He She It

eight: the shit boyfriend scale

"... and it's just really hard to measure myself and stuff, you know?" Grace said, starting on her second veggie burger as Lilly hummed in acknowledgement, too engrossed in watching (and cringing at) the biggest cheese-fest she'd seen since her Mum forced her to watch The Notebook to pay attention to a) Grace's measuring difficulties and b) the fact that Grace, who until just recently had survived solely on salads, smoothies and sushi, was now shoving carbs down her throat like somebody was about to take them away from her.

Lilly idly picked at her lunch, now deeply regretting ever interfering with Amara's love-life. Ever since she'd come out of the bowling alley on Saturday, she'd had the same dopey smile on her face - she'd looked so out of it that for the first twenty-four hours Lilly had assumed she'd gone and snorted something funny off the toilet seats, which, while potentially life-threatening, at least wouldn't have been even half as annoying as having to listen to a permanent stream of out-of-tune love songs and decode Natalie's text messages.

(To Lilly, most of them seemed to blatantly scream 'I WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU,' but she wasn't exactly skilled in the art of interpreting the oh-so-subtly flirtatious messages of teenage girls).

(Or teenage boys, for that matter).

(Lilly was rarely ever the recipient of oh-so-subtly flirtatious messages, which was a mystery to absolutely nobody but herself).

In short, Amara was lovesick, and it had officially passed the line from cute to downright annoying - at least in Lilly's opinion. She was even giggling, for Christ's sake. And the other night she'd voluntarily watched Love Actually, which she'd previously said was 'about as enjoyable as wart removal, only more painful.'

If it wasn't so weird, it almost might have been impressive.

"Would you mind helping me, Lilly?" Grace asked, tapping Lilly's shoulder to drag her attention away from Amara and Natalie. She batted her eyelashes, eyes stretched to their full, adorable capacity. "Please. It'll only take like half an hour after school today."

Lilly translated this last piece of information to: "you can spend half an hour envying my waistline and eating your way through my ice-cream supply or you can spend half an hour on the same bus as Michael Brooks trying not to throttle him." Naturally, she went for the option least likely to put her in a young offenders' institute.

"You owe me, Hammond," she said, winking as Grace downed the last of a bright green concoction that she insisted was not half as disgusting as it looked (Lilly would have to argue that anything that involved blending broccoli down to a lumpy pulp could not possibly even come close to tasting decent). "Just please, don't pay me back with one of those things."

"They're good for you!" Grace protested, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "They keep you slim."

"And if I'm ever morbidly obese, I might just consider one. Until then, though," Lilly said, waving a Coke can in the air. "I think I'll stick to this."

***

"Jesus Christ, Grace, just take your top off."

Grace's cheeks tinged pink, and she lay back on her bed next to Lilly, who - as she'd predicted - was making a considerable dent in a tub of Ben and Jerry's. She stared up at the ceiling for the best part of five minutes, and then sighed.

"I need to tell you something, Lil."

"Okay," Lilly said, licking the back of her spoon. Ice-cream had an awful tendency of making Lilly overly casual about things; she'd been eating it when her parents had announced their divorce and she'd responded with little more than 'cool, when's dinner?' Only when her spoon had hit the bottom of the tub had her emotions kicked back in. "What is it, Gracie?"

"This is it," Grace said, pulling the bottom of her t-shirt up to reveal her stomach, which was looking significantly larger than it did in the various photos of her posing by a pool in a bikini that lined her wall. She placed a hand on the swelling, lower lip wobbling. "I'm pregnant, Lilly."

"Bloody hell," Lilly muttered, gaze drifting from the bump up to Grace's face. "Who... I mean, do you know who its Dad is?"

Grace gave her a tight smile, pulling her t-shirt back over her stomach. It was baggy, Lilly noticed. "That's where it gets even better," she said, in a tone that suggested it was not going to get better in the slightest. "Do you remember my last boyfriend?"

Lilly did, vaguely. On the shit boyfriend scale of one to Michael Brooks, Ryan Kurosawa had been a solid three: decent enough not to warrant a restraining order and police protection, but not exactly an ideal father figure, a personality flaw that Grace did probably not need reminding of.

Lilly settled for a nod, trying to rearrange her face into an expression that didn't scream: 'you're fucked.' A quick glance in Grace's mirror confirmed her failure, and she sighed.

"Have you told him?" she asked, and then reworded the question. "Have you told anyone?"

"Just you, Nat, and my parents," Grace said. "I - I'm keeping it."

Lilly smiled and patted the bump, just identifiable underneath Grace's oversized t-shirt. "You're going to be a great Mum, Hammond."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

***

(A/N: i figured i might as well go all the way with the 'controversial' stuff and so here we are: a teenage pregnancy and a trans model. fight me, bigots).