I've got you {Laurinah}

9. Little Monster

"So your mom was wrong," Dinah said, interrupting the silence that had filled the car since they left the doctor's office fifteen minutes ago.

"My mom is never wrong," Lauren muttered distractedly.

Her hands resting uselessly on the steering wheel, Lauren stared blankly out of the windshield at the shiny, new-looking cars passing on the street. She frowned. Everything was annoying her today. She thought it was probably the hormones.

"Dinah, remind me why we got a used car instead of a new one?"

"Because you're a freelance writer and I work at a nail salon, and we're saving for the baby," Dinah said promptly. "And also, Clara was wrong."

"Right," Lauren nodded, rolling her eyes. "God, why didn't I go into law? I would be a good lawyer."

"We're having a girl," Dinah said, slapping her thigh for emphasis. "Your mom was wrong, baby, it's not a boy. The little monster is a little princess."

"We're having a girl," Lauren echoed with a sigh, wondering why the phrase didn't make her as happy as it seemed to make Dinah.

"Is something wrong, Lo?" Dinah asked, turning her body to face more towards Lauren. "You look a lil out of it, and you haven't said anything aside from 'thank you' since they told us the sex of the baby."

"I don't know," Lauren said, shifting her shoulders and glancing around, as if the answer might be hiding in the far corner of the dashboard. "I don't...I think I'm in shock, maybe."

"You of all people should know there's nothing wrong with having a girl," Dinah mused, shaking her head.

"It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

Shaking her head, Lauren looked down at her hands where they rested on the bottom of the steering wheel.

There was a sigh from the passenger seat, and the sound of Dinah's hands tapping her own thighs again, the way she often did when she was trying to figure something out.

"Lolo," Dinah said, reaching across the console between them, her hand open, tilting her head down to try to catch Lauren's eye. Swallowing hard, Lauren looked up at her, and Dinah wiggled her fingers, smiling softly.

"She's gonna be perfect, you know," Dinah said. "There's no way she won't be."

Lauren placed her palm against Dinah's, sighing gently at the softness of her skin, curling her fingers around her wife's hand and taking a deep breath.

"A beautiful little princess, ready to grow up into a beautiful queen just like her mama," Dinah continued quietly, squeezing Lauren's hand, and Lauren frowned. "What's wrong, babe?"

There was quiet for a few moments, as Lauren swallowed, trying to collect her thoughts.

A beautiful little princess, Dinah had said, not a little monster. Something twisted in Lauren's stomach, and she shook her head. She'd been a beautiful little princess, once, and it wasn't all it was cut out to be.

"It's just...it's fucking hard to grow up a girl in this world," Lauren said finally, her voice slow, trying to put words to her thoughts in a way that Dinah would understand them. "You can't do anything right, and people find ways to disapprove of you whether you're fifteen or five months old. Nobody notices you unless you're doing the wrong thing. And even if you're old enough to answer for yourself, they don't talk to you. They talk to whoever you're supposed to belong to, whoever owns you, whether it's your parents or your partner."

"People don't own people," Dinah objected, her brow furrowing.

"In a perfect world they wouldn't, but there's more than one kind of slavery, Dinah," Lauren said, shaking her head. "And the kind that applies to women is encouraged, upheld by tradition, and not even close to being illegal."