I was sleeping in my own bed alone, and I had to admit it to myself. It hadn’t been that long yet, but already I was too used to sleeping in the same bed with Rogue. With him gone, it felt so uncomfortable I couldn’t even get a proper sleep. So, when I heard my phone ring on the nightstand, I was only half asleep.“Who could that be this early in the morning,” I muttered to myself.My eyes squinted open. The room was still dark, but it was a little bright, and I could tell it was really early, but it was morning.“Ugh,” I groaned, reaching my hand out from underneath the covers. I was practically curled in on myself because it felt too cold in bed alone. I grabbed the phone and dragged it over to me.The name on the screen woke me up in an instant.Simon?Why the hell was he calling me at six in the morning?I answered the call quickly as I sat up. “Good morning, sir,” I said, clearing my throat as my voice came out a bit hoarse.Why the hell was he calling me so early in the morning

I sat across from Mom at a table in the hospital cafeteria. Rogue wasn’t with us, because he’d volunteered to buy the food for us while the two of us waited.“I hope you weren’t too bored,” Mom said, smiling at me as she braced an elbow on top of the desk and rested her chin in her hand.“We were fine,” I said with a shrug. “It’s not like we’d have anything to do at home, anyway, so it’s better to be nearby, right?”Mom hummed, but didn’t reply, looking away, toward where Rogue was standing, purchasing food for us.Since I didn’t have a job anymore, and I wasn’t exactly in a hurry to be looking for a new one just yet, I’d been appearing at the hospital with Rogue pretty often. Not that we always went together, but it was rarer for one of us to show up alone, so this was something Mom was growing used to. It did bring its own complications, though. Rogue and I had mostly been walking around outside the hospital, since we would only be in the way if all three of us ended up in Richard’

I let out a groan of frustration as I threw myself back into the couch. I was at home in my living room, with my laptop open in front of me on the low coffee table. I’d been looking online for jobs, and a while back I found a good lead, and applied. I just got back a reply.It was a bit soon to be getting a reply. If it took a couple weeks to a month, I would feel better about my chances of getting the job. When I saw I’d gotten a reply already, I knew it was bad before I opened it, and sure enough, it was a rejection.“Fuck,” I muttered to myself. “What am I going to do?”It was a bit early to be getting too panicked over this, but I couldn’t not worry about it, either. I’d gotten my paycheck for my last month of work at the company. I didn’t miss how I didn’t get any commission out of the job I had been working on with Simon, even though I’d done considerable work on it. I at least got paid for all the overtime I’d pulled. I couldn’t go back there and complain or they’d just slap me

A week after Dad passed away, we started preparing for the funeral. Hannah was so distraught over the whole thing that all three of us had to get involved with burying Dad.There was a part of me that felt like, since I was doing this, in a way, I was making up to my dad for being a disappointment. We didn’t get to talk much since I got out of prison, even though I’d gotten to visit him a few times. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, but either Hannah was talking with him, or he couldn’t speak, even when he was awake.I’d gotten him to look at me, and he didn’t look at me with the disappointment from before, but because he didn’t say it out loud that he forgave me, I couldn’t take it as if he did.At least, he’d looked at peace the last time I saw him, and he seemed to be glad that Claire and I were getting along well when we showed up at his room together.Still, I hadn't done enough for him. Hell, I hadn't done a single fucking thing for him.It was too late to make things up to him.

“Say what?”I was still a bit dazed from Claire’s confession. “I told you to sit down. But you insisted on standing,” she said as we stood in the living room. I came home and thought that I’ll bring her something that I made this afternoon. It was the best Bouillabaisse that I'd ever made and she was a fan of French cuisine, so I brought it home in between class.“I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a baby.”It was as if she’d rehearsed the speech as she said it, over and over again.We were going to be parents.I was going to be a dad.Shit!“Great,” I said as I lifted her up and hugged her. Fuck, I wish that I was taking acting classes and not culinary, because I was fucking panicking, but I didn’t want her to worry. I wasn’t going to run away from this, but it was a little much to take in. I never thought of becoming a dad, so something like this being sprung at me out of nowhere would obviously be a shock.It was definitely my responsibility, and I really wanted to be with Claire,