Forbidden

by R. R. Banks

  Aiden laughed and shook his head.

  "I don't think that's going to happen. This can't possibly be the most complicated thing that that lawyer has ever dealt with. I know for a fact that he has dealt with a custody case involving lesbians going through a divorce not just battling for custody between themselves, but also with the two gay men who had fathered their children, and the three of the sets of grandparents."

  I blinked a few times, giving myself a few moments just to let all of that sink in.

  "Wow," I said. "That's just… we're a breeze compared to that."

  He laughed again.

  "That's what I'm saying. Making sure that you have legal access to financial holdings, your own bank account, and agree to us being involved in the pregnancy and baby's life is a snap."

  I sighed, suddenly feeling less playful.

  "I hate this part," I said. "It feels weird."

  "What do you mean?" Aiden asked.

  I shrugged.

  "It's hard to explain," I said. "It just makes me feel less... human? I'm not sure if that's exactly the right word. It's just with all of these meetings with lawyers and doctors and everything, I feel less like it's about me as a person. I'm just kind of a vessel."

  "I can understand that," Aiden said. "I'm sorry that you feel that way, though."

  I shook my head.

  "No," I said. "I totally understand. You need to make sure that I can handle all of this. It makes sense. I just enjoy the trying aspect so much more."

  He smiled at me.

  "That's my favorite part, too. And as soon as the appointment with the doctor is over tomorrow, that's all we're going to have to think about."

  "I'm definitely looking forward to that." I looked out the window of the car and then turned back to him. "The lawyer you brought me to today," I said. "That's not the lawyer who helped your father draw up his will."

  "No," Aiden said. "He's not."

  There was tension in his voice and I felt like I might have brought up a sensitive subject.

  "Is it just because we needed a family lawyer?" I asked.

  I didn't know why I felt the compulsion to push the subject. I just felt like I needed to know them more. I wanted to draw closer to them. I knew that this arrangement wasn't conventional, in fact it was the farthest thing from conventional that I could have ever considered, but it felt absolutely right. I knew with greater confidence than I had ever felt that I was in the right place and doing exactly the right thing.

  "The lawyer who helped draw up my father's will has serious problems with us," Aiden said.

  "Us?" I asked.

  "My brothers," he explained. "He never agreed with the way that we lived and I think that there was a big part of him that was hoping we would never get access to the rest of our inheritance. He was gleeful the day that he read the will to us and it said that we had to have a child in order to get the rest. It was obvious that he didn't think that that was an option for any of us."

  "Was it?" I asked. "I mean, before the will. Before you knew that the reason you didn't get all of the money, the houses, the business, all of that was because none of you had a child, was it something that you ever even considered?"

  They had talked to me so much about wanting to pass along their legacy and how important it was to them that they honor their family, but I realized that none of them had mentioned a desire to have a child.

  "Me?" Aiden asked. "I don't really know. To be totally honest with you, I probably wouldn't have thought about having a child for a long time unless it had come up this way. But now that it's more of a reality, I want it more than anything."

  "You do?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said." I want to make sure that everything that my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and even people before him worked so hard for can continue on. But it's not just that. I want the opportunity to give a child the type of childhood that I felt like I didn't get."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "My brothers are a lot closer in age than I am. They had so much more time with our mother and they knew our father in a way that I don't think that I ever did. It was really hard on my father when my mother died, and my brothers say that he changed a lot. He was a wonderful man, but I know that I didn't get to spend as much time with him when I was younger as my brothers did. He really lost himself in work and tried to keep himself as busy as he could, so that he didn't have to think about her. But that meant that he didn't really take care of me like he had taken care of them. Our relationship really didn't get close until I was a teenager, and even then... I just want to be different. I want to make sure that my child, no matter who else is raising it with me, knows that it is loved and important."

  I reached over and took Aiden's hand. He looked over and smiled at me, but then looked back at the road quickly. I could tell that he didn't like talking about these things, but I appreciated that he had. I drew in a breath and leaned my head back against the headrest, watching the trees as they zipped by. They were still bare, but I knew that soon little bursts of green would form on them and they would come back to life. I looked forward to that, I hoped that as the world was coming back to life around me, my body would be welcoming its own new life as well.

  The next afternoon Talon, Lucas, and Aiden were waiting in the living room when Jackson and I walked back into the house. They all sprung to their feet from where they had been sitting and rushed toward me as though they expected the worst.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "Is there something wrong?" Talon asked.

  "We've been waiting for you to get back," Lucas said. "What did the doctor say?"

  "Well," I said, glancing over to Jackson, who smiled back at me. "He said that I am perfectly healthy and that I can conceive at any time."

  The men let out cheers and I felt Talon scoop me off of my feet and toss me over his shoulder, rushing up the stairs toward his bedroom. An instant later I was on my back in his bed and he was tearing away his clothes. My body responded to him immediately, a rush of warmth between my thighs demonstrating just how much I wanted him. I never seemed to be able to get enough of these men and I was happy to know that they were always just as eager.

  Later that night I sat on my favorite couch in the living room, curled into the corner with a blanket wrapped around me and a cup of tea held in my hands. I felt completely at ease, comforted and contented.

  "This is incredible," Jackson said.

  "What is?" Lucas asked.

  "Do you realize that our lives are about to change completely? In a matter of weeks, days even, Gabrielle could be pregnant and our entire futures will be different."

  I took a sip of my tea and stared down into it for a few seconds.

  "Is there something wrong?" Talon asked.

  I shook my head, looking up at him and trying to smile reassuringly.

  "No," I said. "Nothing's wrong. It's just that…"

  "It's just that what?" Lucas asked.

  "You're talking about your future being completely different. I was just thinking about how much less my life is changing."

  "What do you mean?" Jackson asked.

  "The four of you have had a life like I couldn't even imagine. The things that you have seen and done and experienced. It's incredible. This will definitely change the way that I thought my life would unfold, but I feel like making the decision to have a child changes your future so much more than it changes mine."

  I didn't mean it in a bad way. It wasn't meant as anything negative or to sound as though I was already regretting my decision. But when I looked at the brothers, they were looking back at me as if they felt hurt by the comment. Before I could say anything, though, Talon nodded.

  "She's right," he said. "How can we expect her to change her life completely when she has barely had a life at all?"

  I was starting to feel nervous. It sounded like they were reconsidering.

  "That's true," Lucas said.

  He looked at Aiden,
who gave a small nod and then he looked at Jackson.

  "Then I think that we need to do something about that."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "You haven't had the opportunity to live very much. Now you have this future ahead of you that will, hopefully very soon, include raising a child. So let's make the most of your life before then."

  "You are helping us live out a dream," Lucas said. "So why don't we live out some of yours too. Tell us where you want to go. Tell us what you want to do. Let's live the most magnificent life together."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Gabrielle

  "I promise that it won't always be like this."

  I ran my hand along the side of my belly, realizing as soon as the words fell from my lips that I had just told my baby girl the first lie of her life. Tears flowed down my cheeks and I tried to wipe them away, wondering if she could somehow sense what I was feeling. I knew that when I was active, she was active, and in the rare moments when I found something to make me laugh, she would bounce. That could only mean that she could feel what I was going through and would react to me. I didn't want her to feel the pain that I was in or the sadness that permeated me with every breath. I didn't want her to know, even before she was born, that I had given up everything, that I had sacrificed the vision that I had had for my future, to protect the people I loved the most.

  For the last few weeks that thought had weighed more and more heavily on me. I struggled every day with the realization that it would be less than two months before my daughter would come into the world and then I would have to face the more brutal reality of this situation. It wasn't just about me anymore. Right now I could protect her only by being here. I held her inside me and kept her warm, comfortable, and safe. She might feel the pain that I felt, or at least that something was different, but she didn't know. Soon she would be in my arms and I wouldn't be able to guard her from everything. Soon I would have to figure out what I was going to tell her, and the men.

  I never wanted my daughter to feel like I didn't want her or that I regretted, even for a second, that she was here. I never wanted her to think that I wished that I hadn't had her or that I would have rather lived a life without her. The truth was that she was everything to me. She filled something in my heart that I had always known was there, but that I didn't understand the depth of until I knew that she was growing within me. Being a mother was something that I had always figured would happen at some point. It was just what was expected of me, both by everyone around me and by me. But the thought was abstract. It was something that existed on the periphery of my thoughts about my future, but not something that I ever truly planned for or even imagined. Then suddenly it was real. Suddenly it was everything.

  I loved her in a way that I couldn't describe and I knew that the decision that I had made, as much as it tore my heart out, as much as it made me feel like I couldn't breathe when I thought about it too much, was the right one. This was the decision that I needed to make and the one that would ensure that my daughter had the life that she deserved. But I knew that she may not understand that. There would come a day when I would have to explain to her that I had chosen this path because it protected her and it protected the men I loved. I would have to be careful in the way that I told her, in the words that I chose. I still didn't know what the brothers would think when she was born. I would have to tell them, of course. She was their child. At least of one of them. And at the very least that man had a right to her. What he would do with that right, however, I didn't know. He may want nothing to do with her and if that happened, I didn't know what I would tell her. I wanted her to know who she was, but at the same time, I never wanted her to be confused or to feel as though she had been thrown away.

  The confusion made me feel as though everything inside of me was tied in an impenetrable knot. I didn't know what I felt or what I should feel. I had been fighting for so long to push away the thoughts of the men and the longing that I had for them. The love that I felt for them was undeniable, but it was something that I couldn't think about, something that I couldn't allow myself to experience. I had to protect myself and that meant acknowledging that they would never return that love.

  I knew that this was what was right for everyone. Staying with the men would have just meant more pain later. If I had stayed with them it would have either meant that I would have suffered or I would have caused them to suffer. I would have had to face the pain of them rejecting our daughter or never treating her with the love and adoration that they would have given to a son, or I would have to cope with knowing that even if they did keep my daughter and me with them because they felt that they were obligated, I would be trapping them. They had had a very specific idea for their future and I felt that I hadn't lived up to that for them. I knew that it wasn't my fault. I knew that I didn't cause the little one growing inside me to be a girl and that there was no way that they could blame me. But that didn't change that I felt responsible. I felt as though I had been holding their hopes for what their lives would be in my hand and I had come to a point where I had to choose which direction it was going to go.

  Walking away from them had been the hardest thing that I had ever done. But I believed in my heart that I was doing for them what they would truly want. I was offering them the opportunity to start over, to find someone else who would be better able to give them what they needed. I knew that that didn't just mean a son. From the beginning there had been nothing that showed intention of a permanent link beyond our child. They had never given any indication that they wouldn't be dating other people or that one day they wouldn't find a woman they might want to marry. That had been fine for me at first, but I knew that if I was to be honest with myself I had to admit that it wasn't anymore. I had fallen completely in love with them, all of them, and had begun to build my life around that love. I no longer thought of them just as the fathers to my child or even my companions. Instead, I saw them as my partners. I felt a possessiveness over them, a claim to them that I knew wasn't mine to have. Stepping back now would break me of that feeling. I knew that I would never stop loving them, but over time I would be able to rid myself of that sense that they were the center of my life, that they were the only men I would ever want to give my heart, my mind, and my body to.

  For now, I hadn't yet reached that place. I still went to bed every night thinking of them and wishing that they were there to warm me, to hold me, to comfort me and reassure me that everything would be all right. Every morning I woke up and for a brief, blissful moment I forgot that I wasn't there with them anymore. And those first few seconds I could still pretend that I was in my bed at the Griffin house and that I was surrounded by the security and happiness of them. I would sometimes lay like that, keeping my eyes closed even after the realization of reality had settled in, trying to convince myself to sink back into the memories.

  It had been since before Christmas that I spoke to any of the men and I knew that I should check in with them. Until we were able to come to some sort of agreement, or they had the opportunity to tell me that they didn't want to be a part my life for our daughter’s life, I was still obligated to them. I didn't want to tell them where I was or what I had been doing. That kept us too linked. It kept us too closely connected to one another and that was exactly what I was trying to escape. If I could pull myself away from them and live independently, completely independently, without them even being able to check in on me or think of where I might be or what I might be doing, then I had a chance. I had a chance of getting through this end and coming out the other side with some semblance of a life still ahead of me. This was only a step, only a gradual move away from feeling so inextricably bound to them. But it was something. It was all I had.

  Jackson

  "Skylar, please," I said. "You have to know something. You have to know where she went or where she is or when she might be back. It's been more than two months and she hasn't come back yet. You're her sister, you can't tell me
that she hasn't told you anything."

  Skylar looked back at me with an indecipherable emotion in her eyes. I couldn't tell if she was angry or hurt, and if she was either one of those, if it was me that was causing it, or if it was the thought of her sister who had just walked away from her and from their parents.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I really am. I wish that I had something that I could tell you. The truth, though, is that I don't know anything."

  "She hasn't talked to you at all?"

  "She has," Skylar said. "She calls me every few days or so. But she never tells me where she is or where she's been. She doesn't tell me what she's doing or how she is taking care of herself. I asked her one time why she left, and all she told me was that it was something that she had to do. My parents and I have started to think that she ran off to be with the father of her baby. We never got to meet him, and we got the impression that she thought that we wouldn't accept him. If that's the case, maybe she left because she thought that it would be best for her and for the baby that they were together as a family, but she didn't think that that could happen if she stayed here."

  I could feel my jaw twitching as I stared back at her. I knew that that wasn't the case, but I couldn't say anything to her about it. As much as I thought that Gabrielle was wrong for not telling her family, and as much as I couldn't imagine living such a lie just out of fear of what other people thought, that was the decision that she made and it wasn't my responsibility to change that for her.

  Skylar looked at me for a moment and then I noticed her eyes widen. I realized that I didn't have to say anything at all. She already knew.

  "It's you,” she said. “Isn't it?"

  "What do you mean?" I asked, still not willing to volunteer any information until I was sure that she knew.

  "I can't believe I didn't see it before," she said. "You're Gabrielle's baby's father. Aren't you? That's why you've been so worried about her. You're the father."