The Way We Rise

by Cassia Leo

  She drops her hands to her sides and narrows her eyes at me. “You’re going to make me say it?”

  I shrug. “It can’t hurt.”

  Her lips tremble as she tries to stifle her tears long enough to ask the question I want to hear. “What’s in the box?”

  I chuckle as I hold the lid in place. “I’ll give you a hint: It’s not Gwyneth Paltrow’s severed head.”

  “Oh, thank God,” she whispers, as if that were a real possibility.

  I shake my head as I slowly lift the lid and place it back on top of the stone pedestal. Then, I pluck out the engagement ring and place the box next to the lid. Drawing in a deep breath, I take time to revel in this moment. Rory has no idea how I planned to do this, and now she has no idea what I’m going to say.

  She looks back and forth from my face to the ring I hold between my index finger and thumb. I can see her making a concerted effort to keep breathing as her body trembles, and I’m pretty sure it’s not the fifty-degree weather, which she’s so accustomed to. I’d better do this quickly before she passes out.

  I lean forward, holding the back of her neck as I plant a soft kiss on her forehead. “Breathe, baby.”

  She nods as she takes a few deep breaths. “I’m okay.”

  I smile as I look her in the eye. “You once told me that you can’t erase love. Do you still believe that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good, because you and I have gone to hell and back together, but it has never changed my love for you. And I’d go through it all over again if it meant we still ended up right here, right now. ’Cause there’s no one else I want by my side when the shit goes down. Just like there’s no one else I’d rather have sex with in the middle of a dark cemetery.”

  She smacks my arm. “I’m so glad I came in here alone.”

  I chuckle as I reach forward and grab her left hand. Her momentary burst of anger quickly melts into tearful anxiety. I rub the top of her hand with my thumb to try to calm her.

  “Rory, the world is a different place when I’m with you. It looks brighter. It feels easier. It smells better.” I smile as she lets out a congested chuckle. “Every morning, when I wake up next to you, I feel like I’ve already conquered the day. And there’s nothing I can’t face, because somewhere deep down, etched into the shattered fragments of my dusty soul, is the knowledge that, if I don’t fuck this up, I get to wake up next to you again tomorrow.”

  I get down on one knee and she presses her trembling lips together. “Rory… will you be my one and only best friend with benefits for the rest of our lives? Will you marry me?”

  She nods for a few seconds, a look of mild panic in her eyes, as if she can’t find her voice. For a moment, I worry that maybe she’s having trouble breathing. Then she opens her mouth and lets out a sharp, stale breath.

  “Yes!” she yells. She continues to nod her head and whisper yes as I stand up without sliding the ring on her finger.

  Laying the ring flat in my palm, I bring my hand up so she can see the words You can’t erase love engraved on the inner surface.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispers.

  I clench my jaw, but it’s not enough to stop a tear from escaping the corner of my eye as I slide the ring on her left ring finger. “I love you, Scar.”

  “I love you more.”

  I smile at her continued attempts to one-up me, then I take her delicate face in my hands and kiss her. Her lips taste of salty tears and waxy lip balm and I’ve never tasted anything so perfect. She begins to pull away when she’s overcome with giddy laughter.

  “Oh, my goodness. I can’t believe you did all this for a proposal,” she remarks, clutching the front of my shirt as she looks up at me wide-eyed with glee. “You know I would have said yes if you proposed to me on the toilet.”

  “I’ll remember that for my next marriage.” I laugh at the mean glare she shoots me. “You can probably guess who helped me write that fairy tale.”

  She nods as she gets choked up again. “My mom. I owe her a massive fucking apology.”

  “She’s more understanding than you think.” I brush my thumb across the moisture on her cheek. “We wanted this to be the happiest happy beginning ever.”

  “Happy doesn’t even begin to describe it,” she says with a smile, but the way she’s looking down at her hands tells me she’s hiding something. “But I have a feeling my happiest happy beginning is yet to come.”

  I chuckle. “Of course, the wedding day.”

  She shakes her head. “Nope.”

  “I don’t get it,” I reply, cocking an eyebrow at the cunning gleam in her eyes.

  I smile as I realize I also get to surprise Houston today. “It just so happens I have a note of my own for you.”

  I reach into my back pocket and retrieve a folded piece of pink paper. When the receptionist at the clinic handed me the pink slip of carbon-copied paper, I couldn’t make sense of any of the tiny letters and all the medical jargon. I was able to comprehend the date printed at the top of the pink paper: October 5, 2015. And, oddly enough, I was able to make out the words scrawled on the small white prescription note stapled to the top of the pink lab results: CitraNatal 90 DHA.

  I was so happy to see Kenny at Killer Burger with his new boyfriend this afternoon, and also happy that I finally had an answer for my recent mood swings, but I was sad that I didn’t have Kenny all to myself to break the news to him. And even more anxious because I wasn’t sure why Houston had been acting so strangely these past few days. Now I know the answer to both of our recent shifts in behavior.

  My pulse echoes in my ears, tickles my fingertips as I watch Houston reading the text on the pink sheet of paper. His eyes sweep side to side as they scroll down the page, his face morphing from confusion to shock to the sexiest smile I’ve ever laid eyes on.

  He looks up at me, his mouth still curved into an uncontrollable grin. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  I shake my head. “I’m pregnant.”

  His smile disappears as he tosses the paper onto the ground. His gaze wanders over my face as tears well up in his eyes. He reaches his hand out and gently places it on my abdomen, his chest heaving as tears slide down his cheeks.

  “Houston, are you okay?” I ask, my voice wavering.

  His gaze snaps up, locking on my eyes. “Fuck yes. I made a human.”

  I chuckle as I reach up to wipe the tears from his scruff, but he doesn’t seem to notice as his gaze drops to my belly again, as if he’s afraid the baby will disappear if he looks away. His hand slides up my abdomen, underneath my shirt. I draw in a sharp breath when the cool skin of his palm lands on my skin. His other hand reaches up, grabbing the back of my neck as he leans his forehead against mine. We both watch as his hand slides just beneath my waistband.

  “There’s a baby in there,” he says, his voice full of wonderment.

  “Yeah, we made a human,” I reply, then I hold my breath as his hand travels upward, the tips of his fingertips whispering over my ribs.

  His smile returns as he looks into my eyes. “And the story continues.”

  I smile. “It never ends.”

  His lips fall gently over mine in a kiss that’s as intoxicating as a bottle of liquor. As his tongue brushes against mine, the sting of his stubble on my lips and his fist tightening around my hair fill me with blazing warmth, until I can hardly stand on my two feet. Sensing my unsteadiness, he wraps one solid arm around my waist, locking it there as he tilts his head back to gaze into my eyes once more, a victor relishing in the splendor of his spoils.

  “I told you I would get that ring on your finger,” he says proudly as he slowly releases his hold on my waist.

  “I’ll admit I had my doubts,” I reply, holding my hand up to look at the sparkling diamond ring.

  He shakes his head. “No, you didn’t.”

  I look up at him. “What are you getting at?”

  He smiles as he reaches up and brushes a piece of hair out of my face. “Somewher
e deep down, you’ve known since you were eleven years old that we’d end up together. There’s a reason your heart refused to let go.”

  I stare at the ring on my finger as I think of eleven-year-old me and fourteen-year-old me and twenty-four-year-old me, all of us madly in love with different versions of the same man.

  “I guess you’re right. I even loved you through your faux-hawk phase. That must mean we were destined to be together.”

  “Make fun all you want, but I’m being serious. Don’t you see what’s happening here?”

  I narrow my eyes at him because I’m not sure if he knows that he said those exact words to me the first time we spent the night together. “What’s happening?” I ask, fully aware that this is exactly how I responded that night.

  “This is the way we rise,” he replies with a smile.

  “What do you mean?”

  He takes both my hands in his. “When we were in California, you told me that we were in the midst of the unraveling. That’s the lowest point in a story, right?”

  I smile as I realize he’s been googling story structure. “Right.”

  “That means that no matter what happened after that, even if we were to break up, we’d still have nowhere to go but up.”

  I chuckle nervously. “I have no idea what you’re getting at.”

  “The point I’m trying to make is that, technically, anything that comes after the unraveling is better than nothing. The worst outcome is for the story to end right after everything unravels.” He smiles at the bewilderment in my eyes. “What I’m trying to say is that even if I’d never gotten you back, I’d have been happy knowing that you were out there somewhere… rising.”

  My fingers move furiously over the keyboard, each sentence materializing on the page fully formed and mostly coherent. The words flow out of me like water from a hose, unstoppable and refreshingly clear. When my editor told me we needed to move up the deadline a few weeks, so we could get galley proofs to a few more reviewers that signed on to the promotional tour, I didn’t panic. I knew I’d have the first draft done by the new deadline.

  Writing this book, a fictional novel loosely based on Hallie’s life, has been almost a religious experience. Every day, I put Austin down for a nap and I sit at the desk in our bedroom to write. The words come with ease and my fingers move at lightning speed trying to keep up with my fluid thoughts. It’s not as if I have a muse sitting next to me whispering the words in my ear. It’s more like the muse is inside me. Like I’m possessed by something otherworldly. Something divine.

  Of course, when I’m done and I sit back and read what I’ve written, that’s when the doubt sets in. The fear that I’m not qualified to tell such a delicate story, at least not with the grace and wisdom the story deserves. Still, I sit down every day and write anyway. Every day, for a few hours, my muse locks away the crushing cynicism of my inner critic behind a door in a dark corner of my mind, hiding the key until the work has been done.

  I wish writing my wedding vows were that easy.

  I type the last sentence in the chapter and close the laptop as I reach for my phone on the desk in my bedroom. Turning on the phone, I find three voicemails, two from Kenny and one from my mom. I touch Kenny’s number and wait for the call to go through. He picks up on the second ring.

  “Rory, I know you’re writing, but I’m having a bit of a crisis here,” he says, and I can hear a man’s voice in the background, arguing over the color of something.

  “Kenny, I can’t take another wedding crisis right now. The wedding is in one week. We don’t have time for any more crises.”

  “That’s what I told this woman. We told her, Rory. We said we wanted white silk tents and she’s trying to give us ivory tents. Ivory tents! Who does she think is getting married? The Golden Girls?”

  I put the phone on speaker and set it down on the desk, then I hang my head in my hands and let out a long sigh. “Kenny, just get the ivory tents. I can’t take another disaster. I’m just… so over this whole thing.”

  “Nuh-uh. You are getting what you paid for if I have to spin you some white silk tents out of my ass.”

  I laugh. “I didn’t know your ass was part silkworm.”

  “Honey, my ass is whatever you need it to be. Don’t you worry about a thing. Sid and I’ve got this.”

  I smile as I end the call, the sound of Sid yelling at the silk-tents woman still echoing in my ears. Making Kenny my maid of honor and setting him up with Sid Burnham, my wedding planner, has been a roller coaster for me. At first, Sid and Kenny hated each other. I’m pretty sure that’s because Sid has a not-so-secret crush on Kenny, but Kenny is completely committed to Pedro. After they got in a huge fight over the reception menu a few weeks ago, I finally sat them down and threatened that if they couldn’t get along I was going to cancel the wedding and elope to Vegas. Since then, they have been the best of friends.

  I check the time on my phone before I tuck it into my pocket: 1:22 p.m. Austin usually wakes up the moment Houston walks through the door for lunch. I glance at the baby monitor on the desk and see the steady movement made by Austin’s slow breathing. Houston isn’t home yet.

  I switch off the baby monitor and head out of the bedroom then down the hall toward Austin’s room. The door is wide open, exactly the way I left it when I put him down for his midday nap. I tread lightly across the wooden floor toward his crib. Peering through the dark-gray slats, I can’t see him because of the crib bumper. Once I’m standing next to the crib, I find him lying on his back, his pink lips slightly parted, his long eyelashes twitching slightly at the rapid movement beneath his eyelids. My prince is still in a deep sleep.

  I hate waking him up when he looks this peaceful, but I need to keep him on a schedule, lest we surrender to more sleepless nights. I reach down and lightly run my fingers through the soft patch of light-brown hair on the top of his head. His head twitches, then his eyelids begin to flutter. His tender bottom lip juts out like he’s about to start wailing, so I scoop him up into my arms.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. Mommy’s here.”

  He blinks his eyes a few times and I gently wipe the moisture from his eyelashes. He leans back to try to get away from my hand and I chuckle.

  “You want to call Daddy?” I ask him, and he instantly stops fussing when he hears the name of his favorite person in the world.

  He opens his hand and presses his thumb to his forehead to make the sign for daddy. Then he says the only word he knows how to say: “Da-da.”

  I smile. “Yes, daddy. Let’s go call Daddy.”

  I secure Austin in his high chair and set the phone down on the tray so we can call Houston. He picks up on the third ring, but I can tell by all the noise in the background that he’s still at the brewery.

  “Baby, I can’t come home for lunch today, but I’ll try to get home early tonight.”

  Austin’s face lights up at the sound of Houston’s voice and he reaches for the phone.

  I move the phone just out of his reach. “Austin wanted to call you to say hi. He’s listening.”

  “Aw… Hey, buddy, Daddy’ll be home soon. I love you.”

  Austin smiles broadly, showing all six of his teeth as he smacks the tray, making the phone jump. “Da-da!”

  Houston laughs and Austin reaches for the phone again.

  I take the phone off speaker and press it against my ear. “Please don’t be late tonight,” I plead. “My mom’s coming at six. I need you here to keep me from killing her.”

  “Oh, shit. I forgot she was coming tonight,” he replies. “All right, I’ll try my best, but you know I have that inspector coming by to do another inspection of the roof. It all depends on if he gets here on time and whether or not he passes us.”

  “Oh, he’d better pass us or we’re gonna have to figure out a way to fit 110 people into our living room.”

  “I told you not to invite so many people,” he grumbles. “Maybe if we had a bigger house we could actually fit 110 people
in our living room.”

  “Are we gonna have this argument again?”

  “No, we’re not,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll be home as soon as I can. I love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  I sigh as I end the call and give the phone to Austin so he can play with it while I make us both some lunch. I got a nontoxic, water-resistant, and shockproof case for my phone when I realized it was Austin’s favorite toy. He mostly just chews on it or throws it across the room, but once in a while he’ll focus on the screen for a few seconds when I open up the baby apps. I guess I’ll just enjoy these few years before he asks us for a phone of his own, before he becomes more interested in endless text conversations with his friends than phone calls to his daddy.

  I grab a bag of fresh peas out of the refrigerator and sit down at the kitchen table next to Austin’s high chair as I begin shucking them. The peas bounce as I drop them into a glass bowl, occasionally bouncing onto the table and rolling away to land on the floor. I’ll clean those up later.

  I look around the kitchen with the sleek black cabinets and creamy white marble counters and the modern baby-proofed living room. Instantly, I find my blood pressure rising as I think of Houston’s comment: Maybe if we had a bigger house we could actually fit 110 people in our living room.

  The age-old question city couples with children must grapple with: Do we stay in the city or move to the suburbs, where our children can presumably play outdoors without having to schedule a playdate?

  Austin’s first birthday is coming in less than three months and Houston and I are already struggling with this question. Houston wants to move the family to a multimillion-dollar lakefront estate in Lake Oswego. He imagines himself teaching Austin how to row and fish. I imagine the cringe on my friends’ faces when I tell them I’m moving into a home with way more space than we need, in Lake Oswego. And soon our home will be full of things. Things we need to buy because there’s so much space to fill, and God forbid we should have an unfurnished room. We’re not college students anymore, you know?