No matter how prepared I am for the talk, I dread the question yet to come.

“Do you want to keep the baby?” Sandy asks, her eyes fixed on my pregnancy record book in her hand. Scrappy handwriting in blue ink read Charlotte Garnett stares back at her.

I glance down at my belly, which is hidden under my maroon hoodie. Last week, I didn’t know there was a bun snuggling inside my womb, depending on me for life. When the doctor confirmed I was twelve weeks pregnant this morning, my world began to turn upside down, and I don’t know how to put it back up. My head has been scampering inside a massive maze, not knowing where to go.

“I don’t know,” I say, almost whispering.

I want to do so many things in life and love to challenge myself. I’m always intrigued to try stuff most people won’t, even if it’s in a morally grey area because I hate to limit myself. My bucket list of ideas about what to do before I die gets longer every time, but having a baby is never one of them.

“It’s not too late if you want to abort it.” Sandy’s voice falters. “I mean, it was conceived in one drunken night and you don’t know who the father is. Plus, you’d been drinking until last week when you suspected you were pregnant.” She puts back my book on her computer desk, careful not to drop it as if it were the baby itself. “I’m no expert, but carrying a baby in your final year of uni is hard, especially when the father isn’t in the picture. Those are valid reasons, right?”

I purse my lips, considering my best friend’s advice while trying to see all possibilities. “Maybe I can go back to that frat house and ask around? Maybe I can find that motherfucker.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Ask around how? Something like ‘Hey, do you guys know the guy I fucked three months back at one of your parties’?” She scoffs. “Get real, Char. Do you even remember what he looked like? His hair color? His name?”

“No, not really.” I sigh before throwing myself backward onto Sandy’s bed. “I do remember his eyes, though. It’s green, emerald green. And he has dark hair.”

“Dark as in black or dark brown?”

“I’m not sure. The room was too dark to see the difference.”

“Any recollection of his name? Nickname maybe?”

I stare blankly at Sandy’s bedroom ceiling, trying to remember anything useful to track the person, but nothing comes up. I shake my head in defeat.

“Whose name did you scream when you had an orgasm, then? Don’t tell me you moaned Ethan’s name.”

I shoot my friend a glare, icy enough to freeze a dragon’s throat. “Can we not discuss my orgasm now? A more important matter needs to be addressed. Urgently.”

Sandy throws her hands in the air. “Sorry. I was just curious. How could you not remember anything about the guy you banged all night?”

“I was drunk, okay? It was the night Ethan broke up with me. I was so lost and in need of cock,” I say, half flinching after the last word leaves my mouth.

“You got one all right, and you’ve got the bonus, too. There.” Sandy points at my belly.

I groan as I put my hands over my face. “I swear we used fucking condoms that night. That rubbish.”

“Char, are you sure it’s not Ethan’s?”

“I’m sure as hell. We hadn’t had sex for weeks when we broke up. If it was his, I would’ve been four months preggo.”

Sandy nods, but the frown never leaves her face. “Seriously though, even if you found him, what were you going to say to him?”

“That we are pregnant? Maybe we can figure out what to do together?” Granted, I sound like the dumbest person alive. Or maybe I could blame it on my pregnancy brain.

“We? There is no we. You two aren’t a couple. And what makes you think he remembers you?” she asks. “If he remembers you and what happened that night, he will easily say ‘abort it’. If he doesn’t recognize you, he will think you’re a mad girl who is desperately in need of a random guy to father her child.”

I let out a moan. I hate it when Sandy throws facts at me.

The scene of the wild night flashes in my head. I was pissed and disappointed with Ethan, my boyfriend of two years, because he chose to break up with me instead of working on our problems. I begged him to give me a chance to explain, but his mind was set. The next thing I knew, I agreed with my classmate, Willy, to crash at a frat party on another campus in town. I needed to forget my shitty night.

Never go to a frat party and drink your ass off after a messy breakup. I wish I’d listened to this piece of advice, but I didn’t. As the night wore on, I danced my pain away and chugged down any alcohol within reach. Surprisingly, I didn’t puke from too much drinking, but I got horny. Very horny. As if the universe took pity on my desperation for escapism, I bumped into a hot guy with a pair of mesmerizing green eyes. Just what I needed because he was in the same mental state: tipsy and eager to fuck.

One thing led to another, and before I knew it, we ended up in one of the empty bedrooms, playing hide the sausage. It was bliss. Despite how much I still wanted Ethan back, the sex helped me numb the stinging pain from the fresh breakup. But when I woke up the next morning, naked and moaning at the throbbing headache from the hangover, I panicked when I found a stranger beside me, snoring and also as bare as I was.

The next thing I did was get dressed and run.

I groan again at the memory before rolling myself to the side, burying my face in Sandy’s fluffy throw pillow. “What am I going to do?”

“I would think terminating the pregnancy is a wise choice right now.”

“I don’t know, Sandy. I saw it on the ultrasound monitor this morning. It already looked like a real baby!” My throat tightens at the mental image. “I can’t kill it. It would haunt me for the rest of my life.”

“So, you want to keep it.”

Sandy concludes for me, but I can’t agree with her, either. Instead, the last people I want to deal with rebelliously pop up in my head. And I whimper. “My parents will kill me.”

She looks at me with a soft gaze, almost pitying me; the exact look she always gives me every time I fuck up. And I hate it because I always screw up. I don’t need a reminder from anyone else that my life is a mess. A gigantic ball of mess.

“If you want to keep it, you need to figure out how to break the news to them sooner or later. The sooner the better.”

“I know.” I heave a sigh. “They will be livid for sure. It’ll prove to them right that I’m still the impulsive girl who never learns and has no reservations about her future.”

She gets up from her chair and plops down next to me. She runs her fingers through my brown lock, gently brushing the part that covers my face backward. “You might be a little impulsive, but what I see from you is a brave, open-minded, and non-judgmental person. And you give a fucking damn about your future. Don’t let their words get in your head.”

I squeeze Sandy’s hand on my hair and force a smile. “You always know how to make me feel better.”

“And you know that whatever decision you make, I will support you. If you want to terminate it, I will be there during the whole process. If you want to keep it, I’ll help however I can until the delivery time.”

Thinking about the labor is enough to make my stomach twist. My vision of life ends where my water breaks. I can’t see anything beyond that because it’s too terrifying. But since the due date is in six months, I seriously need to prepare myself. “How will I raise the baby?”

She frowns. “Huh? Do you want to raise the baby yourself? I thought–”

“I would give it away?” I finish her line as a faint jab hits my chest.

She nods. “I thought you wanted to keep it because you just didn’t have the heart to kill it,” she says, knitting her eyebrows. “You don’t want it in the first place, right? I mean, after the baby is born, you can make another family happy with their new little bundle. Then you can move on with your life.”

Ignoring the growing unsettled feeling in me, I admit Sandy has her point. My life might be put on pause at this very moment, but I can move on after making sure the baby is in good hands. Because I deserve a future too, hopefully with Ethan back in the picture.

I force a smile. “I guess I can do that."