Music ✔️

Chapter 37

It is very obvious that that baby is not an infant, yes I know. Just imagine it... smaller lmao. Also, I believe this chapter is shit on bricks. Fillers are difficult to write.

~Millicent~

I haven't done a journal entry in years, it seems, but that doesn't matter. My baby girl was born a few days ago. Drew Michelle O'Keefe, the new light of my life, not replacing her father. She's beautiful. More beautiful than I ever could have imagined. Her song is beautiful. I'm having trouble between titles. Either $20 or Sticker. I can't get my mind off of music at the moment. I've been so unfocused with it. I haven't done anything to fuel my main reason for living in months, maybe even years. It's horrific. But thankfully, I can start fresh with my work. I've got everything I could have ever hoped for. Once I get the time, and I will definitely find a way to make some no matter what, I'm diving headfirst into music. It's me against the world with the loves of my life by my side, both bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I've already worked out a system with writing songs while recovering from the C-section. I work whenever she's asleep, sleep whenever she does, and hope that I'm not too tired to do anything in the morning. Don says that I'm nocturnal. Anything to fulfill my destiny. God, is that cheesy.

"Are you still writing?" I hear him whisper. "It's 2 AM. Get some sleep."

I can feel my eyes grow slightly heavier as he says that beautiful 'S' word. Sleep.

I shake my head. "No, I have to keep at it."

"You just had a baby 5 days ago and you're getting discharged in a few hours. Plus, she's finally passed out. You have plenty of time to 'keep at it' at home after you rest up. Please? For me?"

I glare at his ocean-blue eyes for a few seconds before admitting defeat.

"Fine, but only for a little bit. I've been missing out on everything that I used to adore."

He slowly adjusts the itty bitty creature we made  to where she's lying on his chest. She curls up into the fetal position, little legs and arms drawn up to her little chest. Everything about her is so little. I don't even understand how she properly functions. So fragile and helpless, but alive and classified as healthy. Wild.

He smiles at me, his tired eyes never losing their brightness. "Whatever you say. Just sleep."

I nod, carefully closing the worn-out diary and placing it on my tray table, easing my aching body down under the thick comforter that Emily brought from home. She said it was the least that she could do since she slowly moved out without telling us. She didn't want to break our hearts.

~6 weeks later~

"I'm healed!" I whisper-shout, dancing around the living room floor with my shirt over my still slightly swollen belly, my large scar looking a lot less gnarly and a lot more like a baby badge.

Most of my family is sitting on the couches giving their congratulations. Tyler holding a very awake and bug-eyed Drew, Ashley tearing up a bit (as per usual), Emily giving quiet claps, and Donovan quietly cheering, sprawled out and half asleep on a separate sofa.

"I'm one step closer to pretty again," I smile.

"Bullshit. Once beautiful, always beautiful with you," Tyler compliments.

"Oh, thank you, dear friend, but you're legally obligated to tell me that." I carefully pick up Drew from his lap. "But you actually are lying. You know I don't look the same. I look tired and stretched out and not like Milly. I look like Mommy."

"You just had a baby like a month ago," Ashley adds, getting a nod in agreement from Emily and Donovan.

"I sure did, but you're still lying. Now, she-" I pause to snuggle my daughter. "She can call me beautiful and says that she loves me who I am because this is the only me that she's ever known."

"But we-"

I interrupt. "I never said you didn't love me like this. I'm just trying to make an intellectual point about all of this. If I gave you an option, gun to your head, to honestly tell me who you prefer, Skinny Milly or Mommy Milly, I believe that you'd choose Skinny Milly. Not because you don't like how I look, but because that's who you've known the most, like picking a lifelong friend instead of a stranger. It's the only logical answer."

"I suppose," Em says.

"I guess," Tyler grumbles, confused with the conversation.

"Maybe," Ashley replies.

"That ended on a different topic than it started with. We were basically supposed to not call this 'new you' beautiful because it'd be a lie and now you're saying that we'd choose your old body over your new one because we 'know it better' and you're trying to pass it off as the same damn conversation," Donovan ends.

I tap my nose with my free hand. "Bingo. I tricked you all. I actually don't care, not even a little bit. I love you and you love me."

"Stop fucking with our heads," Emily groans.

Donovan smiles his 24/7 dazzling smile. "If the first word that my impressionable baby girl says is a swear, I'm blaming one of you three."

I roll my eyes. "We all swear like sailors. You can't just blame them."

He stands up and shrugs, kissing Drew on his way to the kitchen. I follow him and sit down at the wooden dining table as he turns on the lights, fixing the position of my squirming baby to where she's the most comfortable. Donovan's been standing at the refrigerator for a good 3 minutes, grabbing whatever he wanted, and moved to sit next to me at the table to make an (a/n Magic Mike) XXL sandwich. I look at him and smile as sweetly as I can to beg him for something.

He finally looks back at me, mouth full of almost everything in the fridge between two pieces of bread. He chews awkwardly and swallows before responding to my stare. "What? I'm hungry. You know about the guys gaining weight during pregnancy... And after. I'm gonna work out with Tyler tomorrow, okay?"

"First, that's not even what I was going to ask you about. I don't mind about how your tummy looks as long as you're still you. Second, can I beg you about something?"

"Well, you already have my attention."

I put the smile back on and make my voice as sweet as candy. "Will you drive me to get my first tattoo?"

"You can do that?"

"I mean, D isn't getting breastfed, so if it does get infected, it won't hurt her. And I'm all good according to the doctor. Nothing stands in the way except for you agreeing to drive me."

"Well, what are you getting?"

I glance at Drew. "It's a surprise."

"Just promise me that it won't be a name or a face."

I shoot him a grin. "Only if you promise to hold my hand the whole time."

"Don't be a wimp, Milly. You've felt worse," he teases.

~

"All done," Alice tells me. I had barely noticed when she started. My pain tolerance has gotten higher, I suppose.

I look down at my forearm and I smile back at my new tattoo that's also grinning at me. In just black ink, there's a pulse running down the middle of my arm and on one of the smaller spikes is a smiley face. Don promised not to look until it was over, but his reaction probably would've been the same either way.

He smiles, probably for the 20th time today, and says, "You little shit."