The Momentary Moments : A Book Of Short Stories

An Aunt's Love

"I'm sorry but we couldn't save her. She was forced to have a stillbirth, we had no other choice," The doctor told us. My body began to shake forcefully as if an earthquake had just hit my heart, the room began to spin forcing me to fall back into my chair, my vision went blurry as my eyes filled with tears.

"This can't be happening!" I whispered forcefully. My husband wrapped his arm around me tightly.

"You need to go see her Hales," He tells me softly. I nod and hug him tightly as I run back to her hospital room.

Truth is, Paige has been through it all. Growing up, her single dad raised her along with her brother after her mom left them to live with a wealthier guy. Her dad had never completed his college education so his income had been low throughout their childhood years and they had to survive on very little. Junior year rolled around and Paige had gotten herself into a lot of trouble. She had pushed all of her best friends away from her and replaced them with new friends who pressured her into doing drugs, smoking, and drinking. Through this friend group, she met a boy who was nothing but trouble. While Paige was head over heels for him, he was sleeping with 3 other girls. While she had full faith in love and fate he had full faith in a girl with a big chest and a fat ass.

Paige had lost herself but the hardest part about it was she lost herself very slowly instead of all at once. She was deteriorating right in front of my very eyes and even with all my efforts she ignored me and kept focused on the evils on the world, thinking that they might just give her everything. And the day she hit rock bottom was the day she realized how lost she really had been.

Paige confessed her love to that boy she thought she really loved and he returned her love in the midst of her bedroom sheets. She was over the moon. She thought she finally knew how he really felt about her. She expected to be wrapped up in his arms that next morning. She expected him to call her 'baby girl' in front of his friends. She expected him to write beautiful tragedies in love poems to her. She expected him to finally tell her that's she's his missing puzzle piece. She expected him to make her his whole entire world.

But to her surprise, her expectations were just a fairytale. When she woke up the next morning, the boy she was "in love with" was gone. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, she waited a half an hour to see if he'd come back. Then another hour, and then another hour after that. She picked up her phone and shot him a text and he just replied telling her she was just a one night stand, nothing more.

Shortly afterwards, she was pregnant with his child. Afraid of the consequences, she decided not to tell the birth father about his biological son or daughter and she decided to bring me on to her team as the adopted father.

As silly as that sounds, it was true. I was the only one left for her to lean on. Everyone had left her when she started to make poor decisions, except for me. I knew the person she was deep down and I knew that person was still there but that person was holding on for dear life. All of these other evils had knocked her soul down countless times but there was one thing that kept it there all those times and that was me. I was the one person who told her she was still worth it, despite the mistakes she had made. I was the one person who encouraged her to be the better person whom she had been in the past before she had made all these mistakes. Most people would call me a hero or just simply a good person for doing all of this but I disagree with them. I was just completing my duties as her sister in christ and as her best friend because when I accepted that position I knew those were the skills I would have to pull out sometimes on the job.

I walked in that hospital room, expecting Paige to be sobbing. Boy do I know my best friend because when I walked in she was a mess. Snot came rushing down her nose like niagra falls and her mascara smeared around her eyes resembling a raccoon. She looked up at me and her eyes ached of pain, anger, and sadness. I rushed over to her and hugged her tightly.

"Why does everything I love always leave me?", She asked me.

"People always leave," I say as I push a stroke of hair behind her head, "but even if you drag me through the depths of hell, I will never leave your side." She just stops crying and simply smiles at me.

"You would've made a fantastic Aunt."

"I WILL make a fantastic Aunt! Paige, you're going to pick yourself up and you're going to get back into the cruel, cruel world and you're going to kick it's ass. At first it's going to be hard, and you're going to want to quit. But guess what?"

"What?"

"I'll never let you quit. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because I just love you too much."

"Haley," She says softly.

"What?" I ask.

"Thank you. For everything. I've been a jackass throughout high school and I've made you go through a lot of drama," She says. I laugh to myself.

"Paige, you're funny. Don't you think I read the terms and conditions before I signed on to be your best friend? You're my ride or die bitch and there's nothing you could ever do to make me leave you. Look, I've messed up, you've messed up, I've given you hell, you've DEFINITELY given me hell, but in the end it's all worth it because one day I'm actually going to be able to be an Aunt and we're going to get to tell all the amazing stories we've had to our kids and they're going to look at me as 'Cool Aunt Hales'. Sure, today wasn't my day to be an Aunt but one day it will be. And one day I'm going to look into your kid's eyes and I'm going to say 'Hey Kiddo. It's a cruel world out there but Aunt Hales is always going to be looking out for you, just like I've been looking out for your momma all these years' and in that exact moment all that drama and shit that we went through won't be worth it because you'll have the world at your fingertips and you'll finally be able to say you've made it and I'll get to say I was a witness to the day you conquered all your fears and insecurities."

"I'm so glad you're my best friend," She says as she hugs me one more time.

"Diddo, pal, diddo."