Never again is what you said the time before

Lily wasn't sure where she was going. Damn if that term paper was keeping her busy about the sediments and the eroding environments of the Missouri river. Why did she ever choose this topic?

"Well, didn't you say you were going into environmental science?" Brick reminded her while at the library that she didn't like art anymore. It was just an accident that he was there. Of course, he was getting everything set up for the high school jazz band and he wasn't even singing.

"It's not," she sighed with a heavy heart. "It's.." for a moment she wanted to tell her first love everything. As if they might go back in time when they weren't even in middle school. Back when she was a princess and he was just a pauper who always had something to show her in the neighborhood. "I like art," she nodded, but that was back when she thought her dad was king(Even if he'd gotten on at the University Art department and was in every children's art program at the local art museum) and she wanted to be an artist too. "I'm..I'm just not good at it." She was closed-lipped. She forgot to ask him how Harley was. Besides, she had loads of notes to go through. It had been quiet here, until now.

"But that's the way it is," he awoke her exhausting notion that this was all there was to get done before Christmas.

"What?" She really needed to copy and paste this paper together, but she was full of dread about that other problem too. A problem she didn't even really know if it was even true.

"You know, you have to keep trying. You have to keep working at it." He left it at that and she got her stuff together when the Christmas jazz started. She knew what he was talking about, but it couldn't be about art. No, not in her mindset.

She quickly got to the drugstore in Gram's old car that she'd given to Lily. After all, Gram had a new car. Funny, she wondered how Gram could do that. Sometimes, she wondered if she was holding her grandmother back. She might be in Norway right now with that old guy she met on her summer cruise. 

Lily's heart was in full throttle, it felt as if she was in some sort of nightmare when she met Boone's brother face to face. She'd been avoiding Boone all week. Of course, she was working on her last term paper.

"Can I help you find something?" Alfie grinned. Lily couldn't help herself as she burst into tears. She could hardly catch her breath.

He gave her a hug, and told her there was someone here in the walk-in clinic he was certain could help. She wanted to pull away. She didn't want to know, but she did. Was she or wasn't she pregnant?

She looked around at all the last-minute shoppers. She sighed wishing she wasn't here. It felt like such a long walk and within minutes she got the results she'd been putting off. Of course, she was elated with the results.

"Perhaps, you've been under a lot of stress," the nurse practitioner said.

"Oh," she nodded. Was that it? Lily told the nurse how Thanksgiving was exhausting and how she needed to get this paper done before the holidays. Her teacher had extended the time for her, due to her travels back in November.

It was a relief, yet not. She knew she was at fault. She knew how she'd stressed Boone too. She thought of all those times when she didn't want him to use a condom. She wanted everything to take its natural course. Funny, she kept thinking how she wanted it all to be natural.  Before she knew it the practitioner had her an appointment made at the clinic where Lily generally went to health care. She guessed she was growing up. She wasn't seeing the pediatrician anymore.