Recap:
"Well, I guess it's obvious," Madison said, trying to lighten the mood, which was practically impossible. "Ephram… I'm pregnant."
Madison was getting emotional. Amy looked down at her hands, the reality of the whole situation hitting her.
"Madison, please, don't… you didn't do anything wrong," Ephram tried to say.
"Maybe not just a few days ago, but about four and a half months ago I did…" Madison choked out.
Chapter 4:
"I wanna keep the baby," Madison said to Andy and Ephram. "But I'm moving in a few weeks to San Francisco to live with my sister."
Ephram sighed. He had expected this. He started trying to digest everything. I AM only seventeen, he thought. I can't handle taking care of a baby right now. He looked over to Amy, who was beginning to seem more and more like an angel to him, just sitting there. He knew she would support him no matter what happened. Then to his dad, who he knew was thinking the exact same thing as he was right then. And finally to Madison, the only woman he had ever had sex with, who was now carrying his child. Suddenly Ephram felt a little helpless, realizing that if Madison moved, he very well could either never see his child again, or offer to raise it himself, which he was smart enough to know he just wasn't ready for. Ephram took a deep breath. "You have to take care of her, Madison." Ephram said, surprising himself.
Amy was confused. "Her?" She asked, speaking her first word of the whole meeting.
"I mean… it." What am I doing, Ephram thought. Since when do I care about what the sex of the baby is going to be?
Madison gave a very small smile and nodded. "I know that."
Ephram and Amy walked out of Dr. Brown's office silently. They didn't speak at all until they were driving back to Ephram's house in Amy's car.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Amy said quietly.
"What do you want me to say?" He asked.
"I don't know. Maybe talk about the scary fact that you're gonna have a kid that you'll probably never see again, unless it decides to go on some kind of adventure and try to find its father once its our age," Amy paused as they pulled into the driveway. She turned off the car. "Or maybe the happy fact that the one girl you've ever really loved is carrying your first child. I mean, life is an amazing thing, you have to be happy at some degree." Suddenly, Amy started crying uncontrollably, so hard that she opened her car door and crumpled onto the pavement.
Ephram rushed out of the car and over to her, startled. "Amy," he said, concerned. "Are you upset? Is it because of me? Madison? The baby?"
Amy just shook her head. "You don't understand."
"Understand what? Amy, I don't know what's wrong."
Amy sat up. "Everything's wrong!" She practically yelled. "Don't you get it? I'm in love with you and… and I'm upset that I didn't get there first. I didn't get to you first."
"Wait… you're in love with me?"
"Ephram, I've been in love with you. Ever since the day you told me I had a warped mind, admitted that you lied to me about Colin, and wrote me that song. It's been an ongoing thing, I just… I haven't actually realized it until recently. Even when I was so wrapped up in Colin that I couldn't try to sort out my feelings for you, and even with Tommy, I… I was just trying to distract myself. I'm so stupid for that," More tears came down Amy's cheeks. "Were you in love with Madison?"
"I-I don't know." Now that Amy had just told him all this, he wasn't so sure anymore. "I don't." Was he actually in love with Madison? No, he answered himself. I was infatuated with her. "N-no… I didn't," he admitted to himself and to Amy.
Amy was silent for a moment. "You seem surprised," she then said.
"The feelings I had for Madison don't compare to the ones I have for you, Amy. I've had feelings for you ever since I moved here. I… I truly think that… that we're meant to be. You have to understand me, Amy," Ephram tilted her chin so that she was looking at him. "I love you, too."
Amy cried some more, but her tears were now flowing because of joy.
"And now that I'm sitting here on cold pavement, crying with you, I wish that you had come first, too. I don't regret my relationship with Madison, because I really think that if it hadn't have happened I wouldn't be able to have what I have with you today, but I do regret having sex with her. Because… because I didn't love her."
Amy stared at him for a few moments, her expression changing from touched to slightly amused. "You sure know how to seduce a woman."
Ephram blushed.
"But I'm not ready."
"I didn't expect you to be. Amy, I'd wait forever for you."
"I found out the sex of the baby with Madison today." Andy told Ephram the next day when he got home from his first day of school. Ephram was a senior—he couldn't believe it.
Ephram grimaced. "Dad…" he started.
"I didn't know whether you would want to know or not—"
"Well, I don't, okay? I don't. Don't you understand that that's only going to make it harder for me? I don't want to know any more about this whole thing. You know, I'm almost starting to wish that you had kept this from me," Ephram slumped onto the couch and put his head in his hands.
"Well, what do you want me to do, Ephram? Because I don't know anymore." Andy said.
"I know you're gonna help her financially and stuff, and I'm glad you're doing that, I mean, that's the least that we can do, right? I don't want her to be stuck doing this totally on her own, because the baby is just as much mine as it is hers. I just… I don't want to hear about it, okay? This baby is probably never going to be a part of my life anyway, so hearing about what's going on with it and Madison is only going to make things harder for me."
"I understand."
Ephram nodded and went upstairs to his room.
Bright's "teen hangout" had been coming along, and by September, it was almost ready to open. Amy, Ephram, and their families were trying to forget about Madison and the baby. Although it seemed impossible for Ephram, he thought that the best thing to do with all of his emotional energy at that time was put it into loving Amy.
"There. Does it look crooked to you?" Bright asked Ephram and Amy, who were standing hand in hand on the sidewalk looking at Bright's sign. It was a purplish-red color that read "Crash and Hope Café" in shiny silver letters.
"Nope," Ephram said. "It looks perfect to me."
"I'm so excited for you, Bright," Amy said going over to her brother and hugging him.
"Me too," Bright said. "It's perfect. This is something I'm meant to do, I'm sure of it."
"Me too," Amy replied.
"Hey, Nina," Ephram found their next-door neighbor bustling around in the kitchen when he woke up one morning.
"Good morning, Ephram," Nina smiled.
"So, uh… where's Dad?"
"Oh, he took Delia to school this morning. Can you believe that snow? And it's not even October yet."
"Yeah, weird… but not too weird for Everwood," Ephram poured himself a bowl of cereal and sighed. "Lots of weird things happen here."
"Something bothering you, Ephram?"
Ephram shook his head and hesitated before looking at Nina. "It's just… nothing," Ephram brushed it off. "I'm just being moody this morning."
Nina laughed. "Oh, come on."
"I love Amy so much, you know? And I love Delia, and… Dad, I guess… but I still haven't accepted the fact that Madison is out there somewhere carrying a child that's mine, and I can't be in its life. I mean, I know its not even born yet, but… it's just been bugging me," Ephram sighed and took another bite.
"It's okay, Ephram. I really think you and your dad are doing the right thing for right now by just leaving it alone. After all, to tell you the truth, I don't think you'll be out of this baby's life forever. That just wouldn't be right," Nina gave Ephram a reassuring pat on the back before getting her stuff together. "You'd better go," she said, pointing at the clock.
"Yeah, you're right. I don't have time to eat this," Ephram said, pouring his cereal out into the sink. "What was I thinking?"
Nina laughed. "See you later, Ephram."
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