The Struggles of Growing Up-Completed

Chapter 30

As soon as I finish my work, I leave. I had too many things to sort out, between my foundation and school project and still looking for a CFO. It's about 8 pm, and it's later than I wanted to stay (and I'm starving), but I need to get to Zach. I need to tell him in person I'm sorry, and I'm ready to be his family. For him to be my family. He's all I have.

"And you too, of course." I whisper to Sesame. I can't wait to know the sex of the baby so that I can call him or her something other than a type of seed commonly found on hamburger buns.

It still doesn't fit in my mind that I am carrying a baby. Zach and I will be parents, and it makes me happy. I don't care about work if it means losing Zach, losing my family. There has to be a balance, a balance our own parents never found.

I drive myself to Zach's work. I don't want Markson there. Besides, the frenzy of the paparazzi has started to die down and I have to prove to him I'm committed. I'm trying to separate my work from my personal life, even if it means having less control over the number of photographs of me (and some of them are not pretty).

We've let it get mixed up too many times, with the company and marriage and all. It's time we be happy, together, no past entanglements.

But I'm scared he's too done with me. What if he actually says no? That's a very real possibility, I even thought of that when the roles were reversed.

You don't want this baby. You don't want change. So you don't want me. 

Oh hell no. I have to fix this.

I grab my water bottle and take a sip, trying to calm my nerves. The light turns green, and I make the left turn to get onto the freeway. LA traffic is horrible, but, surprisingly, today it's light. That's good. I set my water bottle down into the cup holder, but it slips and falls onto the floor, near my feet and the foot pedals.

"Shoot." I mutter to myself, and carefully bend down to pick it up. At least I had closed it before, so it didn't spill.

Suddenly, very bright lights shine in the rear view mirrors, almost blinding me. But the sound of tires screeching mixed with honking prompts me to lift my head up. A cold chill runs through me and I gasp, not prepared at all for the sight that followed.

***

One time, when I was about thirteen, my mom got so stupidly drunk I wondered if she had gone in a time machine to her 20 year old self at state school. (Yeah, she was quite the party girl before she met my dad).

She had intoxicated herself like that once before (and I do mean intoxicated), but this time was so out of the blue that I didn't understand quite what was going on. (The other time was at one of the company Christmas parties, but that's another embarrassing story).

My dad was still at work, and I was doing my homework in the kitchen. Back then, we were still living in our five bedroom house out in the valley. It had a large backyard that overlooked the mountains, an impressive kitchen, you name it. I loved that house, and not because of its impressive stature. That's where my dad taught me how to play tennis, where he taught me how to ride a bike. It's where I had most of my memories with both my parents (other than Remlor, of course), but my mom sold it when my dad died. It was too hard for her to be there, I guess.

Anyways, she was drunk and I got mad because she sat at the kitchen table next to me and started blabbering nonsense. Of all the places in the house she chose to sit next to me. I was close to calling my dad, but I remember that I didn't want to bother him or prompt a fight between them, especially since I had absolutely no idea what made her do this. She just came home, in a cab, drunk.