Starting Over

Days gone by

I was picking Natalie, Alex, and Ilya up from the airport.

I had only checked up on Natalie, I didn't talk to her though.

I went with Jason, to pick them up, and when they walked up, she walked straight to me.

I opened the passenger side door for her.

"Can we talk?"

I nodded "when we get home, we will drop them off, and go for a drive."

She held her arms out, and I hugged her.

"I missed you, " she buried her face in my neck.

It felt nice to have her there.

We climbed in, Jason was talking to Alex, Natalie was jumping in.

I payed attention to the road.

I got bored, turned on the self driving, and picked up my phone.

Natalie was turned around, looking at Jason.

I pressed on her Instagram story.

It was a short video of her pursing her lips, then zooming in on me and it was captioned,
"missed him❤️"

"Hey?"

I turned to her.

"Yeah?"

"I have an appointment tomorrow, will you come?"

I nodded "of course!"

We got home about a half hour later, and the boys got out. I threw the car in reverse, "we will be back."

We drove in silence for a bit, before she spoke.

"He did tell me he loved me, but I didn't say anything back."

I rubbed my face, and turned to the side and then back at the road.

"I'm tired Nat."

"I know I'm sorry.."

"I wanna be with you, I wanna be happy, and see you happy and..."

I shook my head

"I don't want to be doing this though, fighting over you, with Ilya, your whole pregnancy."

"I don't think you're fighting over me, he doesn't have a chance. I don't even remotely like him David."

I turned into a empty parking lot, parked, and turned to her.

"Before you say anything else, " she held her hands up, "He did kiss me, and try to do other stuff, I didn't do it, but he did kiss me."

I nodded, turned back to the front, and sighed.

"I'm proud of you Nat," I whispered.

"For what?" She asked quietly.

I shrugged and turned laying my head on the seat, staring at her for a second.

"You are a real life...iron man...or something. Dealing with boy shit, and baby shit, and social media shit. I'm just proud of you babe."

She smiled and blushed hiding her face.

"Fucking amazing." I mumbled.

I stared at my hands until she spoke again.

"Are we okay?" She whispered.

I nodded and scrunched up my face.

"Always" I nodded again.

"But...us?"

I was quiet as I thought. I wanna be with her, but the stress of two boys trying to get her attention is too much for the baby.

I couldn't be selfish.

"I dunno Natalie."

"I don't wanna lose that. I just got you.."

I looked up and she was tearing up. She had her hands on her belly, and some of her hair falling out of her bun. She looked like an absolute angel.

"Can you tell me, with 100% certainty, that you have zero feelings for him?"

She was quiet for a second, but kept eye contact.

"That you would still have been with me even if it wasn't for this?" I leaned over and pressed my hand to her belly.

She was quiet.

"I'm not gonna push you Nat. I'm not going anywhere. But as long you're not positive about who makes you the happiest, there cannot be an 'us'," a few tears leaked from her eyes and I wiped them away quickly.

"You find your happiness and I'll be here the whole time babe." I kissed her cheek and she lifted her hand and rested it on my cheek.

2 years ago

"I'd kiss her on the cheek but then she would slap me"

"Yeah"

I leaned in and kissed Liza on the cheek and she playfully tapped my cheek.

The end of us.

Present

We drove back home Natalie went to relax on the couch and I took out my phone and texted Liza. We didn't talk often anymore.

Hey can we talk?
Sent 8:09 pm