Sterling ♥️ Kennedy

by M. K. Moore

  So when he woke up yesterday morning and took me as only he could, forcing me to admit I love him, it finally felt real. I could really begin to dream about my wedding and get excited because the final hurdle had been hopped. Laying in bed with him is divine. I learned so much about him, his dreams, and goals that I feel like have I known him my whole life. It was a great day and I hope we have many more like it.

  Unfortunately waking up today, I knew it wouldn’t be like that. I have plans with Avalynn today to go shopping for the baby. Then I promised Silver I would meet him at his office for lunch before meeting his and my mom to go dress shopping. Going into the kitchen to start the coffee maker, since I have been here I have discovered the joys of having coffee first thing after I am dressed, and funny enough I am a more amenable person after coffee. Who knew? I walk into the kitchen to start the coffee and to my surprise I see a bouquet of calla lilies. Fighting back the tears I want to shed, because seriously..he is the sweetest man I know and he remembered my favorite flower. I smell them and notice the note he attached to the vase. Smiling from ear to ear I open the note and plans for the day have suddenly changed.

  Dear Kennedy,

  I know you have already agreed to be my wife (albeit with a little help…wink wink), but I recognize that you deserve a real proposal given to you from the bottom of the heart from the man that loves you beyond reason. However, I only know how to be one way, especially when it comes to you and that is the way I intend to be for the rest of our lives. Sure, determined and unequivocally in love with you. With that being said, I hope you take my non-proposal not as a slight, but as what it is… my determination to not let you slip through my fingers when I just found you.

  Kennedy, we are going to have a great life filled with love, laughter and lots of kids(one of which I would bet my best hammer on is already forming in your belly). You are everything I knew I wanted, but wasn’t sure I could find. You’re beautiful, funny, sweet, caring, intelligent, creative, and sexy as hell. I love how innocent you were and still are even considering all the dirty things you let me do to you at night. I love that despite the type of mom you have, I know down to my bones that you would be a wonderful loving devoted mom to our kids. Quite simply, I love YOU.

  So please except my caveman proposal and make me the happiest man alive by agreeing to marry me no later than February 14th. I don’t think i could wait any longer than 2 weeks from now to make you mine in all ways including name. I know that doesn’t leave a lot of time but trust me, my mom went through this with Ham so she knows what to do.

  I love you precious girl.

  Forever yours,

  Your Silver.

  Crying.

  I am ugly crying now. How did I get so lucky and to find him? When did this happen to the little trailer park girl from Road-to-nowhere, Illinois? Then it finally dawns on me what he says. I look down at my stomach and panic sets in. Oh my God. What if he is right? There could very well be a baby in my stomach. As much as I want that life, I don’t know the first thing about being a mom. I mean look at mine. At best she was like the worst best friend imaginable.

  Oh God.

  Sterling wants a family. A wife and mother who will not embarrass him and knows what they’re doing. Someone he can be proud to have on his arm. All the things I am not sure I could give him. Because I love him, I will not give him subpar when he can have it all.

  With that thought running through my mind, I know what I have to do. Methodically I grab my coat and boots, put them on and walk out of the house feeling like I am headed to my own execution. In truth, it is. Walking away from him is like stopping the beating of my own heart because it did not beat before I met him.

  The drive to his office is the hardest thing I have done so far, but I know within the next few minutes, I am going to do something even harder. I walk into to his office and as soon as he sees me he smiles and gets out of his chair. I know I should just say it and get it over with, but my throat is thick with the words that wont come out. I want this moment to remember the smile on his face and the love I see in his eyes as he looks at me because I will Never find this again.

  “Hey baby. I didn’t expect you this early.” He says to me as he places a kiss on my head and holds me. I grab onto his shirt for dear life inhaling the masculine scent that is all him. “We only got a few minutes, I have an interview with a young girl for the secretary position here and I gotta prepare. Otherwise, I would fulfill my fantasy of fucking you right on my desk.” he whispers in my ear. I look at him and the second he sees the tear running down my face he springs into action. “Baby what’s wrong? What happened? Talk to me Kennedy. I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

  I take a deep breath and let it out as fast as I can before I chicken out. “I can’t marry you Silver. I love you so much and you deserve someone who knows how to be a wife and mother. That is not me. I wish it was, but I wouldn’t even know where to start. You are literally the first person to ever tell me they love me who wasn’t my dad or grandparents. I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” I take my ring off and put it in his hand. He begins to say something when his intercom buzzes,

  “Sterling, Rosalind Miramontes is here for her interview. I’m sending her in.”

  Saved by the job. I take one last look at him and before he can reach for me, I run out of the room, into the car, and away from the rest of my life.

  I have absolutely no idea where I am going until I end up in front of my Gpas house. I know he will be home later today. Going to the hospital is a waste of time. I walk into the house and there she is. Sitting on the couch like the Queen of fucking England. The woman who destroyed any chance of a normal life I could have had. My mother. She looks up from the magazine she is reading and I know she can tell I have been crying. Does she get up and hold me or ask what’s wrong? No. She sits on the couch and says to me, “so he finally realized the truth huh?”

  I guess I am not surprised, but I think I have finally had enough. I don’t know who this girl is that comes out at this moment, but I full on lose my shit.

  “How dare you mom? How fucking dare you say that to me? No he didn’t REALIZE the truth. He loves me. He wants to marry me in two weeks. It was me who finally realized the truth. I am not good enough for him. You know why I finally realized it. Because of you. You never once said you loved me, hugged me, or rubbed my head. Nothing. Why? Why was I such a disappointment to you that I wasn’t good enough to love? Why did you have me if you didn’t want me? I can’t have kids, be a wife, and a mother because I never had one. Why did you do this to me?”

  She stares at me like I have more than one head. When I give in resigned to never getting any answers from her, she shocks the hell out of me and says, “I’m Sorry.”

  The look of incredulity is evident because even she smirks at the look on my face.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I’m sorry. I was 16 when I found out I was pregnant with you. Your father was 18 and on his way to college. We messed around a bit his last two years of high school. But his last year, I knew something had changed him over the summer and if I wanted to hold onto him I was going to have to sleep with him. Now don’t get me wrong, getting pregnant was never part of the equation. We used protection and everything. On the day of his graduation I got a positive pregnancy test and I was scared out of my mind. I too didn’t know anything about being a mom.”

  “Your grandma was more like my best friend than she was my mother and I was a baby. I told your father and figured we would decide to terminate the pregnancy, but he was so excited. I hadn’t seen a light like that in him since that summer before he left out of town for summer break. He told me if I kept the baby he would marry me and get me out of the trailer park, and that is what he did. At first I had delusions we would be one happy family and he was a good dad to you.”

  I nod my head because he did his best. He took care of us and always made sure to spend time with me. “But, he was never f
ully a husband to me. He married me, but I knew he never loved me the way I hoped he could. I am not sure, but I believe the summer he came here before his senior year he fell in love and was never able to let it go. When he died, I was lost. I didn’t know what to do with myself, let alone you. But understand something; I have loved you from the moment you were born. I was just a kid myself, but I always knew you were the best part of me. I just didn’t know how to show it.”

  “I know you think all the men I have gone through I slept with them and that I am a whore. But the truth is, I never slept with half of them, hence the reason they didn’t last. The other ones, I thought they would be the only way for me to get you out of the TP and into a better life. It was always about you, Kennedy. I have never met a more brilliant, vibrant, generous, and beautiful young lady.”

  Now I am really confused because everything she has ever said to me has been to the contrary. “So why tell me that I am not good enough or that I shouldn’t want those things. Everything you are saying to me now, directly contradicts your past actions and I don’t know that I can believe you.”

  “I know. You’re right and I was scared for you. I never wanted you to face the disappointment of not being loved the way you deserve, so I tried to dissuade you from wanting it. Then when we got here and I saw the way Sterling looked at you, I didn’t want you to get your heart broken when he decided you weren’t good enough for him. Because, I could not succeed in getting you out of the TP. But listen to me Kennedy. If anyone deserves love, it’s you and I am convinced that boy would treat you like a Queen. Right before you came in; I was sitting there looking at bride magazines trying to figure out the best style for you.”

  Disbelieving, I look at the couch and sure enough there is a wedding magazine. The tears come before I can stop them. Not only is everything I thought I knew not true, but I just walked away from the best thing to ever happen to me. I fall to the ground and cry so hard my body is shaking. The sobs coming from my mouth are too hard even for me to stand, but I don’t know how to stop. Then something miraculous happens. My mom gets on the floor and holds me. She rocks me back and forth telling me it’s going to be OK and I am stronger than I think, and we will get over this. It is one of the best feelings in the world to be held by the person that gave you life.

  I am not sure how long we sat there, but eventually we get up and sit on the couch and talk. She explains how my grandma was the town loony with a bigger than life personality. How my gpa left money on the table every Friday and spent the rest of the time at his mistresses place. Some of the stories she tells me, lets me know she tried hard to make my life different than hers. I tell her if she had of talked to me, it would have saved us both a lot of grief. Two or three hours pass before we go to make dinner together to get ready for my gpa, when we hear a car door slam. Initially I think that it has to be Greta and maybe they let gpa come home early. When the pounding on the door starts and he yells my name, I know he has come for me.

  And what do you do when your second chance is dropped outside your door?

  You answer.

  I AM LOSING MY MIND. I am to conduct the interview because my brothers are counting on me to fix the problems in our office. The interview was fast and I hired her on the spot. Twenty minutes later, I am at the hospital looking for my girl.

  She isn’t there so I head over to her grandfather’s house. Just as I am about to knock, I hear Kennedy yelling at her mother. Deciding that is more important, I sit on the porch and wait for it to unfold. Her sobs undo me and I have to restrain myself from barging in there to save her.

  When things quiet down inside, I can’t take it anymore. I pound on the door like a cop with a warrant. “KENNEDY! Open this door right now! I know you are in there.” I sound like a crazy person, but that doesn’t mean shit to me.

  She finally answers. Her beautiful face, which is makeup free, is red and puffy. “What are you doing here?” She asks. Standing a few inches from me, I reach out both my hands and grab hers.

  “You left me. What did you think was going to happen, baby?” I say as I push my way into the blast from the past living room.

  “I had to Sterling. I had to. I told you from the very beginning I was not the girl for you. You are too good for me. I will only drag you down. Down to the gutter where I live.” When she starts crying again, I snap.

  “There will never be a need for tears, my love. Not for me. I meant it when I said you were mine. I have been sitting on the porch for two and a half hours, waiting for my turn.”

  “Turn for what?” She asks looking at me with those amazing emerald eyes, that I can get lost in.

  “To tell you how amazing you are and how much I fucking love you, need you, want you, and crave you. This is the only time I will say this: I don’t care where you came from, as long as you are going in my direction”

  “I am sorry; I still think it’s for the best because I won’t survive you leaving me. I need to be the one who leaves.”

  “What about me Kennedy? I won’t survive.” I pull her into my arms and claim her mouth. She moans and I pull away from her. “Can you live without that? Without me? Loving you, pleasing you, and filling your sweet little body with our babies. I know I can’t.”

  “Oh my God! Sterling.” She moans out but can see the conflict in her eyes as she thinks about this.

  “Come with me before you decide.” I say.

  There’s no way I’ll let her leave me. Her ring is burning a hole my pocket and needs to be back where it belongs. When she takes my offered hand, and hollers to her mom that she will be back, I lead her out to my truck and drive out to my house.

  When we reach my driveway, she gets out of the truck and heads to my front steps.

  “We aren’t going inside right now baby.” I take her hand and lead her around to my back porch. There is ancient white oak that is right up again by the railing. I walk us over to the tree and pull out my pocket knife.

  “Is this were you kill me? An “if I can’t have you, no one can thing?” She says laughing.

  “Not at all baby. I want to carve our initials in this tree, making it ours.”

  “That is the sweetest thing I have ever heard.” I begin carving a heart in the tree, once that is done, I add S + K.

  “There. Marked for life.”

  “It’s just a tree Silver.”

  “Baby, I heard you talking to your mom. You are absolutely every damn thing to me. I love you.” She sobs and I gather her in my arms. When her hands grip my pecks, I can’t help flinching back from her.

  “Silver, what happened. Are you freaking hurt? When did that happen? You were fine last night.” She rambles on and on. I love this woman more than I can say.

  “Not hurt per say. I may have gotten a tattoo this morning, before you came to the office.”

  “A tattoo. Lemme see!” She says.

  I whip my shirt over my head. The tattoo matches what I carved in the tree.

  “Oh my God. You really love me don’t you?”

  “You don’t know that by now baby?” I say before pulling her back into my arms and kiss her until we are breathless. Pulling her ring out of my pocket I place it back on her finger.

  “Tell me you won’t leave me again baby. I can’t bear it.”

  “I won’t Silver. But…” She trails off.

  “But what?” I say.

  “I want to get a matching tattoo.”

  “Yeah baby? That would be fantastic. I’ll call Miles and see if we can get it in a couple of days. He owns the Queen of Hearts Ink and Piercing Studio on Main Street. Where did you want to get it?”

  “My hip.” She says without hesitation. That’s going to be so fucking sexy.

  “That sounds amazing.”

  Kennedy Onassis Crawford has a nice ring to it. She is mine again. This time forever. And for once forever doesn’t seem long enough.

  WHO KNEW MARRIED LIFE COULD be so great? I mean really great!! Sterling was always perfect from the first
moment we met. But now, he is everything. He is so attentive, possessive, and anticipatory. I feel like I am the only one in his world that matters and I never knew how much I needed that, more than I know it right now.

  It could also be because of the little surprise we got two days before the wedding. I had been sick with an ear infection leading up to the wedding and gone to the doctor for some medicine. As with protocol she did a pregnancy test and to be honest, it never occurred to me. I mean sure, Silver talked about getting me pregnant and seriously he made it a mission.

  I was overwhelmed with the details of the wedding he insisted we have within the next two weeks, I just didn’t think about it. So when the doctor came back and said, “Congratulations Miss Sherwood. You’re pregnant.” I literally gasped and held my breath for a few seconds, before I started to feel faint and she made me lie down. She gave me a bunch of pamphlets, some pills, and made me a follow up appointment for in a few weeks. Then sent me on my way.

  The whole way home I was in a fog. I knew Sterling would be happy because it was his goal all along, but me, I am in complete shock. I knew there was a chance, but it just didn’t register.

  I told him as soon as I got home and of course he lost it. He started screaming and swinging me around and talking to my stomach. His enthusiasm eventually wormed its way into me and soon I couldn’t hold in my elation either.

  Once we celebrated privately, we went to his parents’ house and told his family and there was a very long night of more celebrating. Going into the last 24 hours after finding out our news, I was a nervous wreck. Not nervous about marrying him, but just making sure everything was perfect and ready to go.