Start Over

15 // Close As Strangers

"Do you, Ashton, take this woman, Shaniya, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or
pour, for as long as you both shall live?"
"I Do"
"Do you, Shaniya, take this man, Ashton, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or
pour, for as long as you both shall live?"
"I Do"
"You may kiss the bride"

Ashton cupped my face
and kissed me as I placed my arms around his neck. He released the kiss
and walked with me hand in hand down the aisle.He held the door open for me as we walked through the corridor to the dressing room. Ashton bought me a dress that he wanted me to wear if we ever got married. I changed into the beige colored dress and walked out of the changing room. Ashton was standing in the lobby with his mom. When he turned around, he started crying as he walked towards me.
"Why are you crying?" He wiped his face and chuckled, "you just look so beautiful. I never thought I'd see you in this dress." I hugged Ashton and kissed his
cheek, grabbing his hand. I walked with him to the reception that our families put together.
*
I walked to the bathroom feeling a little nauseous. It could've been a number of things from the stress of planning the wedding, to not eating enough lately,
to being so excited and nervous about being a married woman, to being pregnant. I wasn't sure which it could be, meaning it could be all of the many reasons. Without knowing what to do, I quickly ran back to the reception and grabbed my purse, running back
to the restroom ignoring everyone who was talking to me.
I rummaged through my purse looking for a little pink box. I opened the box and grabbed the white test, not even bothering to throw anything away. I sat
down quickly and peed on the stick. I put the cap back on the test and sat it on the counter as I washed my hands and nervously waited. I heard someone trying to come into the bathroom, so I immediately locked the door and sat against the door. "Shay, are
you in there?" "Uh, yeah, ill be out.. later." I heard Jaylynn slide her back down the door, until she reached the rough carpeted floor. "Shay, this is
your wedding, what's more important than that?" I slowly unlocked the door and crawled away from it. "Come in.." It came out as a faint whisper, but loud enough for her to hear.
As she opened the door, she seen the pink box, and the pregnancy test. "Are you..?" I half smiled. "I don't know, I haven't looked at it yet. I'm too scared to."
We walked over to the counter to looked at it together. "Two lines mean pregnant; one line means not pregnant." Jaylynn looked at me as if she was more scared than I was. "So how many are there?" I flipped the little white stick over revealing two faint blue lines. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding in. "Shay, you're .." "I know." "We have to tell
Asht-" "We can't, not yet anyways. I don't want to ruin this day for him." She sighed heavily. "You wouldn't, trust me. But do it when you're ready." I threw the box away and wrapped the test up in a paper towel and stashed it in my purse as we walked out of the door, and back to the reception.
Once Ashton saw me he tried to hug me but I flinched and moved away from him. "Babe, what's wrong?" I was hesitant to explain to him what was growing inside of me in this particular moment. "Uh, nothing, we can talk later. Right now, we need to focus on our guests."
*
Shortly after the reception ended, Ashton and I were walking into our one-bedroom apartment as he tripped over his own feet, due to being a little too drunk. I walked him to the bathroom and ran a shower for him, allowing him to sober up. As he was in the shower I cooked him eggs and toast, as well as prepared an 8oz glass of water so he could sober up a little bit. About 5 minutes later he walked out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. "What did you want to talk about?" I slid his plate in front of him as I sat across from him grabbing the test from my purse. "This." I handed him the paper towel. He unwrapped the white paper towel examining the test, looking up at me confused. "What is this?" I sighed in disbelief and grabbed the test out of his hands. "I'm pregnant." His jaw dropped with tears formed in his eyes, as he ran over to me and kissed my neck. I felt his tears fall down his face and onto the crook of my neck. "You're not mad?" He released the hug and pulled me up. "Shay, if I was going to be mad, we wouldn't be married right now. I'd never in a million years be mad at what I wanted. Shay, I love you, and we wanted a family. We just got it sooner than we thought we would." A smile formed on my face as I kissed Ashton. "I love you." We walked to the bedroom and laid down. Ashton snaked his arms around my waist and pulled me closer to him.
*
"Are we gonna tell our parents?" He laid there in silence for a solid 5 minutes. "I mean of course we are, but do we have to now? I mean, you know how my mom
is, she doesn't want me to have kids until I'm older." I sighed and got up walking to the kitchen. "Babe" He hollered after me, but I ignored him. Within seconds he walked into the kitchen opening the fridge and reaching for his Tropicana orange juice. "It's not her choice Ash. It's mine and yours. It's too late to go back now. You knew what was going to happen. We're 19. Married. We have our own apartme-" He placed his lips gently on mine. It was always his way of getting me to shut up. As he released the kiss,
he placed his forehead on mine. "I didn't mean it like that. She can just be judgmental sometimes. She had me at 16. She just didn't want me to be the same way. Even though I'm not. Like you said, we're 19. Sure we haven't graduated yet, but that doesn't mean we can't. We have 3 weeks left. You're not that far along yet, and we just got married. Lets worry about us, and not our parents. This is our time." By now we were sitting on the couch, his arm around my shoulders. "Yeah, you're right."
*
Its been a week since i found out I was pregnant. We still haven't told our parents, but we were waiting until after the honeymoon. We decided to do something simple for our honeymoon. We ended up going staying in Australia, but ended up in Sydney. Although we lived in Melbourne, there wasn't much of a reason to go very far, especially when our budget was a little low. Either way, being able to spend time with Ashton, alone, was better than no time at all. "Maybe we should tell our parents now," I put my bag into the trunk of the car. "I mean after all, it's been over a week." He nodded in agreement as he placed his bags next to mine.
*
After nearly 9 hours, we arrived back in Melbourne. We enjoyed the time away from home, but it was good to finally be back in Melbourne. Home is where the heart is, right? "Here we are." We pulled into the parking lot of our apartment complex. I grabbed my bag as Ashton did the same. We laid them on our bed and unpacked them. "So, yours or mine first?" I could hear Ashton chuckle as he walked to the kitchen. I followed shortly behind him, grabbing an apple from the bowl on the table, and sat on a bar stool. "Yours, clearly. I gotta work up to telling mine." I grabbed my car keys and walked outside and got in my car. Within seconds I seen Ashton walking down the stairs to my car. "I didn't-" "Ash, just stop. I know you never mean to, or whatever. I just feels like you're embarrassed, or ashamed or something. You're making a thousand excuses on why you don't want to tell your parents." He sighed and shrunk down in his seat. "Look, I'm not embarrassed, nor
ashamed, I'm just nervous. My parents expected more from me, but I can't always give them what they want. It's my life, my wife, and my kid. So, therefore, they can't exactly tell me I can't have a child. With marriage, comes a family."
*
I started the car and we drove down the road to my parents house. As I pulled in the driveway I noticed an extra car parked on the side of the house. "Who's-" "I don't know." I shut the car off and walked to the front door. Once I opened the door, I seen Phoenix sitting on the couch. Once he turned and seen me he jumped up and hugged me. "I missed you." He put me down and I smiled widely. "Nia, who's this?" He pointed up at Ashton. We sat down on the couch. "This is, uh, my friend. His name is Ashton." "Nice to meet you." Him and Ashton shook hands and Ashton walked out the door. "I'm sorry," I walked out close behind him. "Really? Your friend? As if you don't,"
he grabbed my hand flipping it over, "have a big ass diamond ring on." I jerked my hand away. "Look, it's not easy to tell my brother this kind of thing okay? He'd kill me. He's the best thing, next to you, that's ever been apart of my life. He means the most to me out of my entire family. I just don't want to let him down." He scoffed and walked away, but quickly turned back around. "Let him down? Really? And you talked about me not wanting to tell my parents about you being pregnant, and you can't even tell your brother that we're married. Let alone even together. At least my brother knows we're married." I felt my heart shatter as he walked away from me. He got smaller and smaller the farther he walked, and before i knew it, he had disappeared. I turned around to see Phoenix standing in the door way. "Look, Ashton isn't my friend. He's my husband," I showed him the ring, "and I'm pregnant." I opened my car door and drove away before he could say anything.
-
I drove around for 10 minutes looking for Ashton. When I finally found him, he was at the lake skipping rocks, as usual. I parked the car on the side of the road and walked over to him. "I told him. About everything." I stood behind him quietly with my head bowed down as I played with my shiny diamond ring. "Look, I know you probably hate me now, but I'm sorry. We both made mistakes, and mine was not being upfront with him. Yours was not wanting to tell your parents. And I'm sorry, okay? I just.. I don't know. It's complicated. In my family's eyes, he was supposed to get married and have kids first, it's the way it's always been, and if I tell him I got married, and I'm having
a kid before him, he may never forgive me. It just happened okay?" I turned around and started to walk away when I felt arms around my waist. "I don't hate you." He kissed my neck and we walked back to my car. We took the long way home.

* 6 months later....

"It's a girl." I covered my face as tears fell down. I could see Ashtons' eyes swelling up with tears too. After the ultrasound appointment, Ashton and I went back home to finish packing up the car. We found a two-bedroom apartment that would allow us to have more room for the baby. "Charlotte Mai." I looked over at Ashton a bit confused. "What?" "The baby. I know you've always wanted to name your daughter after your sister Charlotte, and I've always wanted to name my daughter Mai, so Charlotte Mai Irwin." I could feel my cheeks burning and turning a dark shade of red. "Alright. Charlotte Mai Irwin."

*
We finally got settled into our new apartment and Ashton invited the boys over. "What's her name gonna-" Ashton interrupted Calum before he could finish
his sentence. "Charlotte Mai." I could see tears form into his eyes. Memories of Calum and Charlotte came rushing through my mind. Calum walked outside as I followed him. Nobody knew about Charlotte and Calum except me. "I miss her so much Shay." I could hear his voice shaking, and I knew tears were streaming down his face. "Yeah, so do I." I walked closer to him and laid my head on his shoulder. "It'll be alright." He wiped the tears off his face and we walked back inside. Nobody asked questions, we just gathered around on the floor to watch movies. Halfway through the first movie, Ashton laid down in my lap as I played with his hair. After awhile, I felt myself drifting off to sleep. Within what felt like hours, Ashton picked me up to take me to the room. "I'm not asleep." I whispered making sure not to wake anyone up. "I know." He laid me down on the bed and cuddled up next to me. I laid there playing with his hair until he fell back asleep. I was too overwhelmed to be able to sleep again. I knew that within a few short months, my baby girl would be here, and our family would be complete.
-
The only thing I could see was white lights. My ears were ringing horribly, making the conversations around me faint. I was moving down a corridor faster than usual. Within seconds I was placed into an operating room. I looked around as they injected needles into my arms, and within moments everything went black.

Ashton -

I waited impatiently in the lobby for the doctors to come and get me. Shaniya still had 2 months before she was supposed to go into labor. The nurses explained to me that I couldn't go into the operating room, even if they had to remove the baby early. "Ashton Irwin?" My head shot up at the sound of my name and I seen a doctor holding a clipboard in his right hand. "Ye-yes?" We walked down the corridor to the delivery room. "Your daughter is going to be fine, but there was complication with the delivery." Tears formed in my eyes, as they fell uncontrollably. "What kind of complications?" I was extremely urgent to know the information. "Your wife had an untreated, and unnoticeable stomach  injury. Her medical records show that she's encountered it once before as a child and they thought they'd caught it for good. That isn't the case." I was getting frustrated as he continued to give me the run around about everything. "So what are you trying to say?" He sighed and placed his clipboard back at his side. "With there being so many complications, she needed to make a huge decision on whether to save her life or your daughters. They both weren't going to make it. She chose your daughters life, and gave up her own."

***** THE END *****