Chapter 68 The Unexpected
New Year’s Eve, they went to the bakery rooftop with Claire and Lily.
The whole city spread out below them, fireworks ready to launch at midnight.
“New year, new decade almost,” Lily said. “Think it’ll be better than the last two years?”
“Bar’s pretty low,” Aiden said.
“True. All we have to do is not fight any billionaires and we’re ahead.”
“Let’s aim higher,” Claire said. “Let’s aim for happiness. For peace. For boring.”
“To boring,” Ariella raised her cider.
“To boring,” they echoed.
The countdown began. Ten, nine, eight.
Ariella looked at Aiden. At this boy, now a man she’d married out of desperation and chosen out of love.
Five, four, three.
At her mother, who’d found strength after breaking.
Two, one.
At Lily, who’d survived losing both parents and somehow stayed kind.
Happy New Year.
Fireworks exploded overhead. The city celebrated. And Ariella felt something she hadn’t felt in years:
Hope. Not desperate hope. Not hopeful-despite-everything hope, Just hope. Simple and clean and real.
They’d survived.
They’d built something from the ruins.
And now they got to live in what they’d built.
“I love you,” she told Aiden.
“I love you too.”
“Even with the boring?”
“Especially with the boring.”
The fireworks continued. The year turned. And four people who’d become family stood together watching their city celebrate, knowing they’d fought for their right to stand there.
And won.
Spring semester started with a routine that felt almost luxurious in its normalcy.
Ariella had advanced pastry techniques on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Aiden had studio classes three days a week. They’d meal prep on Sundays, study together most evenings, and fall asleep to whatever show they were binge-watching.
Boring. Beautiful. Theirs.
Then in late February, Ariella started feeling off.
Nothing dramatic. Just tired. Nauseous in the mornings. Her favorite coffee suddenly smelled wrong.
“You’re probably getting sick,” Aiden said when she mentioned it. “There’s a flu going around campus.”
“Maybe.”
But the symptoms persisted. A week passed. Then two.
Sophie texted: girl when was your last period
Ariella froze. Counted back. Six weeks? Seven?
oh shit
oh SHIT
I’m getting a test
DO IT NOW
She bought three tests from the pharmacy near school. Took them in the bathroom between classes.
All three were positive.
Ariella stared at them, hands shaking. This couldn’t be happening. They were careful. They used protection. They were Teenagers and barely keeping themselves together, let alone ready for…
Her phone rang. Aiden.
“Hey,” she answered, voice strangled.
“You okay? You sound weird.”
“Can you come home? Like now?”
“I have class in twenty minutes…”
“Aiden. Please, I need you.”
The fear in her voice must have transmitted. “I’m coming, Ten minutes.”
She waited in their apartment, staring at the three positive tests lined up on the bathroom counter. Three pink lines. Three confirmations. Three reasons her life was about to change completely.
Aiden burst through the door. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Did something happen?”
She couldn’t speak. Just pointed to the bathroom.
He walked in. Saw the tests. Went very, very still.
“Oh,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“You’re…”
“Pregnant. Yes.”
They stood there, both of them staring at plastic sticks that weighed nothing and everything.
Finally, Aiden said: “How do you feel about this?”
“Terrified. You?”
“Same. But also…” He stopped. “I don’t know. It’s not what we planned.”
“Definitely not what we planned. We’re supposed to be boring college students for three more years before we even think about this.”
“What do you want to do?”
The question hung heavy, because she had options, Choices. This didn’t have to be her reality if she didn’t want it to be.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I need to think. We need to think.”
“Okay. We’ll think. Together.”