Secret Desires

✧ 24: Moth From A Butterfly

Sarah

✧ Twelve Years Ago

        She was sitting on the bathroom floor with the test in her hands. She stared down at it believing this was the worst thing that could happen to her. She just turned seventeen and next month she was going to be a senior. She couldn't be pregnant now- Not now. She had no idea if Craig had remembered to use protection. But how could he when he was always high when he was inside of her? There was hardly a sober moment between them ever since Mari left. He wasn't going to want this baby. She didn't even want this baby.

       A week later she finally got the courage to tell him. She had closed her eyes and held her breath, bracing for whatever would come. She thought he would yell or blame her or try to make her feel worse than she already did. When he reached out to grab ahold of her face, asking if she was really truly pregnant with his child, she did not expect to see his face soften into something that she hadn't known before. The wonder and hope in his eyes had thrown her. She nodded her head slowly, hesitant to answer.

        Craig had huffed out a laugh as he pulled her into an embrace. He kissed her temple, whispering lovely promises into her ear. Promises of a good life together as a family. Promises of getting a house together and having a big yard for their child to play in. Promises of Craig getting a job soon so he could support them both. Promises of getting clean so they could both be sober and have a healthy baby.

        Sarah didn't know how to react. She was still scared and full of doubt, but his words eased those worries. A life with Craig sounded wonderful at the time. It was all she wanted. It made dropping out before her senior year to work as a waitress while pregnant worth it. It made getting kicked out of her house and her parents cutting her off completely with no contact worth it. It made living in Craig's basement with him at his grandmother's house worth it.

        They both worked shitty jobs to save up whatever they could to get a place of their own. They were tired and going through withdrawal, but they would do what they needed for their baby. A few months before the baby was born, Craig had gotten a job working in a warehouse that paid more than enough. The money they saved up grew and a few days before Sarah's water broke, they found a house for rent. It was in a low-income neighborhood surrounded by bordered-up homes. Sarah thought that slimy and shady were the two best words to describe the area. They also best described their landlord, but they took it because they needed to. It was a house they could afford and the two of them would do whatever it took to make it a home.

        When the baby came, things changed between Sarah and Craig. There had been a partnership between them. A tricky friendship growing into something more. But neither had said they loved the other. But when Craig held his daughter for the first time, he was breathless. There was finally light in all the darkness that surrounded him. The small bundle in his arms was the missing piece in his life that he never knew was missing. And when he looked at Sarah, the mother of his tiny wonder, he felt a love he hadn't felt since Mari. It wasn't the same and he knew it never would be, but he knew he did love Sarah. And he loved when she gave him the honor of naming their daughter.

        They had been bouncing back and forth between a few names but none of them felt right. He wanted a strong name because life was hard and at times it could be cruel. He grew up way too fast in an unforgiving world. He'd always had to fight. His daughter would be a fighter as well. When he was little, his grandmother would always say that life was a battlefield and you're either a survivor or a fighter. And as he looked down at his daughter, the word battlefield stuck in his mind. It was a Scottish name, he knew that much. He'd heard the name before somewhere, but the memory of how or where was forgotten. But it was perfect.