A New Way of Living

Chapter Thirty-Three

Author's Note: I do now own West Side Story or any elements of it.

When they stepped into the apartment, Riff came up behind Vivienne and looped his arms around her waist, leaning down to her ear to whisper playfully, "What you got for me, girly-girl?"

Vivienne slowly, painfully pulled herself out of Riff's arms to face him.

"Riff, when you were gone, something happened," she said softly, taking his hands in hers.

Riff watched and saw the seriousness of her expression. His brow furrowed in concern as he squeezed her hands in his. 

"What happened? Tell me," he asked, his voice laced with worry.

"Nothing bad, just...something big," she explained. "I didn't go to Boston. I was here."

"Okay..." Riff, perhaps out of an uncharacteristic nervousness, let out a small laugh as he watched her. When she didn't respond, he looked around them, suddenly on edge. "You're startin' to freak me out. What's goin' on?"

Vivienne took him by the hand and pulled him to the bedroom. 

She did not see his face when he first saw the crib - she only saw his expression as she pulled him to stand over it. It was an expression of confusion, naivety. His eyes widened and narrowed at the sight of the baby in front of him.

"What's this?" he asked, his voice lightened with a small laugh.

"A little after you left...I found out I was pregnant," Vivienne said slowly. She watched, rooted to the ground with nerves as the words came out of her mouth.

Riff looked between her, the crib, and back to her. 

"...Are..." He narrowed his eyes, before letting out another laugh. He shook his head and scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah, okay. ...Sure. Good one, baby."

"Riff, I'm not kidding."

Riff's smile dropped, turning his face into a ghostly vision of confusion and doubt.

"But..." He looked down at Sean once again, his brow furrowed deeply as he tried to process what was in front of him along with her words. When he spoke, his voice came out as a crack. "...I don't understand."

"What's not to understand?" Vivienne asked, giving him a small helpless shrug.

Riff's hand dropped from hers, falling limply at his side. The absence of his touch broke her heart.

"That's...my kid?" he whispered, nodding towards the crib.

"Yeah. He is," Vivienne breathed. She dared not move while Riff came to full understanding.

"He..." Riff exhaled. The word seemed to hitch in his throat. He looked at her, his eyes almost glazed with an emptiness. "I...Why didn't you tell me?"

"I know. I'm sorry. It was so shitty of me. But I wasn't sure what I would do, and you'd just been taken away and...and then I saw you and you were so desperate for things to go back to the way they were. And then it all just happened. I wish I'd told you. I just didn't wanna make things harder for you while you were in there." 

The words fell quickly but calmly from her lips. She waited for further reaction, but Riff only broke their stare to look back down at Sean, his mind working overtime to try and create some sort of response. 

She wanted to fall on her knees, to beg him for forgiveness for keeping it from him. But she couldn't do anything but watch.

A few moments passed and it soon became unbearable.