"Why are you saying this?" she whispers. "You didn't ruin anything, Blake."
"I just want this to be over already," I mutter. I feel my eyes widen as soon as I realize what I said. "Not like that—"
She takes a step back and nods solemnly, wringing her hands together. Her knuckles turn white as her eyes fall to the ground. "No, it's okay. You were only being honest. Seven weeks and he'll be out of your hair."
"Audrey, I…" I stammer.
I always am.
"I didn't mean it like that."
Her face flushes red as she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth. "It's late… I think I'm going to head home. Don't party too hard."
I try to speak, but it's as if there's a ton of bricks sitting in my throat and weighing down on my chest. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, watching her leave through blurring eyes. Not trusting myself to say something I'll regret, I sink down against the kitchen cabinet. I bring my knees to my chest and press my palms to my eyes.
I don't want this to be over.
That's crazy.
Chapter 32
October 6th, 2012
9:00 a.m.
The pounding sensation in my head is unlike anything I've ever felt before. My eyes, heavy with sleep, strain against the sunlight streaming through my bedroom window. I close my eyes, stretch, and breathe deep; feeling my muscles tense as I recognize the familiar potent scent of vanilla and lavender.
My eyes snap open, my heart skips a beat.
She came back.
Fully clothed, shoes on, wavy auburn hair splayed wildly over my pillow, sleepy lips pouted out; she's here. She came back. Her eyes are rimmed red as if she's been rubbing them raw, so I don't doubt she's been crying all night.
"I just want this to be over already."
I swallow thickly, finding hard to believe I really said something like that.
When I said it, I meant it. The second it left my mouth, I regretted it. Maybe she knows that. That's why she came back.
I can't keep my eyes from wandering. They land Channel Three's home.
Time after time I tell myself that I'm doing us a favor by not feeling the baby kick.
Still, I can't stop my fingers from reaching out to it. The reason for my every doubt.
It hurts just the same. I can spend a lifetime pretending to avoid this, but it doesn't make a difference.
"I don't know what we're doing to you," I whisper. I rest my palm against the lower part of her stomach, where the life protrudes most. "I just hope we're doing this right."
It happens how it did before. A small nudge, a tap.
A kick.
Life moves just to let me know he's there. As if I could really forget about him that easily.
We never wanted to do this for each other.
I never wanted this for Audrey, and I hope she never wanted to do this for me.
We wanted it for him.
So why is it so hard?
The answer seems kind of obvious.
We try to be rational. Try not to allow our feelings to get in the way of things.
We want to make our intentions clear. We want to do the right thing.
So why is it so hard? Why do we doubt? Why doesn't she trust them enough? Why don't I? Why do I care so much about where he goes, or what she wants? Why not walk away now and stop worrying altogether?
Because we love him, and I can't live without her.
My pain, her heartache, my mistrust, her misconception of my views—I don't know what purpose all of this serves except to tear us apart. I don't even know if it will end when he's gone, or if we'll carry this decision with us forever.
She awakens slowly, peering at me through low, bloodshot eyes. Moving closer, I pull her warm body against mine and wrap my arm around her.
"I didn't mean it," I speak of last night. "I'm sorry, I didn't—"
"I'm so sorry," she gasps, grasping my shirt tightly in her hands. "Please don’t be mad. Don’t hate me.”
"Never." I hug her harder and bury my face in her hair. Channel Three moves between us. "Please stop running away from me." I dig my fingers into her shoulder as if I can bring her closer to me. "Just give me a chance to say what I mean to say. I know I'm bad at this, just give me a chance."
I feel her nod against my shoulder. "Tell me."
I do.
I start with the source of my problems: the two people we're trusting our world with. I tell Audrey that I didn't want her to go yesterday because she shouldn't have to go alone, not that I don't trust them.
"You trust them?" She's surprised.
"Well... I think I could," I explain. "Maybe I do, in a way. I can't tell if I feel like this because of the baby, or if I really don't trust them."
"Maybe we're acting irrationally because we care so much about Channel Three," she mumbles, rubbing the exposed skin below her tee.
"We're biased," I conclude. "Maybe we should involve someone else besides our parents. An outsider."
"What if we still feel this way when he's born, Blake?" she asks, worried. "What if we don't trust them entirely by then?"
"Then we don't let him go."
"Just like that?"
I nod. "We're not giving up."
"No, we're giving more," she finishes. "But that's crazy, right? They only want to do this if this is legitimate, Blake. We can't pretend to trust them, that's… cruel."
"And we're only doing this if they're legitimate."
We talk and work out our misunderstandings.
I tell her that she wants to get involved in their lives as much as possible, and I feel like we would throw them off by doing that. I tell her it was never that I didn't care, she's trying so hard to learn so much about the people we're giving the other life to.
"How else do I learn to trust them?!"
Then we fight over our misunderstandings.
"It's as if you want to shove me on the back burner." I can't seem to control my volume. "Yesterday you acted like you didn't want anything to do with me."
Audrey starts crying. She wants it all over too. She says that she feels as though this is all weighing down on me, and I carry too much guilt on my shoulders.
"I'm Blake Tucker," I introduce myself formally, holding my hand out. She laughs through her tears.
We kiss and make up.
And because we're two unattended teenagers with a bed beneath us, our clothes end up on the floor alongside the rest of our problems.
We pick them up fifteen minutes later.
"I know it's ridiculous," she tells me as I'm helping her into the jeans she was wearing before I got distracted. "But when everyone started touching Channel Three and you were the only one who wouldn't, it hurt. I know you were only doing it to make it easier, so I thought maybe I could do this without involving you so much. I could help make it easier for you."
"Audrey, that's crazy," I whisper, but it makes it easier for me to understand her. It's not that crazy. I did stop touching her to make it easier. "We're in this together."
"We are," she agrees. "But if I can make this easier for you by not—"
I don't let her finish. I already know where she's going with this, and I'm not that guy.
"Shut up."
She almost looks relieved, as if she really thought I'd let her do this alone.
"Stop trying to do me favors," I say, as we're lying back in bed, fingers entwined over Channel Three's incubator. "You only cut me down when you run away, crazy girl."
We discuss worst and best-case scenarios while she eats powdered hot cocoa with her fingers, the same way people generally eat Fun Dip.
"What if… we don't give him up? What if, we're not crazy, and Nance and Tim are nucking futs?" she asks around chocolate covered finger. "Do I drop out of school or something to take care of him?"
"No," I say immediately. "No one is dropping out of anything."
"Oh shoot," she whispers, her eyes growing wide. "I can't believe we're even talking about this. Do y
ou realize how crazy this is? I... I don't even know how to take care of a cat."
I frown. "Mr. Meowgi was an accident," I remind her. "And yeah, this is a little bit longer of a commitment than that."
Our conversations stretch out over the course of our Saturday.
"Can you see Tim being a dad?" she asks as I sort through the bathroom cabinet, trying to find Tums to make her stomach feel better. She holds up a bottle of Pepto. "What's this? It looks like strawberry mil-blah!" She gags and holds the bottle out.
"I guess I could... Nance seems to wear the pants in the relationship, Tim bends to her a lot," I observe. I pour Pepto in a cup for her. "You think they fight a lot?"
"I don't know," she mutters. "I hope not. You think Nance is a control freak?"
I shake my head. "I don't know her well enough."
"Is it bad that we're talking about them?"
"I think it'd be bad if we weren't talking about them, Audrey."
It goes on this way for hours. We discuss everything and nothing, then everything again. We point out simple flaws in Nance and Tim but agree they're petty issues. We don't have a reason to distrust them. On paper, they are perfect, in person, we aren't so sure, but they seem to be perfect there, too.
I feel Channel Three kick twice. Once when I'm helping Audrey clean puke out of her hair, and another while we're sitting on my couch.
"He only kicks like this when I'm around you," she tells me while she brushes her soft hands through my hair. "It's like my heart beats faster when you're with me and the baby starts going crazy and starts dancing."
It's hard not to smile. "Does it hurt?"
She tilts her head to the side. "Sometimes. Imagine getting punched from the inside with a grapefruit. But it has arms and legs and knows baby karate. Do you know karate?"
I tell her about my dad taking me and my brother to karate when I was little. She asks me about him, and I don't leave anything out when I tell her the story. I tell her about finding out when he died, how mom had to pull Chase and me out of school. I didn't even realize he was gone until we got home and I saw that his truck wasn't parked in the driveway.
"He wanted to be a doctor and save people's lives, like my mom." I tell her about my mom paying off his private loans even after he died. She had to find a way to take care of us, work and pay bills.
Audrey is sobbing by the time I'm done, and I don't really know how to explain it to my mom when she gets home.
"M-M-Melanie." She cries, gasping for air between sobs. "I l-love you."
Mom drops her bag and hugs her. "Honey, I know you're really emotional right now"—she gives me a questioning look and I shrug—"but you need to calm down, you're so upset."
Sometime later, Mom orders pizza and Audrey isn't so sad by the time it gets here. We eat at the small table in my kitchen while my girlfriend sniffles and picks at her food. Mom looks tired and doesn't really eat but picks at her pizza like Audrey does. She asks what we did all day.
"We talked."
"About?"
"Keeping the baby."
Mom drops the slice of pepperoni in her hand, completely caught off guard. "You're… you're going to keep him?"
"We want to go through with the adoption, Melanie," Audrey whispers. She stares down at her napkin, probably as nervous about telling my mother this as I am. "But we don't want to give him away to someone we can't or don't entirely trust."
"Are you finding it difficult to trust them?"
Audrey and I are silent for a moment, looking at each other nervously and then back to her. "It… it's just that we thought we'd have more confidence than this. We didn't think it would be so hard."
I can't tell my mom that I think I don't trust them. I think I would have trouble trusting anyone who wanted to adopt Channel Three.
"We like them," Audrey continues. "We just don't know if they could give the kind of life we want for him."
My mom raises her eyebrows. "What kind of life do you want for him?" she asks, looking to me.
"We want everything for him, but I think his happiness is the most important thing," I answer in a whisper. "We know they can provide for him. We aren't worried that he'll… go without."
"You don't think Nancy and Timothy are happy?" she asks.
"We don't know, Mel," Audrey mumbles, her cheeks flushing. "We just… don't know."
She leans over the table and snatches Audrey's hand. "Look at me, both of you," she demands. I swallow thickly and force myself to look at her. I've never seen my mom wear such a serious expression. Her lips are formed into a thin line, her eyebrows knitted together, her eyes wide and pleading. "Baby, I can't make you do anything. I admire you so much for having the heart to do this, but you have to remember why you wanted to give him up in the first place. You had a goal, didn't you? To give him to someone who would provide him with a good life?"
Audrey, wide-eyed and mouth agape, nods slowly. "Y-Yes."
My mother nods. "I don't know what it is that's making you doubt them, but if you listen to your heart and it's telling you that you shouldn't be doing this, you should listen a little closer. I can't stop you, but I can say that this choice is yours and yours alone. And if your parents won't agree with that, you'll always have a home here with us. I'm not perfect, but I'll do everything I can to help you regardless of the choice you make. Nancy and Timothy will have a baby one day, but it doesn't have to be him."
Brightside's eyes sparkle with tears, the soft curves of her cheeks turning pink. "Why is this so complicated?"
"It's not supposed to be simple, baby," she mumbles, kissing her hands before she sets them back on the table. She reclaims her seat and turns to me. "I know you want what's best for him, but you two know better than anyone else what that might be. Not your mom"—she gives Audrey a pointed look—"not your father, and not me."
She sighs, dropping her hands to her lap.
"Mom," I mumble. She lifts her head warily and gives me a questioning look. "Thank you."
She smiles softly. "You still have a little time. Hopefully when the time comes, you'll know if it's right."
Audrey frowns. "What if we don't? What if—"
"What did I say?" Mom asks, pointing to her chest. "Stop thinking about everyone else for a minute and think about what you want."
Audrey doesn't say anything.
I wonder if it's even possible for her to stop thinking about everyone else.
“Mom,” I interject. “I know you’re telling us you’ll help, but we only considered the possibility of this not working out. We know what we’re ready for, and it’s not this.”
“Yeah,” Audrey agrees. “And he belongs with them.”
I look to her, smiling softly.
“Okay. I support your decision regardless.” My mother smiles. “I’ll be here to support the two of you, no matter what.”
Chapter 33
October 20th, 2012
9:31 p.m.
My life in the last two weeks in one word: disaster.
I picked up extra hours at Game Shack, so outside of school I've only seen Audrey twice.
Twice.
It feels like death, but that's probably because I also got sick with the flu. And although I really miss her and speak with her on the phone every night—with the exception of the two nights I couldn't seem to remove myself from the bathroom floor—I feel like the distance between us may have been a good thing.
It's not that I wanted to be away from her, but if we hadn't had this seemingly eternal separation between us, Brightside wouldn't have got the chance to patch things up with her father. Which came as a complete shock to me, because I hadn't even realized there was an issue between her and John.
Other than missing my girlfriend and dealing with constant post-nasal drip, I've also been trying to convince my mother not to go on a date tomorrow night with this guy named Max. When she asks me why, the only reason I came up with was: "Uh, his name is Max."
She's still going.
W
hatever.
So, after all this time, I finally have a night off and I'm only blowing my nose every thirty minutes, when Tim asks if I want to go bowling tonight. I can't decline the offer, especially when I've lost two more weeks of my life I could've spent getting to know the people who want Channel Three.
Tim encourages me to bring a friend along, so the first person I think to bring is Alex. He's easygoing and won't make it awkward. When I ask him if he wants to come along, he responds with, "I'd love to meet your baby daddy."
Not awkward at all.
"You want to put up the bumpers?" he taunts when I sit back down after bowling my second gutter ball. I sniffle and pull out the little package of tissues my mom made me bring with me. "Come on, kid, it's no big deal."
"I hate you," I lie, untying my not-so-my shoes. He chuckles and tries to ruffle my hair, but I quickly slap his hand away. "Stop."
"I want a divorce. You never let me touch you anymore." He huffs and busts out laughing when he sees me glaring. He stands from his chair and turns to me. "I'll be back. I'm going to use the facilities and get cheese fries."
"Wash your hands," I quip, since I'm a germ-freak now.
"Kay, Mom." He flips me off and walks away as our third player takes his seat in the chair beside me. I check the score and see he bowled another strike. I curse under my breath.
"Don't feel bad," Tim says, leaning back in his chair. "When I was your age, all we really had to do for fun was go bowling. We didn't have all these electronics to keep preoccupied with, we had… this."
I shrug. "I don't really get it, I guess. I'm like Audrey… I'd rather read a book."
He's silent for a minute. "Nance doesn't like bowling either."
I let my mind wander as I scan my eyes around the busy bowling alley. I don't even think when the next thing escapes my mouth is, "Why didn't you guys just do it? Why didn't you have a baby? By yourself, I mean."
He stiffens momentarily, caught off guard by my unexpected inquiry. He coughs out a nervous laugh and relaxes his shoulders, shaking his head shortly. "Um…"
My eyebrows lift. "You don't have to tell me—"
"No, no!" he protests. His shoulders slouch as he faces me, seemingly more relaxed. "It's not that I have a problem sharing this with you, but I suppose I'm not used to people asking. They usually assume it's because we can't have one."
Lover of the Light Page 16
