Trust Me

Chapter 48

                                                                             Warning: Slight angst 

"You sure you want to do this?" Henry was holding my hands as his thumbs were rubbing against my skin nervously. 

"Yup, but you'll need to sit me down and go through your family tree."  I joked giving him a kiss on the cheek and he smiled as he lead me to the sofa. 

"Okay, so as you know I've got 4 brothers. The oldest is Piers who's married to Anne and they have 2 children together, Thomas and John. Then we have Nick or Nikki as I call him he's married to Jane and they've got two twin boys, Josh and Andrew. Simon is with Georgia and their baby George just turned a year old. And then we've got Charlie and Heather, they live in Canada and they've got 4 kids. Luna, James, Archie, and Liam." He caught his breath for a moment. "And then we've got my mum, Marianne, who you've met and my dad Colin." He got his phone out and started showing me pictures of everyone, occasionally stopping at pictures of his nephews and telling me stories about them. One that stuck to me was when Thomas said to his classmates that his uncle was superman but the teacher thought he lied and after telling that to Anne she told the teacher that it was all true. I couldn't help but giggle at his stories and the selfies they had all taken. 

"So what's up with your family and having boys then? I mean you've only got one niece." I questioned jokingly. "To be honest, I don't know. Must be the genes." He chuckled. "I can't wait to test it out myself to be honest." he lowered his head as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "You want to have children?" I widened my eyes in surprise but he just nodded in response. "How come you don't have any yet? I mean from the looks of it you love children and you seem like an awesome uncle and I think you would make a great dad." I admitted trying to make him look at me. "I just hadn't met the right person." He paused for a moment. "Plus I want a big family so not everyone is made for that." He tried to chuckle through his nervousness.  "How big are we talking about?" I tried to joke around trying to lift his spirits which seemed to work as he looked at me with a bright and innocent smile on his face "I was thinking like 5 kids."

I almost choked on my saliva "Five kids? They are a lot of work, what about your career?" He let out an almost silent chuckle "it was always my dream to have a family, so I wouldn't mind trading my career to be a full-time dad." he bragged and I was just left speechless, fluttering my eyelashes at him in surprise. I always thought that being where he is now was his dream and that nothing could take him away from it. I could have never thought that being a parent was the most important thing to him. 

"What about you?" he shook me off my thoughts. "What about me?" I tilted my head at him in confusion. "Do you want to have kids?" I felt the hesitation in his voice. 

Oh, boy 

I let out a big sigh "It's not that I don't want to, it's that I'm scared of it." I admitted looking at my lap and playing with my fingers. But now it was his turn to tilt his head at me "scared of what?''. 

"That I won't have kids with the right person, that we're gonna end up divorcing, and then the kids will blame it on themselves. Because that's what kids do, no matter how many times you explain to them that that's not the case. They're gonna blame themselves and will have a hard time choosing one parent to another. I'm scared that they're gonna end up like me, and that shit's not nice. So if I have the choice I won't have kids, at least not until I know that I've met the one, because I don't want them to go through what I went through." I felt myself rambling but I could tell that Henry understood every word I said. 

And everything I said was true, I did always blame myself for my parents' divorce. I was 4 at the time and couldn't understand many things but all I knew was that I wanted to have both of my parents' love, and I was fighting so hard for it. Either that was being the best at whatever I was doing at the time, or doing things to make them show their care for me. And without acknowledging it I not only was looking for my parents' love but also everyone else's. And in the process of trying to be loved by everyone, I lost myself. It took years of therapy in order to find myself again but I was getting so close by now. 

I felt henry lightly squeezing my thigh in understanding as he gave me a silent head nod. 

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The rest of the week went by quick and henry was training for the Durell Challenge as it would take place on the weekend we would be there. I was mostly packing up the bags and doing some more research about Jersey since I had never been there. Turns out it's a way smaller island than I thought and it's closer to France than it actually is to England. I also googled some images so I could see what places I could photograph as well. 

Taking our bags we locked the door and headed to the car. Kal got comfortable in the back seat while Henry put some Def Leppard on. It took us about 2 hours to get to the port and from there we got the ferry to Jersey. The trip was long, around 5 hours but most of the time I was out on the deck, getting my fill of the sea air. Last time I traveled with a ferry I was still living in Greece and it was something I missed terribly. I was leaning on the railings as the endless blue in front of me was calming me. I closed my eyes for a second just breathing in the salty seawater as I felt some gentle hands wrapping around my waist. I didn't have to turn around to know that it was Henry, his soft yet muscly arms could not be mistaken. He kissed the hollow of my neck "are you not getting seasick?" his voice soft and concerned. I turned around to look at him cupping his face. "You're seriously asking a Greek person if they're getting seasick?" I asked sarcastically raising my brows at him.

Greeks were always around the sea, you could tell it was in our DNA to be close to the sea and not get seasick easily. 

He chuckled and kissed my cheek "you're right, I'm an idiot." "Yeah but you're a cute idiot." I bragged as I wrapped my hands around his neck kissing him passionately.

Reaching Jersey after a few hours I couldn't help but stay speechless at the landscape. The pictures had nothing to do with how it actually is. It looked so beautiful, the different colors on the trees and the fallen leaves on the street were making it such a romantic place. The ride to Henry's house was short but it was full of twists and turns, and with every turn, you felt that you were in a completely different place. 

His house was detached from the rest of the civilization, the huge grey stoned house was surrounded by the forest. Henry parked the car in the garage and led us up through the spiraling stairs to the huge dark oak door. 

He took a deep breath and turned to face me "Welcome to my safe space."

*A/N I know not all of the kids' names are accurate but I couldn't find any more information on how many children each brother has and what their names are, if you know please let me know so I can update it. And I also know that Durell challenge is supposed to be around summer and right now in the story it's autumn but let's just roll with it haha.