Back on campus, Cameron jogged up the stairs and went to his room.  Standing around for a moment, he checked the clock again.  It was eight-thirty, he realized as he dug through his drawers for a clean shirt.  He'd already woken up in last night's clothes.  He didn't need to go anywhere else in them.  Tugging a faded blue v-neck over his head, he headed over to his closest for some jeans.  Snatching a random pair off a hanger, he changed into them.  Sliding his feet into boots, he moved stuff around on his desk, searching for a pencil, a pen, a writing utensil of any kind.

After going through two drawers, he found an unopened box beneath a variety of non-school related items. "Fuck," rubbing his chin, he turned around in a mini-circle.  He had a backpack too somewhere.  He'd come to school with one, so it had to be in his room somewhere.  Kicking clothes aside, he checked the base of his dirty laundry mountain.  It wasn't there.  Reopening his closet, he searched the bottom.  Moving a hidden bottle of vodka aside, he shoved some pairs of shoes aside. 

Triumphant, he pulled it out and hit it so some of the dust would fall off.  Stalking back to his desk, he grabbed his microeconomics textbook and shoved it into his backpack.  Seizing some pencils and spare erasers he'd come across, he dumped them into the front zipper pocket of his backpack.

Heading into the bathroom, he quickly splashed some water onto his face and then brushed his teeth.  Returning to his room, he brushed his hair, grabbed his backpack, and headed out into the November sunlight.  Going through his phone, he checked the schedule he'd made three months ago.  He had no idea where his classes even were.  He just knew that it was Monday morning and he had microeconomics in less than fifteen minutes.  Looking around, he stared at the people around him, the ones who were regularly up at this hour.

"Andrews," he murmured, glancing around.  Despite never going to class, he knew where all of the academic buildings on campus were.

Nearly out of breath, and with five minutes to spare, he walked into the lecture hall, taken aback by the size.  He'd been inside before, but it'd been so long that he'd forgotten over one hundred kids were in his class.  Nate double-taked.

"Cameron?"

"Oh, hey," smiling, Cameron walked over, tucking his phone in his back pocket.

Nate stared at him, and then around the room as if he was confused. "What are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"You do know that it's almost nine o'clock, right?" Nate questioned, narrowing his eyes at the end.

"Yeah," Cameron nodded.

"In the morning?"

"Yeah," he repeated.

"What are you... this is a classroom," Nate stated, still perplexed.

"I know," Cameron said sharply. "I had to take Kith to school and I just decided to come."

"I'm still..." In a state of continued shock, Nate kept looking at him as if he was some sort of apparition. "Are you sure you're supposed to be here?"

"Fuck you, man," Cameron sat down and broke out a notebook.

At three o'clock, Cameron was back in the parking lot of Kith's high school, waiting for her.  Standing up as tall as he could, he looked over the teenage heads flooding the parking lot and the bus lanes, searching for her.

"Kith!" Cupping his hand over his mouth, he shouted as loudly as possible without being obnoxious, hoping she would turn around or notice him from wherever she was.  Nothing happened, so he did it again.  A flash of dark hair attracted his attention.

"What are you doing here?" she asked after he made it over to her.

"Picking you up," he answered happily.  His day had been pretty decent.  Although it hadn't been spent on the couch in the lounge, he still counted it as one of his good days.  Calculus had put a slight damper on it, but he still felt pretty good. "Come on. I have homework."

"What?" Remaining in place, she looked at him as if he was confused.  He'd gotten that look all day. "You don't have homework. If you're going to lie to me, at least make it believable."

"I'm not lying," he answered defensively, rubbing the back of his neck. "I went to my classes today, and apparently we have a test in microeconomics. I have a lot of reading to do, seeing as how I haven't done any of it."

Kith kept standing there, looking at him like he was crazy.  Shrugging, she followed him to his truck and got inside.

"And I'm doing this every day, by the way," he said while merging onto the highway. "Taking you to school and picking you up. Every day."

"Why?"

"'Cause you're pregnant and you shouldn't be walking alone in the dark every morning," he explained while speeding up and taking one hand off the wheel. "And you know what else you should do?"

"What?" Tying her hair into a messy bun, she rested her head against the cool glass.

"You should gimme your number," he said as casually as possible.  It wasn't supposed to be creepy.  It was for an important reason.  He'd been thinking about how to ask her all day, and every option was practically the same thing. 

Either way, he was bound to sound like he was hitting on her. "You know, if I'm running late or something. So you don't think I've stood you up or... whatever."

She gave him a strange look and smirked just a bit. "You want my number?"

"Yeah," he shrugged easily and switched into another lane. "For... this."

"When we get back to the house," relaxing, she closed her eyes.

When they got back to the house, Cameron did as promised.  While Kith did her homework on his bed, he flipped through pages and pages and pages of definitions and colored graphs.  Although his eyes grew tired, he stayed awake, cramming more information into his brain than he ever had before.  Even when Kith finished all of her assignments, Cameron remained on the floor, legs criss-crossed, leaning over his book as if sitting so closely would make it all easier to remember.  She could barely believe her eyes, but she kept her mouth shut in order to preserve his concentration.

Right before he fell asleep, she gave him her number, and he felt strangely fulfilled.  It wasn't creepy.  It was just to make communicating with her easier.  He was helping her out; that was it.

And so it continued.

Every week, Cameron and Kith got up at the same time in the dark cold.  He took her to school and he picked her up; he never needed use of the cell phone, but he was sure it would come up in the future.  He would rather have it beforehand than leave her standing on the sidewalk, freezing her ass off.  Cameron went to class and took notes and tests.

Back in his room, while passing the time between his classes and picking up Kith, he read and did homework.  When the rest of his house found out that he was actually going to school, they made fun of him, thinking it wasn't going to last.  But eventually it became the norm, and it was less entertaining to make fun of him for doing exactly what they were doing.

On a December afternoon, Cameron sat in his truck, waiting on Kith to make her way over.  He parked in the same general area every single day, so it was never that hard to find him.  If she ever looked lost, he texted her that he could see her, which she never failed to say was creepy; he thought it was funny.

With the heat on, the cold was slightly more bearable.  He'd left the frat house with sweats, a long-sleeved, black shirt, and a gray beanie.  He didn't like how cold it had gotten.  In a couple weeks, he'd be back home for an entire month.  It wasn't going to be much better.  And there was still a problem with their upcoming winter break.

Getting in the car, Kith slammed the door more ferociously than normal and turned away from him.  Refusing to make eye contact, or say anything-sometimes they actually had conversations in the truck-she buckled up and rubbed her fist beneath her nose.  Her stomach had gotten a little bigger, a little more noticeable.  Cameron couldn't tell if that was actually true, or if it was just in his head.

"What's the matter?"

She didn't answer him.  She just sat there, sniffling.

Kith never came across as the kind of girl who cried often.  Something serious must have happened.  What were high schoolers notorious for?  They liked talking shit.  And Kith provided their typically bland high school experience with the perfect gossip: teen pregnancy.

"Someone say something to you?" He changed his question while getting a little annoyed.  She kept to herself, or so he assumed.  She never talked about friends or guys or anything.  He figured she just went to school to go to class and get her assignments and stuff.

What was the appeal in making fun of the people who did the least?  Cocking his head to the side, he looked at her and swallowed some guilt.  He used to do that, all the time.  He'd been one of those kids in high school.  But there'd never been a pregnant girl, at least none that he'd known about.  And he'd never made anyone cry. At least I hope not.

Slowly, she nodded.

"Who?" Cameron ground his teeth together and stared over the few remaining in the parking lot, hanging around cars and talking.  He wanted to know who was harassing her, because they were assholes.  He didn't have to know any of them, boy or girl.  He just knew they were assholes.  Kith didn't say anything. "Are girls saying things to you?"

She nodded again.

"Boys saying stuff to you?"

"Yes," she answered, wiping beneath her eyes with the sleeve of her faded, pink hoodie. "Everyones slut shaming me."

"Don't cry, Kith." That's all he could to say.

"Can we just go?" she asked sharply, wiping her face again.

Obliging, Cameron turned the key in the ignition and drove back to campus.

Up in their room, Kith tossed her backpack to the floor and sat on the bed with her back to him.  Cameron stood there, tossing his keys up and down, thinking about some way to make her feel better.

"You should slam the door."

"What?"

"Slam the door," he pointed to it. "Just pretend I'm your annoying older brother and slam the door in my face."

"I don't... no," she shook her head and adjusted her hoodie around her stomach.

"It'll make you feel better," he said enticingly.

Turning around, she looked at him skeptically.  The lines were clear on her face, shimmering just a bit in the light coming through the window.  Getting up, she walked across the room as he backed up until he was in the hallway.  Blinking, she slammed the door so hard that his ears rang for a bit.

Considering his job done for the time being, he descended the stairs and made his way to the kitchen.  He'd had a deep craving for chips the whole day.

"What the hell was that?" Nate asked, glancing up from the table.

"Kith slamming the door," he said casually, opening one of the top cabinets. "Some kids at her school were saying stuff about her, so..."

"'Cause of the pregnant thing?"

"Duh," Cameron made a face and sat down at the table across from him, crunching thoughtfully.  The plastic crinkled as he moved his hand back and forth inside.

"I remember at my school, some girl got knocked up senior year, and kids laid into her," Nate explained, turning a page in his textbook. "It was relentless. It was mostly the girls, 'cause they can be assholes. But some of the guys were doing it to, and they said some really horrible things. I feel bad for her. She's only seventeen, right?"

"Yeah," Cameron nodded and placed the bag on the table, rubbing crumbs off the tip of his fingers, he stared off into space.  Is that what they were doing to Kith?  She said that they were calling her a whore, but he was fairly certain that there was more than that. 

What if it got so bad that she stopped going to school?  She can't do that, he mused.  She definitely had to graduate from high school.  College might not be in her previously planned future, but she at least needed a high school diploma. "How come no one ever blames the guy?"

Nate shrugged.

"She didn't get herself pregnant," Cameron said somewhat angrily, glaring down at the table.  He no longer wanted the chips.  He wanted to personally punch all the guys in the face who were talking shit about her.  He wouldn't hit the girls; that wasn't cool. He wanted to hit anyone who even looked at her funny.  It was just a baby.  There were worse things in the world.  Getting up from the table, he shook his head, and stalked out of the room.  Freezing cold or not, he was in the mood for a run.

D'aw. Cam being adorable and wanting her number.

TEASER: "Where are the babies?"