(Elle)

I wake to find the sky outside still dark; my phone confirms it's the middle of the night. I don't know if it was a weird dream, a loud noise outside, or just general pregnancy insomnia, but now I'm completely awake. Whatever it was doesn't seem to have affected Noah, so I slip out of my bed carefully to avoid waking him and make my way to the kitchen, hoping a warm drink will help me fall back asleep.

I tidy the living room to distract myself while heating water for tea, and that's when the memories flood back. All those lonely middle of the night wakings—I didn't sleep through the night once while Dad was hospitalized. No matter how early or late I went to bed, no matter what white noise or allegedly soothing nature sounds I put on my speakers, no matter how warm or cool I kept my room, no matter what I'd wake up in the wee hours. I had a routine. I'd check on Brad, make sure he was still asleep. Check that all the upstairs windows were still locked, then go downstairs and check all those windows and doors. I hated being in that big house without Dad. I'd make some tea, toast some bread, and then sit on the couch with my phone and my tea and my toast and try to distract myself until I felt sleepy again.

I'd imagine myself back on campus and wonder what my friends were up to. Sometimes I'd let myself look at their social media, but it was usually too painful to actually see everything I was missing. So mostly I just imagined, speculated. Whether my soccer team would repeat as intramural champions. Whether anyone in my lab had taken over my project. What group Halloween costume my suitemates had come up with this year.

But of course, those thoughts were just distractions. The less painful topics I focused on instead of those I missed most. At least I could let myself wallow in missing Lee, as painful as that was. We still talked as often as possible, and he went out of his way to always pick up if he saw me calling. Kristina probably hated me for monopolizing her boyfriend. Except I knew she didn't, because she was awesome. She called me, too, and I missed both of them, missed our dinners and our dance-offs and our private jokes. It's odd to realize I never saw her again, not after she and Lee broke up the next year and things just got too awkward.

But again, those were still just distractions. Because what I absolutely least wanted to think about during all those sleepless nights back then was Noah. Noah at whom I was still furious, yet desperately missing. And furious at myself. I couldn't even have told you what I wanted him or us to have done differently, at that point. To have stayed or not stayed. To have broken up or not. To have listened or kept pushing when I told him I couldn't keep talking about it, couldn't keep fighting about it, and please just stop calling. I had felt relieved when he had stopped calling, and maybe if I could just stop thinking about him I'd start to feel less lost. Except then I would stare at the clock and add three hours and wonder what would happen if I called. Three a.m. in LA meant six a.m. in Cambridge meant he'd be awake, getting ready for practice. I knew every minute of his routine and I'd stare at the phone until the window had passed, until I knew he was safely away from his phone again.

Sometimes I couldn't stop myself from imagining him there with me. Imagining he'd stayed and wondering how that would have been. Except I never let myself picture it working it out. I thought up a dozen different ways it would have blown up. A dozen justifications for not having let us even try.

The electric kettle beeps at me and I shake those memories off. Those days are long past, and we're here now. Dad is safely home, I'm about to graduate, and Noah is back. It's his jacket that's hanging off the back of one of the dining chairs, his shoes discarded next to mine by the door, his shirt I retrieved from the floor and pulled on when I slipped out of bed. And probably his fault I'm awake, or at least his kid's fault. His kid. My kid. Ours. Somehow in all this thinking and worrying about being pregnant I haven't let myself think about the inevitable resulting baby much beyond the abstract, but Dino's gotten a lot more real these past two weeks.

I clear the last of the dinner dishes while waiting for my tea to steep. We'd gotten... distracted sometime around dessert and never made it back to the kitchen. I think back to the light in Noah's eyes when he realized I really was okay, so much more than okay, with the idea of us moving in together. And that's why I'd brought it up tonight. To get that other look out of his eyes—that guarded look he'd get, the wary tone of his voice whenever he carefully referred to moving to LA, or wherever else I planned to be, without ever saying we'd live together. I know I've given him reason to avoid these topics, but I don't want to be treated like a live grenade.

But maybe I'm also sick of trying to pretend these decisions aren't huge and scary. My therapist reminded me of that, this week. That having a baby and rekindling this relationship and figuring out what's next, not just with the baby and Noah, but even just dealing with graduating, are all major steps, and that it's normal to feel overwhelmed sometimes. That admitting it doesn't mean I'm not dealing well, or that I'm going to run away. That admitting it is actually the best way to make sure I don't get to the running-away point at all.

So now I let myself have a moment to be overwhelmed by it all. By the sheer magnitude of the changes coming. I curl up on the couch with my tea and let the past two weeks, the last year, sink in. The tears come, but that's no surprise these days.

I stare at the door and remember my hand shaking as I opened it two weeks ago. Remember that first sight of Noah and the palpable anger gripping him, remember his expression in the brief second I'd managed to look up before the raw hurt in his eyes made me look away. But then I remind myself that every moment since has been a little bit better. Noah had said things would probably get worse before they got better, that night when he was telling me he believed we could fix this, but he'd been wrong. That first moment was the worst by far.

At least I hope it will have been the worst. Noah's been so… calm about all this, at least after those first days. He'd said he just didn't feel like being angry, just didn't want to keep rehashing the past, but I don't know if I should be waiting for the other shoe to drop. He's given me no reason not to trust him, and so many reasons to believe him, but it's just all so much—how can he not find it daunting? And not just all so much, right now. All so much to come.

There's no way we know what we're getting into. This baby is going to show up and—then what? I try to remind myself of what Dad keeps telling me, that no one actually knows how to be a parent until they just… do it. Suddenly I'm very glad we're staying here in LA, because I have a feeling I'm about to need Dad in a whole new way. And June. I hope Noah knows how grateful I am for today's lunch. I had no idea how much I needed June until I was in her arms, all wrapped up and safe.

I don't hear my bedroom door open, so it's Noah's voice that startles me, his confused "Elle?" in that groggy voice I usually love, except the last thing I want right now is for him to worry why I'm up late crying. But it's too late, he's seen me, and it only takes a few of his long strides for him to cross the room and drop next to me on the couch.

"Shell, what's wrong?"

I make a futile attempt to dry my eyes. "Nothing. It's just—everything. It's everything." I'd tried and failed to keep my voice from wobbling.

"Everything is wrong?"

Argh, clearly not the right way to put it. I'm not sure how to explain I just needed this cry. Without anything being wrong. Or at least, not anything new.

"No. Not wrong. It's just… a lot. All of it. The baby. Graduating. You moving here. The baby. You moving here for me. Us. Did I mention the baby? Because the baby, that's a lot all by itself. Before I even get to all the rest of it."

"We'll figure it out." He tries to pull me against his chest, to tuck me into his reassuring hold as he has so many times these last two weeks, and suddenly I've had enough. The calm. The reassurance. The acting like all this is just totally normal when it's so not.

I sit up, fending off his attempt to draw me closer, pushing back his hands. "Stop. Doesn't any of this scare you? How can you be so calm, so collected, so always just fine with all of this? This is not fine. This is not easy. This is freaking terrifying and none of this is how it was supposed to happen." My voice is increasing in volume and frustration as I go.

"Elle?" God, he looks so confused. And I'm being such an ungrateful wretch, getting mad at him for being too supportive. Too okay with this. Too forgiving of my screwups.

"I'm sorry. I'm being crazy. And unfair. And I know why you think you need to be the confident one, and why you think you need to reassure me all the time. But how do you think it makes me feel to be the only one losing my shit while you act so calm? It's normal for this to freak us out. But when you act like it's no big deal, it just makes me feel like something is wrong with me, if I can't be so calm."

I hadn't meant for it to come out that way. But maybe I needed it to.

I can see him hesitate, looking away from me. He leans his elbows on his knees, clasping and unclasping his hands, fiddling with his class ring.

"You're right. I didn't want to make things harder on you, to make you deal with my worries, so yeah, I've been holding some of it back. But not because I didn't think you could handle it. It just didn't seem helpful. To either of us. So if I've made you feel worse, God, I'm sorry. I promise you it's not because I think this is easy. Or not a big deal. Although I do honestly believe we'll figure it out. I really do. And that just seemed like the better part to focus on."

"It does help. Most of the time. But knowing I'm not the only scared one would also help."

Noah looks at me now, then launches in. "The morning after you told me, I woke up in a cold sweat. When all the realities hit me. And I didn't even want to start thinking about the baby and what that would mean, because that was terrifying and I just wanted to think about you. About having seen you and having realized that getting over you never would work. And I didn't know if I should resent this surprise for making everything more complicated, or be selfishly grateful it would force us to talk. And I was so afraid I'd screw this up. Trust me, I didn't think any of this was easy. And I wasn't particularly calm."

"You did sound kind of… off, those first days after. I don't know. I was trying not to overanalyze your messages. I figured it was a lot you'd just had dumped on you."

"I don't even remember what I said. If I was a jerk, I apologize."

"No, nowhere near that. Just… not quite you. Until you called. Then you were you." I'd cried myself to sleep after that call. Not out of sadness, out of relief and joy.

"Well, don't tell Lee, but his little intervention helped get my head straight. I mean, I would have gotten there anyway. But slower."

"I'm sure Lee has told you how he thinks we should thank him."

Noah chuckles at that. "Yeah. Several times. We agree that's not happening, right? Because if you want me to be honest about the things I'm scared of, you naming our child Lee, that's right there near the top."

I lean over to smack him, and this time I let him pull me into his lap.

"I'm sorry I haven't been completely open about everything. You have so much to deal with already, and I didn't want to add to that. I thought you might need me to be the calm one."

"I just need you to be you. I mean, I like the calm. And it does help. But only if I know it's for real. So tell me when you're not calm, too."

"You mean like when Natalie was talking today about going back for our five-year reunion, and I realized Dino would be nearly three by then? And then I realized that I hadn't yet thought that far ahead, that at some point we're going to have, like, an actual kid that talks back and throws balls through windows and crashes our car into the neighbors' mailbox, and that I have no idea how to deal with that?"

"We probably have a little time before we need to worry about the kid stealing the car. Even your kid."

I've curled up against Noah's chest now, letting him wrap me in his arms. I'm feeling brave enough for a question that's tormented me all week.

"It's not just the calm about the baby that worried me. Sometimes I wonder—why you're not more angry. At me. For disappearing. For not telling you."

Noah sighs into my hair. Maybe I should have left it alone. But I need to know.

"I was. I was furious. At the pool, when I saw you, and then trying to make up my mind to call you, and then all the way to your door. I was furious, and confused, and half convinced contacting you was a mistake and I should have just never let you know I'd seen you. But then you opened the door. And I was still furious, but… it was you. And I realized what I most feared in that moment was you having moved on. Every other crazy explanation for what I'd seen I could work with, but not you actually being done with us. And, anyway, that was before we'd started talking. I meant it, on that first call, when I said I didn't feel like being angry. And I'm just not."

I snuggle deeper into his arms, finally starting to feel sleepy again. The rest can wait until tomorrow.

But apparently Noah's not done with this conversation. "Shell, when you said none of this was how it was supposed to happen—what did you mean?"

Definitely a question I would have left for tomorrow, if ever. "Just—that everything's all out of order. It's not that I never imagined we'd be here, but not… like this. Not right now, completely unplanned, when we weren't even together. In this big rush."

I wonder whether to say more or whether it's too much already. Obviously the way it was supposed to happen, if everything went right, was that we'd finish college, move in together at some point, and then, sometime after that, maybe talk about getting married. And then, sometime after that, start talking about kids. In some really faraway hypothetical future where everything hadn't gone wrong. But I'm not up for talking about all that. There's just no room in my brain for those discussions right now.

"Yeah." The long pause before Noah continues tells me he's choosing his words carefully, too. "This isn't how I would have planned things. But I'd be lying if I said I never saw this happening. So maybe that's why I've been calm, as you put it. Because even if the circumstances aren't what I expected and there's a lot to figure out fast, the situation itself—I kind of expected. Someday."

"Really? Even… the last couple years?" Maybe if I were less sleepy I would have filtered that question before asking it out loud.

"Did Adam tell you why I broke up with Megan?"

Noah's non-sequitur confuses me. "Yeah. Because she got serious and you weren't looking for that."

"Not quite, although that's probably what I told him. We'd been dating four months or so, we were having fun, I was congratulating myself on finally getting over you, and then she said she loved me and suddenly all I could think about was you. And at the time I thought that meant I wasn't actually done getting over you, and that I shouldn't waste Megan's time. So we broke up. Except as time passed, I realized I was getting—less over you, not more. The problem hadn't been that I didn't want to get serious. The problem was that I still was serious. About you."

"This was—a year ago?" God, we've wasted so much time.

"The breakup was in December. The figuring stuff out took longer."

December. If Noah had actually shown up to family dinner that Christmas, maybe we could have talked instead of me getting stupid drunk with Lee and getting that tattoo. I'm starting to suspect Noah's heard that story. He hasn't said anything, but I've felt his fingers linger over the stars way too often for it to be coincidence. At some point I'll have to ask. "We really are idiots. I'm starting to understand why Lee keeps meddling."

Noah's only response is a low chuckle. There's a lot more we could say about the last two years, but in the end it doesn't matter how much sooner we might have gotten here. Just that we're here now.

"Not that I'm trying to escape the topic of our idiocy or any of the rest of this, but I'm finally sleepy again. We should get back to bed, and keep talking in the morning." I tell Noah as I untangle myself from his arms and rise from the couch.

"What woke you, originally?" Noah asks, following me back to my room.

"No idea. Probably yet another charming side effect of pregnancy. I was hoping not to wake you, though."

"You didn't. I was uncomfortable and woke myself. And then I realized you were gone, and wondered why."

"Are you not enjoying the return to dorm life?" I tease him.

"This terrible and tiny mattress? Yeah, no, this part I hadn't missed."

"Well, you only have two months left to suffer."

"About that—maybe we could just find a place… now. Before next weekend. And never sleep here again."

"Nah. I'd miss Mickey too much. She feeds me, you know. And you'd miss those updates I pretend not to notice she's sending you."

"Mickey is welcome to move in with you. As long as she disappears on weekends. And, well, once I move back."

"You didn't use to whine about twin beds this much. You've gotten alarmingly grouchy in your old age."

"Parenthood. It really ages you."

And that joke should be terrifying, but instead I just laugh.