Week #7 - End of Summer
Title: Time for Recklessness
Rating: PG
Characters: Peter & Marion, original characters
Warnings: none really
Word Count: 224
Summer had always been his time for recklessness. Long harbored sentiments and desires - running away from home at 17 after high school graduation; trekking through Europe with only $200 in his pockets; getting married; finally saying the word “divorce”-were always easier to externalize during the heat infused months.
* * *
He cried with rage and despair in his wife’s arms after feeling their son kick for the first time. She understood it, too. Only, she would not allow herself to cry. They were suffused with the same fear and guilt. She thought of the fights, the nights spent in different rooms. He counted the hours he purposely lingered away from home and felt ashamed of the weekend father he was destined to become. They knew how it was going to end and yet neither of them had the strength to walk away.
“What are we going to do, Marion?”
She flinched at the innocence with which he said it, for it had hurt her more than anything ever had.
“The only thing we can do. We love him like we’ve never loved anything before.”
Recklessness had no place in his life anymore and yet there he was: nine months into a rushed marriage and Marion four months away from birthing their first son. It scared him how much he still wanted out.