"Well..." Jake said as he sat beside Rose in English, "Rachel was in a car accident, Peyton got attacked by a stalker, Nathan and Haley are expecting a child, Lucas has a heart problem...anything new with you?"

"No," Rose lied, and it hurt her to know she was lying to one of the only people that she felt she could trust. "What about you? Anything...new?"

"Well," Jake said, "I got accepted to UNC."

"Congratulations! I got accepted there weeks ago," Rose shrugged. "I just haven't decided if I want to go to college."

"If you apply to college, aren't you pretty certain you're going?" Lucas asked. He'd been listening in on Jake and Rose's conversation.

"Well," Rose said, "I'll tell you both why later."

...

"So," Jake started after school as he hung out in her hotel room , "what was that thing that made you doubt you're going to college?"

Rose thought of the worst that could happen. He could leave her, right? But if he left her because she had a child and that child needed her now, then he wasn't even worth it to begin with.

"I guess if I'm going to tell you I need to start from the beginning...In my sophomore year, I was a party girl. I was rich," she chuckled bitterly," I was popular. I was entitled. My parents would spend time with their high school alumni, much of whom were also wealthy, at a country club, and I would spend that time getting myself into senior parties by flashing the host or whatever. One day, my mother informed me that I was going on a date. I didn't want to. I was hungover and I didn't want anyone new."

"You were hungover?" Jake sounded amused and a little surprised.

"Yeah, I told you: party girl. So, I went on this blind date with this shy little dude named Steven. He was such a gentleman, and he was extremely nice-much like you, Jake. Well, we'd been dating for a few months and I took a pregnancy test. We found out I was pregnant," Rose, who had been looking down at the floor all this time, now looked up at Jake. He was leaned back in his chair, looking at the ground and looking very tense.

"And?" he asked, sounding a little hurt.

"I wanted to keep the baby. So did he. Then, he was with his best friend one night-no idea what they were doing-and unbeknownst to Steven, his friend was drunk. Unfortunately, his friend was also driving. His judgment had obviously been very impaired, and he ignored a stop sign. The driver of the other car was driving too fast to slow down on time and slammed into the passenger's side, killing Steven instantly." Rose refrained from falling apart again, reliving the death of the love of her life. "His friend lived."

Jake was now looking up, looking even the least bit empathetic.

She continued, "then it came time for my daughter's birth. Georgina convinced me that she'd be better off if I gave her up because sixteen was far too young to worry about raising a child. I got to name her, though. Graycie." She had let the tears go and was now wiping them away. "I hate crying," she said.

"I hate seeing you cry," Jake said. He thought about getting up and comforting her, but didn't come to a decision before she had more to say.

"Her adoptive parents were recently killed in a car accident...how ironic. One of Graycie's uncles on Steven's side, Tony, he came down on Saturday to tell me that and to warn me that if I didn't claim her, he and Steven's parents would raise her instead. I have until this Friday to claim her." She was crying again. "Jake, I don't know what to do."

Jake got up and wrapped his arms around Rose. He pulled her as close to him as possible and said, "I don't know, either, sweetheart, but we'll figure that out together, okay?" He kissed the top of her head and rested his head on it.

"You aren't mad?"

"No, Rose. I'm not mad. I'm just confused because you didn't tell me sooner, but I've got no right to be mad at you for something that happened way before you even knew I existed."

"Would you like to see a picture of her?" Rose asked.

Jake nodded and let her go. She went over and opened a drawer to her nightstand. She took a picture out of it and walked back over, handing Jake the picture.

"She looks just like you, but with darker skin and eyes."

"Steven was of Italian heritage on his Mom's side, and he was her spitting image," Rose smiled.

"Interesting." Jake said.

He looked at her, beaming beside him at the picture of her little girl, and knew one thing.

She had to get that baby back, and he was going to help her in whatever way he could.

...

"Wait, Rose has a daughter?" Lucas asked incredulously. Nathan had just given him all the news with Rose's permission.

"Yeah. Seems unlikely, right? And that guy that came down is the child's uncle, and he wants his side to keep the child, but Rose seems to not like that idea."

"So, is she taking her back?"

"That's not known for a fact yet, but at least I'm not the first one of us to have a kid," Nathan said, "besides, she could help Haley with her pregnancy."

"How do you help someone with their pregnancy?"

Nathan shrugged, now realizing how stupid he sounded.

...

Antonio, now back home, walked into Steven's old room. No one in the family had found the strength to move anything, so everything was still in its place. The blankets were where he'd left them that morning, folded carelessly over on his bed as he'd gotten up. Steven's guitar was still propped up on the far wall, collecting dust, the case beside it.

Antonio sat on his late brother's bed and opened his nightstand drawer with much difficulty. He found a cigarette lighter.

"So that's where this went," Antonio said, picking it up. "That bastard."

He found an envelope. It had "Rose" written on it. Inside it were love notes, ultrasounds...an engagement ring?

"Steven, what the hell were you doing?"