"Hey, Emily! How was the doctor's appointment?"
She stayed quiet as I kissed her and stood still when I went back into the kitchen. It took me a minute to notice she hadn't followed me.
"Em?" I poked my head back out. She was staring at the couch.
"What's wrong, Em?" I went back over to her and put my hands on her shoulders. "Are you really sick? Is it serious?"
Emily shook her head. "No, not like that. I'm pregnant."
"Oh. But I thought-"
"Yeah, I guess I missed a couple days when we were camping? I didn't really think about it."
I pulled her close. "What do you want to do?"
She pushed away from me. "What do I want to do? What are you talking about?"
"Do you want to... do you want to get rid of it? Do you want kids? We haven't really talked about this at all."
"I figured we would have more time to decide."
"Yeah, me too." Emily sat down on the couch with a heavy squeak of the battered springs and didn't say anything else. After a minute, I followed her.
"I don't want to push you either way. Bodily autonomy and all." I put my hand on her knee, rubbing the corduroy and probably staring too intently at the patterns I could make on it with my fingers.
"I... I think I want to keep it."
"Oh, good." I was surprised at my own relief.
"I was afraid you-" She laughed at me. "I should just assume you're still a good Catholic boy, shouldn't I?"
"So what do we do?"
"Do?"
"I mean..." I looked around at our apartment. What had felt like plenty of space for the two of us, with our murphy bed and our tiny kitchen, no longer seemed like such a perfect space. We would need things, right?
And Emily would probably quit her job, at least for a little while. I would need a better one to make up for the lost income and for the extra mouth. How would I do that? I could put in more hours, maybe, but not that many. Maybe I could find a second job.
"Stop it," she said, her voice cutting through my internal monologue. "I can see it in your face. You're thinking a mile a minute, aren't you?"
I nodded. "There's just so many things I have to plan-"
Emily shook her head. "Don't, okay? Not yet. This is still sinking in. I don't know how I feel yet. No, I know how I feel." She sighed and leaned back into the couch. "I feel the same. There's no shift, no magical moment where I know. I always thought, you know. You know."
"Are you going to call your mom?"
"Not yet," Emily confessed. "I can't deal with her right now."
"How about spaghetti?"
She looked at me in confusion. "What?"
"Can you deal with spaghetti? Because dinner's about ready, and I think you'll feel better once you've eaten something." I stood up and offered her my hand.
"Probably," Emily smiled. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," I said as she stood. I hurried toward the kitchen. "Now as for names..."
Emily shrieked and laughed as I dodged the pillow she threw after me.