𝕥𝕠𝕠 𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕖 • 𝕞.𝕔

chapter 20

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   I walked with Michael into this huge store, never expecting that someday, anytime soon, I'd be stepping into this kind of... Place. There was baby stuff everywhere; and I didn't know where to look first. Michael and I had told ourselves we had to make the first step sometime, and at this point in the pregnancy, I wanted to think that it was the moment we had been all secretly waiting for. It was like Christmas morning, except I got to pick the presents, and even though they weren't for me, it was still pretty cool.

Picking out outfits, not knowing whether it was a boy or a girl- all of this was exciting to me, although I was feeling slightly odd, and most of all, still terrified.

   Whenever I talked about my fear of giving birth and having to take care of the baby, the doctor would try and reassure me, and I'd say it was okay, when deep inside I wanted to cry. I needed a shoulder to cry on, often, and Michael was here... But he'd been a lot busier with work, and I couldn't rely on him completely at all times. That would have been selfish and stupid to think that way, so instead, I just worried on my own, telling myself that maybe, time would make me feel better about it all. I needed to try and get a hold of myself, and to know how to be without people supporting me every single minute.

   It had been a few weeks since I had met Michael's friends, and I couldn't deny it... They had been extremely kind and helpful, considering the odd situation we were in. 

From that very day, I had learned that I had chosen the wrong people to surround myself with- Emma, Megan, and Amy. All I had gotten from them was radio silence and a couple of instagram unfollows, but time had gone so quickly, I had hardly noticed it. 

I missed Emma, though. I was still not over the pain of losing my best friend, as awful as she'd been.

   She was like my unbiological sister, and she had been there with me through every single thing that had happened for the past 10 years. I was still confused as in how she had developed feelings for me, and wondered for how long she'd been concealing them. At any other point, I might have caved in and reciprocated them, but this wasn't the right time, and most of all, I had my heart set on someone else. And it meant too much to me to throw away. Even if it meant losing a 10 years friendship that wasn't even a friendship at all by the end of it.

   I held onto Michael's hand as we both walked through the aisles. The feeling of his hand in mine was feeling natural now, and I had gotten used to being with someone, for the first time after being single and completely fine on my own for a couple of years.

I felt as if our relationship was starting out slowly, and even if it'd had a strange start, we were finally starting to accept that feelings were blooming, even if none of us had originally planned it out.

Love wasn't the kind of thing you could acquire in the blink of an eye, it took time, and we were trying our hardest to, indeed, stay still and not look forward too quickly. 

We knew what had happened last time we'd gotten too excited.

"I like that one," Michael said, pointing to a baby's crib. "I know we weren't initially here for this, but... You know, it's something we need to think about."

"Yeah," I let go of his hand, and looked at it. We had never really talked about where we would live when the baby would be born. I didn't know where we would live. Surely, one of us would have to move out, and I didn't like to think about the fact that one of us had to leave the place that was the most meaningful to them.

"Do you think we should move? I mean, buy a new apartment?"

"No," I shook my head. "First of all, I don't have money like this. I think it's a better idea to... Decide who will move into whose flat."