“THIS WAS A HORRIBLE idea,” Grayson muttered from beside me. I was surprised I could hear him over my blubbering.
“It’s s-so beautiful…” I sniffled as I grabbed another tissue.
“Okay, no more.” He reached forward and grabbed the remote off the table.
“Nooooo.”
Did I just whine?
Grayson arched a brow, clearly unimpressed with my imitation of a five-year-old. I held up my hands—tissues overflowing out of one—and rushed out, “I’msorrycanwepleasekeepwatching? I’ll stop crying.”
He shook his head and, with a sigh, set the remote back down, not calling me out on my lie. There was no way I’d stop.
Grayson was right. This was a terrible idea.
We were at my apartment because I was getting more and more nervous to leave. I really didn’t want my water to break while I was strolling through Walmart or out at a restaurant. Talk about mortifying…
My hormones and nerves were all over the place. I cried during about half the commercials. So thinking I could handle America’s Got Talent, watching people’s dreams come true and the joy on their faces when it happened, was pretty stupid.
No one accused you of being smart.
No. Stop. I silenced the voice in my head as quickly as it came. I was happy. Even with all the unknowns and the fear, I was genuinely happy. I wouldn’t let my mother take that from me.
I smiled, rubbing my hands over my baby bump. I was due any day now. It wasn’t an ideal situation. I was twenty-one—as of last month, single, and a recovering alcoholic. None of those were promising traits for a mother, let alone all three.
But I was away from any environment that made me feel guilty for simply being who I was. I was living with my older brother and Naomi, getting ready to welcome a baby into this world with the wonderful man beside me.
Wait. That came out wrong.
Actually, it sounded incredibly right—probably only to me. Grayson was simply a friend. He’d be beside me in a friend capacity. Friend.
I hated that word.
I often had to repeat it to myself when I was around him. Otherwise I got caught in fantasies that would crush me when I came back down to Earth.
The truth—while a little painful and sad—was definitely the safer option.
Like right now. I could imagine he shifted a little closer to me. I could pretend that his eyes lingered on my lips when he thought I wasn’t looking.
But none of that would do me any good. So I stuck with the truth. The two of us were sitting on my couch—at a respectable distance that didn’t once shrink—watching TV together… as friends.
With a sigh, I wiggled around, looking for a more comfortable position. My back was aching and I was cramping more than ever, but that wasn’t unusual lately.
“Are you okay?” Grayson asked. I turned to find his unflinching stare on me, concern swirling in his dark brown eyes.
“What? Oh yeah. You’re right, though. We should probably change this. I know the last thing you want to deal with is an overly emotional girl who can’t stop crying.” But even as I said it, I realized my tears had dried.
His lips pulled down into a frown. “I’d deal fine. I just don’t like to see you upset.”
“Oh,” I whispered.
“Maybe we should watch—” he started, only to stop when I let out a sob.
My hands flew to my watermelon-sized stomach, a sharp pain ricocheting through my body. A shrill scream left me and Grayson was immediately alert, bolting upright and asking all the right questions. Questions I wouldn’t be able to think of on my most calm and collected day.
“What’s the pain like?”
“Have you experienced it before?”
“Squeeze my hand whenever you feel a contraction. I’ll time it, okay?”
I’d been so prepared, so excited, for this baby. Now all I felt was bone-deep terror. All the joy was gone.
How was I going to do this alone?
How would I stay sober?
I’m about to have a baby.
A wiggly, screaming, depend-on-me-for-everything, tiny human being.
My thoughts were almost paralyzing.
“Hey.” I looked toward the voice, finding Grayson’s calm eyes on me. “You’re okay, Ellie. I’ve got you.”
I took a deep breath and with a nod, let him help me up. We walked as fast as possible to the door, Grayson grabbing my to-go bag on the way. It had been sitting by the front door for nearly two months, courtesy of Naomi.
I’d never hated living on the second story of our apartment complex, with only one elevator on the other side of the building, more. I paused at the top, preparing myself, when suddenly my legs buckled.
No, no, no…
I can’t fall. My baby…
My freak-out stopped when I realized I was in Grayson’s arms. He stared at me, quiet, assessing. I blew out a breath as another contraction hit. Once it passed, he quickly—yet carefully—made his way down the stairs and to his car. He didn’t bother setting me down again.
I gripped my knees once I was in the passenger seat, trying to keep the scream that wanted to rip out of me from releasing. Grayson climbed in on his side, and we were on the main road before my next contraction hit.
“Grayson… I—I’m scared. What if he’s not healthy? What if he comes out wrong? What if I screw everything up? What if—”
My hysteria made it impossible to continue. The tears rushing down my face had a clear path from all the crying I’d done earlier.
“Hey,” he said forcefully, throwing me a quick glance before refocusing on the road. “Nothing is going to happen. I won’t let it. We’ll get you there. You’ll deliver a beautiful baby boy who looks just like his mother, and everything will be fine.”
I never officially found out the gender, but I’d always had this feeling the baby was a boy. Grayson didn’t mock me for it. Not once.
“Focus, Ellie. Breathe. Everything will be fine,” he said, removing one hand from the wheel to shove my already sweat-soaked hair behind my ear. I finally listened to him. I gave up on talking and my eyes squeezed shut as the sharp pains continued, lasting longer and getting worse.
“Tell me the name.”
“What?” I panted out.
“The name of your son. You have one, right?”
Nodding, I gritted my teeth, waiting for a contraction to pass before answering. “Andy. I’m naming him Andy.”
He tried to ask me a few other questions to distract me, but it was useless. What felt like hours, and yet seconds, later, we pulled up to the emergency room. He parked haphazardly, which was very unlike him since I once saw him repark his car three times until it was to his satisfaction.
“You didn’t repark,” I mumbled. I didn’t recognize my own voice. He lifted me from the car. Over his shoulder I saw someone coming toward us with a wheelchair.
“What?” he asked, looking at me like I was crazy.
“You usually repark. You line up your pens and papers so everything is neat. You always straighten things out. You…”
He smiled as I rambled on, something I was prone to do, but I had a feeling my nerves were heightening it. I couldn’t imagine revealing to him how much I noticed about him otherwise.
“You’ll call my brother?” I asked, now sitting in the wheelchair. He reached down and squeezed my hand.
“Of course.”
My fingers tightened around his until I was forced away, and our contact broke. Our eyes stayed connected until I was wheeled through the doors, where life as I knew it was about to change forever.
I was leaning against the wall outside Ellie’s room, staring at the ground as my thoughts raced. Her pregnancy had been going smoothly, so there was no reason to think there would be any complications. Still, I couldn’t stop the nerves from settling in my bones.
That was what happened when someone you cared about was going through something so stressful. It didn’t matter that she was in a hospital, that she had some of the best doctors in the state (I checked), or that there was no proof anything would go wrong. When you cared about someone, you feared everything. It was natural, and there was no logic to be found. Trust me, I’d looked.
“Matty!” a female voice yelled just as a Superman action figure slid across the floor in front of me. I glanced to my right and saw a young boy sprawled out on the ground, his arms bracing his weight as he scrambled up like he hadn’t tripped and fallen on his face. Before he could dart away, the girl behind him grabbed his arm.
“Matty, quit running away from me.” He looked about eight and she couldn’t have been much older than sixteen. His head was turned toward his discarded toy, but she grabbed his chin and forced his eyes on her. “You remember what I said, right?”
“That mommy gave us a new sister and I can’t jump on her,” he said glumly. I leaned down and picked up the toy.
“Exactly.” His sister placed a kiss on his forehead. Seeing me beside them, she stood up and smiled. “I’m sorry, did that hit you?” she asked, nodding at the action figure.
“No.”
The girl shifted around awkwardly at my short reply. I never meant to come across as intimidating. I couldn’t seem to help it though, especially around people I didn’t know.
I stared down at the toy, adjusting his cape until it was as even as I could get it, and thought of a question Ellie once asked me.
If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?
It was a shame I hated them, because she loved them. I didn’t try to dissuade her of her belief. I didn’t want to burst her bubble. Not that I thought she actually believed superheroes were real. At times, I think she saw other people as them. Not the kind who flew or walked through walls or teleported. No, she didn’t believe any of that, of course. But the way she looked at me… it was like she was imagining me as a superhero. And I couldn’t let her do that. It would be dangerous for her to think of me that way.
The last person who called me her hero…
No.
This was a happy day, and it was going to stay that way. I wasn’t going to that awful place in my mind.
Without another word, I handed the action figure over and walked back to my place outside of Ellie’s door. My eyes were on the ground when I heard hurried footsteps approaching from the right. I’d barely heard Damien acknowledge me before I saw them disappearing into Ellie’s room. I stood up straighter, my feet itching to follow.
But it wasn’t my place, I was a friend. God, I hated that fucking word. And the ironic thing was I spent the last six months trying to convince myself we weren’t even friends, just acquaintances. Only at this moment did I realize I could never have such a casual relationship with her.
I found myself anticipating what kind of crazy socks she would be wearing, or what flavor her popsicle would be. My mind conjured images of us laughing on the couch or people watching at a restaurant. There were parts of my day I replayed in my head so I could remember to tell her. And my cell phone had been getting more use than ever before.
I’m completely screwed.
About ten minutes later Damien came out alone. “Naomi is staying with her.”
Nodding, I shoved my twitchy hands in my pockets. I was grateful she had Naomi. They’d grown close over the last few months, just as Ellie and I had.
Hours went by.
Naomi was still in with Ellie, while Damien and I stood against the wall in the waiting room. I was looking at the ground, counting the flecks of blue in the tiles around my feet. I could only imagine Damien was doing the same—probably not the counting, that was my weird thing, but the staring off into space.
The silence was interrupted by loud claps and a shout. “It’s a boy!” Naomi bounced toward us.
My lips tipped up at her announcement. The smile I wore may not have been big and flashy, but inside I was beaming. Ellie hadn’t been interested in learning the gender of her baby ahead of time. She was convinced it was a boy, though, and I knew she had to be happy about being right.
“No shit?” Damien asked.
“Did you doubt your sister?” his girlfriend asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No,” he said softly. Naomi grinned and grabbed his hand. She was only a few steps from Ellie’s room when she stopped. “You coming?” she asked me.
I stood up straighter. “No, I-I think it’s best if I leave.”
“I think my sister would like to see you,” Damien interjected. I swallowed my nerves, kept a neutral expression, and followed them. At the sound of Ellie’s sweet voice, the three of us stopped at the door.
“I’m gonna give you a great life, I promise. If you want to play with Barbies instead of cars, that’s fine. If you want to love a guy, that’s fine, too. As long as he treats you right,” Ellie said with a strength to her voice I hadn’t heard before. Some might not understand her immediate need to say these things to her newborn son, but I did. Ellie had been told she wasn’t enough too many times in her life to not reassure her own child, even if he was only an hour old.
Her features melted into contentment, and a few tears fell. “I love you so much, little guy. I promise you’ll never doubt it, or feel like you’re missing out on something. You don’t have grandparents and you don’t have a dad… and I know I’m not much.” My muscles locked at the note of sadness in her tone. She quickly shrugged it off and looked back down at her son, love and happiness shining in her eyes. “But I’ll love you with everything I have.”
We lingered outside until she fell quiet. A couple of moments later Naomi started talking—loudly—making it seem like we’d just arrived. Ellie glanced up, her smile lighting up the room as we strolled inside.
“Hey, guys,” she said. Damien walked over and wrapped his sister in a one-armed hug before kissing her on the forehead.
I gave her a nod when she looked my way, barely hearing her responding hello as an adorable blush raced across her cheeks. I suppressed my grin.
Ellie looked tired, her eyes drooping every few minutes, like the day was finally catching up to her, and her blonde hair was stuck to her forehead. Everywhere I looked, her exhaustion was present. And she was still so damn beautiful I could barely concentrate.
The four of us talked and fawned over the baby for about an hour until I was forced to leave.
“I need to be at work in thirty minutes,” I announced.
Ellie frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you. You’re gonna be so tired…” She trailed off and worried her bottom lip.
It had been early afternoon when Ellie and I were lounging on her couch and watching TV, and now it was a half hour shy of midnight.
“I’ll be okay,” I said with a small smile. She knew I’d taken a nap this morning, after getting off another graveyard shift, so I didn’t know why she was worried. But that was how Ellie was sometimes. “I’ll come back to see you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she whispered. I hesitated for a moment, wanting to brush a kiss across her forehead. I wasn’t sure it was appropriate though, so with one curt nod to the room, I left. It was abrupt, but my emotions were getting the best of me. Desires and wishes were swirling inside me in ways that made me uncomfortable. I may have accepted our friendship, but I was far from convinced that I was good for her.
I only slept for three hours after my shift. Apparently the urge to check on Ellie was stronger than sleep deprivation.
After I got to the hospital, I went to grab a cup of coffee. As I was leaving my eyes caught on something in the gift shop window. I quickly stopped in and bought it before climbing the stairs up to room 204. When I walked in, I froze in the entrance. Ellie’s eyes were closed and there was a huge grin on her face.
“Hey.” I tried to keep my voice low so I wouldn’t startle her, but she still jumped a little and her hand flew to her heart.
“Oh my God.” She giggled. “You scared me.”
I imagined my smile matched hers. “I got that.”
Ellie rolled her eyes at herself. Thankfully not in the way she usually did, like she was berating herself. She seemed far too happy.
I set my coffee on the counter and sat in the chair already pulled up to her bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Pretty good. I’m tired and—”
A knock at the door interrupted her. I turned around and found a slightly pudgy woman walking through, wheeling Andy’s bassinet.
“Hello, dears. I thought the new parents might want some time with their little guy.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to correct her. Before I could Ellie shifted up and said, “Yes, yes. Absolutely.”
The women wore matching grins as the nurse settled Andy beside us. Then she lifted him out and placed him in Ellie’s eager arms.
“God bless, dears.” With one final smile and a pat to my shoulder, she left.
I sat there, watching Ellie with her son, completely content to stay here forever. My gaze was riveted on her finger, watching her lightly brush it against Andy’s cheek.
“Do you want to hold him?” she asked after a few minutes.
My eyes flew to hers. “I’m fine.” I shifted uncomfortably.
“C’mon. You’re not scared, are you?”
“Of course not,” I immediately responded. Except I was. I wasn’t sure I could be trusted with something so fragile.
“Please?” she tried again. She had to know I was powerless to say no to her more than once. Before I realized it, I was moving toward them. Ellie’s smile widened as she extended him my way. I pulled away with her son in my arms.
I didn’t have time to freak out though, not when two voices from outside Ellie’s hospital room met my ears.
“Can you believe she’s keeping it?”
“I know. Twenty-one years old and a drinker. That poor kid doesn’t stand a chance.”
I froze. There was a chance they could be talking about someone else, but it seemed pretty low. Ellie was staring at her son in my arms, trying not to cry.
No.
The sight gutted me.
Ellie had been increasingly more nervous toward the end of her pregnancy. She hid it well enough, but I could tell. I could see her fear in the tiniest of actions. When we talked about the baby being born she would instinctively reach for her belly and wrap her arm around it, as if she was protecting her unborn child, like she thought someone would take him away from her.
This shit wasn’t helping.
I wanted her smile back. This wasn’t right. Who the hell did these women think they were?
I gently lowered Andy into the bassinet, and Ellie must have read my intentions. “No. Don’t,” she choked out, trying to grab my arm. It was too late—I was already halfway across the room.
“Excuse me,” I said to the two nurses who were still saying more shit I didn’t bother paying attention to. Keeping my voice neutral was the hardest thing I’d done in a long time. I didn’t recognize either of them. I did see the woman who’d just wheeled the bassinet in glaring at them from a few feet away. She’d appeared ready to intervene when I stepped out.
“Yes, sir?” one of them asked. The other was smiling.
“Would the two of you mind checking something for me?” I nodded my head into Ellie’s room. Neither glanced at the door number as they walked my way and stepped inside.
“What do you—?” The one who’d been smiling stopped short, a look of horror on her face.
“Oh God,” the first one said. I didn’t care that she seemed regretful. Ellie’s pain was all I saw.
“I find it rather distasteful that you two would talk about a patient in such a way,” I started, my glare shifting between them. “And utterly stupid not to make sure you’re not right in front of her room.”
“Sir—”
“Apologize.”
“I’m sorry?”
I rolled my eyes. “Not to me.” I pointed to Ellie. “To her.”
They both turned her way, one after the other issuing an apology that wasn’t to my satisfaction. But I was pretty sure it was the best I was going to get.
“Next time I’d refrain from passing judgments on someone you don’t know. I might be inclined to assume you two are dimwitted and inconsiderate.” I shrugged. “Who knows, maybe you are.”
“We really are sorry,” one of them mumbled again. They left with their tails between their legs, and I looked out to see the older woman smirking as she studied the stack of folders in front of her.
I shut the door and returned to Ellie’s side. She was watching Andy sleep. Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth. I could tell she wanted to talk, but she didn’t want to burden me.
“Ellie—”
“Am I being selfish?” she blurted out, the hand closest to me twisting in the sheets. Her gaze lifted to mine as the first of her tears fell. “No one thinks I can do this. Are they right?” Her voice cracked. “I want Andy so bad. But is staying with me what’s best for him? Or do I only want him because he makes me feel needed and important?” Her voice was nearing hysterics. “Am I—?”
“Stop.” I placed my finger over her trembling lips. “When you were younger, what did you want from your mother more than anything else?”
“For her to love me,” she said sadly. We hadn’t talked much about her family, just that they were estranged. Of course I knew more about it all from Damien, but she didn’t know that.
“Exactly.” I kept my voice just as soft. “It wasn’t about the fancy stuff she bought you, and you never asked her to be perfect. You simply wanted her there.” I took her fidgeting hand in mine and laced our fingers. It was so intimate it almost stole my breath. “Andy already has that. You’re giving him the greatest thing a mother can.”
“What if I’m still horrible?”
“Ellie—”
“No,” she interrupted, with more force than I was expecting. Her hand squeezed mine to an almost painful level. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“No first-time parent knows what he or she is doing. All new parents are in the same place as you; they all face the same fears.”
“Like relapsing or—?”
I shook my head. “Not all the fears are the same. But they all manifest into the same thing: fear of failing the child. You’re gonna be fine, Ellie. I know it.”
She sniffled. “You promise?”
“I promise,” I repeated. “You can do this.”
As I watched her nod, relief spreading across her face, I pulled out the gift I’d gotten downstairs. It was a small jewelry box that easily fit in my pocket.
Ellie’s eyes widened. “What’s that?”
I unlaced our hands and set it in her palm. “A gift. I know flowers and balloons are traditional. Practically speaking though, they don’t make much sense. Both are temporary and a pain to lug home.”
She was smiling, like she had when I’d walked in, and something settled inside me. Ellie slowly lifted the lid. Almost a minute passed before she started crying again.
“You don’t like it?” I sat up straighter. I normally shied away from buying gifts—I’d never been very good at it. But this had felt right. With a frown, I said, “I can get you flowers. I—”
“No. No.” This time she was laughing through her tears. “I love it.” Ellie looked up, and I swear to God my heart stopped. “I love it,” she repeated.
I relaxed and nodded as I stared down at it. It was a simple silver necklace, holding a silver heart with the initial A on it.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered, tracing the letter. I felt overwhelmed so I looked down at her son. Noticing his bassinet was crooked, I straightened it and then put my hand in to gently rub his stomach.
I watched Andy’s brown eyes struggle to open. When his gaze finally met mine, it felt like the entire world stopped. My life was put on pause while I tried to reconfigure it to add this new person. It was the same way I felt the first time I saw Ellie. It was undoubtedly presumptuous, but it was also automatic. I didn’t know what it meant then and I was petrified of what it might mean now, yet I couldn’t deny how it filled me with warmth and a sense of belonging.
For better or worse, and whether I liked it or not, these two people were a part of me. And even though I hadn’t made such a vow in over eight years, that night I swore to myself I’d always protect them. No matter what.
It didn’t take long to realize that my plan of staying neutral with Ellie was completely blown to shit. I knew it the day she’d given birth to Andy, almost a month ago. In fact, I was pretty sure I knew since the beginning it was never going to work. My initial reaction to her was too strong to end in the role of acquaintance. But that didn’t change my original declaration. I still had to protect her. I would just have to tread lightly and make sure I kept my objectivity. I could be friends with her without losing sight of that. Or at least that was what I’d thought…
But it was hard when all I wanted to do every time I saw her was pull her into my arms. She was effortlessly magnetic.
There was a lot I was able to admit to myself now that I realized staying away was impossible. Like how attracted to her I was. Part of me always thought I should’ve felt guilty since she was pregnant. But should didn’t really matter. I was.
I’d see her in her thigh-highs, and all I could imagine was falling on my knees and tasting her.
I hadn’t seen Ellie as much as I’d like. Only three times since she’d been released from the hospital. I’d picked up extra shifts for a few guys who went on vacation, and she was adjusting to her new role as a mother.
But today I was spending the entire day with the two of them. We were sitting on her living room floor; my back was to the couch and my legs were stretched out before me, while Ellie sat a few feet away. She’d just finished feeding Andy and was now burping him.
“How are you doing?” I asked, carefully watching her face for any possible lie. She gave me a tired smile, but no one could doubt the love that radiated from it.
“I’m doing good. Obviously there are a lot of adjustments, but so far everything has been good. I—” She’d just pulled her son off her shoulder when he coughed up some more, missing the burp cloth.
“Shoot.” Ellie looked down at her T-shirt that now had spit-up on it. “Here. Can you hold him?” she asked me. She was distracted, trying not to get any on him or me, so she couldn’t see my wide eyes or pale face.
“Uhh… s-sure,” I mumbled, gently taking him from her before Ellie scurried from the room.
I hadn’t held him since the first time in the hospital. And now I was alone with him. My hands were nestled under his armpits and my arms were extended, holding him away from me.
Andy just stared at me, unimpressed, as I tried to figure out what the heck to do. What did babies like? I remembered Naomi mentioning something about singing…
I shook my head; I didn’t want to torture the poor kid.
Should I burp him more?
Bounce him?
All of a sudden his face crumpled and an ear-shattering wail filled the room. I quickly pulled him closer. “Shh… shhh…”
Shit.
She’d never leave me alone with him again.
Thankfully, once I had him nestled against me, slowly rocking him, he quieted down. My hand was on his chest, adjusting his onesie, when he grabbed my finger. His eyes fluttered shut as he kept a loose grip on it. But even when his breathing evened out, I couldn’t pull away.
Nothing about this was forced. His hold on me felt natural; and I had a feeling that in no time at all it would be me wrapped around his finger.