Author's notes:

If I owned the show, Ryan would be getting some action a lot more than just once a year.

I realize there are already a number of Kandy-in-college stories out there, but I think this one has a different angle to it. Please review if you like this and want me to continue-I'm always a bit nervous about starting new stories, but I'll continue for as long as people are still reading and enjoying this.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

We've got to hold on to what we've got
'Cause it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not
We've got each other and that's a lot
For love-we'll give it a shot

-Bon Jovi, Livin' on a Prayer

The instructions on the box said that results would be clear in three minutes. Kirsten Nichol set the timer and went back into the bedroom to wait. It's only a false alarm, she tried to assure herself. Just the stress of the last six weeks, that's all.

She repeated these thoughts to herself as she tried not to think about the test she had just taken. After all, she had just been through the most hellish month and a half possible, with breaking up with Jimmy and adjusting to a new life at college. The thought of Jimmy brought fresh tears to her eyes. They had been together for over three years, ever since he and his family had moved to Newport the summer before Kirsten's sophomore year in high school. They had been the lead couple at Cotillion, and homecoming king and queen at Harbor. They were meant for each other-everyone in Orange County had thought so.

And now Jimmy was getting married to someone else, a girl from Riverside he had impregnated shortly after Kirsten had left for Berkeley. She didn't know what hurt more-that Jimmy had cheated on her, or that if she hadn't had the abortion before senior year, she would be the one married to him right now.

When she looked back, it seemed like their problems had all started after she'd gotten rid of the baby. Jimmy hadn't known-she hadn't seen any reason to upset him, since she'd never planned on having the baby. They were so young, after all, and you simply didn't see seventeen year olds having babies in Newport Beach. That was more of a Chino thing, or Riverside. And pretty, intelligent, homecoming queen Kirsten Nichol was everything a Newport girl was supposed to be. Teenage pregnancy simply didn't fit into her image.

So she had gotten rid of the baby, but it had been much harder than she'd anticipated. Even though she'd known she could never keep it, she had still imagined a couple of times what it would be like to be married to Jimmy, and to have a child of their own. She had pictured the baby as a boy, with her blond hair and blue eyes, and Jimmy's smile. After the abortion, she found it hard to be around Jimmy, to accept his embraces as if nothing had happened. She began to pull away from him in spite of herself, and ended up accepting a scholarship to Berkeley instead of going to UCLA with him as they had always planned.

Kirsten couldn't believe that she could be in this situation again. She had been so careful about birth control, never wanting to find herself pregnant again unless she and Jimmy were married and they both agreed to have a child. And she certainly hadn't wanted it to be like this, knocked up after a drunken one-night stand with a law student whose last name she didn't even know.

She thought back to that day six weeks ago, when Jimmy had come to see her at Berkeley. She hadn't seen him in almost a month, and she had spent the morning before he arrived in front of the mirror, experimenting with her hair and makeup in an effort to look her prettiest. When he arrived that afternoon, she was so happy to see him that she didn't notice that he pulled away slightly when she kissed him, or that he seemed more uncomfortable in her presence than she could ever remember seeing him.

She had picked up on it quickly, though, when he had suggested going out for dinner instead of going upstairs to her room and ordering pizza. Kirsten's roommate was going to be spending the night with a friend, and she had been looking forward to being alone with Jimmy for the first time in a month. Instead, they went out for Vietnamese food where they sat across from each other in a booth while Jimmy avoided meeting her eyes.

They had been there half an hour and Jimmy was still making small talk. She was growing more and more aware of his sense of unease, her own anxiety mounting. Anything had to be better than this charade they were performing. Whatever Jimmy had to say to her couldn't be that bad. "Jimmy, is there something you want to say to me?"

He shifted his gaze to the table and gave a small sigh. "Kirsten, I don't know how to tell you this."

She smiled with a confidence that she was far from feeling. "Come on, Jimmy, it can't be worse than that time you lost the tickets to the Bon Jovi concert and we had to sneak in with that group of Swedish tourists."

Jimmy managed his first real smile of the evening. "That was fun, wasn't it?"

"Come on," Kirsten urged. "Whatever it is, you'll feel better after having said it."

He finally met her gaze, his eyes filled with sadness. "I'm getting married."

His words didn't register. "What?"

"I'm getting married," he repeated dully. "Next month."

Kirsten furrowed her brow. "But I thought we were going to wait until we were out of college." Then the impact of his words finally hit her, and her cheeks flushed. "What do you mean?"

"Her name is Julie," Jimmy rambled. "She's seventeen and she's from Riverside."

She still wasn't quite understanding what he was saying. "But you're my boyfriend, Jimmy."

"She's pregnant," Jimmy said quietly. "Kirsten, I'm so sorry."

This had to be a dream, Kirsten decided. Any moment now, she would wake up back in her dorm room, squished up against Jimmy in her twin bed and feeling relieved that it was only a bad dream and nothing more. She shook her head. "No."

"I'm so sorry, Kirsten," Jimmy pleaded. "I love you. You know that. I never wanted to hurt you."

"You cheated on me?" Her voice was high and shrill, and sounded like a stranger's.

"I'm sorry," Jimmy repeated. "I know that doesn't make it right, that nothing can make it right, but you have to believe that I never wanted this to happen."

She grabbed her purse and stood up, miraculously without knocking anything over. Her body felt numb, and she idly wondered if she was having a stroke. She hoped she was having a stroke. That would serve Jimmy right, to watch her die right here before his eyes. "I have to go."

"I'll walk you back," Jimmy offered.

"No," she snapped. "I don't want you anywhere near me right now. Or ever. Leave me alone."

"Kirsten, please, let me take you back," Jimmy begged.

She slapped him across his cheek with all the strength she had. "Get away from me! I hate you!"

She stormed out of the restaurant without a backwards glance, leaving Jimmy to pay the bill. She was glad she'd ordered an appetizer and an expensive entrée. She hoped his parents were good and pissed at him for this. She hoped that this Julie had a double chin and horrible acne.

The phone was ringing when she got back to her room. She yanked the cord out of the wall and slammed the phone down on her desk, knocking off a pile of papers. She didn't care. She didn't care about anything anymore.

Only then did Kirsten start to cry.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Jimmy called every day for the next week. Every time, she hung up the phone as soon as she heard his voice, and after awhile the frequency of his calls began to fade. Kirsten went to the classes she couldn't afford to miss and skipped the ones she could. She became addicted to the afternoon soap operas. She put on ten pounds from eating junk food. She didn't like to go out often, preferring to stay in and mope except for the occasions when her roommate Jody could talk her into going to the student union for dinner or to Blockbuster to rent some movies.

Two weeks after Jimmy broke up with her, Jody convinced Kirsten to come to a fraternity party with her. While she was there, Kirsten got drunk and met a third-year law student named Sandy. He seemed nice enough, and he'd had a few drinks as well, and before she could really think about what she was doing, it was the next morning and she was in Sandy's bedroom trying to quietly dress herself without waking him before sneaking out and returning home. Getting drunk and having sex with almost-strangers weren't behaviors that the old Kirsten Nichol would have ever done, but she wasn't that girl anymore.

She did feel a little bad about sneaking out like she had, but she figured that Sandy would understand. The last thing she wanted was another relationship. He had been nice to her, and it was good to know that other men still found her attractive even if Jimmy didn't. And as for Sandy, well, he'd gotten a night of no strings attached sex. What guy wouldn't be happy with that?

The timer went off, bringing Kirsten back to the present. She went into the bathroom and picked up the plastic stick, forcing herself to look down at it.

Two pink lines. She picked up the box to double check, hoping that she might be wrong.

No such luck. Two pink lines. Positive.

She was pregnant, and by a law student named Sandy whose last name she didn't even know. Jimmy had cheated on her and she'd gotten drunk and had a fling and now she was going to have a baby. Just when she thought things couldn't possibly get any worse.

Fuck. What was she going to do?