Damn, she was good. What Sean had done with physical force, the destruction he had caused me in a fury of explosive violence, Ellie had done with two simple words. She was always tricky like that. No beating, no kicks to the stomach, no punches to the face, could possibly give me the sharp pain inside that Ellie's news gave me. My old man always said the worst kind of trouble you could get in was girl trouble.

He had no fucking idea.

Ellie was quick to turn on the water works, dropping to the kitchen floor and resting her head against the humming refrigerator. Hushed tears emptied out of her eyes as she looked up at me, the way she always does, uncertain and expectant. Damn those doll-eyes. Radiating with constant apology.

After pacing and screaming "What?" for an obligatory two or three minutes, her words were finally real enough for me to process and I took a moment to breathe. "I mean…" I began, using all the strength God gave me to not look at her eyes. I watched the floor as I spoke. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. I haven't had a period in three months and I've taken two tests." Her voice was as fragile as glass.

"Three… THREE MONTHS?" I started pacing again. She winced at my increased anger. "You've known for three months and you never said anything?"

"I was scared, Tracker. I'm still scared."

"Jesus fuck, Ellie…" My mind was racing, jumping from anger to fear to sympathy and straight back to anger again. This was so much to take in at once. There were so many variables to sort through. "I mean, whose kid is it? Do you even know?"

She tugged idly at the threads on the Very Very Jealous shirt and stumbled over tears as she spoke. "It's yours. It… it couldn't be Sean's. Sean and I always use protection."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Ellie?" I moved closer to her, hovering over her as I spoke. "That doesn't mean shit and you know it. I always use a fucking condom."

She closed her eyes in fear, the way a battered woman might do just before getting slapped across the face. "Not the first time. On the couch. Three months ago."

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It was true. It was so fucking true and I knew it and I was so fucking afraid. "Bull shit, Ellie… That kid could be anybody's. Fuck. I mean, how do I even know you're telling me the truth? It's a little convenient to suddenly be three months pregnant when you're about to kicked out, isn't it? I mean… how the fuck do you not tell someone about this? I can't have a kid, Ellie. I don't know what you thought, but this can't happen!"

I was practically spitting in her face as I spoke. Jesus. I had just pulled the "it's-not-mine" card, the "you're-a-lying-bitch" card, and the "I-can't-believe-you-kept-it-a-secret" card, and the "get-an-abortion" card all in the span of about thirty seconds. World-class asshole, much? This shit was just too heavy for me.

She opened her eyes and looked at me desperately. "I'm pregnant. It's yours. You don't have to believe it, but it's still true. There's nothing I can do to change it. I'm… I'm sorry."

She wrapped her arms around herself, trembling. She was crying and crumbling and looking more pathetic than I'd ever seen her before. She was a giant pile of uncertainty on the floor. She was just a girl, just a scared little girl with no one to hold her, and I was no fucking better than her. I knew that I needed to be a man and take care of this mess on my floor. I needed to take her in my arms and let her know everything would be okay. I needed to make everything right again.

"I need a smoke," I said. And I left her there, alone, scared, and carrying my child.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

I was thirteen cents short for my pack of cigarettes and I told Clint, who was working behind the counter, that if I didn't have that pack in my hand in thirty seconds, I would walk behind the fucking counter and get them myself, in addition to placing my foot firmly in his ass. He decided to cover the thirteen cents.

I stood outside the Stop N Shop, leaning beside the ice box and sucking dry the sweet nicotine from the cigarette in my hand. A beat-up banana yellow car pulled into a hand-capped spot in front of the store.

"You look fucking rough, dude," Phil called out as he crawled out of the driver's seat. He was wearing Spongebob boxers, cheap pink flip-flops, and a Nine Inch Nails shirt.

"You're not looking so hot yourself, Santos," I told him as he sauntered towards me and shook my hand.

"Yeah, well, it's pretty early in the morning."

"It's six o'clock in the evening."

"Tomato, tomahto. Give me a cigarette."

"Go fuck yourself."

"Christ, Tracker, it's just one cigarette."

"Sean's girlfriend got knocked up, asswipe. I'm smoking the whole fucking pack. Blow me."

He threw back his ever-thinning head in laughter and took one of my cigarettes all the same. "Bummer, yo. Shouldn't you be saving some of this for him then, eh?" He slapped my shoulder jokingly. I kind of wanted to rip his larynx out.

"It's mine, Phil. It's my kid. I'm the one who's fucked."

"Oh." His eyes grew a little heavier. "OH. Fuck. I'm sorry, man."

"Yeah. So am I."

We stood in gloomy silence, the kind of lulls in conversation one must take every now and again to just look at life in all of its suckdom. Pregnant. Fuck. That shit was permanent. What was inside of Ellie was going to turn into a full-blown person. A person with my blood in their veins. A person with mistakes and problems and bull shit just like everyone else, and I had to be responsible for them. Ellie was right and I had to face it. There was going to be a kid, it was mine, and there was nothing we could do to change it.

Wendy and I had talked about kids before. Idly, jokingly. It seemed like a good idea to me, back when it was something that would happen years down the road. But now that it was here, I was scared shitless. There were so many things to take into consideration. How was I supposed to afford this kid? How much would this piss Sean off even more? What did it mean for Ellie and I?

"You know, Manuela got an abortion not too long ago…" said Phil, placing the stolen cigarette back into my pack. "My mom took her to this real nice clinic. They were good to her, and it wasn't that expensive. I could probably get the name of that place for you."

That was the real issue. Ellie. I knew she didn't want an abortion. If she did, that would have been the first thing she brought up. Ellie had so many issues with her own mother… god only knew what this pregnancy thing was doing to her. She wouldn't get rid of the kid, I knew, and she damn sure couldn't take care of it herself. Her mother was a drunk, her dad was dead, and she had fucked Sean over too bad to go to him. She had no one.

No one but me, that is. It was me, I realized, that the responsibility fell to. I would be the one to take the blame, as always, if this baby ruined Ellie's life. We had played an equal part in making all these mistakes and I owed it to her to be there for all of the consequences. We tumbled into this mess together. When we walked away from the wreckage, if we walked away from the wreckage, I knew that I had to be holding her hand as we went.

God. And I left her crying on the fucking floor.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

I told Phil goodbye and came straight back home. The stereo was on, whiney girl music, as loud as it would go. I didn't see Ellie anywhere. I went to my bedroom. She was lying on the bed. I've never felt so much hurting all at once. I started crying. I called an ambulance.

How the fuck could I let this happen?

The sun is going down slow. I'm shaking just a little. Pinkyellow light sneaks through the cracked olive curtains and falls on top of her pale skin, illuminating her like some kind of porcelain whore. She lies across an altar of unclean sheets. I reach out and touch her, even though it feels wrong, and she's just as soft as always. I laugh in spite of myself. She always tries to act so fucking tough, but in reality she's nothing but fragile. So easily broken, so difficult to repair. Porcelain whore.

There's so much blood, staining the same sheets we laid on time and time again. She looks empty. Nothing left inside of her. I'm clutching her hand when the paramedics show up and the looks on their faces don't give me any hope. I want to tell her to hold on but I don't want them to hear, so instead I just squeeze her lifeless hand harder.

I crawl into the back of the ambulance where they won't let me hold her hand any more. They start trying to stop the bleeding from her wrists.

"It doesn't look good, sir," one of the paramedics tells me sincerely.

I close my eyes and clasp my hands together tightly.

I don't want her to leave.