The parking lot stretched out like some kind of concrete purgatory, the September wind cutting through Ewan’s threadbare flannel - one of those Goodwill finds with someone else's initials stitched into the collar. Three weeks, it has been three fucking weeks of radio silence after he'd practically crawled on his goddamn knees asking them to prom with his voice cracking like he was thirteen again getting his wrist snapped over a broken dish.
His boots scraped against asphalt, that scritch-scritch-scritch’ing sound that usually meant someone was about to get their face rearranged. But there, by the chain-link fence near the dumpsters where kids went to smoke and pretend they weren't scared shitless of their futures, there they were.
"The FUCK you think you're doin'?" The words tore out before his brain could catch up with itself, his drawl thickening with each syllable. "Three weeks, bro. THREE FUCKIN' WEEKS of nothin'!"
His pace sped up with misplaced rage and determination. The same walk Jedediah used to do before the belt came off. Fuck. No. He wasn't like that old bastard, but the anger burned through his veins like battery acid.
"You ghost me? ME? After I—after we—" His voice cracked again, this time with something rawer than adolescence. "What, was I not good enough? Too fucked up for you? Yeah, bet that's it, innit? Poor little Ewan with his white trash daddy issues and his—"
The paper in their hands finally caught his eye, the official document standing out even in his rage clouded mind. His hand shot out, snatching it before they could react, with those big hands of his that could crack walnuts or windpipes with equal effort.
Patient exhibits signs of early pregnancy approximately 8-10 weeks—
The world tilted as his mind spun to his truck, to the backseat that still smelled like sweat and them together. The truck bed under the stars while he'd whispered shit he'd never told anyone before, not even when he was calling his mama's disconnected number at 3 AM.
"You're—" The word stuck in his throat like broken glass. His eyes darted between the paper and what he was reading, trying to connect the scattered dots in his brain. Eight to ten weeks. Prom was seven weeks ago. Before that, all those nights when he'd been so careful except when he wasn't. When he'd poked those holes thinking maybe, just maybe, if they were stuck with him—
"This is mine. This is ours.” It wasn’t worded as a question, if he stated it as anything but certain fact, the horrifying reality that it might not be his sets in, so it’s a declaration. His free hand found their shoulder, his grip was painfully tight as he tried to ground himself in this moment. "You weren’t gonna tell me? Just gonna disappear like—like she did?"
The comparison to his mother slipped out before he could stop it, and something violently painful flickered across his features. His fingers dug in harder.
"Nah. Nah, you don't get to do that. You don't get to take our child away from me."
