Overlap

Van

🌧️June 2020🌙

"No, no theres no way not in your state," i grinned at her affectionately, teasing her with the reminder of how heavily pregnant she now was.

She was sitting on the settee in a pair of pyjama shorts and a Calvin klein bralet, the only outfit the heat and her limited wardrobe would allow her. She was grinning but her protest was persistent.

She didn't want me to pack her things, she said it was enough that I'd stayed and looked after her all this time. It was enough that I'd agreed to drive her to her parents house where she was going to live now that lockdown had been lifted.

In truth I didn't really want to drive her there at all, or pack her things, or say goodbye. I had grown comfortable there in that tiny flat, cooped up with her, the mother to be.
Growing closer every day, feeling closer to her, like I knew her best, finally after all these years of trying to.

I didnt want to give that up, go home and see the distance between us returned. I didn't want to give up the role of her best and closest friend.
If that was all I could be it was all I wanted to be.

I wanted us to stay. I wanted to stay with her. And more desperately now than ever, I wanted her to notice, to see it for all that it was.

Me and her. My devotion, my adoration.

But she didn't. She probably never would. And to drive her home to her parents and give her up knowing that even after this, the most unlikely twist of events, which had brought us closer than i could ever have dreamed, nothing had really changed, would be the most painful sacrifice I ever made.

And yet for her I would make it a million times over. If that was what she wanted. If it was what she needed, and she did.

The size of her now i was beginning to get nervous her waters would break at any moment though she wasn't due for another month. It was hard to imagine she could get any bigger but apparently she would.

I'd been driving her to and from her check ups and our drive homes would consist of a very stressed and overwhelmed Nina relaying every detail the nurses had told her.

It was clear to see that she was still petrified, convinced something would go wrong and entirely certain she wasn't cut out for motherhood but when i looked at her she looked the picture of a perfect mother and whenever she got lost in her worries I was quick to remind her that the only reason she was so worried was because she cared so much and that that was the whole point of being a mum. Caring about your kids.

I was more stubborn about it than she was and every now and then our arguments had been almost heated. Every now and then she would forget herself, show me a side to her even Bondy told me was rare. The side that argued back, the side that got frustrated, cheeks flushed red, eyes burning at your contradictions.

And then usually I would realise what was happening, what we sounded like - a couple, new parents to be - and i would have to remind myself that it wasn't really what we were, that my opinions on whether she would make a good mother or not didnt really matter because I was just her brothers band mate and my friendship with Nina was just that, a coincidental friendship that should never have been allowed to go this far.

But it had and in those moments when she would scowl at me and use some harsh words that equated to "you don't even really know me that well," and I would crack a grin and make a joke about how feisty she had become, it ached to know that we weren't the things I had allowed myself to pretend we were and though we slept in the same bed and made eachother breakfast. Though it was me she curled up with on the settee in the evenings with a TV dinner, i wasnt her boyfriend or the father of that child, though now more than ever that was what I was sure I wanted.