The World Is Coming Down On Me And I Can't Find A Reason To Be Loved
Chapter: 5/?
Song: Arms- Christina Perri
Word Count: 4,493
Summary: "I never want to leave you but I can't make you bleed if I'm alone."
“I don’t know why the hell you would want to buy this place.” Jared’s realtor, Kevin says as he carefully tiptoes over a patch of weeds in the front yard of the house. “It’s half the size of the one that you have now.”
“I know.” Jared says as he stares up at the house through his sunglasses. A simple, two story cape style home set back in the woods and surrounded by trees. The house looks worn, almost forgotten about, the green paint is starting to peel off and all the windows look cloudy.
“Smaller is what we’re looking for.”
“Smaller is fine but this place is a piece of crap.”
“Why, because it’s not brand new and the paint isn’t still drying?”
“No, it’s a piece of crap because it’s a piece of crap. I could get you better.”
“This is what I want. It’s not that bad.”
“Are you like, broke or something?” Kevin asks.
“What?”
“Are you having some kind of financial trouble and you needed to move out of your expensive house and into this dump to get some money back?”
“No, everything is fine. Why does everyone think I have money issues?”
“Okay, sorry, I was just asking. Is Leah forcing you to do this?”
“Leah isn’t forcing me to do anything. She doesn’t even know about this.”
“Uh oh. Can I be there when you tell her?”
“She’s going to like it. I know that she will.”
“If you say so. I’m questioning her tastes though.”
Jared ignores he insult. “So you can get this place for me?”
“It’s yours no problem if you really want it. But I would advise against it.”
“Shouldn’t you be psyched about the commission that you’re going to be making from this place and selling my old one?”
“Yeah.” He admits sullenly.
“But you would be happier if I were buying another expensive home so you could make more?”
“I’m not going to deny that.” Kevin says bluntly. “So how’s that going? The whole baby thing?”
“It’s alright. It’s good. She’s getting a little restless. Some days are better than others but we’re looking forward to it.”
“Those were very good rehearsed answers.” Kevin says. “What do you call her?”
Jared stares at him. “I call her Leah.”
“No, no, I meant what do you call her when you introduce her to people.”
“I don’t really have to introduce her. People know her so….”
“Okay, but what if people didn’t know her? What do I call her?”
“You’re not going to call her anything.”
“Well what do you call her? What is she to you? Is she your girlfriend?”
“Why are you so interested in this?”
“Because. Sometimes I worry about you. I think of you as a friend, my richest friend that buys a lot of shit so I get big commissions from but still a friend. Baby momma sounds a little cheap.”
“We’re undefined. I don’t know. We’re friends. It’s complicated.”
“Fine. Evade the question.”
“I’m not evading it and I’m not talking about this anymore with you.”
“You’re so touchy.”
“So can I get this place?” Jared ignores him and crosses his arms over his chest.
“Yes, you can get this place. It literally hurts my soul that you’re wasting your money here but it’s all yours. Just sign some papers.”
“When can we actually move in?”
“When you knock it down and rebuild.”
Jared glares.
“Probably sometime early next year. There is some work that you’ll have to do before you should move in. It is mostly minor. A few weeks of work and you should be good to go.”
“I was hoping to get in before Christmas.”
“Given that Christmas is only four days away I don’t think that’s going to happen. You should’ve done this earlier.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jared brushes his hand against the back of his head. “My timing has kind of been fucked up lately.”
“You think?”
“Shut up. I can bring her by tonight so she can see it, right?”
“Sign the papers and you can do whatever you want with it.” Kevin says, disappointment clear in his voice but Jared couldn’t care less.
Jared is practically buzzing with nervous energy as he drives Leah to the new house that night.
“Where are we going?” She complains. “It’s late and I’m tired.”
“It’s eight o’clock.”
“That is my new bedtime.” She laughs. “I’m an old, pregnant lady.”
“You are not.” He says softly as he pulls up to the end of the driveway, the house still hidden by trees. “We’re here anyways.”
She looks around. “Where is here?”
“Close your eyes and keep them closed.”
“I don’t think I like this.”
“You’ll love it.” He picks her hands up and covers her eyes when them. “Hopefully.”
“Hopefully?” She laughs as he hops out of the car and opens her door a moment later and helps her out. “I don’t want to fall.” The inch of snow under her feet crunches as her feet shuffle across it.
“You won’t.” He hooks his arm around her waist and holds onto her elbow. “I got you.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise. I can’t tell you.”
“Is it my Christmas present?”
“Maybe.”
She jumps in excitement. “It is. I’ve been looking all over the house while you’re out and I couldn’t find anything so this has to be it. My Christmas present is down a long path in the middle of the woods. Jared, if you were anyone else I’d be freaking out so bad right now.”
“Don’t freak out yet.”
“Are we almost there? I’m going to play the pregnancy card and say that I shouldn’t be out here in the cold for much longer.”
“You’re not cold.”
“How do you know?”
He groans and lets her go so he can slip his jacket off and drapes it around her shoulders. “There.”
“Oh god. This is going to be a hundred mile hike. I feel like we’ve already gone a mile.”
“We’re about a hundred feet from the car and we’ve only got about twenty more to go. You got this.”
She sighs and pulls his jacket closer around her and continues to walk next to him but this time not complaining.
“Alright.” He steps in front of her, moving her into the right position and then steps aside. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He slowly lowers her hand but her eyes are still closed. “You can open your eyes now.”
She stares at the house, a confused expression on her face. “What is this?” She asks him, pointing weakly at it.
“A house. Our house actually. I bought it.”
“You bought this?”
“Yes. I know it doesn’t look like much because it’s not really but it will be. I think it’ll be perfect.”
“Perfect?”
“Yes. It’s smaller but its better. More family friendly less bachelor that can’t commit. We’ll paint it. I’ll paint it because you shouldn’t be around paint and I’ll get my brothers to help and they’ll do it, my mom will make them. I kind of like the green but whatever, whatever you decide I’m cool with. It’s actually really nice inside. We can go in and see if you want. There are just a few things that need to be fixed. More painting and the banister is a little loose and the fireplace has some issues but that can be easily done and Sophie’s room will be bigger and in a better location to our room and…” He takes her hand and leads her to the side of the house. “There is an actual backyard and a little ways down there is a barn so she can have, I don’t know, a sheep or a goat or a pony if that’s what she wants.”
“A pony?”
“Yeah. I’m assuming she’ll like animals because you do and I don’t hate them so if she wants a pony she’ll get a pony and if someone she goes to school with has one she’s going to get two. The barn needs some work too but we have time to work on that. I think we’ll be able to move in within the next month. Not by Christmas, that was my first plan but timing was off. But we’ll be in soon. And it’s not that far from the old place so she’ll be able stay in the same school system which is supposed to be the best so that’s good.”
“You looked into school systems?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of crazy. There are some places that accept kids before they’re even born. I think that’s a little excessive.”
“It is.”
“So what do you think?”
She sighs and looks around before looking back at him. “You bought a house.”
He nods and she continues.
“You bought this house and you’re going to work on it and fix things and paint and you know where her room is going to be and what school she’s going to and you’re going to buy her a pony?”
“Two ponies if I have to. Are you okay? Did I make a huge mistake? I can’t get out of it now, I mean, it’s not like I can’t swing two places, three when you count my apartment in New York, god, I sound like a rich douche.”
She laughs.
“Come on.” He sighs and runs his hand over her stomach, over her jacket. “What do you think?”
She pushes his hand away and there’s a moment of panic in his eyes before she grabs his hand again and holds it in hers then leans up on her toes to kiss him deeply, her other hand resting on his face to keep him close.
“I love it.” She says softly before she kisses him again.
“Do you?” He breathes out, completely relieved.
“Yes. I can’t.” She sighs happily; overwhelmed. “Nobody has ever done anything like this for me before. “It’s perfect.”
“That’s what I was going for. Kevin, my dumbass realtor, tried talking me out of it.”
She holds his hand and faces the house, studying it and imaging what it will look like. “I’m glad you didn’t listen.”
“I wouldn’t listen to him. He’s gold digging off of me.”
Leah laughs lightly. “I’m the only one that’s supposed to be doing that.” She jokes, resting his head against his shoulder.
They start work on the house after Christmas.
She sits in car with the door open watching him and his brothers and some of his friends that he roped into helping him paint and clean up. She always says that she wants to help but everyone knows that if she were seriously asked she’d say no.
He doesn’t let her tour the place until it’s completely done; windows are clean, paint is dry and furniture is moved in.
“Do I have to close my eyes again?” She asks him before he opens the front door.
“No. Unless you want to. I could carry you over the threshold.”
“That’s for people that are married.” The last word breaks off and she falters, wondering if the marriage subject is still touchy for him and not something to be joked about. But he doesn’t react. “You wouldn’t be able to lift me anyways.” She jokes, trying to lighten a mood that she’s not even sure she’s brought down.
“Don’t challenge me, Leah; you know I don’t turn those kinds of things down.”
“It’s not a challenge if I know for sure.”
“You really think I can’t lift you?” He takes his hand off the door and puts it on his hip and stares down at her. “You question my strength you question my masculinity.”
She simply shrugs and his eyes narrow.
“Alright, you asked for it.” He advances and puts one arm around her shoulders and dips down to loop the other around her knees to pick her up but she squirms out of his grasp and pushes herself against the front door, bending her arm behind her to twist on the door handle and slips inside.
She gasps when she sees the inside. It’s beautiful and warm and nothing like what the house she grew up in looks like so that means it’s everything that she could want.
“Do you like it?” He’s right behind her and she leans onto him so her back is against his chest and she doesn’t fight back when he puts his arm around her stomach.
“It, like everything you’ve done for me, is amazing. You did all this?”
“Yes. The designer that I hired did nothing, I did it all.” He gloats and embellishes. “You haven’t seen the best part yet.” He takes her hand and starts up the stairs and then down the hallway, pausing only when she does to stick her head into rooms; the bathroom and their room and he finally stops at the door at the end of it and opens it without hesitating and flicks on the light. “This will be Bailey’s room.”
It’s painted lilac and trimmed in white. A small white dresser and changing table are against one side of the room and a rocking chair is on the other wall near the window, a crib is still in the box next to it.
“I didn’t put the crib together because I figured that if you didn’t like it and we had to move or something it would be easier to move it while it was still in the box and also because I forgot and am too lazy.”
She laughs “You have time.” She enters the room and sits down in the chair. “I can’t believe you did all of this.”
“Well I’m going to live here too.”
She chuckles then gets somber. “We can do this right?”
“Absolutely.” He stands next to her. “I’ve never doubted it.”
“Really?”
“Not for long anyways.”
“Sometimes I worry.”
“Don’t. I got you. Plus this house is too nice to fail in, that would really bum me out. We’d never get the stink of failure out of it.”
It makes her smile and forgets that she’s supposed to be freaked out as he pulls her to her feet so show her the rest of the house.
They settle in nicely. She calls it home faster than she has anywhere else ever. It is home. The best one she’s ever had and she finally understands that stupid, cheesy little saying about how home is where the heart is.
The months pass almost too quickly and it’s March and she’s eight months pregnant and can’t see her feet.
“I’m ready for this kid to come out.” She tells him absentmindedly over breakfast one day.
“Yeah.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Until she’s screaming and we can’t do anything about it and it drives us both crazy. Then you’ll want to push her back in.”
“Ewww. I’m trying to eat here.” She motions down to her cereal.
“I know you are.”
She kicks him under the table and stands up, after a slight struggle, and puts her dish in the sink. “So do you think you could get the crib together today?”
“I thought I was going to the doctors with you.”
“You go to the doctor’s every time.”
“You don’t want me there?”
“I want Bailey to not have to sleep on the floor. What if I go to the doctors, you put the crib together while I’m gone and then we meet up for dinner somewhere. That Italian place we went to the other week that was so good. Oh god, now I’m starving.”
“You just ate.” He laughs.
“I’m hungry all the time Jared. I could eat a four course meal right now. Now I’m pumped for dinner.”
“So we have to do this now, huh?”
“Yes. And ice cream. I want ice cream too.”
“It’s cold out.”
“So we’ll eat it in the car with the heat on.” She gestures to her stomach. “This is over in a month. I gotta milk it while I can.” She leans up and kisses his cheek with her hand on his arm to steady her. “I have some stuff I have to do in town today, get started on the crib and I’ll see you again at dinner okay?”
“You’re just glossing right over this so I don’t fight you on it.”
“What is there to fight about? Food and ice cream and you not having to sit in a boring doctor’s office. It’s win-win-win.”
“That involves me putting together a crib.”
“Putting cribs together is easy. When my sister had her baby I put the whole thing together by myself without even looking at the instructions.”
“Then why don’t you help me with it?”
“Because I am pregnant.” She says dramatically. “Pregnant women don’t build things.”
“A month left.”
“Milking every minute of it, baby.” She says with a quick smile as she grabs her keys and slips out the door.
He sighs and treads upstairs. He knows it has to get done but his natural penitence for putting things off until the last minute kicks in.
He opens up the crib box and gently slides the contents onto the floor. There aren’t many pieces. It looks doable and he kicks at the paper instructions with his toes, thinking more about their conversation than assembling a crib.
A month. She only has a month which means they only have a month which means he only has a month. A month before his whole world changes and he’ll have to be responsible. A new kind of responsible; he’ll have a brand new life to take care of, someone to protect and love unconditionally and without question. He can’t screw it up. It’s not about him anymore. It’s a lifestyle change starting with this crib. It’s a true first step.
He stares down at it, his heart beating in uncertainty and standing there in his future daughters room looking at his future daughters crib he finally freaks out.
Hours later she comes home and he winces when he hears the car door slam. He missed dinner.
“Jared.” She slams the door. “What the hell was that? That was not alright.”
He can hear her at the base of the stairs.
“I know that you’re home because your car is here and I know you love it and you would never leave it here while you’re out, you want to show it off and make sure that everyone sees it. So you better answer me. Fuck these stairs, seriously, we need to install an elevator or escalator or something because another month of this will not fly with me.” She jokes and then she remembers that she’s still mad by the time she gets to the landing. “Where were you? You don’t leave your pregnant….whatever I am to you, waiting like a loser when you promised that you would be there. You stood me up and everyone that worked there looked at me with so much pity, this sad, pregnant lady waiting and waiting for someone that never came. What’s the excuse? What the hell happened?”
She finally finds him in the nursery sitting on the floor with his elbows on his knees and bits of the crib scattered around him.
“Hey.” She taps her finger lightly on the edge of the doorframe. “You going for an emo look because it’s working.”
“I can’t put the crib together.” He says quietly, linking his hands together and starting at them.
There’s something in his voice that lets her know he had a good excuse for forgetting her.
“Okay. Well that’s okay. Maybe the crib that my sister had was really simple. She is cheap. I’m sure we can figure it out. Where are the instructions?”
“No. You don’t understand. I can’t put the crib together.” He says, his voice low and with a hint of anger and she takes a step towards him and then stops like she’s evaluating the situation before she crosses the rest of the distance and sits down in the rocking chair next to him.
“Jared.” She wraps her fingers around his bicep and pulls his arm. “I know how you’re feeling.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yeah I do. You’re freaking out; you don’t think you can do it. I feel that way 24/7. Just constantly. But it’s worse for me because it’s growing inside of me. I can’t escape it even if I wanted to, there’s no way out.”
“I’m not looking for a way out.”
“I know that. And that’s how I know that you can do this.”
“I can’t, I’m going to fuck it up, and I know I will.”
She shakes her head and pulls him closer. “You won’t, you’re going to be perfect, you’ve been perfect. I can tell. You jumped right into this. It’s amazing. You love this baby so much already.” She slides her arm around his shoulders and he leans into her, his head against her knee. “You’ve done so much for me and I hate hearing you doubt yourself because I’m so sure you’re going to be great. I’m so sorry I never said this before. You’ve been telling me constantly that it’ll be okay and I never said it to you and I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He runs his hand over her hair, trying to soother her and kisses her temple. “You had a lot going on.”
She pulls away so she can look at him. “See, even know you know just what to say and what to do and I had to rant on you to get it out.”
“You’re allowed to rant.” He kisses her cheek. “Sorry I didn’t meet you. I was in the middle of a break down.”
She laughs. “I understand.”
“I owe you dinner.”
“And ice cream.”
He smiles gently and folds his legs across one another.
“You want to give the crib another go?”
“I guess we have to.” He sighs heavily and reaches for one of the parts. “It is hard to figure out thought. Even if I didn’t have a panic attack it would have been impossible for me to get it together in time.”
“I’m sure we can manage.” She grabs for the instructions. “Or we’ll get someone to do it for us.”
Three hours later the crib is put together and in the middle of the room. Jared’s moved to the rocking chair and Leah is perched across his lap, his head resting lazily on her shoulder.
“I have this fear that I’ll drop her.” He tells her. “She’ll somehow get away from me.” They’ve been bantering back and forth, talking about things that don’t matter mixed in with things that mean everything.
She giggles. “How is she going to get away from you? She’s a baby.”
“They wiggle.”
“I think you’re stronger than a baby.”
“I hope I am.”
She readjusts against him. “I have this almost irrational fear of boats. When they’re out of water and you can see the bottom of them. You know the part that’s supposed to be in the water. It should stay in the water.”
He laughs lightly. “I have this recurring nightmare that my hands fall off.”
She stifles a laugh into the top of his head.
“Right at the wrist so I’m worthless and they find someone new to play bass.”
“You could learn to play with your feet.”
“I guess so.”
“Can I tell you a serious one?”
“Sure.”
“I worry that.” She pauses for a moment. “I worry that she’s not going to know what love is. God that sounds horrible.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because of me. There’s something wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Everything is wrong with me. I’m unable to love.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true. Why do you think I’m not with you? Something in me is broken, that’s the only explanation. If I was normal and everything was okay I’d be married to you right now.”
“Marriage isn’t for anyone.”
“I know that. It’s not for me because I can’t commit to anyone because I don’t love anyone. I don’t really even love anything. I can’t even say that I love my job. And that’s how twisted everything is that out of all the people in my life the one thing that I thought that I would love was my job.”
“Don’t read into this, Leah.”
“I’m going to. What if it’s genetic? You know my mother, she’s terrible. My grandmother was probably just as bad. Or worse.”
“If she were worse then maybe you mellow out as the generations go on.”
“Or she was better. She was better than my mother and we just get worse as we go along. What if I pass it along to Bailey? What if she hates me like I hate my mother?”
“She is not going to hate you.”
“It wouldn’t be up to her. It’s predetermined. She has no say in it and neither do I. It’s the way that I am. I don’t love. She’s not going to love me.”
“Kids are supposed to love their mothers.”
“Then why doesn’t mine love me? She’s supposed to and she doesn’t. A lot of people are supposed to love me. My dad and my sister and my high school boyfriend. They’re all supposed to but they never did. My whole life is an awful supposed to.” She looks down at him. “I don’t know why you’re still here Jared. If you were smart you’d leave. Go find someone else.”
“I’m never going to do that.”
“Today when you didn’t show up a small part of me thought that maybe you’d had enough and you had taken off. I wasn’t even mad. I felt like I expected it.”
He pushes himself up from his leaning position and takes her face in his hands. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, and even if no one else in the whole world loves you, which totally isn’t true, just know that I do.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that I don’t feel the same way back?”
He bites his lip and shakes his head. “You love me. You don’t know it but you do. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”
“Some people would say that I’m only here for the baby.”
“You don’t do anything you don’t want to do. Everyone knows that. You love me, you just don’t say it. You will though.”
“You’re pretty confident aren’t you?”
He leans into kiss her and smiles into it when she kisses back.
Jared gets over his fear and she gets over thinking that she can never love because she definitely feels something for him. It’s something she can’t name and she hasn’t felt before and since she’s felt every bad feeling this has to be something good.
The glow she has going on is from so much more than the pregnancy.
Song: Arms- Christina Perri
Word Count: 4,493
Summary: "I never want to leave you but I can't make you bleed if I'm alone."
“I don’t know why the hell you would want to buy this place.” Jared’s realtor, Kevin says as he carefully tiptoes over a patch of weeds in the front yard of the house. “It’s half the size of the one that you have now.”
“I know.” Jared says as he stares up at the house through his sunglasses. A simple, two story cape style home set back in the woods and surrounded by trees. The house looks worn, almost forgotten about, the green paint is starting to peel off and all the windows look cloudy.
“Smaller is what we’re looking for.”
“Smaller is fine but this place is a piece of crap.”
“Why, because it’s not brand new and the paint isn’t still drying?”
“No, it’s a piece of crap because it’s a piece of crap. I could get you better.”
“This is what I want. It’s not that bad.”
“Are you like, broke or something?” Kevin asks.
“What?”
“Are you having some kind of financial trouble and you needed to move out of your expensive house and into this dump to get some money back?”
“No, everything is fine. Why does everyone think I have money issues?”
“Okay, sorry, I was just asking. Is Leah forcing you to do this?”
“Leah isn’t forcing me to do anything. She doesn’t even know about this.”
“Uh oh. Can I be there when you tell her?”
“She’s going to like it. I know that she will.”
“If you say so. I’m questioning her tastes though.”
Jared ignores he insult. “So you can get this place for me?”
“It’s yours no problem if you really want it. But I would advise against it.”
“Shouldn’t you be psyched about the commission that you’re going to be making from this place and selling my old one?”
“Yeah.” He admits sullenly.
“But you would be happier if I were buying another expensive home so you could make more?”
“I’m not going to deny that.” Kevin says bluntly. “So how’s that going? The whole baby thing?”
“It’s alright. It’s good. She’s getting a little restless. Some days are better than others but we’re looking forward to it.”
“Those were very good rehearsed answers.” Kevin says. “What do you call her?”
Jared stares at him. “I call her Leah.”
“No, no, I meant what do you call her when you introduce her to people.”
“I don’t really have to introduce her. People know her so….”
“Okay, but what if people didn’t know her? What do I call her?”
“You’re not going to call her anything.”
“Well what do you call her? What is she to you? Is she your girlfriend?”
“Why are you so interested in this?”
“Because. Sometimes I worry about you. I think of you as a friend, my richest friend that buys a lot of shit so I get big commissions from but still a friend. Baby momma sounds a little cheap.”
“We’re undefined. I don’t know. We’re friends. It’s complicated.”
“Fine. Evade the question.”
“I’m not evading it and I’m not talking about this anymore with you.”
“You’re so touchy.”
“So can I get this place?” Jared ignores him and crosses his arms over his chest.
“Yes, you can get this place. It literally hurts my soul that you’re wasting your money here but it’s all yours. Just sign some papers.”
“When can we actually move in?”
“When you knock it down and rebuild.”
Jared glares.
“Probably sometime early next year. There is some work that you’ll have to do before you should move in. It is mostly minor. A few weeks of work and you should be good to go.”
“I was hoping to get in before Christmas.”
“Given that Christmas is only four days away I don’t think that’s going to happen. You should’ve done this earlier.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jared brushes his hand against the back of his head. “My timing has kind of been fucked up lately.”
“You think?”
“Shut up. I can bring her by tonight so she can see it, right?”
“Sign the papers and you can do whatever you want with it.” Kevin says, disappointment clear in his voice but Jared couldn’t care less.
Jared is practically buzzing with nervous energy as he drives Leah to the new house that night.
“Where are we going?” She complains. “It’s late and I’m tired.”
“It’s eight o’clock.”
“That is my new bedtime.” She laughs. “I’m an old, pregnant lady.”
“You are not.” He says softly as he pulls up to the end of the driveway, the house still hidden by trees. “We’re here anyways.”
She looks around. “Where is here?”
“Close your eyes and keep them closed.”
“I don’t think I like this.”
“You’ll love it.” He picks her hands up and covers her eyes when them. “Hopefully.”
“Hopefully?” She laughs as he hops out of the car and opens her door a moment later and helps her out. “I don’t want to fall.” The inch of snow under her feet crunches as her feet shuffle across it.
“You won’t.” He hooks his arm around her waist and holds onto her elbow. “I got you.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise. I can’t tell you.”
“Is it my Christmas present?”
“Maybe.”
She jumps in excitement. “It is. I’ve been looking all over the house while you’re out and I couldn’t find anything so this has to be it. My Christmas present is down a long path in the middle of the woods. Jared, if you were anyone else I’d be freaking out so bad right now.”
“Don’t freak out yet.”
“Are we almost there? I’m going to play the pregnancy card and say that I shouldn’t be out here in the cold for much longer.”
“You’re not cold.”
“How do you know?”
He groans and lets her go so he can slip his jacket off and drapes it around her shoulders. “There.”
“Oh god. This is going to be a hundred mile hike. I feel like we’ve already gone a mile.”
“We’re about a hundred feet from the car and we’ve only got about twenty more to go. You got this.”
She sighs and pulls his jacket closer around her and continues to walk next to him but this time not complaining.
“Alright.” He steps in front of her, moving her into the right position and then steps aside. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He slowly lowers her hand but her eyes are still closed. “You can open your eyes now.”
She stares at the house, a confused expression on her face. “What is this?” She asks him, pointing weakly at it.
“A house. Our house actually. I bought it.”
“You bought this?”
“Yes. I know it doesn’t look like much because it’s not really but it will be. I think it’ll be perfect.”
“Perfect?”
“Yes. It’s smaller but its better. More family friendly less bachelor that can’t commit. We’ll paint it. I’ll paint it because you shouldn’t be around paint and I’ll get my brothers to help and they’ll do it, my mom will make them. I kind of like the green but whatever, whatever you decide I’m cool with. It’s actually really nice inside. We can go in and see if you want. There are just a few things that need to be fixed. More painting and the banister is a little loose and the fireplace has some issues but that can be easily done and Sophie’s room will be bigger and in a better location to our room and…” He takes her hand and leads her to the side of the house. “There is an actual backyard and a little ways down there is a barn so she can have, I don’t know, a sheep or a goat or a pony if that’s what she wants.”
“A pony?”
“Yeah. I’m assuming she’ll like animals because you do and I don’t hate them so if she wants a pony she’ll get a pony and if someone she goes to school with has one she’s going to get two. The barn needs some work too but we have time to work on that. I think we’ll be able to move in within the next month. Not by Christmas, that was my first plan but timing was off. But we’ll be in soon. And it’s not that far from the old place so she’ll be able stay in the same school system which is supposed to be the best so that’s good.”
“You looked into school systems?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of crazy. There are some places that accept kids before they’re even born. I think that’s a little excessive.”
“It is.”
“So what do you think?”
She sighs and looks around before looking back at him. “You bought a house.”
He nods and she continues.
“You bought this house and you’re going to work on it and fix things and paint and you know where her room is going to be and what school she’s going to and you’re going to buy her a pony?”
“Two ponies if I have to. Are you okay? Did I make a huge mistake? I can’t get out of it now, I mean, it’s not like I can’t swing two places, three when you count my apartment in New York, god, I sound like a rich douche.”
She laughs.
“Come on.” He sighs and runs his hand over her stomach, over her jacket. “What do you think?”
She pushes his hand away and there’s a moment of panic in his eyes before she grabs his hand again and holds it in hers then leans up on her toes to kiss him deeply, her other hand resting on his face to keep him close.
“I love it.” She says softly before she kisses him again.
“Do you?” He breathes out, completely relieved.
“Yes. I can’t.” She sighs happily; overwhelmed. “Nobody has ever done anything like this for me before. “It’s perfect.”
“That’s what I was going for. Kevin, my dumbass realtor, tried talking me out of it.”
She holds his hand and faces the house, studying it and imaging what it will look like. “I’m glad you didn’t listen.”
“I wouldn’t listen to him. He’s gold digging off of me.”
Leah laughs lightly. “I’m the only one that’s supposed to be doing that.” She jokes, resting his head against his shoulder.
They start work on the house after Christmas.
She sits in car with the door open watching him and his brothers and some of his friends that he roped into helping him paint and clean up. She always says that she wants to help but everyone knows that if she were seriously asked she’d say no.
He doesn’t let her tour the place until it’s completely done; windows are clean, paint is dry and furniture is moved in.
“Do I have to close my eyes again?” She asks him before he opens the front door.
“No. Unless you want to. I could carry you over the threshold.”
“That’s for people that are married.” The last word breaks off and she falters, wondering if the marriage subject is still touchy for him and not something to be joked about. But he doesn’t react. “You wouldn’t be able to lift me anyways.” She jokes, trying to lighten a mood that she’s not even sure she’s brought down.
“Don’t challenge me, Leah; you know I don’t turn those kinds of things down.”
“It’s not a challenge if I know for sure.”
“You really think I can’t lift you?” He takes his hand off the door and puts it on his hip and stares down at her. “You question my strength you question my masculinity.”
She simply shrugs and his eyes narrow.
“Alright, you asked for it.” He advances and puts one arm around her shoulders and dips down to loop the other around her knees to pick her up but she squirms out of his grasp and pushes herself against the front door, bending her arm behind her to twist on the door handle and slips inside.
She gasps when she sees the inside. It’s beautiful and warm and nothing like what the house she grew up in looks like so that means it’s everything that she could want.
“Do you like it?” He’s right behind her and she leans onto him so her back is against his chest and she doesn’t fight back when he puts his arm around her stomach.
“It, like everything you’ve done for me, is amazing. You did all this?”
“Yes. The designer that I hired did nothing, I did it all.” He gloats and embellishes. “You haven’t seen the best part yet.” He takes her hand and starts up the stairs and then down the hallway, pausing only when she does to stick her head into rooms; the bathroom and their room and he finally stops at the door at the end of it and opens it without hesitating and flicks on the light. “This will be Bailey’s room.”
It’s painted lilac and trimmed in white. A small white dresser and changing table are against one side of the room and a rocking chair is on the other wall near the window, a crib is still in the box next to it.
“I didn’t put the crib together because I figured that if you didn’t like it and we had to move or something it would be easier to move it while it was still in the box and also because I forgot and am too lazy.”
She laughs “You have time.” She enters the room and sits down in the chair. “I can’t believe you did all of this.”
“Well I’m going to live here too.”
She chuckles then gets somber. “We can do this right?”
“Absolutely.” He stands next to her. “I’ve never doubted it.”
“Really?”
“Not for long anyways.”
“Sometimes I worry.”
“Don’t. I got you. Plus this house is too nice to fail in, that would really bum me out. We’d never get the stink of failure out of it.”
It makes her smile and forgets that she’s supposed to be freaked out as he pulls her to her feet so show her the rest of the house.
They settle in nicely. She calls it home faster than she has anywhere else ever. It is home. The best one she’s ever had and she finally understands that stupid, cheesy little saying about how home is where the heart is.
The months pass almost too quickly and it’s March and she’s eight months pregnant and can’t see her feet.
“I’m ready for this kid to come out.” She tells him absentmindedly over breakfast one day.
“Yeah.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Until she’s screaming and we can’t do anything about it and it drives us both crazy. Then you’ll want to push her back in.”
“Ewww. I’m trying to eat here.” She motions down to her cereal.
“I know you are.”
She kicks him under the table and stands up, after a slight struggle, and puts her dish in the sink. “So do you think you could get the crib together today?”
“I thought I was going to the doctors with you.”
“You go to the doctor’s every time.”
“You don’t want me there?”
“I want Bailey to not have to sleep on the floor. What if I go to the doctors, you put the crib together while I’m gone and then we meet up for dinner somewhere. That Italian place we went to the other week that was so good. Oh god, now I’m starving.”
“You just ate.” He laughs.
“I’m hungry all the time Jared. I could eat a four course meal right now. Now I’m pumped for dinner.”
“So we have to do this now, huh?”
“Yes. And ice cream. I want ice cream too.”
“It’s cold out.”
“So we’ll eat it in the car with the heat on.” She gestures to her stomach. “This is over in a month. I gotta milk it while I can.” She leans up and kisses his cheek with her hand on his arm to steady her. “I have some stuff I have to do in town today, get started on the crib and I’ll see you again at dinner okay?”
“You’re just glossing right over this so I don’t fight you on it.”
“What is there to fight about? Food and ice cream and you not having to sit in a boring doctor’s office. It’s win-win-win.”
“That involves me putting together a crib.”
“Putting cribs together is easy. When my sister had her baby I put the whole thing together by myself without even looking at the instructions.”
“Then why don’t you help me with it?”
“Because I am pregnant.” She says dramatically. “Pregnant women don’t build things.”
“A month left.”
“Milking every minute of it, baby.” She says with a quick smile as she grabs her keys and slips out the door.
He sighs and treads upstairs. He knows it has to get done but his natural penitence for putting things off until the last minute kicks in.
He opens up the crib box and gently slides the contents onto the floor. There aren’t many pieces. It looks doable and he kicks at the paper instructions with his toes, thinking more about their conversation than assembling a crib.
A month. She only has a month which means they only have a month which means he only has a month. A month before his whole world changes and he’ll have to be responsible. A new kind of responsible; he’ll have a brand new life to take care of, someone to protect and love unconditionally and without question. He can’t screw it up. It’s not about him anymore. It’s a lifestyle change starting with this crib. It’s a true first step.
He stares down at it, his heart beating in uncertainty and standing there in his future daughters room looking at his future daughters crib he finally freaks out.
Hours later she comes home and he winces when he hears the car door slam. He missed dinner.
“Jared.” She slams the door. “What the hell was that? That was not alright.”
He can hear her at the base of the stairs.
“I know that you’re home because your car is here and I know you love it and you would never leave it here while you’re out, you want to show it off and make sure that everyone sees it. So you better answer me. Fuck these stairs, seriously, we need to install an elevator or escalator or something because another month of this will not fly with me.” She jokes and then she remembers that she’s still mad by the time she gets to the landing. “Where were you? You don’t leave your pregnant….whatever I am to you, waiting like a loser when you promised that you would be there. You stood me up and everyone that worked there looked at me with so much pity, this sad, pregnant lady waiting and waiting for someone that never came. What’s the excuse? What the hell happened?”
She finally finds him in the nursery sitting on the floor with his elbows on his knees and bits of the crib scattered around him.
“Hey.” She taps her finger lightly on the edge of the doorframe. “You going for an emo look because it’s working.”
“I can’t put the crib together.” He says quietly, linking his hands together and starting at them.
There’s something in his voice that lets her know he had a good excuse for forgetting her.
“Okay. Well that’s okay. Maybe the crib that my sister had was really simple. She is cheap. I’m sure we can figure it out. Where are the instructions?”
“No. You don’t understand. I can’t put the crib together.” He says, his voice low and with a hint of anger and she takes a step towards him and then stops like she’s evaluating the situation before she crosses the rest of the distance and sits down in the rocking chair next to him.
“Jared.” She wraps her fingers around his bicep and pulls his arm. “I know how you’re feeling.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yeah I do. You’re freaking out; you don’t think you can do it. I feel that way 24/7. Just constantly. But it’s worse for me because it’s growing inside of me. I can’t escape it even if I wanted to, there’s no way out.”
“I’m not looking for a way out.”
“I know that. And that’s how I know that you can do this.”
“I can’t, I’m going to fuck it up, and I know I will.”
She shakes her head and pulls him closer. “You won’t, you’re going to be perfect, you’ve been perfect. I can tell. You jumped right into this. It’s amazing. You love this baby so much already.” She slides her arm around his shoulders and he leans into her, his head against her knee. “You’ve done so much for me and I hate hearing you doubt yourself because I’m so sure you’re going to be great. I’m so sorry I never said this before. You’ve been telling me constantly that it’ll be okay and I never said it to you and I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He runs his hand over her hair, trying to soother her and kisses her temple. “You had a lot going on.”
She pulls away so she can look at him. “See, even know you know just what to say and what to do and I had to rant on you to get it out.”
“You’re allowed to rant.” He kisses her cheek. “Sorry I didn’t meet you. I was in the middle of a break down.”
She laughs. “I understand.”
“I owe you dinner.”
“And ice cream.”
He smiles gently and folds his legs across one another.
“You want to give the crib another go?”
“I guess we have to.” He sighs heavily and reaches for one of the parts. “It is hard to figure out thought. Even if I didn’t have a panic attack it would have been impossible for me to get it together in time.”
“I’m sure we can manage.” She grabs for the instructions. “Or we’ll get someone to do it for us.”
Three hours later the crib is put together and in the middle of the room. Jared’s moved to the rocking chair and Leah is perched across his lap, his head resting lazily on her shoulder.
“I have this fear that I’ll drop her.” He tells her. “She’ll somehow get away from me.” They’ve been bantering back and forth, talking about things that don’t matter mixed in with things that mean everything.
She giggles. “How is she going to get away from you? She’s a baby.”
“They wiggle.”
“I think you’re stronger than a baby.”
“I hope I am.”
She readjusts against him. “I have this almost irrational fear of boats. When they’re out of water and you can see the bottom of them. You know the part that’s supposed to be in the water. It should stay in the water.”
He laughs lightly. “I have this recurring nightmare that my hands fall off.”
She stifles a laugh into the top of his head.
“Right at the wrist so I’m worthless and they find someone new to play bass.”
“You could learn to play with your feet.”
“I guess so.”
“Can I tell you a serious one?”
“Sure.”
“I worry that.” She pauses for a moment. “I worry that she’s not going to know what love is. God that sounds horrible.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because of me. There’s something wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Everything is wrong with me. I’m unable to love.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true. Why do you think I’m not with you? Something in me is broken, that’s the only explanation. If I was normal and everything was okay I’d be married to you right now.”
“Marriage isn’t for anyone.”
“I know that. It’s not for me because I can’t commit to anyone because I don’t love anyone. I don’t really even love anything. I can’t even say that I love my job. And that’s how twisted everything is that out of all the people in my life the one thing that I thought that I would love was my job.”
“Don’t read into this, Leah.”
“I’m going to. What if it’s genetic? You know my mother, she’s terrible. My grandmother was probably just as bad. Or worse.”
“If she were worse then maybe you mellow out as the generations go on.”
“Or she was better. She was better than my mother and we just get worse as we go along. What if I pass it along to Bailey? What if she hates me like I hate my mother?”
“She is not going to hate you.”
“It wouldn’t be up to her. It’s predetermined. She has no say in it and neither do I. It’s the way that I am. I don’t love. She’s not going to love me.”
“Kids are supposed to love their mothers.”
“Then why doesn’t mine love me? She’s supposed to and she doesn’t. A lot of people are supposed to love me. My dad and my sister and my high school boyfriend. They’re all supposed to but they never did. My whole life is an awful supposed to.” She looks down at him. “I don’t know why you’re still here Jared. If you were smart you’d leave. Go find someone else.”
“I’m never going to do that.”
“Today when you didn’t show up a small part of me thought that maybe you’d had enough and you had taken off. I wasn’t even mad. I felt like I expected it.”
He pushes himself up from his leaning position and takes her face in his hands. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, and even if no one else in the whole world loves you, which totally isn’t true, just know that I do.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that I don’t feel the same way back?”
He bites his lip and shakes his head. “You love me. You don’t know it but you do. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”
“Some people would say that I’m only here for the baby.”
“You don’t do anything you don’t want to do. Everyone knows that. You love me, you just don’t say it. You will though.”
“You’re pretty confident aren’t you?”
He leans into kiss her and smiles into it when she kisses back.
Jared gets over his fear and she gets over thinking that she can never love because she definitely feels something for him. It’s something she can’t name and she hasn’t felt before and since she’s felt every bad feeling this has to be something good.
The glow she has going on is from so much more than the pregnancy.