“She said something dumb,” I told him, leaning back against the wall. “She said that maybe my mom’s soul has been reincarnated and that’s why I’m pregnant.”

He sat down next to me, his back against the same wall.

“You don’t want to raise this baby,” he said, looking out the window.

“No,” I said. “You don’t, either.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t. We’ve got this amazing thing going with our music, and I don’t want to risk it. If we slow down, if we get off the train we’re on now, I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to jump back on.”

We were both quiet for a minute as the words settled around us. As their meaning did.

“Do you want to carry this baby?” he asked softly, sliding his gloved hand into mine. “Do you want to have it at all?”

I followed his gaze out the window and watched some pine needles swirl in the winter wind.

“I don’t know,” I told him, honestly.

“That’s what I thought you’d say,” he said.

He let go of my hand, pulling a little plastic bag out of his pocket and rolling a joint. “Just a little,” he said, as he lit it and inhaled.

When he breathed out, it smelled so good.

“One hit,” I said, and then filled my lungs. I felt myself starting to relax. It was working already. Or maybe it was psychosomatic. But whatever it was, it felt good. Then I took another hit. And another. And one more after that. Deep drags that I held in my lungs until it felt like they’d burst.

“Hey there,” your dad said, taking back the joint. “Now that we know, you probably should chill with stuff like this.”

I thought about my mom’s theory: all things happen the way they’re supposed to. I was supposed to smoke. He was supposed to take the joint away.

“Why do you keep saying everything’s going to be okay?” I asked him. “How do you know?”

He shrugged. “After my parents got divorced, my mom always used to tell me and my sisters that everything is always okay in the end, and if it’s not okay, it just means it isn’t the end.”

“So whatever happens, it’ll be okay.” I leaned my head against his shoulder, feeling relaxed and kind of blurry around the edges.

“Yeah, whatever happens, it’ll be okay.”

I looked up at him, his eyes looking extra vivid, extra green. “Do you want me not to have this baby?”