I confessed, scrunching up my mouth in confusion.

She closed her eyes. "I'm so selfish," she whispered. "Awhile ago, I decided I wanted to have a closed adoption, meaning I wouldn't have any contact with the baby after he was born. I knew that Quinn had an open adoption with Beth, but it was really hard for her. Like, Quinn visits Beth, but she says it really hurts her to do it."

Tina opened her eyes, gauging my reaction, and I could only gape in confusion. "You don't want him to know his birth mother?" I touched the fabric of her crocheting blanket to make my point. "Yet you're making him this."

"A memento," she explained, fingering the soft woven fabric. "Just a keepsake so that he'd know he had a mother who loved him before he was born and that she will go on loving him even though we're apart. I have a keepsake like this, too, from my birth mother…"

I blinked quickly. Tina's birth mother? The look on my face clearly expressed my surprise. She'd never mentioned that her parents, though also Korean, were not her parents by birth.

"I don't know her, but she gave me a pink blanket," Tina went on. "Yes, Artie, I'm adopted. I don't talk about it because, to be perfectly honest, I don't really think about it much. If my birth mother was in my life, I'm afraid it would just feel like an intrusion…"

I rested my hand on her knee and patted it gently. "But giving the baby to strangers when the Changs are perfectly willing to raise him as their son?" I prodded. "Is that really what's best for him?"

She stroked her belly again. "No," she said, after a moment, shaking her head. "I may not like it, but I know he belongs with Mike's parents, Artie. He isn't going to replace Mike for them, but well… maybe he'll bring something new to their lives. And they'll love him like their own…" She closed her eyes as tears streamed down her face.

I squeezed her knee. "I know you love him, too, Tee."

"I didn't know it was possible," she gasped. "To love someone I haven't even met. I want what's best for him, I really do. I just don't like the fact that he's going to know me now and wonder why I was willing to just give him up. I mean, Wendy kept Mike, didn't she? And at great personal cost."

"The two situations don't even compare, Tee."

"I know," she said, quietly. She hastily brushed away her tears and said, by way of ending the discussion. "Well, that's what's happening with that."

I nodded slowly.

"Let's move on," she continued, eyeing me critically. "To what's happening with you." She paused. "Michelle, is that her name? I saw you getting in that van with her after school."

My stomach dropped to my knees. "Yeah, Michelle," I said, unable to say anything else. Tina nodded and fell silent. It was an awful silence, being that I couldn't exactly deny what she plainly suspected. The truth was, I'd thought about asking Michelle out. Early on, when I'd started tutoring her regularly, I'd thought about it then.

"Why does her family have an accessible van?"

"Her dad's in a wheelchair."

"Oh."

"Yeah, a car accident, like me."

"I see." Tina absently rubbed a spot and I knew she was getting kicked or poked from the inside again. She jumped up rather abruptly, and explained with one word: "Bathroom."

As I waited for Tina to make a mad dash for the restroom, I thought about my outing with Michelle. Up until I'd realized my mistake in accidentally standing Tina up, it had been a great evening. Michelle was only fourteen, and at first, the age difference kept me from seriously considering Michelle's potential as a girlfriend. But perhaps having a disabled dad made her wise beyond her years. She was easy to talk to, talented on her saxophone, funny and laid-back and pretty…

Tina came back into the living room and my thoughts were interrupted as I took in the sight of her, having never quite gotten used to all the changes. I was having trouble seeing the Tina I'd loved for so long when I looked at her now. I only saw Mike's baby, the imprint of her past that was always with her now.

"I didn't intentionally try to hurt you by going to Mike," she said, sitting gingerly on the couch and looking at me seriously.

"I'm not intentionally trying to hurt you," I told her. "Maybe I won't ask Michelle out. Maybe I will. I don't know what I want to do, this is all really new to me... the idea that I could feel something for someone who isn't you…"

Tina took it all in. "It's… hard to hear that, I won't lie," she said. "But for what it's worth… I still have feelings for you. I know that it's stupid, that too much… has happened…" She looked down at her stomach.

I remained speechless. Wordlessly, I pushed myself up on my hands to kiss her cheek. As I drew back, I could see the look of understanding in her eyes. No matter how hard I tried to tell myself that in ten weeks, we could pretend none of it ever happened, we both knew that was just wishful thinking.

"If things work out with you and Michelle," Tina persisted. "I hope she knows she's lucky to have you."