Arranged Baby

Part 27

Taylor never fails to surprise me, that's affirmative. So I was expecting him to be there when I went to visit my father the next day after work.

He wasn't, and I texted Amaliana to see what was up with that.

"Umm.. I don't really know where he is." She said nonchalantly over the phone.

If this was college-Taylor, I wouldn't mind. I've heard a fair amount of stories about him waking up on the patio still drunk with party beads around his neck. But this is crazy-Taylor. The one that harasses me at work and blames his "fatherly-instincts". I scoffed when I heard that too.

"Have you seen him since yesterday?" I ask nervously, only imagining all of what he is up to.

"No," she says breathlessly, I hear Sophia scrambling around with Alice in the background, "and Ama' said he's not coming back for a while."

I stay silent.

"Are you guys fighting?"

I chuckle a bit, the exhaustion taking it's toll on me, and bid her goodnight for my drive home.

Work the next day is nerve-wracking. All night I was tossing and turning, expecting Taylor to burst through my bedroom door and quite literally drag me to his house. Sergio's word isn't much anymore, considering it took Taylor less than two weeks to figure out where I was hiding. I'm starting to think he has more connections than his father.

But let's keep it real, this is you-smell-like-dog Taylor, who probably changes his tires after driving through the hood. His snotty ass.

Overthinking had me ready to open the bottle of Welcome-champagne my neighbors left on my doorstep. I even got as close to putting it in the fridge for a maybe-later. Boy Taylor would go crazy if he knew it was even gifted to me. Obviously I don't think it to be okay, but when a bitch needs some stress relief she just might have to stoop low.

Work gets me more and more anxious now, especially having not heard from Taylor for this long since knowing him. Even when he didn't want to be near me we somehow always bumped into each other.

Once I was at the grocery store and I saw him. Whether he saw me remains a mystery, but honestly that doesn't change the fact that of all days we decide to buy the exact orange juice at the same time. Weird.

One of the many moments of Taylor and I that I like to look back on. Before there were actual complications between us. Back when we weren't attracted to each other and I wasn't pregnant with his children. Or before I had become emotionally invested in his family, as his mine. All so much work in this adulting world.

Enough to give me a nervous breakdown before lunch one day at work. Well, all that thinking and the fact that I opened a letter at work from the family relations court stating Taylor was trying for full custody of our unborn children on the account of me being "unfit to parent our children."

I could kill him.

I'm going to kill him. 

Better yet, I'm going to snitch on him.

When Sergio answers by the second ring, a habit of his since I've been pregnant, I can't stop bawling before he tells me to go to human resources and get a cab to his house immediately, promising for the umpteenth time that Taylor will be of no bother there.

I can't even think right now, let alone try to form an actual sentence. 

I leave the building, get into my car, and head straight to my apartment which has yet to feel like home. Another thing to add to my already neurotic state of mind.

Just so much at once. Within a month. Within half a year. Within my entire life. Why? Why me?

Of all people that deserve some peace of mind in life, I am missed with every second of sanity distributed throughout this green Earth and it's not fair. I'm fed up. I am exhausted.

The thought of just a 24 hour period of sleep and sanity has me mentally begging the Lord and repeatedly praying that is all I want for God to grieve me of this year, the next five even.

I want an escape.

I want that bottle of wine.

Palms sweating, I open the door and throw my purse on the nearest surface to me. I hear a crash as I probably broke something. My throat repels the bitterness of fruit as my stomach pinches a bit to throw off the fuzzy feeling in my brain afterwards. Like I hadn't completely forgotten about it the whole day but instead I feel as if my mouth is so dry. Like it had been so dry I forgot to grab a drink during my lunch. And as if this wine were the concentrated hydration my body so desperately needed I downed like I'd have downed it before.

And damn did I have to pee.

Ugh, I had to let the wine settle. I had to let it linger through my veins for a tough minute through which I had talked my brain into distraction from my back ache and sore ankles. Like a champ I didn't wet my pantyliner on the way to the bathroom.

It isn't too hard to sit down on the toilet yet . Not saying I didn't have to summon a bit more balance before wiping, just saying I didn't have to slow walk on my way back to the wine bottle.

My glass, still a bit of condensation from the last glass, sits still with all of it previous glory yet to deemed useless after I finish the glass. It didn't take long to accomplish that.

And Ugh I want more. So much more. I want more than I can afford to take in and I'm immediately ashamed but I'm not really sad. I just want to pee again and maybe never wake up to stress or a to-do list longer than there are hours in the day.

Just a day without stress. I don't remember the last time that happened for me.