A/N: Guys. Omg, guys...it's almost over. *sniffles* Muchas gracias to homegirls Fyrebyrd89 and Granny fandom (insert typical heart emoji). If it weren't for their encouragement (threats? *pointed look to Fyre*) I'd probably still be tweaking this right now. Fran betas but all mistakes are mine.

Here's something dramatic for you.

November 1st, 2012

2:11 p.m.

I am simple.

Boring.

I go to school. I try to get all As, and then I try to get all Bs, but I don't let my grades drop any lower than that because I think I might want to go to college.

I sell video games, and my best friend is a guy who thinks it's funny to stick fries in his nose. He's got a carefree attitude like Jasper, but his concerns about me are as genuine as my brothers are.

I fell in love this year. Twice, actually. It was unexpected, although I can't claim that I have any regrets. Love is sort of fucked up—it drives me insane, but I think there's something that makes it worthwhile.

The two people we trusted our world with were not bad. Their intentions were never malevolent, never detrimental, and they are not baby mongers. They knew we were battling this decision, but they were patient. They never pushed us to make a permanent decision, yet we were determined to believe there was something wrong with them. Most of our problems were in our heads … until they weren't.

I feel the softness of her palm pressing against mine, her fingernails digging into the skin above my knuckles.

"Have you gone insane?"

I stare down at the wooden table, my teeth digging into the flesh under my bottom lip.

It's all so familiar.

Like we're back to where we started. Reeky ficus trees and angry glares, no one actually paying us any attention. But this time there's another woman here who seems to be the only rational one.

"She's keeping the baby." Charlie Swan's temper shines through his dark eyes. He sends his wife an angry look I don't really understand.

I stare down at the table, mentally tracing the grooves in the wood. I can feel Bella's fingernails digging into my skin, but I don't think she realizes it.

If I close my eyes for a minute, I think I'm back at the clearing where we first met. Everything was so easy. I didn't really have anything to worry about then, but I also didn't have much to fight for either.

"Will you stop jumping to this conclusion? They don't have to keep the baby just because you think they have no other choice. Don't let anyone fool you, Bella. Not all people are the same."

"You think this is—"

If I close my eyes for a minute, I think I can tune everything out.

If I stand up and say something, I believe I can make a difference.

If I turn to the right of me, I'll see a girl who wants to say something too.

"Has anyone even asked Edward or Bella if they want to keep the baby?" That's my mother, the woman I spend too much energy underestimating and underappreciating.

Bella's fingernails dig a little deeper.

"Will you stop acting as if I'm to blame for all of this?" Renee yells. "You had just as much of a right to be there for them as I did, but you chose not to be a part of it. You didn't involve yourself, you didn't step up to the plate and offer to help anyone, you sat back and watched—"

"And you deserve a gold medal?" Charlie argues. "For pretending as if they had a choice?"

"I never made them feel like they didn't have a choice."

"You never made them feel like they did—"

"You weren't there, how would you know?!" Her scream cuts through me. "I told Bella—I told her all the time she didn't have to do this!"

It's like watching a tennis match. They snap at each other, back and forth, back and forth, so fast it's making my head spin.

If I tell them the truth, say what I want, I know I won't be alone.

"What do you think you're accomplishing with this? Give the kids a chance to speak," my mom says.

Three sets of eyes turn to two. Bella lets out a small gasp and releases my hand, and without it, I feel lost. Like someone just handed me a cello and asked me to play a song, but I don't even know where to start.

Everything is so quiet, and I think if I listen hard enough I could hear the erratic thumps of my son's heartbeat. It's so quick, and I know I'm not really hearing it; that's impossible, but this isn't.

In only seconds, your life could change forever. One second I was just this broody kid with hair that shielded too much of my face, wondering where my brother was. The next, I was falling in love with a smile, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Eyes that shined with life, a gorgeous face and a mind that I still can't figure out to this day.

If I did, I would stop thinking so much. I would stop asking myself questions, and I would be asking her instead.

If I asked her what she wanted, I would know that she wanted him all along.

"They don't know what they want," Charlie tells his wife. "They can't even talk to each other, Renee. Look at them."

There's this moment before I lift my eyes when I think I could make all of this easier. We could stop doubting, we could stop talking about what ifs and what do you wants. It's not just what's best for him, or her, or me. It's about what we can and can't live without, and I know what that might be. And when I finally look at Bella, I think she knows too. We still might not have all the answers but we both know that might be okay.

Instead, I buckle out of my chair and trample over to the Swan's front door.

"That right there … that would be a boy," Doctor Webber points to the screen smiling.

I lean closer, curious about the other life. Everything is all fuzzy—like channel three. Renee does the same, inspecting the screen, and I wonder if Bella's thinking the same thing. I turn back to her and feel my face fall. She stares at the ceiling, her eyes lining with tears.

"Well," Renee says. Bella's eyes snap to me and she smiles. "A healthy baby boy. That's good news."

I slide into the driver's seat and slam the car door closed. Raindrops fall from my hair and slide down my neck, soaking into my T-shirt. I breathe harder; my lungs feel so weighted that I think they're going to collapse.

"I just want to do what's best for everybody."

Head shaking vehemently, I grasp onto the steering wheel and try to see out the window through the heavy downpour. My knuckles turn pale, my breathing short.

"She's a fucking liar."

I catch the wetness pooling at my jaw with the back of my hand and slap it back onto the steering wheel. I repeat the process with my cheek, again, and again, until it's just my fist slamming against the dashboard.

"Do … do you want to keep him?"

I grab ahold of the steering wheel and start pounding into it, not caring if I sound off the horn or if the neighbors are staring. Each time my fist hits the car, I think that it isn't enough and I keep doing it. I start talking to myself, wondering why I couldn't just say something. I knew she wanted me to say I wanted to keep him.

"Why couldn't I"—each word slips with a hard punch―"fucking say it?"

I feel something snap within my hand and pull it back. My back melts against the seat, my hands at my face as I try to collect myself. My pulse is thundering throughout my body, zipping and zapping in every direction and pushing down to my fingertips. My heart and lungs are connected; weighty and unsteady.

My eyes fall shut as I rest my forehead against the steering wheel. And for this miniscule, blissful moment, I'm not thinking of all the things I could have said, or when I should have listened to my mother, or how fucking ridiculous it is that everyone can't be happy. I'm not even thinking about Bella. I'm just counting the raindrops, and it's simple.

Boring.

.

.

.

If you spin a coin, you can watch it go on forever. You can watch it spin, spin, spin, and just when you think it's going to fall—it keeps spinning. It'll go round and round a single circle, over and over again—forever. Until the coin starts to leave the circle, and its fluency breaks. And even when the coin leaves its circle, it keeps spinning … until it doesn't.

I jump at the feeling of fingers smoothing over mine. My eyes snap open and my body jolts with surprise when I look toward the passenger seat and see the girl who's making me spin.

"Hi," she whispers, pulling my hand into her lap. "I'm sorry."

I'm sorry about them too.

I'm sorry about a lot of things.

And then it all just pours out.

"I don't think I can do this, Bella," I tell her, rubbing my thumb over her pinky. "I don't want to go through another adoption process, and I don't want to act like I'm okay with this anymore. I can't make you do anything, and I won't, but I think all we've done in the last eight months is underestimate ourselves. And that's fine, but I know you think you aren't good enough to be a mom, and I say I would suck at being a dad, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering if I could have done it and didn't even try. Do you think you could really go through this again?"

I force myself to look back at her. She's staring out the window with slouched shoulders, breathing heavily.

"I … no. I don't think I could, Edward."

"Because everyone else doesn't want you to?" I ask, the thickness in my throat turning sour, making the air around me thin and hard to breathe.

If this is why she can't go give him away, she'll never forgive herself. And I wonder, in retrospect, which fate seems worse. Wishing she could be with him, or resenting him?

"No." She shakes her head, pushing her fingers between mine. "Because I don't want to."

And for a minute, we're not thinking about everyone else.

She's not thinking about adoption, or her parents, and I'm not doubting anymore because I know the truth. And I'm not spinning, spinning, anymore; it all just falls into place.

AN: Whew…dramalama. *pats them on back and sings "We've only just begunnn"* Thank you guys so much for reading and reviewing :) I love hearing your thoughts and guesses about what happens next for these two, they make my day. If you have any questions, like wtf just happened up there ^^ I'll try my best to answer them. I will make one thing clear if you haven't guessed already: you will get a glimpse(s) of them in the future, but this fic focuses particularly on the beginning of ExBs story.