Months passed in a blur of pattern and schedule. Most days were similar to the next and turns out Sam was right about Lindi being pregnant, I'd of course forgotten until mom called me in the middle of the night in mid April. Lindi didn't even know she was pregnant. She'd really shown no signs of it either. At Easter brunch she looked normal, chasing Ledger around on his wobbly chubby toddler legs. Lindi was in pain and they rushed her to the hospital. Parker called mom and luckily they got to the hospital around the same time so mom could take Ledger and Parker could go back with Lindi. Apparently Lindi dismissed her food cravings and mood changes for normal behavior and didn't have any morning sickness, her period had been irregular since having Ledger and she just didn't think about it. They welcomed a baby girl and named her Scarlett Rae.
Two weeks later I was sitting at home, the usual schedule playing out when Nat came home early. At the moment I was bathing August, she was splashing around and laughing while playing with her bath toys.
"I'm home!" My eyebrow shoots up in confusion.
"I'm in the bathroom." I call. "Bathing August." soon I look up at Nat standing in the doorway smiling.
"You're home super early." I say.
"Yes and?"a question hangs in the air.
"And why are you home early?" I ask.
"Because I got that new job."
"What?" I rinse August off and wrap her in a towel as he proceeds to tell me that he starts Monday at his new job that pays better and he works at night.
"That's great." I tell him. I was back working at my dads store and since we're family I brought August along and she sat in her play pen and played and slept while I worked. Everything was okay, things were normal. My new normal. We were a family. I wasn't sure if I liked the quite normal that it had become but I just lived in it. Then there was Mark...
Mark and Lisa started to not get along and the break up was mutual. She moved out in the beginning of February, which I thought made things worse for Mark considering we were all still getting over my sisters death. Every once in a while I couldn't help but think that things couldn't be normal without Sam, but somehow it was.
But through the months I realized I had been thinking more about August than myself and I started to realize something. Maybe I was using Nat. It felt wrong for him to come home every day and kiss me and tell me things like he loves me and then cook for me at dinner because he insists on doing something for me. I dragged him down exactly like I didn't want to do to Mark. Nat didn't ask to come out of high school and be held down by a fiance and a kid. What was happening? I couldn't even let myself be happy. I just felt like I was the one hurting everyone else, but somehow I didn't do anything about it. My feelings toward Nat were decreasing at a rate that I didn't understand. I liked Nat, I really did. I really wanted to marry him. But there was something about seeing August giggle and play with Mark, when I saw that it was like I fell in love all over again. I didn't know how to express either of these emotions with either of them. I just needed time to think about it.
"What's wrong?" Nat interrupts my thoughts.
"Nothing," I tell him "I'm just tired that's all." I finished sliding on Augusts shorts and off she went exploring her room. She started crawling a lot within the past month. I'm not sure what happened, just one day she was being held and the next she was crawling all around the house.
"Something is..." he says and something inside me broke. A heart string that was pulled too tight and I think I snapped.
"Nothing, okay?" I went into the kitchen and got a water bottle. I took a sip. He was standing in the door way.
"Is there something wrong? You can talk to me." and the way he says it makes what I want to tell him harder and harder. He was just as much August's dad as Mark. But I couldn't help but think that we'd be better off as friends. But I've gotten too many people involved. His mom loves us and he loves August and August is getting bigger everyday and she can remember things now. I don't want things to end up where August has to go to three Thanksgivings, three Christmas', and be traded off every weekend. I'd been stressing about it since before she was born and all that pent up emotion just came crashing down.
"I don't know, okay?! I just don't know anymore! One minute I'm happy and then I'm not and then I think about August and what's best for her and I don't know if I can live like this anymore." I set the bottle down and pull back my hair. "I'm too scared to tell anyone how I actually feel because I'm too afraid of what could happen." he came into a slow hug. "No." I tell him. He backs off.
"Let me guess the next part."He says. "It's not you, it's me?"I nod.
"But that's not all! That's just a statement, there is so much more to it and you know that."
"You don't talk to me anymore, how am I supposed to know anything when you don't tell me?"
"It doesn't mean I don't love you, or care about you, or want to be with you because I so badly want to be with you. " there's a long pause. "I just need time to breath. I don't think I need a relationship right now. I can barely think about you, and Mark, let alone myself. "
"I told you I didn't even want to get involved if you still had feelings for him."He said, a look of hurt in his eyes. "Did you just play me this whole time, after all of this? Did you even want to marry me?"
"No I didn't 'play' you, and yes I do, I still want to marry you. I just need to take a break and be alone with August. I've been thinking about it for a while, I'll leave. It's your apartment. But I want us to be friends for a while."
"Do you know how selfish that sounds?"he says "I want to wait for you, I just don't know if I can." He holds back his hair and wipes his hand down his face. "What about August?"
"It's okay if you don't want to wait anymore, I understand. I just want you to be happy. You are still her godfather, and you are still my best friend." there is a quiet moment that passes and we hug, and we cry. "You have been with me through so much." my voice shakes. "And I'll never be able to thank you enough."
"I really wish I could promise to wait for you. But I guess now I need some alone time as well." He turns around and with his back to me says. "I'm leaving so you can pack." and the way he said it felt like a stab in the gut. Suddenly I regretted everything that I had just done.
YOU ARE READING
Skinny Love
Teen Fiction'A teenage girl comes face to face with her past and must deal with its consequences.' Ella got pregnant at seventeen, by her best friend but he doesn't know about it. Instead of telling him she changed schools and took on a new life where no one kn...
