Leaps and landings

10

It was Sunday morning when Odette had just gotten out of her shower, a towel wrapped around her chest, her hair damp and messy.

She'd arrived at Penn station feeling exhausted the night before, but it had been the good kind of tired. She'd spent most of the ride reading, her earphones playing her 'feel-good' songs making her grin at the excitement she felt, barely able to concentrate on what she was reading. It was like she'd been in a frozen state for the last couple of years, her life on hold, and now suddenly, her blood was pumping again at full speed, feeling alive.

She was almost glad to arrive at an empty house, Rory and Logan seeming to have gone out that evening, most likely for dinner or a movie, like they often did. And now she already assumed that they had probably left for Stars Hollow for the day as well, as Rory had told her on Friday.

She looked and felt quite giddy, and she was a little unsure, she would've been able to hide it in front of them. She wasn't really sure if she was ready to tell them, also she didn't know if Jess was ready for them to know. Throughout Aidrien's birthday party Jess had introduced her just by her nickname, and while they'd been comfortable physically he hadn't particularly said anything about them being involved. She had fairly little experience on official labels like that, her more serious relationships usually having involved either publicly announcing things to elders or on the contrary hiding out, which didn't really give her a lot of experience in defining the relationships she'd naturally formed out loud. Surely this was just too soon for such definitions anyways, and it would do no harm to delaying telling Rory and Logan.

Odette opened her bathroom cabinet, looking at the row of supplements she took daily, and went along her usual routine of swallowing her regular dose along with a few glasses of water. This routine of hers was her daily reminder of keeping her body happy, and maintaining the possibility of getting pregnant.

She knew that they hadn't really discussed this with Jess in detail - she only knew that the thought of kids wasn't a dealbreaker for him, or so he'd said. She didn't know how strongly he'd actually meant that. It wouldn't have been the first time man said things that they didn't necessarily mean or mean in the same temporal scale. She was conflicted - on one hand wanting to give them time to breathe, to do this right, see where it led, but on the other, having already postponed one IUI she didn't know how many more she should, as theoretically each one could have less of a chance in succeeding.

The thought of having a kid on her own had always been daunting of course, but it had its perks too. One of the main benefits for her was the lack of potential arguments - getting the one and only say in the parenting decision, but of course that too came with taking full responsibility for them. On the bright side, that type of independence also fostered independence, and many studies had proved that kids born to single-parent households were also more independent in their own lives. The financial aspects were not an issue, she'd already set aside a trust fund that was safe, if anything were to happen to her or her other assets, that would still be there. There was of course the question of if anything were to happen to her. But that was something she'd aimed to ask either one of her friends who already had kids or Rory and Logan, but only when she was already pregnant, as if fearing to jinx it. Most importantly she'd just dreamt of the undivided attention and unconditional love that she could share with her child, and receive the latter hopefully in return by not repeating the mistakes her own family had made. For months those arguments had been her driver, hear point in life. But now things didn't seem so black and white anymore. Having seen up close how endearing Rory and Logan were together, how they even hurt together, when they'd lost their first pregnancy, not that she had seen a lot of that but she could sense it. It was as if it was now their little secret, something inherently precious they shared, something that only they could create and form together. And however nice that idea felt - that possibility of having something like that with someone, she couldn't help but to feel, like if she waited, is she allowed herself to hope that it'd work out, she would be giving away some of that freedom she'd so desperately fought for at the same time. For all of these reasons, she could rush any of this - not the relationship, nor the baby.