REAGAN WAS SITTING on the front porch steps to her house when Dave pulled up, parking his car at the end of the driveway. She hugged her knees closer to her chest and counted the breaths she was forcing out, knowing it would do her no good to hold them in.

It had been an agonizing morning. Dave had called her straightaway, asking for a second time if he could stop by before going to Kurt and Krist. Again, Reagan had told him no. She feared that he wouldn't have been able to make it through a rehearsal with Nirvana in light of the news she was planning to tell him. He'd need his schedule cleared in order to process it.

Before Reagan had gone to bed the night before, Kate had called the house, checking to make sure that she was alright. She'd suggested that Reagan hold off on telling Dave about the pregnancy — Reagan got the feeling that Kate was hinting at a way to make it all seem like it had never happened before Dave could find out. But that felt wrong. For some reason, Reagan couldn't ignore her intuition that Dave needed to know.

And even if it weren't for intuition, she would have wanted to tell him anyways. The only person she wanted to turn to was him. Nobody else could be her source of comfort through it all, even if it was going to eventually blow up in her face.

She watched him open the car door and get out, his eyes zeroing in on her. He was worried. Even though she'd told him otherwise, he still thought she'd summoned him there to break up. It was laughable, but Reagan could have only wished that things were actually that simple.

As he started up the driveway, she stood to her feet and wiped her jeans off, examining the ground. When Dave reached her, his hands went around her arms and pulled her in close.

"Hey," he said softly.

She chewed the inner corner of her lip, already having torn it to pieces the night before in a fit of anxiety. When she hesitated to greet him back, Dave held her tighter with desperation.

"Can you just get straight to it? I've been going crazy all night and all day," he begged helplessly.

"I'm not breaking up with you," Reagan mumbled. She couldn't tear her gaze away from her feet, wondering what it would be like to crack into a million little pieces when she finally looked into his eyes.

"Come here," he said, folding her into a hug. In a way, he understood based off her body language that she needed his physical contact. Reagan breathed deeply when she tucked her face into his chest, smelling cigarettes and the familiar laundry detergent he used on his clothes.

"Whatever it is you've got to say," he whispered, "you can say it. I'm right here, Reagan. I'm here."

"I know you are," she struggled. Her hands were doing it again — the terrible shaking. Even as they remained clasped behind his back, she could feel the quivering starting at the tips of her fingers.

"Let's go inside," Dave suggested. "Maybe that will calm you down."

"No!" Reagan ordered hastily. Richard was home for the day. "No . . . no going inside. We've got to talk out here."

Dave looked perplexed as he stared between her and the front door, clearly wondering what was stopping them both from entering the house. He didn't argue though as he took her hand in his.

"Okay. We'll stay out here."

Reagan took a deep breath. "Good. Trust me, it's better this way."

When she didn't continue on, Dave raised his eyebrows. She looked away, feeling her heartbeat quicken when she realized she wasn't doing what she had promised herself she would.

Be straight to the point, she'd commanded herself the night before. Rip it off. Like a Band-Aid.

"Okay, Reagan, I can't do this," Dave said. He removed his hand from the palm of hers and put it up in the air. "I can't understand why you won't just tell me what the fuck is going on."

"It's not that easy."

"It'd be easy if you just said it."

His voice had an edge of steel to it, letting Reagan know he'd reached the end of his rope with the waiting game she'd put him through. If the tables had been turned, she knew she would have been pissed too. The worry of what was coming would have been too much to handle. She owed it to him to be honest, to cease the contemplation that must have been driving him crazy.

"I'm trying," she said slowly. "I'm trying to figure out how to say it."

It turned out that Reagan did not have to say a word. Without thinking, she raised her hand to her stomach, laying it over her abdomen as she tried to make sense of how she'd tell Dave about being pregnant.

He was more attentive than she could have ever possibly known.

He looked down to where her hand was placed and then back at her face, his eyes widening and his jaw going slack. Reagan looked down at her hand too and winced. She'd given it away without even considering what she was doing. She jerked her hand back to her side and started to shake her head back and forth.

"I'm so sorry," she began, sounding hoarse. "I just found out. Just yesterday. I'm sorry, Dave."

"You're . . . you're . . ." Dave said, stumbling over the only word he seemed to be able to get out. He was staring at her stomach as if there was something else there besides the gray cotton of the t-shirt she wore.

"Pregnant," she finished for him. She pressed her hands together in prayer and brought them to her lips, still shaking her head. "I'm so sorry."

Reagan allowed him his time to understand what she'd said, standing there silently with his mouth agape. It was hell to wait for his full reaction, but he deserved the time to discern where they then stood. It was like a rug had been pulled out beneath both their feet. He was only going through the same shock that she'd been through the day before. It was the shock of having everything change in seconds.

"I can't believe it," he finally whispered. He finally met her eyes.

"I can," she replied contritely. "It's not exactly like we were being careful about this sort of thing."

"That explains a lot about why you sounded terrified over the phone," Dave observed.

"Terrified is an understatement."

He took her by surprise when he crossed the distance between them and hugged her, burying his face in the crown of her head and clinging close. She heard him suck in a shaking breath as he dug his hands into her back.

"Holy shit," he breathed. "You're pregnant."

"And I'm sorry," she said, enunciating her sincere apology for the fourth time. "I'm so sorry that this is happening Dave."

"You are?"

He seemed taken aback by her repetitive atonement for something that they'd both caused together. His fingers caressed her face, down from her hairline to her jaw with the intent to comfort her. This loving touch was enough to make Reagan's lower lip wobble with what she knew was about to be an onslaught of tears.

"Of course I am. This couldn't have come at a worse time. Hell, it shouldn't have come at all. You're leaving. The album is coming out soon. And now this."

"Why does it sound like you're blaming yourself right now?"

"I'm not. It's just . . .  hard to not feel that way when you're the one with the . . . the baby . . . inside of you."

It was weird to acknowledge out loud that Reagan was not merely "pregnant." The word had begun to lose its meaning as many times as she had thought about it. Saying she was pregnant did not compare to the way it felt to spell it all out. She was carrying a little human being, a product of her and Dave both, inside her womb. It made her feel like she was trapped in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

"The timing is, uhm, unfortunate," Dave agreed awkwardly. He ran his hand through Reagan's hair, rustling her bangs.

"This is bad," Reagan whispered shrilly. She shuffled backwards out of his embrace and cupped her hands to her mouth, feeling herself coming unhinged. "This is so bad."

It was like she was discovering her pregnancy all over again. Except this time, she was juggling Dave's acknowledgement of it too.

It was almost even worse to see him reacting so placidly. He'd only remained panicked for a few meager seconds before he'd started hugging her, telling her it was okay when it obviously was not. As much as she had hoped and prayed for a benign response on his end, she suddenly wished that he was feeling a mutual alarm towards the situation.

"Reagan, it's going to be okay," he said, reaching out to her.

She didn't take his hand, too busy trying to make her own hands stop convulsing. The only good thing was that she had yet to start bawling.

"You know that's not true," she said. "It's not that easy. Don't you understand? I'm carrying a kid, Dave. Our kid. Now is not a good time!"

She saw his eyes flicker when she said the words "our kid." In that brief moment, she swore she had seen them fill with traces of soft emotion upon her reminding him that she was pregnant with a baby that they'd made together.

"When you say it like that . . ." he began quietly.

"Don't," she warned. "I don't think you're getting it. You're not realizing what this means at all."

"You're worried about me and the band," Dave inserted for her. "You think that having a kid is not good in the present time."

"Exactly," Reagan said. "You're about to have everything you've ever wanted and this could ruin your life."

"I think that's a bit overdramatic."

Reagan threw her hands up frustratedly. "No it's not! You don't think that I haven't thought this through? I spent all last night imagining the future if we were to have a baby and let me tell you, it's not good Dave! It's just not."

"So what are you going to do?" His tone changed as he asked the question. If Reagan was hearing correctly, she would have said he sounded worried.

"What do you want me to do?" she responded. Her hands were still shaking at her sides.

"It's . . . your choice. I can't stop you. I wouldn't do that to you, Reagan."

"But what are you getting at?" Reagan demanded. "Are you trying to tell me that you want to have this baby?"

"Fuck Reagan, everything is right there in black and white! You either have the baby or you don't. All I'm doing is laying out your options."

"But you're not telling me exactly what you want," she said, hardening her voice and marching closer to him. She prodded his chest with her finger. "Don't act like you don't have a say in this. I want to know what you want."

Dave looked regretfully away, staring over his shoulder and down the driveway with his eyes smoldering. Reagan could tell that he was torn, something that stunned her as sharply as a slap to the face. His reaction had been nothing close to what she'd anticipated.

She had pictured a total meltdown. Maybe not a meltdown made up of tears and screaming on his behalf, but she at least had assumed he'd be mad. His chance of success was right there in front of him. His life was about to change in a way that would be different from anything else in the world. Nirvana was getting themselves into something bigger than just toddling around Olympia playing weekend shows. And Dave deserved it. He really did. He was talented.

It didn't add up how he could be preparing for what was to come with his band, but still have the compulsion to stand there and mull over the idea of what it would be like to have a baby. The two realities just didn't mesh together. He was twenty-two, a drummer in a rock band and far from everything he'd ever known in Virginia.

Reagan didn't see how it was possibly viable for him to want a child.

But she knew it in the pit of her stomach. Just from telling by the look in his eyes, she knew. A part of him wanted that baby.

"Holy fuck," she said, severing his chance to answer her inquiry. She dragged her fingers through her hair and held them against her head, staring off into space with wild eyes. "Tell me this isn't happening."

"Just calm down," Dave said, attempting to pacify her into a hug again. She pushed him away.

"Don't tell me to calm down. I'm anything but calm right now."

"This isn't good for you," he said softly. "I can see that. I can tell this is killing you right now, Reagan. Maybe it would be easier . . ."

"To get rid of it?" she finished for him.

Even she was stung by the brutality of her statement. It had seemed simple before, back when she'd been swathed in the sheets of her bed trying to figure out a game-plan. But standing there with Dave had made it all the more real. It wasn't just some embryo growing with life inside of her. It was a part of him too. And if they were lucky, it would inherit every part of him along the way.

She felt her outrage and fear, all the emotions that had made her capable of walking to a doctor and wiping the situation away easily, melt away. Suddenly, it had become more complicated than that. Looking into Dave's face and remembering by the squeeze of her heart how much she loved him had very quickly crossed out one of her options — the option she had thought she'd be willing to take, but now was not.

"Whatever you want, Reagan," Dave murmured. There was a promise in his voice, a promise that he would support her no matter what she chose to do. Even if it technically was not what he would have wanted.

Agonizingly, Reagan saw a familiar flash of the future. She envisioned her baby in her arms, bearing all kinds of resemblance to Dave and being the most palpable proof of evidence that she and Dave really loved each other. And all at once, she knew what she had to do.

"I can't," Regan blurted, fisting a handful of her hair and feeling the leak of her tears. "I can't do that."

Dave roped Reagan into his arms and held her firmly as she cried. She tried to the muffle the sound of her sobs, but there was no stopping them. In what had felt like a nanosecond, she'd made her choice and it was hitting her like bricks falling from the sky.

"It's okay, it's okay," Dave repeated in a whisper, mumbling the words with his lips against Reagan's forehead.

Several minutes passed as she stood in his embrace, crying until her tears ran out and it came time for her to catch her breath. She wiped her face with the heel of her hand, knowing that somewhere in the metaphorical book of her life, a new chapter had begun. It was a corny analogy, but incredibly accurate.

"Reagan."

She stayed in his arms, feeling his chin on her head as he swayed her gently, soothing her from her bout of crying.

"Yes?" she sniffed.

"Will you marry me?"

She jumped as if she'd been electrocuted, bouncing back out of his arms so fast that she must have looked like a cartoon character. A look of disbelief twisted onto her face.

"What did you say?" Reagan whispered. It was silly of her to ask. His question was still ringing in her ears.

"I asked if you would marry me," Dave clarified nervously. He didn't feel as confident as he had when asking the initial question and she watched as he anxiously twitched while she stared.

"Why?"

Dave looked crestfallen by her answer and Reagan could understand how it might have wounded him. No one would have wanted to hear "why" as a reply to a marriage proposal, but she needed to know where it was coming from.

"Because," he explained slowly. "It looks to me like . . . well, like we're going to be parents. And I want you to move to Seattle with me if we're having a baby together."

"Move to Seattle?" Reagan mumbled, as if he had not brought up the same proposition over and over again in the past.

"Yeah. Reags, you're pregnant. I want to be there for you."

"But you won't be there," Reagan reminded him. "You'll be touring. Touring a lot. I'll be alone."

"Kate will be in Seattle. She'd take care of you, I know she would," Dave reasoned. He glanced at Reagan's house skeptically. "Unless you think your parents are going to be accepting of all this, though I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you."

"You want me to marry you," Reagan said, still dazed that he had even asked. After all, there was only so much bombshell news that she could absorb within a twenty-four time period.

"Yes. I really do, Reagan. Will you?" he pressed, delicately tucking her hair behind her ear.

"You're asking me this because I'm pregnant." It was a statement, not a question.

"No I'm not," Dave disagreed promptly. "I would have asked you to marry me one of these days anyway, baby or no baby. There's no perfect way of doing things. It doesn't matter that you got pregnant first."

"Bullshit," Reagan whispered, moving farther away from him across the porch. He knit his eyebrows together in a mix of hurt and confusion.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he asked, walking after her.

"You only want to marry me because I'm pregnant," Reagan accused. She shouldered past him and jogged down the porch steps, striding across the driveway though she had no idea where was going.

"Reagan, it doesn't fucking matter that you're pregnant. And so what if it did? It'd be the right thing to do!" Dave cried, jogging behind Reagan in order to keep up.

"So what, now you're some kind of southern gentleman?" Reagan demanded, whirling around to face him. "I didn't think it would matter to you. Why do we have to be married to have a kid together?"

"Is this your way of telling me that you don't want to marry me?" Dave lashed back, fuming as he leaned into Reagan's face.

"I want to marry you," she replied harshly. "But not like this. Not because you were forced into it because I got knocked up. You're not even thinking straight. You realize that if you married me, that would be it? You wouldn't have a chance to do it all over. You're only twenty-two."

"So what, now you're some kind of rational adult?" he snapped back, mocking her previous accusation of him suddenly being a gentleman.

"I don't want your life to be over because of me!" Reagan hissed, pressing her hands to her chest. "I'm not going to be the one to give you your life sentence, Dave! You're in a band, you're about to be famous even though you try over and over again to deny it and play it off like it's nothing! I've heard the songs off the record. I know what's happening."

"Who cares what happens? We'll be in it together. You're the only person I want standing by me for this."

"You may not feel that way in five, ten, twenty years," Reagan said, her voice shaking. "You don't know what could happen. All I know is how badly it's going to hurt when you're a god damn rockstar and you look over at me with regret and think shit, what would my life have been like if she hadn't shown up and taken it all away from me?"

"Do you hear yourself? You sound fucking ridiculous! All this because I asked you to marry me," Dave exclaimed in anger.

"It's not ridiculous to me. I see so much in you. There's so much potential. I won't take that away."

She turned around and walked towards her car even though she didn't have her keys, but Dave stopped her as he grabbed her arm and planted her in place. He forced her to look into his eyes as he spun her around to face him, giving her a gentle shake.

"Let's say you're right," he said huskily. "It works out for me. I get what I want. Now tell me what the absolute hell is going on in your brain to make you think you're not a part of every thing I've ever hoped for in my life?"

Reagan's glare dissolved when Dave slid his hands around her face. It was both familiar and wonderful to be cradled close by him and on top of that, she had been craving the feeling of being comforted by him alone all night and day. The part of her that wasn't stubborn wanted to fall against him and exhale all of the stress, fear and heartache she'd been holding deep inside.

But she couldn't. Not then.

"I need some time," she whispered. "Time alone to think."

Dave swallowed with difficulty, calculating how sincerely Reagan meant what she was saying. When he deduced that she was being serious, he let her go, allowing for a gap of space to fill between them.

"Alright," he complied, though he was bitter to do so. His remaining hope was that they did not have two different durations of time in mind.

He walked by her, digging his hand in his jean pockets for his car keys before pausing. Swiftly, he planted a kiss on her forehead. Reagan closed her eyes as he did so. She wanted to remember the way it felt, having him kiss her and love her and remind her of what had always been their fated sense of togetherness.

She would need the memory of it all if she was going to make a proper decision.