18 Letters to You [Completed]

TWELVE

Stella

We are silent.

The car radio isn't even on. I watch him out of the corner of my eye trying to read his face. I have been able to read Rory for as long as I can remember and right now I feel like I am looking at a blank page. He isn't showing anything.

"I saw Violet a few days ago," I say just to break up the silence as he pulls into the driveway of the apartment complex and turns off the car.

"How is she?" He asks not making eye contact with me. I want to pull his face to me and make him stare at me. I want to look into his blue eyes and count all the flecks of gold. I want everything to go back to normal but I know it can't.

We have so much work to do and we don't know where or how to start.

"She's good," I say my voice soft and so unsure. I hate it.

He nods and finally looks at me, "I think she wants to come visit during her next school break."

I smile because this small talk is killing me. And I can see that it is killing him too in the way his forehead scrunches up because he is thinking way too hard about what he wants to say.

It's always been easy. Even when we've been fighting it's been easy. Easy to yell at each other, to place blame, to cry. But we are at a standstill now, we either blow up or we figure out how to make this work.

It's terrifying.

Rory gets out of the car and grabs my suitcase. I follow him up the steps and through the door. He puts my suitcase down and looks lost. He is looking at me and the door towards his bedroom, "I can take the couch," he shrugs.

I walk towards him until we are inches apart I place my hand on his cheek, "stop overthinking everything," I say quietly. I pick my suitcase up and carry it into his room.

"I'm sorry," he sighs, "I just have no idea what we're doing."

"We'll figure it out," I tell him.

"Stella!" Perry runs into the room slamming the door against the wall.

Perry pulls me into a tight hug and says, "congratulations! We're gonna have a baby!"

And I deflate. My whole body feels like jell-o. I look at Rory then back at Perry and I shake my head because I don't know how to make any words come out of my mouth. I'm stuck between wanting to cry and wanting to scream and knowing I can't do either.

Perry takes a step back and understands that the baby is not exactly why I'm here. The baby is just another obstacle that Rory and I have to overcome. That is not how a child should be brought into this world.

That is how Rory, Perry, Violet, Caleb, and I were brought into the world. As an unwanted burden.

A burden that the parents I never knew felt, my grandparents felt, and then a burden that we all put on each other. How can I repeat the same cycle?

Perry mutters something about going to get food for us all and that he'd be back soon before he basically runs out the door.

Rory and I are back in the deafening silence that we have never faced before.

He is looking at me and I am looking at him and I know the worst thing we can do right now is lose ourselves in each other. But that's all I want to do. I want to wrap my arms around him, kiss him until I forget about everything that's happened, I want to kiss him until I can imagine this future that he can so clearly see. I want it because he wants it.

"Stella, what do you want to do?"

I never want to see him look at me like this again. His blue eyes are wide and watery, his hands are limp at his sides, he looks so tired like maybe he hasn't slept since the last time he saw me.

"I was looking at adoption. I found a few families that seem okay," I say and I can hear the uncertainty in my voice.

Rory takes a step back from me, "no."

"Rory, your life is changing. How can a baby work into this?"

"I don't need any of this," he throws his arms out. He is angry, sad, mixed up, confused. He is the worst and best version of himself intertwined. He is the Rory I know and the Rory I am still learning about.

He laughs without humor and I stand still waiting for him to erupt, "you don't want that either, Stel. I can tell. You want this baby too. I get it. You know that right? I'm scared, babe. I'm so fucking scared but it's okay."

He takes a step towards me, "why are you scared?" I ask allowing him to take my hand.

He smiles but it doesn't reach his eyes, "we raised ourselves. We grew up too fast, we saw too many things, we learned how to fight, we saw Caleb lose everything. We saw life, Stella. It was terrifying."

I nod. I want him to keep talking. I want him to say everything that I've been feeling, package it up, and send it away.

I want him to tell me that we can have it all, that we don't have to repeat a cycle because we are better than our parents. We are better than that town. We are not at fault for Caleb. That we can do this.

"We have so much to work through," Rory says, "but we can do it. I can still record this record with Perry and we can still have this baby. For the first time in our whole lives we can have it all, Stel."

"Where do we start?" I ask.

"We figure out what went wrong."