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Ch. 25

It never truly hurts to ask the serious questions in life if you can be mature about them, and the answers that you receive. Laughing things off can work for a while but you can never progress that way. If you are mature enough to ask the question, be mature enough to know what answer you want and how important it is to you. Nothing can hurt you worse than not believing someone when they tell you how they feel.
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How often do you get to say I love you?
Can you count the ways that make it true?
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I knew they would walk away.

I was sitting there with Lip on a bench in the hall staring at them after breaking the news and waiting for them to finally just walk away. But they deliberated.

I looked to Lip sitting beside me, reached over and grabbed his hand. We sat in silence for a few minutes and he leaned his head on my shoulder. All I could really do now was stare at the wall ahead of me. Sterile powder blue with the fluorescent cream colored lights. The colors melted together until I couldn't take it, so I looked back at the couple.

"Do you want kids one day?" I asked.

His head came up off my shoulder and he looked at me with a laugh in his features, but he saw how serious a question it was as I continued to stare at the couple. Instead of laughing his face melted into thought.

"I want your answer, not just what you think I want to hear," I said. I wasn't even sure what I wanted if I was being honest. To have a tiny person that you created with someone else, half of each of you, was a huge thing. Colossal.

He paused for a long moment.

"I don't not want kids, but that's kind of a loaded question you know? I think me, and every other person on the planet, wants to be able to give their kids things that they didn't have."

"I get it, I want that to for any kids I have... and to preface this, I'm not pregnant. But, we can already give any kids, that either of us have, so much more than what we've had. We're too young, yeah. But I think I might want kids one day." He was nodding.

"Yeah, one day, I think I'd want them too. Poor bastards," he huffed with a laugh. I smiled.

"You would make a good dad, Philip Gallagher."

"You would make a good mom, Lydia Walsh."

We looked at each other for a long moment, and I smiled before looking back to the powder blue wall.

"So let's say," I said tilting my head. "By the time we're thirty, if neither of us are married to anybody, or have kids with anybody, we will get married and have those kids. That sound good?" Powder blue was my least favorite color but at that moment it was interesting and vibrant with my nerves.

He laughed with a wry smile at the same wall.

"Yeah," He said slowly. His tone warm and inviting. "That sounds good." He pulled my face to look at his. "That sounds really good."

I smiled at him, and toe curling was an odd phrase to use when your day has been this hectic and sad but that was how his kiss made me feel. When we pulled back he laid his forehead on mine and toyed with a stray black lock of my hair.

Suddenly there was a small attention grabbing cough from down the hall. Looking back I saw the couple standing there looking at us with red faces and tears in their eyes. Taking a deep breath I patted Lip's thigh and told him to stay there.

"Hey, I'm sorry about... all of this. I know it's a shock and not what you expected. No one is going to blame you for—"

"We're going to adopt him." The woman said firmly.