Chapter 3: Choices

Neal sat at a bar down the street with an untouched beer in front of him.

"I tried your cell," August said taking a seat next to Neal. "Emma answered."

"Did you talk to her?"

"You know I never do."

"Then do me a favor August, go away," he said looking at the man with distain in his eyes.

"You know I can't do that. If you can't get her on track then I will and I'll do it without you."

"I'm gonna say it again, go away."

"Something's going on with you. What, you and Emma break up or something?"

"It's not like that," Neal said.

"But it has something to do with her. What is it, what's wrong with Emma?"

Neal took a breath. There was no point in keeping things from August and he was bound to find out what was going on no matter which way things went.

"She's pregnant. Emma's pregnant."

"You knocked her up!" August said loudly causing some people to turn and look at the two.

"Would you keep it down, I all ready feel like hell."

August lowered his voice. "Sorry, so what are you going to do?"

"Don't know, been sitting here for hours trying to figure that part out. If I walk away Emma's better off but then I'm just like my father. If I stay sure we could maybe have a good life. I get Emma on her path but that means seeing my father and him being near my kid. I can't put them through that. They're better off without me."

"Maybe but can you honestly live with yourself if you abandon your kid the way your father abandoned you? I don't need to tell you what to do you decided the moment you came in here. It's the reason why you haven't touched that beer."

Neal hated August but the guy could be wise and useful on the rarest occasion.

"Emma," Neal called out later that night when he arrived home. His heart started to race. "Emma where are you," he asked making his way to the bedroom and bathroom but she wasn't there. "Emma," he called a third time.

"I'm out here," she said from the fire escape.

Neal looked outside and saw Emma sitting on the steps.

"I thought that," he said making his way outside, "you had left."

"I considered it."

"But you didn't, why?"

"I don't know," she said shaking her head.

Neal looked at his girlfriend and took a seat next to her.

"I'm sorry for storming out like that. It wasn't fair to you."

Emma shrugged, "No it wasn't but life rarely is isn't it? Besides I probably would have left too only I can't since thing is stuck inside of me so where I go it goes."

Neal took a deep breath and swallowed. "Do you want it to be?"

Emma wanted to tear at Neal's throat for asking that question but she couldn't. It was a valid question to ask and one she had been asking herself for the past several hours as she sat alone with her thoughts in the apartment.

"I don't know. I can't be a mother but at the same time…"

Neal looked at Emma's abdomen. "It's you and me in there," he added.

Tears were starting to trickle down Emma's face, "Yeah," she admitted.

Neal reached down for Emma's hand and squeezed it. "Then let's keep it," he said to her.

Emma turned to look at him. The sadness she had seen earlier was gone and in place was that bright twinkle that had made her fall for him after he got her out of the jam when a cop had pulled her over for passing through a stop sign; that look of optimism.

"You're serious?"

"Yeah why not?"

"I'm seventeen."

"So people have been having kids since before then."

"Neal, look at us. We didn't exactly have the best role models growing up. We're not exactly parent material."

"So what, we can figure this out. We don't have to be like our parents- we don't have to give him up. We can give him a home, we can love him."

"What if it's a girl?"

Neal smiled, "We can love her too." Neal took Emma's other hand and the two were now facing each other. "I love you Emma. I don't want to be like my father. I don't want to take the easy way out."

"I thought you said you didn't know who your father was."

Neal nodded. That was what he had said to her. He decided for now it was best to dance around her comment.

"Which only proves my point since he's not around," said Neal. "Regardless of who he is, if he ever gave a damn about me he wouldn't have let me go. Let's not do that to our kid."

Emma squeezed Neal's hands. "Okay," she said to him.

Neal smiled. "Okay."

Emma allowed herself to take a breath now that the hard stuff was over. "So we're really doing this? I'm going to have this baby and we're going to be a family and our baby is going to grow up here and have a lot of friends?"

"Sounds pretty good right?"

"Sounds perfect."

Neal smiled and leaned in to kiss Emma, "I love you," he said to her.

"I love you too."