bad expectations | jfg

epilogue ⇒ part 2

February 15th, 2021 ⇒ Jack's POV

I wasn't sure what it was like for Taylor. All I knew was that something shattered inside of her and it was hard to put all the pieces back together. I mean, she was the mother. She was the one that had our baby in her stomach.

Every time I thought about what would've happened if everything went right, I get chills. We would've had a fucking child. We would have been parents. The boy or girl would've had a mom forever, unlike me. They would have had a great dad. . . well, a caring dad.

She smiled for the first time two weeks after the news when I bought her flowers and reminded her that we could always try again, but she didn't want to. It broke my heart, because I went from hating children, to wanting one, the option being taken away from me, and now I couldn't even have sex with her in hopes it would make a little baby because she didn't want that- or so I thought.

I misunderstood her for months. She just didn't want the devastating disappointment to be a relapse. She wanted to be a mom, I knew that ever since I met her; it was easy to figure out. So, that's what brought us to foster care.

As I drove there, she bit her nails down to the skin from nerves. I tried to comfort her by squeezing her leg and saying how fucking cute it would be if we had a little English baby to take care of, and how some of the things he'd grow up saying would be American like, and others English. She did want what I wanted, she just didn't know how it was going to go down.

She wrapped both of her arms around one of mine when we walked into the building.

"Calm down." I grinned down at her and she shook her head, biting her bottom lip and looking around. "We can go home if you want, come back another day. . . or never again?"

She then smiled, mumbling for me to shut up. Her hair was now short and curly. And, for the first time, she was wearing lipstick. It made her look a lot older than me. . . not in a mom way, but in a my-girlfriend-is-way-out-of-my-league way.

"Mr. and Mrs. Gilinsky?"

My stomach spun and I put my arm around Taylor, squeezing her shoulder. "Yeah." My voice lingered in a happy sigh. It had a beautiful ring to it, didn't it?

It was a solid hour of guiding us around the floors of the building. Apparently, there were many different sections. Each age had their own floor and they were free to roam around on visiting days-today-but, that was where we had to decide.

We went into the nursery section because, we were obviously intending to get a new born so it would actually be ours. But, we didn't know how to decide. There was no baby with sparkling eyes who called my name and stretched it's little arms out, honestly, they all looked the same- and it scared the shit out of me.

Our roles were completely switched and she was the one rubbing my back as I leaned my back against a wall, staring at the ceiling. Were we going to walk out of here knowing we were going to be parents? To a baby that wasn't ours?

"Can we please just have lots of positive sex? And, then we could have our own? One that would look like us? Think about it." I grabbed her shoulders and she looked at me with a faded grin, seeming to like the way I was talking. "We would have a kid that was tan, like me. They would probably have pretty nice eyebrows, both of ours are nice. I think their eyes would be brown because, you know, both of ours are. Is that how genes work? I don't know. But, I bet they'd be so nice and sweet and cute and they'd have your cheeks. Holy fuck, c'mon." The entire time I rambled, I ran my hands on her face and shoulders, warming her up while trying to persuade her.

I had a good feeling, then a bad. I was on an emotional roller coaster because I had the girl who has been making me sweat for years in front of me while being surrounded by babies who are making me sweat in a different way unfadingly. I was a mess.