Heartbeats

Chapter 12

Him...

Boys, sons, two little rascals that are half her and half me. I smile to myself every time I think about it.

The media has a field day with every twist and turn of our journey. Headlines and gossip columns are consistently abuzz with the latest news. I can't help but notice how one-dimensional and paper thin we are to them. Hollow.

They paint me as a womanizer, of course, playing up my sudden divorce as seedy at best and scandalous at worst. Then again, that's all I've really ever been in their narrative—easy on the eyes, hard on the heart.

They don't know that I read Tolstoy and I try to put more good in the world than I take out of it. I'm far more serious than they give me credit for.

I ponder these things from our couch in the study, looking out over the sunset on the Pacific coast. I'm so lost in thought that I hardly hear her slip in, sinking down beside me and lying down so that my lap is her pillow.

I run my fingers through her hair absentmindedly and I realize they get her wrong too. I've read all the headlines they've ever printed. In their narrative, she's silly, wild, and too carefree for her own good.

But they don't know how tender she can be. How earth-shatteringly strong. They aren't mesmerized by her grace in the same way I am, and they spend hours upon hours trying to extort it.

"Hey," I smile down at her. Her eyes hold the power to snap me out of my depressing spiral. "Do you ever regret the fame?"

"No," she shrugs casually, twisting so that she's sitting up on my lap, propped against the arm of the sofa, the skin on her lower belly peaking out beneath her too-small shirt that she refuses to give up on wearing until after the babies arrive. "I get tired of it sometimes, but I never regret it."

"You never think about how toxic it is that this whole other image of you exists and a bunch of grumpy old men make money on it and the rest of the world has no choice but to think that's who you really are?"

She chuckles briefly, but I can sense the sarcasm in it. She knows exactly what it's like—exactly how confusing and exhausting and degrading it can be.

"Before you get completely bent on destroying the system, don't forget that it's what brought us together..." She pulls me down to her by the collar of my shirt and lays a feather light kiss against the corner of my lip. "And I honestly kind of like being one of the few people in the world who knows the real you."

Her...

When I reach the stage of the pregnancy where it's uncomfortable to do just about anything else, I realize it's about time to start planning a wedding.

"How about Hawaii?" I ask one evening when I'm cozied up on the sofa with a bowl of ice cream balancing on my tummy. "I feel like that could be really beautiful."

"Hmmmm...." He looks up from where he sits with my feet in his lap, painting my toenails. I feel the strong urge to give him a kiss, but that would require moving and I keep that to a minimum these days. "Hawaii could be nice, but I thought you wanted to keep it small. I feel like everyone will find an excuse to come if we have it there."

"You're right. Back to the drawing board." I sigh and close my eyes as he caps the nail polish and returns his attention to massaging my swollen feet. I'd marry this man in a cardboard box, I think to myself as his talented fingers work their magic. "I really don't care where we have it anyway. It's just a formality. I'm never letting you out of my sight again."

"Is that so?" I sneak a peak at him and he's sending me his signature smirk. I can visibly see the wheels in his brain turning over sarcastic responses, but he ultimately lands on a much sweeter remark. "Formality or not, you deserve the wedding of your dreams and I'm going to make that happen."

We settle on Bulgaria in September, a little place outside the town where I was born that holds an air of both nostalgia and mystery. It's a place that is sure to wrap us up in anonymity and normalcy, a place where we will catch a break from the madness that is our daily lives.

"It's perfect," he says to me a few days later once the dates are reserved, sneaking up behind me to draw me into his embrace. "Now that we've settled that... on to more important matters."

It's then that I take note of the tiny slips of paper he clasps at my waistline. "What's this?" I ask, grabbing them and turning in his arms.

"A surprise." He shrugs, snatching the papers back from me before I get a chance to look at them. Only when I send him a concerned look does he recant.

"I've been thinking with all of the baby showers and wedding planning going on about how different our lives are going to be in a few short months. And while I'm honestly ecstatic for this journey with you, part of me doesn't want to rush away the now."

My brows furrow, still confused about his point. "We'll hardly have a normal honeymoon with three toddlers running around, so I decided to change things up a bit. I pulled some strings and everything fell into place. We're going on a babymoon... And we leave tomorrow."