All That I Am, All That I Ever Was, Is Here In Your Perfect Eyes, They're All I Can See
Hopefully the Harper hate subsides a little bit after this one.
Chapter 11/12
He’s the perfect father to be, like she knew that he would be. He’s so caring and wants to do everything for her and is willing to give her anything she needs or asks him for. She really does appreciate it. She knows that she could be alone in this, panicking and struggling to get through it without the ever present help of a man that loves her more than anything and is already crazily in love with their unborn baby, which he swears is going to be a girl.
“I always pictured us with a girl.” He tells her as he makes her lunch. She hasn’t been eating anything other than cereal for the past month and Lee’s been lecturing her about how bad that is for her and demanded that he make her food. He flips the grilled cheese in the pan and Harper watches him with a forced happy face. “I don’t care if it’s a boy, as long as it’s healthy and you’re healthy but I think it has to be a girl. I’m going to spoil her, she’s going to get everything that she wants, she’ll just have to ask once and I’ll be over it, you know, we might have to move up to your dads place because I don’t think a pony will fit in here.” He laughs and she suddenly can’t take it anymore. She covers her face with her hands and bursts into tears and Lee is frozen in confusion for a moment before he takes the grilled cheese out of the pan and onto a plate so it doesn’t burn before his arms are around her. “Whoa, okay, what’s going on?”
“You.” She sobs, not taking her hands away from her face and not holding on him.
“What about me?”
“You’re so amazing and you want this so bad and I want to be happy, I want to be so happy with you but I feel like I’m not and I’m going to be such a disappointment to you because you should be with someone that loves you as much as you love me.”
“Stop thinking that.” He unwraps his arms and puts them on her face, moving her hands out of the way so he can look into her watery eyes. “You’re never going to be a disappointment me and I need you. I’m never going to be with anyone else but you, I love you Harper.”
“Then why don’t I love you?” She says sadly and his hands drop from her face and he sits down with an impossibly heavy heart next to her.
“You don’t love me?” He sounds so sad, like a lost child or puppy and all she wants to do is wrap her arms around him and tell him that she loves him more than he could ever imagine but her arms won’t move and words won’t come.
“I do love you.” She tells him but he looks at her like he doesn’t believe it. “But it’s so hard for me to say Lee.” She sniffles and puts her hands on his knees. “I wish we could go back to the same feelings that we had before all this happened and I know that I should because you’re so sorry and you love me so much, god you love me more than anyone ever has and I should love you back just like that but…..I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She cries and he shakes his head and tries to figure out what to say.
“What do you want me to do Harper?” He says slowly and she looks up at him with her red eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you need me to do to make you love me like that again?”
Get a time machine and go back to the exact moment that he decided to sleep with Chloe and then not do it, she thinks bitterly.
“I don’t know.”
He nods a few times and stands up. “Well why you don’t tell me when you figure it out.” He takes a few steps from her before he turns back around. “What the hell is wrong with you Harper? Why do you act like this? How many times do I have to apologize before you decide to get over it? It was over a year ago, I know it was wrong and I know that it’ll never happen again and you still don’t trust me, why the hell don’t you trust me?”
“Because I…..you broke me.”
“I’m trying to fix you and us but you won’t let me. Why won’t you let me?”
“Because all I think about is you and her and the two of you together and what if she was in here and in this room and all over you and I think about if she was in our bed together and how many nights did she spend in there and if she ever told you that she loved you or if you ever thought that you could ever love her with time and I can’t shut those thoughts off and what the hell are we going to do Lee?” She throws that random question in there because she’s getting wildly upset and none of this makes much sense anyways. “But mostly I think about how much this could’ve her. She could be in my spot knocked up with your kid.”
“That would’ve never happened.”
“This should’ve never happened Lee.”
That went too far and she knows it.
“So you think this was a mistake?”
“It wasn’t planned.”
“I know that, but its happening.”
“But I don’t know if I wanted it to happen.” She explains.
“Well, that’s too bad Harper. Why are you like this?”
“I don’t know, I can’t be a mom Lee, I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“You think I have any idea? I don’t, I’m learning just like you are, or at least I’m trying to.”
“I’m trying.”
“No you’re not; you’re living in the past. Why don’t you think you won’t be a good mom?”
“Because I have nothing to base it on, not everyone had a perfect childhood like you.”
“Oh, dammit Harper, why do you keep going back to that, you had a hell of a lot more than some people did and you have me, I know you’re still pissed and you hate me or whatever but I’m here. I’m going to help you and love you and you’re resisting, that’s not okay. If we’re going to do this and make it work you have to let me help you. You have to let me love you again, that’s what this kid deserves, two parents that love each other and are going to love her. If we can’t do that then I don’t know what we’re going to do.” He tells her and Harper dries her eyes.
“Then I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
“Fuck. Harper.” He shakes his head a few times. “You know what, I am disappointed in you. You used to be something, you used to…..there was a time where if I did something to piss you off you’d tell me to fuck off and then be mad at me for like, ten minutes then you’d get over it. Why can’t you get over it?”
“It’s just….” She trails off; she doesn’t have an answer to that. She wants to tell him that it has less to do with him and more to do with her own insecurities but she can’t get that to articulate in her mind.
“Whatever Harper.” He toes into his shoes and grabs his keys off the hook hanging on one of the kitchen cabinets. “I need to go, I’ll be back later. I can’t deal with this now.”
“Where are you going to go?” She asks him weakly.
“I don’t know. But don’t worry, I’m not going to cheat on you Harper, I know that’s always on your mind.” He spits out bitterly and she winces at the sound of the slamming door and the hollow thought that she used to think that he would never walk out on her.
He doesn’t go very far. Andrew’s place is only half way across town and Andrew doesn’t really look surprised to see him there in the middle of the day.
“Don’t tell her I’m here.” Lee says as he pushes his way into the room and Andrew rolls his eyes at their drama.
“What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, don’t make me talk about it.”
“Fine.” He says as he watches Lee dig through his fridge for a drink.
He finds one and pops open the tab then take a sip and Andrew kind of judges him for drinking this early.
“She’s still mad at me.”
“I thought you weren’t talking about this?”
“I changed my mind; you got a problem with this?”
“No, no.” Andrew puts his hands up. “God, don’t get so defensive.”
“I feel like I’m always on the defensive, it’s like I can’t do anything right with her. Why doesn’t she get that I’m sorry and I’m not going to hurt her ever again, even with the baby coming she doesn’t believe me, I mean, does she really think that I’m going to leave her and the baby? I thought she thought I was a better guy than that.”
“You two have a fight or something?”
“Aren’t we always in a fight?” He puts the drink down and runs his hands though his hair. “This is not how it was supposed to be.”
“I know.”
“I can’t believe that one mistake is going to ruin the rest of my life.”
“There’s still time to fix it. I mean, it’ll be okay. You two are just meant to be together.”
Lee looks at him blankly. “Your optimism makes me want to kill myself.”
Andrew laughs out loud. “I’m really pulling for you guys.”
“Yeah, I am too but it’s pointless if she’s not there with me.”
Andrew shakes his head. “You need to give her some time.”
“It’s been over a year.” Lee yells. “How much time does she need?”
“I don’t know. She’s weird like that, she’s very picky and you know she holds a grudge. That’s not anything that’s changed. You knew she was like that.”
“But I don’t want her to hold a grudge against me.”
“Well….to damn bad.”
“I hate this. I hate this whole stupid thing.”
“Go home Lee. Go home, back to your girl and back to your kid and work this out, it’ll all work out.”
“She hasn’t even told anyone yet you know. Like the public. Do you think she’s ashamed?”
“I think maybe she doesn’t want her business all over the front page.”
“It’s going to come out sometime.”
“Yeah. I don’t have anything else to say to that.”
Lee sighs in annoyance and gets up. “I hate this.”
“Well would you rather not have it?”
“No.”
“Then deal with this.” Andrew says simply. “Or make it better.”
Lee gets back to the apartment an hour later, looking a lot more sober than she expected him to.
He comes in, kicks off his shoes, hangs up his keys and walks straight to the couch where she’s sitting, her eyes still a little red and puffy from tears and he leans in with his hands on either side of her face and kisses her.
“I love you.” He tells her. “I will give you anything you want Harper. You want to move and go someplace that she’s never even seen? That’s fine, I’ll do that. You need five or ten years to forgive me then I’ll wait, I’ll love you the whole time and I’ll wait for you to catch up. I’m willing to do everything for you Harper, are you willing to let me?” He asks her seriously and she reaches up and runs her hand over his face, her fingertips scraping over his rough stubble.
“Yes.” She tells him with a small smile and he kisses her again because it’s finally a start.
Things are better for them after that.
She tells everyone that she’s expecting and that it’s his while she’s on Ellen doing an interview for some reason, she doesn’t really have anything to promote, she’s just a good interview and Ellen needed someone.
“Pregnant?” Ellen asks out of the blue and Harper bursts out laughing, glowing and it’s like she didn’t even have to ask because the truth is written all over her face.
“Is that what they’re saying?”
“Yup. With Lee?”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.” Harper says coyly and the audience seems to all sigh in disappointment and Harper waits a beat before she takes a deep breath. “But you should totally believe this because it’s true.” She says causally and from that point on they’re both met with ‘congratulations’ from fans and ‘I knew you two would get your shit together eventually’ from friends.
There are minor criticisms from people. Mostly from some select Lee fans that can’t get over the fact that he’s really with her, let alone having a child with her and then one horrible tweet from Chloe. It gets retweeted to her about 40 times by people who are just waiting on baited breath to see what she’ll do. It’s a link to a story about her being pregnant with the message ‘That could’ve been me’ with it and Harper sees red. Sure, it’s basically what she’s been thinking but she doesn’t have to point that out to the whole world.
So, after some careful deliberation and staring at the screen and the spiteful message to her Harper decides on her own.
‘Go fuck yourself.’ She types into twitter and sends it very publically to Chloe and she can practically hear the waves of applause from everyone online for finally standing up for herself and telling the women off.
Chloe, almost to Harpers disappointment doesn’t reply back so the game ends there and Harper breathes a satisfied sigh and reads over the new tweets from her fans telling her that what she did was awesome.
When Lee comes home he looks at her shyly, like he’s afraid of what she’s going to do to him. He heard about the tweet fiasco from various people throughout the day.
She’s in the kitchen but she’s watching the TV that’s on in the living room and looks at him with a smile.
“So…” He slowly walks over to her and pulls out a chair and sits down. “I heard you were on twitter today.”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. That. I had to do it Lee, I just couldn’t let her talk like that and stay silent.”
He looks at her with an eyebrow raised. Why is she apologizing? “Don’t worry about it, it’s good that you did, I liked it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I like that; it’s like….how you used to be. You should tell a lot more people to go fuck themselves.”
She laughs and covers half of her face with her hand and looks up at him. “I feel better after doing it.”
“Good. I like when you feel better.” He says as he leans over and kisses her forehead, his hand lingering on her stomach.
They buy all their baby stuff at once in one store with paparazzi cameras flashing and neither of them caring who sees because in the end it doesn’t really matter. They can look on if they want to, what happened in public doesn’t count, what does count are all the small things that happen behind closed doors in their apartment. She finally starts to decorate it, picks out colors for the wall and he paints while she’s out with Katie one day so she won’t have to smell the fumes and when she comes home and the paint is still sticky she pushes him against it and kisses him because she wants to. She’s getting better with him and their whole situation and she wants him to know that.
They escape the public eye for a few weeks when they head upstate to her father’s old house, only now it’s completely her house, and spend the holidays up there, inviting all their friends and family over and Lee shows his father and brother around the house, talking about boring, structural, guy things, while the girls are packed into the kitchen asking Harper about baby names and what does she need for the shower and she tells them they’re thinking Evan for a boy and Carolyn for a girl and she doesn’t need anything because they have it all already.
Evenings are spent listening to the quiet chatter of his family telling stories from when he was a baby and their friends telling tales from when they were on Idol and tour and she almost falls asleep on the couch with his arm around her shoulders and her head resting on his chest.
Nights are spent with her falling asleep with one of his arms across her stomach and the other up by her head because he spends the last few moments of being awake gently stroking her hair and whispering that he would like to marry her but she never reacts because she’s already dreaming.
He asks her to marry him on the first day of spring. She’s almost seven months pregnant with their girl and he comes back to the apartment and finds her drinking pickle juice right out of the jar, though a straw and he can’t help the groan of disgust that comes out of his mouth.
“Shut up” She mumbles around the straw before she lets it fall away from her mouth. “I’m carrying a human inside of me; I get to do weird shit like this.” She laughs and he smiles because it’s the first truly genuine laugh that he’s heard from her in too long.
“It’s okay. It makes me want to gag but its okay.”
“You make me want to gag.” She jokes and he laughs and for a moment it feels exactly like it used to before everything went bad. “Come here and kiss me.”
“No way, you’re gonna taste like pickle juice.”
“Fine. I’m going to tell your daughter that you refused to kiss her mother.” She tips her head to the side in a playful challenge and Lee rolls his eyes.
“And then I’m going to…” He stops in the middle of the sentence because he’s standing here playing a game with her when has something serious to ask her. “Will you marry me?”
She stops the playful act and her eyes go wide. “Lee.”
“This isn’t a surprise or sudden or anything. I mean, look at us, you’re pregnant and I love you and if nothing had happened between us all that time ago..”
“Lee, if nothing bad had happened to us we’d be married with probably our second kid on the way.”
“Well…”
“Something did happen. But that has nothing to do with why I’m saying no.”
His shoulders drop. “You’re saying no.”
“I’m saying not right now. I just got used to the idea of being your girlfriend again and I’m slowly getting used to being a mom and I’m going to need some time to get used to being a wife. I don’t think I’ll be a very good one Lee.”
He bites his lip and decides to let it go. He’s not in the mood to fight, which is where any conversation with her about this would go. He would ask her how much time she needs to decide that she at least loves him, he hasn’t heard that from her in….he can’t remember how long, and then how long after that will she feel comfortable with being a mother and then how much longer until she feels like she could marry him. What if they run out of time while she’s contemplating? Then she would come back with that fighting side she’s gotten back recently and while he loves that and missed it he’ll quickly hate it when she yells at him that he promises her all the time in the world and that rushing her is a guaranteed way to get her to dig in her heels and drag it out just to fuck with him.
He pinches the bridge of his nose and fights back the oncoming headache.
“Okay.”
“I’m not saying no Lee.”
But you’re not saying yes either, he thinks to himself as he gives her a tight smile.
The proposal is all but forgotten, it’s just not mentioned, as they spend the last two months of her pregnancy reading all the books they can about raising a child and her spending hours on the phone talking to his mom trying to get all the real life information on it as she can.
She freaks out without him knowing. While she’s alone in the apartment or while he’s asleep. She’ll spend too long thinking about everything that can go wrong with this kid. The baby is pretty much screwed. She hates to admit it and that sounds horrible but it’s true. It can’t be like she was in high school and it can’t be like he was in high school because that’s going to be hell. Harper feels like she’ll only love Lee. She doesn’t think she’ll be a good mom, she’ll be a disappointment and when there’s some kind of bring your parents to school day she’ll only want Lee to go and won’t even tell Harper about it. The thought makes her want to cry and smack Lee for being so great and then she’s up for the rest of the night or pacing around the apartment until he wakes up or gets home and kisses her and she only calms down a little bit.
She goes into labor at eight at night on June 18th. Carolyn Moore DeWyze is born on June 19th, at 11:08 in the morning. Lee holds her first, leaning down so Harper can see her and she puts a hesitant hand on the soft pink blanket so she can look at her daughter.
“Blonde.” Lee says his voice thick with emotion as he lightly brushes Carolyn’s hair with the tips of his fingers.
“Oh god.” Harper lays her head back against the pillow with a tired smile at the two of them.
“She’s beautiful.” Lee whispers, nodding at the nurses when they start to leave the room to give them a moment of privacy.
“Can I hold her?”
“Yes. Of course, I was hogging her.” He laughs gently as he slowly passes her over to Harper and then slides onto the bed next to her.
Harper cradles her gently in her arms, her eyes starting to water from joy instead of pain and she rests her head against Lee’s shoulder and he leans down to kiss her forehead.
“I can’t believe that we did this.” He murmurs into her hair.
“I know. She’s too perfect.”
“Do you think she has any idea about how much we love her?”
Harper cranes her head up and kisses his jaw. “She’ll find out.”
Chapter 11/12
He’s the perfect father to be, like she knew that he would be. He’s so caring and wants to do everything for her and is willing to give her anything she needs or asks him for. She really does appreciate it. She knows that she could be alone in this, panicking and struggling to get through it without the ever present help of a man that loves her more than anything and is already crazily in love with their unborn baby, which he swears is going to be a girl.
“I always pictured us with a girl.” He tells her as he makes her lunch. She hasn’t been eating anything other than cereal for the past month and Lee’s been lecturing her about how bad that is for her and demanded that he make her food. He flips the grilled cheese in the pan and Harper watches him with a forced happy face. “I don’t care if it’s a boy, as long as it’s healthy and you’re healthy but I think it has to be a girl. I’m going to spoil her, she’s going to get everything that she wants, she’ll just have to ask once and I’ll be over it, you know, we might have to move up to your dads place because I don’t think a pony will fit in here.” He laughs and she suddenly can’t take it anymore. She covers her face with her hands and bursts into tears and Lee is frozen in confusion for a moment before he takes the grilled cheese out of the pan and onto a plate so it doesn’t burn before his arms are around her. “Whoa, okay, what’s going on?”
“You.” She sobs, not taking her hands away from her face and not holding on him.
“What about me?”
“You’re so amazing and you want this so bad and I want to be happy, I want to be so happy with you but I feel like I’m not and I’m going to be such a disappointment to you because you should be with someone that loves you as much as you love me.”
“Stop thinking that.” He unwraps his arms and puts them on her face, moving her hands out of the way so he can look into her watery eyes. “You’re never going to be a disappointment me and I need you. I’m never going to be with anyone else but you, I love you Harper.”
“Then why don’t I love you?” She says sadly and his hands drop from her face and he sits down with an impossibly heavy heart next to her.
“You don’t love me?” He sounds so sad, like a lost child or puppy and all she wants to do is wrap her arms around him and tell him that she loves him more than he could ever imagine but her arms won’t move and words won’t come.
“I do love you.” She tells him but he looks at her like he doesn’t believe it. “But it’s so hard for me to say Lee.” She sniffles and puts her hands on his knees. “I wish we could go back to the same feelings that we had before all this happened and I know that I should because you’re so sorry and you love me so much, god you love me more than anyone ever has and I should love you back just like that but…..I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” She cries and he shakes his head and tries to figure out what to say.
“What do you want me to do Harper?” He says slowly and she looks up at him with her red eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you need me to do to make you love me like that again?”
Get a time machine and go back to the exact moment that he decided to sleep with Chloe and then not do it, she thinks bitterly.
“I don’t know.”
He nods a few times and stands up. “Well why you don’t tell me when you figure it out.” He takes a few steps from her before he turns back around. “What the hell is wrong with you Harper? Why do you act like this? How many times do I have to apologize before you decide to get over it? It was over a year ago, I know it was wrong and I know that it’ll never happen again and you still don’t trust me, why the hell don’t you trust me?”
“Because I…..you broke me.”
“I’m trying to fix you and us but you won’t let me. Why won’t you let me?”
“Because all I think about is you and her and the two of you together and what if she was in here and in this room and all over you and I think about if she was in our bed together and how many nights did she spend in there and if she ever told you that she loved you or if you ever thought that you could ever love her with time and I can’t shut those thoughts off and what the hell are we going to do Lee?” She throws that random question in there because she’s getting wildly upset and none of this makes much sense anyways. “But mostly I think about how much this could’ve her. She could be in my spot knocked up with your kid.”
“That would’ve never happened.”
“This should’ve never happened Lee.”
That went too far and she knows it.
“So you think this was a mistake?”
“It wasn’t planned.”
“I know that, but its happening.”
“But I don’t know if I wanted it to happen.” She explains.
“Well, that’s too bad Harper. Why are you like this?”
“I don’t know, I can’t be a mom Lee, I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“You think I have any idea? I don’t, I’m learning just like you are, or at least I’m trying to.”
“I’m trying.”
“No you’re not; you’re living in the past. Why don’t you think you won’t be a good mom?”
“Because I have nothing to base it on, not everyone had a perfect childhood like you.”
“Oh, dammit Harper, why do you keep going back to that, you had a hell of a lot more than some people did and you have me, I know you’re still pissed and you hate me or whatever but I’m here. I’m going to help you and love you and you’re resisting, that’s not okay. If we’re going to do this and make it work you have to let me help you. You have to let me love you again, that’s what this kid deserves, two parents that love each other and are going to love her. If we can’t do that then I don’t know what we’re going to do.” He tells her and Harper dries her eyes.
“Then I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
“Fuck. Harper.” He shakes his head a few times. “You know what, I am disappointed in you. You used to be something, you used to…..there was a time where if I did something to piss you off you’d tell me to fuck off and then be mad at me for like, ten minutes then you’d get over it. Why can’t you get over it?”
“It’s just….” She trails off; she doesn’t have an answer to that. She wants to tell him that it has less to do with him and more to do with her own insecurities but she can’t get that to articulate in her mind.
“Whatever Harper.” He toes into his shoes and grabs his keys off the hook hanging on one of the kitchen cabinets. “I need to go, I’ll be back later. I can’t deal with this now.”
“Where are you going to go?” She asks him weakly.
“I don’t know. But don’t worry, I’m not going to cheat on you Harper, I know that’s always on your mind.” He spits out bitterly and she winces at the sound of the slamming door and the hollow thought that she used to think that he would never walk out on her.
He doesn’t go very far. Andrew’s place is only half way across town and Andrew doesn’t really look surprised to see him there in the middle of the day.
“Don’t tell her I’m here.” Lee says as he pushes his way into the room and Andrew rolls his eyes at their drama.
“What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, don’t make me talk about it.”
“Fine.” He says as he watches Lee dig through his fridge for a drink.
He finds one and pops open the tab then take a sip and Andrew kind of judges him for drinking this early.
“She’s still mad at me.”
“I thought you weren’t talking about this?”
“I changed my mind; you got a problem with this?”
“No, no.” Andrew puts his hands up. “God, don’t get so defensive.”
“I feel like I’m always on the defensive, it’s like I can’t do anything right with her. Why doesn’t she get that I’m sorry and I’m not going to hurt her ever again, even with the baby coming she doesn’t believe me, I mean, does she really think that I’m going to leave her and the baby? I thought she thought I was a better guy than that.”
“You two have a fight or something?”
“Aren’t we always in a fight?” He puts the drink down and runs his hands though his hair. “This is not how it was supposed to be.”
“I know.”
“I can’t believe that one mistake is going to ruin the rest of my life.”
“There’s still time to fix it. I mean, it’ll be okay. You two are just meant to be together.”
Lee looks at him blankly. “Your optimism makes me want to kill myself.”
Andrew laughs out loud. “I’m really pulling for you guys.”
“Yeah, I am too but it’s pointless if she’s not there with me.”
Andrew shakes his head. “You need to give her some time.”
“It’s been over a year.” Lee yells. “How much time does she need?”
“I don’t know. She’s weird like that, she’s very picky and you know she holds a grudge. That’s not anything that’s changed. You knew she was like that.”
“But I don’t want her to hold a grudge against me.”
“Well….to damn bad.”
“I hate this. I hate this whole stupid thing.”
“Go home Lee. Go home, back to your girl and back to your kid and work this out, it’ll all work out.”
“She hasn’t even told anyone yet you know. Like the public. Do you think she’s ashamed?”
“I think maybe she doesn’t want her business all over the front page.”
“It’s going to come out sometime.”
“Yeah. I don’t have anything else to say to that.”
Lee sighs in annoyance and gets up. “I hate this.”
“Well would you rather not have it?”
“No.”
“Then deal with this.” Andrew says simply. “Or make it better.”
Lee gets back to the apartment an hour later, looking a lot more sober than she expected him to.
He comes in, kicks off his shoes, hangs up his keys and walks straight to the couch where she’s sitting, her eyes still a little red and puffy from tears and he leans in with his hands on either side of her face and kisses her.
“I love you.” He tells her. “I will give you anything you want Harper. You want to move and go someplace that she’s never even seen? That’s fine, I’ll do that. You need five or ten years to forgive me then I’ll wait, I’ll love you the whole time and I’ll wait for you to catch up. I’m willing to do everything for you Harper, are you willing to let me?” He asks her seriously and she reaches up and runs her hand over his face, her fingertips scraping over his rough stubble.
“Yes.” She tells him with a small smile and he kisses her again because it’s finally a start.
Things are better for them after that.
She tells everyone that she’s expecting and that it’s his while she’s on Ellen doing an interview for some reason, she doesn’t really have anything to promote, she’s just a good interview and Ellen needed someone.
“Pregnant?” Ellen asks out of the blue and Harper bursts out laughing, glowing and it’s like she didn’t even have to ask because the truth is written all over her face.
“Is that what they’re saying?”
“Yup. With Lee?”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.” Harper says coyly and the audience seems to all sigh in disappointment and Harper waits a beat before she takes a deep breath. “But you should totally believe this because it’s true.” She says causally and from that point on they’re both met with ‘congratulations’ from fans and ‘I knew you two would get your shit together eventually’ from friends.
There are minor criticisms from people. Mostly from some select Lee fans that can’t get over the fact that he’s really with her, let alone having a child with her and then one horrible tweet from Chloe. It gets retweeted to her about 40 times by people who are just waiting on baited breath to see what she’ll do. It’s a link to a story about her being pregnant with the message ‘That could’ve been me’ with it and Harper sees red. Sure, it’s basically what she’s been thinking but she doesn’t have to point that out to the whole world.
So, after some careful deliberation and staring at the screen and the spiteful message to her Harper decides on her own.
‘Go fuck yourself.’ She types into twitter and sends it very publically to Chloe and she can practically hear the waves of applause from everyone online for finally standing up for herself and telling the women off.
Chloe, almost to Harpers disappointment doesn’t reply back so the game ends there and Harper breathes a satisfied sigh and reads over the new tweets from her fans telling her that what she did was awesome.
When Lee comes home he looks at her shyly, like he’s afraid of what she’s going to do to him. He heard about the tweet fiasco from various people throughout the day.
She’s in the kitchen but she’s watching the TV that’s on in the living room and looks at him with a smile.
“So…” He slowly walks over to her and pulls out a chair and sits down. “I heard you were on twitter today.”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. That. I had to do it Lee, I just couldn’t let her talk like that and stay silent.”
He looks at her with an eyebrow raised. Why is she apologizing? “Don’t worry about it, it’s good that you did, I liked it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I like that; it’s like….how you used to be. You should tell a lot more people to go fuck themselves.”
She laughs and covers half of her face with her hand and looks up at him. “I feel better after doing it.”
“Good. I like when you feel better.” He says as he leans over and kisses her forehead, his hand lingering on her stomach.
They buy all their baby stuff at once in one store with paparazzi cameras flashing and neither of them caring who sees because in the end it doesn’t really matter. They can look on if they want to, what happened in public doesn’t count, what does count are all the small things that happen behind closed doors in their apartment. She finally starts to decorate it, picks out colors for the wall and he paints while she’s out with Katie one day so she won’t have to smell the fumes and when she comes home and the paint is still sticky she pushes him against it and kisses him because she wants to. She’s getting better with him and their whole situation and she wants him to know that.
They escape the public eye for a few weeks when they head upstate to her father’s old house, only now it’s completely her house, and spend the holidays up there, inviting all their friends and family over and Lee shows his father and brother around the house, talking about boring, structural, guy things, while the girls are packed into the kitchen asking Harper about baby names and what does she need for the shower and she tells them they’re thinking Evan for a boy and Carolyn for a girl and she doesn’t need anything because they have it all already.
Evenings are spent listening to the quiet chatter of his family telling stories from when he was a baby and their friends telling tales from when they were on Idol and tour and she almost falls asleep on the couch with his arm around her shoulders and her head resting on his chest.
Nights are spent with her falling asleep with one of his arms across her stomach and the other up by her head because he spends the last few moments of being awake gently stroking her hair and whispering that he would like to marry her but she never reacts because she’s already dreaming.
He asks her to marry him on the first day of spring. She’s almost seven months pregnant with their girl and he comes back to the apartment and finds her drinking pickle juice right out of the jar, though a straw and he can’t help the groan of disgust that comes out of his mouth.
“Shut up” She mumbles around the straw before she lets it fall away from her mouth. “I’m carrying a human inside of me; I get to do weird shit like this.” She laughs and he smiles because it’s the first truly genuine laugh that he’s heard from her in too long.
“It’s okay. It makes me want to gag but its okay.”
“You make me want to gag.” She jokes and he laughs and for a moment it feels exactly like it used to before everything went bad. “Come here and kiss me.”
“No way, you’re gonna taste like pickle juice.”
“Fine. I’m going to tell your daughter that you refused to kiss her mother.” She tips her head to the side in a playful challenge and Lee rolls his eyes.
“And then I’m going to…” He stops in the middle of the sentence because he’s standing here playing a game with her when has something serious to ask her. “Will you marry me?”
She stops the playful act and her eyes go wide. “Lee.”
“This isn’t a surprise or sudden or anything. I mean, look at us, you’re pregnant and I love you and if nothing had happened between us all that time ago..”
“Lee, if nothing bad had happened to us we’d be married with probably our second kid on the way.”
“Well…”
“Something did happen. But that has nothing to do with why I’m saying no.”
His shoulders drop. “You’re saying no.”
“I’m saying not right now. I just got used to the idea of being your girlfriend again and I’m slowly getting used to being a mom and I’m going to need some time to get used to being a wife. I don’t think I’ll be a very good one Lee.”
He bites his lip and decides to let it go. He’s not in the mood to fight, which is where any conversation with her about this would go. He would ask her how much time she needs to decide that she at least loves him, he hasn’t heard that from her in….he can’t remember how long, and then how long after that will she feel comfortable with being a mother and then how much longer until she feels like she could marry him. What if they run out of time while she’s contemplating? Then she would come back with that fighting side she’s gotten back recently and while he loves that and missed it he’ll quickly hate it when she yells at him that he promises her all the time in the world and that rushing her is a guaranteed way to get her to dig in her heels and drag it out just to fuck with him.
He pinches the bridge of his nose and fights back the oncoming headache.
“Okay.”
“I’m not saying no Lee.”
But you’re not saying yes either, he thinks to himself as he gives her a tight smile.
The proposal is all but forgotten, it’s just not mentioned, as they spend the last two months of her pregnancy reading all the books they can about raising a child and her spending hours on the phone talking to his mom trying to get all the real life information on it as she can.
She freaks out without him knowing. While she’s alone in the apartment or while he’s asleep. She’ll spend too long thinking about everything that can go wrong with this kid. The baby is pretty much screwed. She hates to admit it and that sounds horrible but it’s true. It can’t be like she was in high school and it can’t be like he was in high school because that’s going to be hell. Harper feels like she’ll only love Lee. She doesn’t think she’ll be a good mom, she’ll be a disappointment and when there’s some kind of bring your parents to school day she’ll only want Lee to go and won’t even tell Harper about it. The thought makes her want to cry and smack Lee for being so great and then she’s up for the rest of the night or pacing around the apartment until he wakes up or gets home and kisses her and she only calms down a little bit.
She goes into labor at eight at night on June 18th. Carolyn Moore DeWyze is born on June 19th, at 11:08 in the morning. Lee holds her first, leaning down so Harper can see her and she puts a hesitant hand on the soft pink blanket so she can look at her daughter.
“Blonde.” Lee says his voice thick with emotion as he lightly brushes Carolyn’s hair with the tips of his fingers.
“Oh god.” Harper lays her head back against the pillow with a tired smile at the two of them.
“She’s beautiful.” Lee whispers, nodding at the nurses when they start to leave the room to give them a moment of privacy.
“Can I hold her?”
“Yes. Of course, I was hogging her.” He laughs gently as he slowly passes her over to Harper and then slides onto the bed next to her.
Harper cradles her gently in her arms, her eyes starting to water from joy instead of pain and she rests her head against Lee’s shoulder and he leans down to kiss her forehead.
“I can’t believe that we did this.” He murmurs into her hair.
“I know. She’s too perfect.”
“Do you think she has any idea about how much we love her?”
Harper cranes her head up and kisses his jaw. “She’ll find out.”