Secret Desires

✧ 15: Back Burner

✧ December 22nd - Five Months Later

  The sound of the crackling fire had me closing my eyes. I leaned my head back and sank into my chair as I listened to all the night had to offer. I pulled the thick fleece blanket wrapped around me even tighter, embracing its warmth. There was an owl whose wavering cries grew distant; something drawing it away from the cabin. The wind's low howl rustled the trees that surrounded us. Small animal sounds coming from creatures unseen were soft chitterings and chirps that could almost go unnoticed. Then there was the music playing low and the soft murmur of our conversations filling the space between all of us.

Dani and Tanya are discussing a shop they'd seen coming into town this morning. They plan on going tomorrow to check it out. Layla and Dallas are arguing about a childhood memory. One of them is getting an important fact wrong but neither can decide who it is. My mom, Jill's mom, and Claudia are all discussing baby names. Claudia suggested Sebastian but my mother gave it a hard no with a laugh. Jill's mom thought Mary was precious, but to my mother, it sounded like an old lady. Cassie and Jill are making plans to spend the new year with Jill's family because Cassie doesn't want to spend it with her mom. I didn't blame her.

I remembered the things said and done after Cassie and I had gotten into a fight. I'd almost been expelled that day. It would've happened too if Cassie hadn't taken all the blame. She'd been so angry with herself about being Nolan's friend and making excuses for him all the time. She felt like she owed him and let it blind her to truths she didn't want to face out of loyalty to him. I remember starting to understand her that day.

We'd gone to the main office and waited for our mothers. They came in their work attire. Cassie's mom, a very pretty and very young woman, had come in a Hooters uniform. She was hard to forget. I remember our mothers wanting to fight. My mother had thrown a shoe at Cassie's mom. My mom told the other woman that her daughter wouldn't amount to anything just like her tramp mother. Cassie's mom shot back that maybe if my father were in my life then I wouldn't be a lying little bitch. I felt the sting of both insults.

Inviting Cassie over months after that incident had been an interesting conversation with my mom. Explaining that Cassie was Jill's girlfriend and that we were all good friends now was even more interesting. My mother has since apologized for what she said, but it never seemed to be a grudge Cassie held. I think she would have rather let it go and be forgotten than revisit it no matter the good intention. I think it was the confrontation of the matter she disliked. Either way, Cassie has become a part of our expanding family.

The corners of my mouth pull up as I listen in on my mom's conversation again. They were on the name Liam now and my mother seemed to be leaning toward it. Liam Matthews sounded like a grown man. But I liked it. Liam. I turned my head in my mother's direction to see them laughing over another name, this one silly but gender-neutral.

My beautiful pregnant mother. She was glowing in every way she could. Her hair was shiny and had grown out a lot during her pregnancy. Her skin looked as soft as it felt and her cheeks had more color. My mother was radiant. She had a hand on her protruding stomach as she laughed at something Jill's mom said, earning a cackling laugh from Claudia as well. I watched as she rubbed at her belly, a warmth growing inside of me at the sight of my mother this way.

She was seven months pregnant. I still couldn't believe it at times. It was the end of July when she started throwing up and passing it off as food poisoning. A week into August she was wearing baggy clothes with the excuse of not wanting to do laundry. I don't know how long she had planned to keep up with that one, but the cat was out of the bag when Dean had been the one to tell me what was going on. And he didn't know how to feel about it at first either. Because the father of my mother's baby was his dad.