HUGE STEPS

by Stephanie Brother

  Jamie leans forward, nudging me with his fist. "I can,” he says. Any child of yours would be like a child of mine. Can you?"

  I nod. He’s right. I’d love his kid like my own, in this situation or another. “I feel the same.”

  " Jamie nods. "So, then..."

  "We're good?" The words hang in between us, heavy. This feels like the most momentous conversation and we’re both sitting in towels to have it.

  "Yeah," he finally agrees. "We're good."

  20

  Abigail

  I press my hand to my lower abdomen, trying to imagine the tiniest of things growing inside me. A baby. Who would've thought?

  Even standing in front of my mirror doesn't seem to shake the crazy feeling that I'm living someone else's life right now. It doesn't seem like much - there's barely anything other than bloat going on - but it's funny how I can still tell something's different going on with my body.

  I’m finishing putting dressing in my work clothes and slip my shoes on, checking my dresser for a stray hair tie to pull my frizzy mess of hair up off my neck when the doorbell rings.

  Jamie and Jared left not even fifteen minutes ago, so I guess that one of them has left something. I open the door with a smile on my face, excited to see my boys again so soon, but the person standing in front of me once I open it is the person I least want to see. Struggling to process the whole scene, I brace myself against the doorframe, feeling like something just knocked the wind out of me. "Cody?" I wheeze. "What the hell are you doing here?"

  Even though he knows that I rarely use that kind of language, it doesn't seem to distract him at all as he thrusts a bouquet of slightly wilted roses and baby's breath in my face. "Abigail. God, I've missed you," he says. He smiles as though he’s been out of town for work. Everything feels wrong.

  "You’ve missed me," I repeat, shocked. How does he have the audacity to say that after what he put me through? How does he have the nerve to even come to my apartment?

  I look around, not wanting anyone to see him here

  I’m baffled. Is he here to apologize? What does he think, that a few soft words will change things? Even if I wasn’t pregnant I’d be telling him to get away from me. My insides churn as much from anger as from sickness. I’m about to tell him to go when he pulls out a box of chocolates and a small black box.

  I take a step back. He opens it to reveal the same engagement ring I had my friend Bailey give back to him a few days after the engagement party disaster.

  "This is yours, Abigail. It’s not meant to be in a box, it’s meant to be on your finger. I made a mistake. A really stupid mistake but I promise I won’t do it again. Marry me, Abigail. Marry me and I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you."

  His expression is smug as though he’s expecting me to fall into his arms and forget about everything. He thinks that I still love him. That I still want him.

  What I want to do it kick him right in the face.

  Better still, laugh. The man is delusional. It's all too much. Before I get a chance to say anything, he slips past me. I'm so stunned by all of the past sixty seconds, that I can only look on, disoriented, as he plops the flowers and chocolates down haphazardly onto the coffee table. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I recall that the coffee table was something we went and brought together.

  "You don't mind if I come in so we can talk, right?" he asks, even though he's already inside. Good ol' Cody. Always just assuming his way.

  He walks right up to me, holding out the opened box, the ring's diamonds glinting under the light.

  I take a step back, not wanting to have anything to do with the stupid thing, or Cody, for that matter. His blue eyes widen and do the thing that I used to love, where they crinkle in the corners as he smiles. I grit my teeth, willing myself not to be stupid.

  "God, Abigail, if you only knew what was going on inside my head. It was cold feet...I kept thinking that maybe I was just unsure about committing to you. I didn't want to marry you at the wrong time and then potentially ruin your life later on. I just—"

  But I hold up my hand, already feeling the sting of his empty words that only sound pretty. "Nope. It's my turn. You literally had three years to figure all that out already, Cody," I say, counting to three on my fingers. "Do I need to say it again? Three. Years. And let's not forget, you're the one who proposed to me, remember? If you weren't sure about committing, then why in the world did you think it was a good idea to ask me to marry you? Ah-ah, I'm not done," I quickly add, refusing to let him get a word in. "You've always had a nasty habit of flaking out on all of our plans. I just never thought our actual relationship would be one of them. And now you're here with the ring...like it’s going to convince me to go back to you. Is that what you think?"

  Cody drops his gaze to the floor, and for the first time in recent memory, he actually looks pretty guilty. I mentally smack myself in the head. Nope, not going to fall for it.

  "I understand, but maybe if you just give us another chance, we can fix this. I can fix this. We owe it to ourselves, don't you think?"

  This time I really do smack myself in the forehead, lightly. "No, I don't think."

  "Okay, okay. I mean like, not right away. Just...over time. You remember how things were between us…well, we can get that back.”

  I suddenly hate every single thing I ever said to him to inflate his already too-big ego. It's so unfair of him to just come into my life all over again, trying to make himself sound like he makes sense, with words that should hold more water than they actually do.

  "Ugh. I cannot hear stuff like this right now, Cody! This isn't fair to me for you to just waltz in here like this!"

  He's like a shark with the scent of blood dripping one tiny drop at a time—he rushes right in to take advantage. "Oh, come on, Abi. You and I both know we work so well together. All the ways we've been together, it's always been perfect," he croons closer to me and snakes his hand up my arm, trying to rub my shoulder like he used to before we'd go to bed.

  I shake his hand off feeling totally creeped out. "No. We're not doing this."

  "But if we could just try. You know what? You don't even have to do anything—leave it all to me. I'll grovel if you want, I don't even care anymore, Abi. Babe, I just want to try and work it out with you." There’s a definite note of desperation in his voice. It's not often you hear Cody's voice crack from its usual confident tenor.

  “Cody, I’m busy. You need to get the heck out. Now." I point to the front door, impatiently.

  “Okay. I’ll come back. I get that you’re busy.”

  "Get out, Cody," I say through gritted teeth, unable to care less whether this hurts his feelings or not. Shoving at him, I finally get the point across, and Cody laughs as if it's all just some big joke.

  "Okay, I'm gone, I'm gone. Just think about what I said!" he says, that stupid laugh making me only want to physically remove him even more. I practically slam the door shut behind him, locking it and bolting it up just because.

  The very last thing I want to think about right now is anything that just came out of Cody's mouth,

  My stomach heaves, and I have to make a run for it to the bathroom, emptying the quick breakfast I made for the three of us earlier, into the toilet.

  Morning sickness. After seeing Cody and being in his presence, vomiting seems like the only appropriate response.

  21

  Jared

  I never thought I'd see the day where Jamie can't decide between a pink blanket with white hearts or a green blanket with yellow stars.

  "This should be illegal. I mean fuck, look at how goddamn adorable this is," he groans, holding up a third choice: a white blanket with little rubber ducks on it. "This is why men don't do the baby shopping stuff."

  I roll my eyes at him. "Don't be an ass. You know that hasn't been true for the last thirty years or so. Besides, you have to admit, this is kind of fun." I toss him a giant fluffy white bunny, the floppy ears nearly knocking him over.
<
br />   "Pfft." There's a small gasp and when I turn back around, Jamie's got two large suction cups over his chest, laughing like some kind of idiot. "Check this out, man!" He turns on the demo model of the breast pump, the sound of it drawing attention from a lady passing by, giving the both of us dirty looks.

  I flip through the list I made earlier after checking out 'Daddy's No-Bullshit Guide to Babies.'

  "Yeah, they do say that breastfeeding is better, but I don't want to put that kind of pressure on Abi if she's not really into it. Maybe we should ask her first on this one."

  Jamie snorts, still laughing over the way his shirt is slowly being sucked into the vacuum suctions. "I think this will put plenty of pressure on her. Holy shit, that's going to be hilarious to watch. It'll be like milking a cow…I very sexy cow."

  "Do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth?" I ask, shaking my head at him. “You better hope Abi doesn’t hear you referring to her that way.”

  In the end, we decided to get all three blankets because babies apparently piss and crap themselves like crazy so logic. Jamie even put in a request for the ridiculous bunny, citing something about the baby needing a solid collection of stuffed animals to start its life off right. I had to physically remove the breast pump from his hands, though.

  "You know, it'll be nice when we don't have to keep referring to the baby as an 'it,'" I tell him as we pull up to Abi's apartment building. "When is she supposed to find out that kind of thing, anyway, I wonder?"

  “No idea. Why don’t you consult your ‘Nerd’s Guide to Knocking Up a Chick?’” Jamie nods to the parking space that Abi's car usually occupies, and it hits me that she's working today.

  "Oh, right. I forgot she's at Dandies’ today. We can just drop everything off at our place, then."

  He looks back at the piles of baby stuff we've already accumulated as I park the van, a weird expression clouding his face. "You don't think we overdid it, do you? Like, Abi's not going to be pissed, right?"

  I glance in the rearview, looking at it all myself. Our mom rarely talks about it now, but we understood it was hard for her as a single mom having to provide for not one, but two kids on her own. There were plenty of birthdays that went by where we only had cake and whatever one toy we wanted to pick out from the discount store.

  "Nah. Our kid is going to have whatever it needs. Simple as that." I'm just about to pull away from the curb when something catches my eye. "Hey, do you see that shutter over there?" I ask, pointing toward the apartments again.

  "Shutter? What the hell?" Jamie follows my line of sight. "What, at Abi's?"

  I frown, staring at the slightly crooked thing. "It looks off."

  "No, no, no. You're full of shit. I fixed that a few days ago, man."

  I shrug. "Well, then you did a shitty job. I'm going to go fix it real quick." I pull back over to the front of the building, and throw the van into park, yanking open the back door to grab my tool bag. "I told you you'd need those longer screws, jackass."

  "Motherfucker..." Jamie mumbles, following after me up the path to Abi's.

  After unscrewing all the too-short for shit screws, I toss them into the bag and pull out the right size, Jamie pretty much fuming as I hand him one. "Make sure to get it in there good."

  We set to work and in no time flat, we have the shutter in a level position. I stand back, admiring the work.

  "Yeah, well that's all well and good, but you're forgetting something," Jamie suggests, an obvious smugness in the way he shrugs at me.

  "Please do tell," I sigh.

  "Probably should seal it up. Just for good measure."

  And of course, he'd say that—it's kind of known that he has a steadier hand for it than I do.

  Naturally, he picks up the caulking gun with a smirk.

  "Better?" I ask, rolling my eyes at how deliberately slow Jamie's moving.

  He looks back at me from over his shoulder. The grin says it all. Bastard.

  The grass behind us rustles too loudly for it to be the breeze, and we both turn at the same time to see none other than Cody standing there awkwardly, clearly debating on whether he's going to say anything or not. His eyes widen slightly.

  The red that bleeds into my vision goes hazy, and my hands are grabbing fistfuls of this asshole's shirt, ready to beat him to a bloody pulp. All the things he did to Abi, the way he did her wrong...and then Jamie's shoving me backward, yanking me until I can't move more than a foot away.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Cody?” Jamie spits.

  "I was passing and saw you fixing up Abi’s place. I just wanted to thank you for looking after my girl and all. I know Abi and I haven't been doing so good but that’s all gonna change."

  Jamie has to yank me even harder at the mention of 'my girl.' I'm ready to fucking explode.

  "You dumb motherfucker! Who the hell do you think you are?" I scream at him, spit flying out of the corners of my mouth.

  "You don’t need to be like that. Abi and I are going to work things out and then we’re gonna be family."

  "You can fuck straight off," I growl, finally shoving away from Jamie as I get a better grip on myself.

  "Get the fuck outta here," Jamie adds, nodding his chin in the other direction.

  The dumbass has the nerve to look mollified. "I already talked to Abi and she wants us to work things out too."

  "See?" Cody points through the barely-open curtains to where a small bunch of flowers and a red heart-shaped box lay on the coffee table. "I was here this morning but she had to go to work."

  A wall goes up in my mind, blocking it all off. "I don't believe you. She'd never go back to your pathetic ass."

  I can tell Cody wants so badly to say something in retaliation but he's not a total idiot. He knows he has no ground here, and he'd easily have his ass handed to him. "You don't have to believe me. It's the truth, though." He sounds downright giddy for someone who just got rejected by Abi. I look back in the window. Jamie and I didn't get those for her so how else would they have shown up? He has to be telling the truth at least about being here earlier.

  I pull at Jamie's sleeve. "Let's get out of here. We'll talk to her about it later, once she's home. I turn back to face Cody. "And you need to get the hell out of here too, or else I'll call the police. I don't think they'd be too fond of the mayor's son showing up on his ex's doorstep against her wishes. That’s stalker behavior."

  Cody throws up his hands in surrender but doesn't get rid of the slightly smug look on his face. "No problem. I'll just talk to her, myself."

  We wait until he's down the road a fair bit before we head back to our place.

  "He's just full of shit, man," Jamie says as we cross the road. "Abi's too smart to listen to his bullshit."

  My brother sounds completely confident but I’m not so sure. Either Cody’s an excellent liar or there’s something going on here. The thought of Abi talking to that piece of shit and potentially listening to his crap makes me want to break things.

  22

  Abigail

  Dandies’ wasn't so busy today, but my feet sure could use the break anyway. Feet shouldn’t get swollen this early in pregnancy, should they? I wonder aloud as I trudge up the walkway home.

  To my surprise, my doorstep is littered with red and yellow roses, and a little basket off to the side where I can already see my favorite coffee shop gift card sticking up out of it. Red and yellow roses? I peer closer, picking up and weighing the basket in my hand.

  A little cream-colored envelope is tucked behind the gift card, but I save it for last, investigating what all is inside. My favorite perfume. A small bag of my favorite candy, not to mention the solid chocolate heart wrapped in pink foil. Someone's clearly trying to butter me up—all my favorite things are nestled in tissue paper and the flowers are even freshly cut.

  I sigh as I slide my finger under the flap of the envelope, a weird sense of dread permeating everything. ‘Richland Park Gazebo. See you there.’

  The
handwriting looks like it's purposefully trying to throw me off unless there's a fourth so-called suitor waiting in the wings I just don't know about. I shake my head at the thought—that’s the kind of stuff soap operas are made out of – but then again, what is my life now, if not some daytime soap opera?

  The curve of the letters isn’t very familiar to me, but thinking about it now, I haven't had that many chances to really get a good look at Cody's handwriting over the past three years and forget Jared's or Jamie's.

  I pause for a moment, the gazebo mentioned, suddenly flickering into view as I close my eyes. It just so happens to be the very same place Cody proposed to me, well, at least the first time, anyway. I chew on my lip and step over the roses to unlock my front door, careful not to mess any of them up.

  But the gift seems much more thoughtful than the stunt he pulled earlier this morning, and two attempts in one day are more effort than Cody's ever put forth before.

  The Richland Park gazebo is known to be a pretty romantic place, so maybe the twins got the idea in their head and it's all just a big coincidence? They're much more adept at this kind of thing, I can already tell. I mean, shopping, cleaning, repairing things for me? Way more than anything Cody ever did.

  Tucking the note back into my pocket, I slip into my sandals and let my hair down, giving myself one last look-over before finding a vase for the flowers. No, this isn't Cody. This has to be Jamie and Jared.

  With the basket in hand, I make the fifteen-minute walk down to Richland Park, fidgeting with the handle on the basket the whole time, nervousness flooding through me. "Don't be stupid, Abi," I whisper to myself, glad no one's around. "There's nothing to be nervous about."

  The pine needles crunch under my feet as I walk up the little bike path that curves around the outer edges of the park, each step giving me more confidence. I don't know what Jamie and Jared have in mind, bringing me here to the gazebo.